Free Republic

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The United States Senate, in a rare show of courage in these “if it´s anti-terrorist it must be all right” times, cut off funding Thursday for the Pentagon´s super snoop computer project. By a voice vote, they blocked funding for the Total Information Awareness Project, a giant information gathering system that would have allowed Uncle Sam to track your financial transactions on a daily basis. "This makes it clear that Congress wants to make sure there is no snooping on law-abiding Americans," said Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who sponsored the measure....

The Conservatives' War on Ideas by Karen De Coster When Russell Kirk, a most engaging intellectual and the father of the modern conservative movement, wrote of "terrestrial hells" and zealotry, he was speaking of ideology. So adamant was he about the perils brought on by ideas and change, Kirk put together an entire book on this, The Politics of Prudence. To Kirk, ideology is a series of "terrestrial hells" that is not favorable to a statesman's prudence because it bears the fruit of malevolent revolution against tried-and-true conservative traditions. Hence, it is a serious vice. Kirk advocates prudence over ideology,...