Free Republic

Despite the advances in technologies and solutions, the concern that remains central to the objective of providing security to the nation is the question of “who is who?” The federal homeland security laws directed toward enhancing the security of the United States — and the federal government’s confidence in the adequacy of such efforts — is, at the most basic level, grounded in the process of identity determination and the use of powerful databases to accurately determine individual identity to best evaluate threat and risk. Much of government’s effort to protect the borders, minimize the risk to infrastructure and ensure...

The Cash for Clunkers program has received a lot of attention this week on Capitol Hill and across the country. The program offers a voucher of up to $4500 in federal funds to anyone who trades in a working used car for a new one with better fuel economy. Congress was shocked at how quickly people responded to promises of free money and drained the program, while car dealers have been equally shocked at how slow and arduous the government’s website to claim the rebates has been. It’s not a shock that people respond to incentives. The program has been...

How sick and sad that Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed today by the US Senate for a seat on the US Supreme Court! Anyone who cares about individual rights and true justice has to be in despair. Sotomayor is a racist, sexist, bigot, and lowlife. Her "identity politics" philosophy, and "wise Latina" persona, violate the Greek ideal of "impartiality before the law," and the American ideal of "e pluribus unum." She's a drop-dead enemy of civil rights and neutral, impartial justice -- the only justice that even exists. Sotomayor reduces America to the level of savage, tribalist Afghanistan wherein the great...

(An open letter from the Chairman of the RLC to liberty activists attending health care townhall events this month)I've been studying videos of the Townhall protests which have taken place so far, have talked to participants and have been tracking the media coverage and the spin which the left is trying to put on the protests. As a result I have some suggestions for Republican Liberty Caucus activists who attend these events which I hope you will also share with others who go with you. The line of attack against the protests is to try to discredit them as "astroturf"...

The world today would be a helluva lot better place if only we would get the government to mandate everyone everywhere go to Tolerance Camp at least once a year -- especially all our impressionable children. We could all go there for various communalist- and identity-type group lessons, particularly Diversity Seminars and Sensitivity Training. Clearly this kind of far-minded, progressive education for all mankind would significantly promote the brotherhood of man, just as it radically enhanced planetary social harmony and worldwide public unity. After graduating from this universally-obligatory Tolerance Camp -- as run by the best of inclusive, egalitarian, truly-enlightened...

Healthcare continues to dominate the agenda on Capitol Hill as House leadership and the administration try to ram through their big government healthcare plan. Fortunately, they have been unsuccessful so far, as there are many horrifying provisions tucked into this massive piece of legislation. One major issue is the public funding of elective abortions. The administration has already removed many longstanding restrictions on abortion, and is unwilling to provide straight answers to questions regarding the public funding of abortion in their plan. This is deeply troubling for those of us who do not want taxpayer dollars funding abortions. Forcing pro-life...

Republican Senator Bob Corker apparently goes on record as one of the most vocal congressional opponents of Federal Reserve transparency.

Doing no harm is the ancient tradition of Western civilization, stretching from ancient Greece to the present Judeo/Christian world. Doing Good requires a “problem” needing a remedy. Doing No Harm has no such trigger. Revolutions always crash and burn, if modeled after the French Revolution, anyhow. The people suffer, and the leaders of the revolution install themselves as all-powerful despots. The American Revolution was different, because it applied the concept of Doing No Harm. The American Revolution also contained a mind-set typified by Edmund Burke’s conservatism. See previous Freeper post. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-rlc/2205205/posts The current Revolution promulgated by the president and the...

Political philosopher Richard Weaver famously and correctly stated that ideas have consequences. Take for example ideas about rights versus goods. Natural law states that people have rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A good is something you work for and earn. It might be a need, like food, but more “goods” seem to be becoming “rights” in our culture, and this has troubling consequences. It might seem harmless enough to decide that people have a right to things like education, employment, housing or healthcare. But if we look a little further into the consequences, we can see...

Congressman Ron Paul’s H.R. 1207, calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve, has attracted 270 cosponsors in less than five months. The Republican congressman's bill has received strong bipartican support, and approximately 100 of the bill's cosponsors are Democrats. Support for H.R. 1207 has frightened some of the Fed’s champions in the academic world, Fed officials themselves, and, of course, many of the Fed's friends in the financial world. There are obviously some who don’t want the American people to know what the Fed has been doing ever since it was launched in 1913. Secrecy, of course, is completely...

