Free Republic

Over the centuries, all of the kingdoms and empires of the world have failed. And many for similar reasons. America—whether by accident or design—was poised to avoid that fate. But to benefit themselves, today’s race-baiting, un-American liberal elites have undone our shining city on a hill. Headlines about race dominate the mainstream news cycle, as the left-wing media insists on dividing us into racial categories. Liberal elites are dragging us into ruin, but it’s not too late to reverse the tide. Across history and empires, a society's cultural, economic, and political elites consolidate power, inevitably leading to more and more...

Under the pretext of public health, the soul of what is known as the Free West has left most Western countries. Looking at the government overreach and abuses of power in virtually every other Western nation, one can only conclude that America truly is the last free man standing. Here is a rundown of the suppression of liberty in major Western countries. CANADA Let's start with our neighbor to the north. Canada is one of the least free countries in the Western world. In some ways it is the least free. In every area of life, including freedom of speech,...

Facebook has "permanently disabled" the ads account of a conservative children's book publisher, claiming that Heroes of Liberty – which has published books about Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, former President Ronald Reagan and author Thomas Sowell – violated the company's rules against "Low Quality or Disruptive Content." Facebook originally locked the ads account on Dec. 23, and after Heroes of Liberty appealed the ruling, the company permanently disabled the account. "The question is: is a children's biography of Ronald Reagan no longer permissible on Facebook? We don’t know. But apparently promoting one may well kill a business," Heroes...

We are witnessing history being repeated.Between September 1935 and the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 more than 120 laws, decrees and regulations, imposing over 400 legal restrictions, were enacted by the Third Reich on the justification of protecting the health of the German people. During the first six years of Hitler’s dictatorship, from 1933 until the outbreak of war in 1939, Jews felt the effects of more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives. Many of these were national laws but state, regional, and municipal officials, acting on their...

Clark County Today Administrator Heidi Wetzler shares clinical psychology professor Mattias Desmet’s theory about the societal conditions under which a population ends up willingly sacrificing their freedom.

This time of year, dear readers, is when us writers curate lists. Some are about the best movies, top kitchen appliances or favorite new songs of 2021. This year, I'd like to recommend three books to read after the tumultuous events of 2021. My first is a new and important book by law professors Randy Barnett and Evan Bernick: "The Original Meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment." The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, and before it, no individuals of African descent -- including slaves and free persons -- could become U.S. citizens. While the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, it didn't...

LONDON (AP) — Nations across Europe are moving to reimpose tougher measures to stem a new wave of COVID-19 infections spurred by the highly transmissible omicron variant, triggering calls for protests from Paris to Barcelona. As case numbers escalated, alarmed ministers in France, Cyprus and Austria tightened travel restrictions. Paris canceled its New Year’s Eve fireworks. Denmark closed theaters, concert halls, amusement parks and museums. Ireland imposed an 8 p.m. curfew on pubs and bars and limited attendance at indoor and outdoor events. But the moves are causing anger. Crowds protesting British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s latest coronavirus restrictions flooded...

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden downplayed concerns that many Americans have about his vaccine mandates going too far and encroaching on their individual freedoms. “Your vaccine mandates have suffered some setbacks in court recently,” WHIOTV 7 reporter John Bedell said. “Federal judges have halted three of those COVID vaccine mandates.” “Are you going to back down or are you going to continue to fight those in court?” Bedell asked. “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Not the vaccinated, the unvaccinated. That’s the problem,” Biden said. “Everybody talks about freedom about not to have a shot or have a test....

Here are two questions pertinent to our times: (1) How would you reduce the greatest free republic in history to despotism in a short time? and (2) How would you stop that from happening? The answer to the first question has been provided in these last two disastrous years. The answer to the second has begun to emerge in recent months. Both are worthy of study. Reducing a Great Republic to Despotism To establish despotism in a nation like ours, you might begin, if you were smart, by building a bureaucracy of great complexity that commands a large percentage of...

The owner of a wine and beer bar who openly flouted Gov. Tim Walz's executive orders to shut down last winter during the COVID-19 pandemic was found guilty of six criminal misdemeanor counts Thursday by a Freeborn County jury. A jury of three women and three men took only an hour of deliberation to convict Lisa Hanson, the 57-year-old bar owner, after a three-day trial punctuated by Hanson's repeated attempts to argue that Walz's orders were unconstitutional. Judge Joseph Bueltel followed the reading of the verdict with a scathing denunciation of Hanson's behavior, explaining why the governor's orders were legal....

