Free Republic

A greatly expanded Group of Eight – G8 – opened Sunday in Evian, France. The G8 was begun in 1975 with five countries meeting with the purpose of guiding global economies in a post-gold world as a result of President Nixon taking the dollar off the gold standard in 1971. Twenty-seven years later, it has eight members: the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and Italy. Russia just became a full member at this meeting. During the last quarter century, the functions and oversight of the Group of Eight Heads of State have come to function like...

On June 3, 1804, Richard Cobden was born. Nicknamed the "Apostle of Free Trade," he spearheaded the campaign against the protectionist English Corn Laws, leading to their repeal in 1846, which then spread to the liberalization of trade throughout much of Europe. His role was so great that it has been said the free market owes its existence to him. Cobden saw that free trade was the key to material prosperity, as evidenced by England's economic growth and rise to world leadership in virtually all aspects of trade—finance, insurance, shipping, etc.—after the Corn Law repeal. But more than prosperity, Cobden...

<p>Europe as we have known it is disappearing. Soon there will be no France, no Germany, no Italy, no Austria, no Spain, no Denmark, no Belgium, no Netherlands, no Greece, no Ireland, no Great Britain. Every country will be gone. In their place will be the European Union.</p>

The disappearance of Marxism as a force in world politics has not been accompanied by an acceptance of a diversity of political systems. Throughout modern times liberal states have always co-existed alongside many kinds of tyranny. Similarly, the modern world has always contained numerous economic systems -- many varieties of capitalism, planned and guided economies, and a host of hybrid economic systems not easily classified. Diplomacy and international law developed to cope with the fact of diverse regimes. Yet throughout the 20th century global politics was shaped by the project of unifying the world within a single regime. Insofar as...

<p>President Bush announced yesterday that he would not attend the U.N. Earth summit in Johannesburg later this month and would send Secretary of State Colin L. Powell instead.</p> <p>"Poverty remains a huge and urgent global problem that demands action by the entire world community. We will stand together in Johannesburg to bring our full support to this important battle," Mr. Bush said in a statement.</p>

BRUSSELS, Belgium, July 18 (UPI) -- The European Commission Thursday appeared set to urge European Union governments to slap sanctions on the United States for failing to lift punitive import duties on European steel products. President George W. Bush sparked protests from non-American steel producers this year when he decided to place tariff quotas and impose up to 30 percent extra duties on steel imports from March 20. The EC, along with other steel-exporting states, is seeking to overturn the U.S. safeguard measure in the World Trade Organization. As settlements often take more than a year to reach, the commission...

Henry Lamb shows us how the federal government is propagandizing our children in the green religion of globalism. What's globalism? The 1965 version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary doesn't include the word globalism but it does include the word global. It refers to something being universal, or comprehensive. If you're like myself, I spend many hours reading and trying to comprehend what the global governance crowd is trying to say to say to us. Amidst all the ambiguous phrases and the language of doublespeak, some people have spoken plainly enough. USA Communist Party Chief Gus Hall stated, "...The battle will be...