Congressman and two-time presidential candidate Ron Paul tells Newsmax the economic stimulus plan is a "total failure," and he's pushing a bill requiring the Federal Reserve to disclose its dealings so Americans can find out who the "culprits" are behind the financial meltdown. The Texas Republican also said the U.S. is on course to "destroy the dollar," the healthcare reform plan is "dangerous" and could bankrupt the nation — and he is fighting against those who "would socialize the country."

Last week I was very pleased that hearings were held on the independence of the Federal Reserve system. My bill HR 1207, known as the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, was discussed at length, as well as the general question of whether or not the Federal Reserve should continue to operate independently. The public is demanding transparency in government like never before. A majority of the House has cosponsored HR 1207. Yet, Senator Jim DeMint’s heroic efforts to attach it to another piece of legislation elicited intense opposition by the Senate leadership. The hearings on Capitol Hill provided us with a...

To Reject nihilism and Revive Liberty, Conservatives must lead the charge. How will we regain our lost liberty and our prosperity? How can we claw our way out of the depths of nihilism back up to our perch in the “Shining City on the hill?” All Americans must reject the something-for-nothing vision of Hope and Change. We must come to terms with ourselves and recognize that a people cannot live free, if they constantly prey on each other. Similarly, we cannot live free, if we lose our will to live free, and sit idly while organized groups of nihilists overwhelm...

Why is America Discussing Sonia Sotomayor? President Obama is within his Constitutional purview to nominate anyone he wants as a Supreme Court nominee, even Sonia Sotomayor. He could have nominated Bozo the Clown or a “died in the wool” Communist like Bill Ayres, which he would have been more inclined to do. The fact is that that during the space of time between Obama’s announcement of her as a nominee and her confirmation hearings, she has, very publicly, had her judgment overturned regarding the firefighters in Connecticut. Those who overturned Sotomayer’s verdict knew exactly what they were doing and were...

    EMERGENCY ALERT - Stop the NEW Real ID - S.1261 - The PASS Act Our Freedoms and Liberty under Attack  The act links the biometric body to be able to buy or sellPlease contact all senators below for a one minute call that's just sixteen minutes of your time for Freedom and LibertyMedia   Clip very informative:       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kE8xDMokpM   Two international agencies (AAMVA and the ICAO, an agency of the United Nations) were involved in U.S. policy and law - the Real ID Act 2005 and the newly proposed PASS Act. DHS has called AAMVA the hub and backbone of the Real...

There is no area in which Republicans have further strayed from our traditions than in foreign affairs. Generations of conservatives followed the great advice of our Founding Fathers and pursued a restrained foreign policy that rebuffed entangling alliances and advised America, in the words of John Quincy Adams, not to "go abroad looking for dragons to slay." Sen. Robert Taft, the stalwart of the Old Right, urged America to stay out of NATO. Dwight Eisenhower was elected on a platform promising to get us out of the conflict in Korea. Richard Nixon promised to end the war in Vietnam. Republicans...

Democracy -- or rule by majority vote -- is a genuine political good. So is republicanism -- or rule by legitimate representatives. Both have considerable social and economic value to the individual and the nation. Similarly, autonomy and self-rule are governmental goods and values which a given society finds very much worth having. And it's even worth while for that civilization to enjoy non-violation of their national soverignty and non-interference in their internal affairs by non-citizens. But none of these political goods and values are anywhere near as important as freedom. In the life of the person and his nation,...

James Madison's [the original writer or author of Bill of Rights, also known as the father of the Constitution], version of the Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press Clause, it provided that ["the people shall not be deprived or abridged of the right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of the press, as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable."] This version was introduced into the House

Religious freedom is under attack in Britain The Catholic Herald ^ | 12 June 2009 | Neil Addison

Last week Congress passed the war supplemental appropriations bill. In an affront to all those who thought they voted for a peace candidate, the current president will be sending another $106 billion we don’t have to continue the bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq, without a hint of a plan to bring our troops home. Many of my colleagues who voted with me as I opposed every war supplemental request under the previous administration seem to have changed their tune. I maintain that a vote to fund the war is a vote in favor of the war. Congress exercises its constitutional...