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The owner of a bar in Albert Lea was found guilty Thursday of six criminal misdemeanor charges and sentenced to 90 days in jail for defying Gov. Tim Walz’s executive orders to close her business last winter. The jury found Lisa Hanson, 57, guilty after deliberating for an hour, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. Prosecutors had asked that Hanson be fined $500 and jailed for several days, but Judge Joseph Bueltel gave her a 90-day jail sentence and a $1,000 fine, saying he wanted to send a message to people who violate executive orders. “You wanted to make...

“The whole aim of practical politics,” H.L. Mencken famously quipped in the 1920’s, “is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” How very true. Although written a century ago, Mencken’s metaphor of an endless series of imaginary hobgoblins easily describes the string of new “variants” of the COVID virus, all which send petty tyrants from New York’s Bill de Blasio to Australia’s Scott Morrison, clamoring for new lockdowns and restrictions – for our safety, of course. As I wrote last week,...

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian police used water cannon and tear gas Sunday to disperse some rowdy protesters in Brussels after most demonstrators marched peacefully to protest tightened COVID-19 restrictions that aim to counter a surge of coronavirus infections. Thousands came to reject the new measures announced Friday, the third week in a row that the government has tightened its rules as an avalanche of new cases strains the country’s health services, depriving people with other life-threatening diseases of treatment. Shouting “Freedom! Freedom!” and carrying banners that said, “United for our freedom, rights and our children,” protesters marched to the European...

If anything, political pressures may prevent the White House from going far enough, Binghamton University political science professor Olga Shvetsova argued. In order to halt the virus, she said vaccines must not only be mandated but that fully vaccinated people need to be tested regularly to stop the emergence of new variants. “We cannot allow people to be sick but not too sick,” Shvetsova said. “That’s what created delta, and that’s what created omicron. It’s not only about preventing people from being terribly sick. It’s about preventing them from being sick in invisible ways.” — As reported in the Washington...

The federal government spies on every email, text, and call you make. It uses your phone's location services to pinpoint where you are at all times. It knows which I.P. addresses are associated with online comments that have been deemed "politically incorrect." Its partnerships with Amazon and Walmart let it know what you're reading and buying. Its partnerships with Google and Facebook let it know what you're thinking. Its partnerships with Twitter and Hollywood allow it to censor unapproved messages before too many brains have the opportunity to consider new thoughts. Its alliance with credit card companies allows it to...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal judge on Monday blocked President Joe Biden’s administration from enforcing a coronavirus vaccine mandate on thousands of health care workers in 10 states that had brought the first legal challenge against the requirement. The court order said that the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid had no clear authority from Congress to enact the vaccine mandate for providers participating in the two government health care programs for the elderly, disabled and poor. The preliminary injunction by St. Louis-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp applies to a coalition of suing states that includes Alaska,...

Democracy isn’t as popular as it used to be. Take the Oroville City Council’s overwrought recent declaration that it’s a “Constitutional Republic City,” which is steeped in creeping disregard for a once-presumptive American ideal. “NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED by the Oroville City Council that the City of Oroville is declared to be a Constitutional Republic City,” thunders the resolution, and “that any executive orders issued by the State of California or by the United States federal government that are overreaching or clearly violate our constitutionally protected rights will not be enforced by the City of Oroville against its...

In Chile, the presidential election was straightforward: communism or liberty. Pick one or the other. No soggy middle.So guess which one got the most votes!Yep, liberty, and I'm not talking about some namby-pamby nice-guy RINO kind of liberty, respectable at Santiago cocktail parties. It was 100-proof hard stuff liberty, prompting shudders from the press.The Associated Press reports this:SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Two onetime outsiders hailing from opposite extremes of the political spectrum received the most votes Sunday in Chile's presidential election but failed to garner enough support for an outright win, setting up a polarizing runoff in the region's most...

Dear Elected Officials of [City, State], Since you took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitutions both of [State of Residence] and of the United States, I and others are genuinely interested to know your answers to the following questions, as these will help us to be informed of your attitudes and qualifications for the offices you hold: 1.) What is meant by “the pursuit of happiness” as expressed by our founding fathers? 2.) What is the difference between a “right” and a “privilege?” 3.) In applying for and attaining to public office, were you ever officially questioned as...

Reading Time: 5 minutes Charlotte, NC — “I can tell you right now, I do not know whether we’re going to win or lose. The only thing that I can control is a little piece of real estate inside my own shoes, and I can tell you whatever happens that I will go down fighting and that I will die with my boots on,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy’s remarks came at the end of a nearly 50-minute speech given last month. He described how America is currently in the midst of the second American Revolution, and indeed it...