Free Republic

[ KEY QUOTE ] You see, during the election, nothing changed. We, the voters, continued to ask our politicians to solve problems our government has neither the ability nor the authority to solve, and they continued to promise to do just that. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After all, the purpose of civil government is what? To do for us what we can’t do for ourselves? No. To level the playing field? No. To spread the wealth around? No! The purpose of OUR government is simply, to secure our rights, those rights which were given to all of us by our Creator. Period! I...

Democrats often call themselves "pro-choice." Republicans defend "freedom." Unfortunately, neither party really believes in letting individuals do what we want. When Democrats say they are "pro-choice," they are talking about abortion. Some act as if a right to legal abortion is the most important freedom in America. But Democrats aren't very enthusiastic about other kinds of choice. They don't want you to have the right to choose your kids' school, work without joining a union, buy a gun, pay people whatever you contract to pay them if they choose to work for you, buy things you want to buy without...

It was pizza night at the Di Leo household, and, yes, like any good entertainer, I take requests. One for plain cheese, one for sausage, one for pepperoni and black olives. My bride gets mushrooms, black olives and jalapenos. I go all out, for myself: pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions and red peppers. Everyone eats something different, and that’s fine. That’s the point of pizza, in fact: there’s a good deal of variety here, tons of good options. It’s easy to get the impression that there are no limits; if the pantry is well-stocked, you could ask for anything, and individualize...

Cultural civil war can be avoided by getting government out of marriage There is no question that the media, political, and cultural push for gay marriage has made impressive gains. As recently as 1989, voters in avant-garde San Francisco repealed a law that had established only domestic partnerships. But judging by the questions posed by Supreme Court justices this week in oral arguments for two gay-marriage cases, most observers do not expect sweeping rulings that would settle the issue and avoid protracted political combat. A total of 41 states currently do not allow gay marriage, and most of those laws...

<p>“Candidates are constantly asked, ‘Where will you take the country?’ My answer is: ‘Nowhere.’</p>

The 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference drew a fairly international swarm of conservatives possessing a variety of ideas about limiting and specializing the role of civil government. The obfuscations of a (to use Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s term) plus sized, overreaching bureaucracy have made some young people wonder why we need a civil government in the first place and why we can’t have anarchy instead. How do you respond to the statement: ”The system isn’t broken; the system never worked”?...

From at least the time of the 1980’s, the Republican Party and the “conservative movement” have been dominated by, not conservatives, but neoconservatives. The so-called “libertarian” influence in the party is growing—and neoconservatives are none too pleased by it. Libertarians, neoconservatives assert, are “isolationists,” “naïve,” even sophomoric, idealists whose detachment from reality borders on being “unpatriotic,” for libertarians threaten to compromise national security, making citizen and soldier alike unsafe. After all, when his own country is in the midst of a protracted, bloody war, a person who uses his considerable influence to convince large numbers of Americans that their country...

It is not the libertarians’ fault when a conservative candidate loses. As conservatives, we should avoid blaming others when we don’t succeed. That’s what liberals do. That, plus shred the Constitution and shovel our money to deadbeats. Libertarians are not conservatives, and we don’t have a right to their votes. But sometimes we share the same goals, and some of them are gettable voters for conservative candidates. We just need to understand that there is no one kind of libertarian any more than there is one kind of Republican. In the GOP, you have social conservatives, the moderate/RINO wing, the...

Please help me jog my memory and find a link (or several). I seem to recall a Republican National Committee chairman several years ago saying that there is no place in the GOP for limited government people. I can't seem to find that, however, no matter how I do the search. Can anyone help me with this?

Recently, our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, had this to say about the government shutdown in between bowls of chicken poodle soup and attempting to start World War III: *** "And in keeping with the broad ramifications of a shutdown, I think it's important that everybody understands the federal government is America's largest employer." http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-sept-30-remarks-on-looming-government-shutdown/2013/09/30/87437ea6-2a10-11e3-b139-029811dbb57f_story.html *** And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the root of of all of our economic ills, our social ills, and our political ills. The Federal Leviathan has grown so massive and Chris Christie-like it can't support its own weight anymore. Now, keep in mind, this...

WAKE FOREST, NC, August 20, 2013 — Many Americans see the Tea Party as a bigoted movement of uneducated white men that caters to big business and the rich. That does not and never has accurately described the Tea Party movement. The Tea Party is not an officially a political party, though there are Tea Parties affiliated with the movement. It has no central leadership. People who identify with the movement do not come just from Republicans or identify only as conservatives. Independents, Democrats and liberals are all represented. It lacks any significant representation only from those who call themselves...

In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson laid out his views on the proper role of the state. He envisioned "a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." Unfortunately, Jefferson's view of a minimally intrusive federal government was not long for this world. Over the course of 200 years, citizens demanded more action and intervention from their lawmakers, and politicians...

In 2007, then Senator Barack Obama appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live and called on U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. Obama said Gonzales was acting more like the president’s attorney than the people's attorney and viewed himself as an “enabler of the administration.” “Well, I voted against Alberto Gonzales confirmation for precisely the reason we are seeing now. I said this on the floor of the senate, that although he seemed to be a capable attorney, he seemed to conceive his role as being the president’s attorney instead of being the people’s attorney,” Obama said. …Part of the...

Recently a discussion of this story about DC Comics being pressured by homosexual activists to fire one of its writers because he’s on the board of the National Organization of Marriage prompted vigorous debate on my Facebook wall. While perusing through the various comments, it was obvious there still exists much confusion in our country today about the term “rights.” There are two types of rights: unalienable and contractual. Sometimes referred to as a natural right (i.e. “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” reference from The Declaration of Independence), an unalienable right is a right that comes from God...

We have had the “War on Drugs” since the 70’s. In the 80’s, the “War” went from just skirmishes to an all out nuclear war on drugs. Now, thirty years later what have we accomplished? Has the “War on Drugs” become just another epic government failure like the “War on Poverty” with the only thing accomplished being massive government spending and an equally massive erosion of our Constitutional Rights? My perspective on the “War on Drugs” is a little different from most people. I practiced law for 24 years. Ten of those years were as a prosecutor. The rest were...

It would be tempting to attribute the disaster spreading across the Middle East to a brief flirtation with democracy snake oil, but for the better part of the last century the political class of the United States could talk of nothing else. Nearly every war was fought was to spread democracy, protect democracy or worship at the altar of democracy. For much of the 20th Century it was the working assumption of the sort of men who got up to give speeches in crowded halls that it was democracy that made America special. But it is not so much that...

It would be tempting to attribute the disaster spreading across the Middle East to a brief flirtation with democracy snake oil, but for the better part of the last century the political class of the United States could talk of nothing else. Nearly every war was fought to spread democracy, protect democracy or worship at the altar of democracy. For much of the 20th century it was the working assumption of the sort of men who got up to give speeches in crowded halls that it was democracy that made America special. But it is not so much that democracy...

Here is offered a ranking based upon freedom...and other aspects for those considering immigrating to greener pastures. After this election we can no longer say...well at least we still live in the most free nation in the world...indeed, I think in reality we will take a nosedive on any reality based ranking.

Some on the political "right" promote a version of libertarianism which is anti-government and places the individual at the foundation of an understanding of freedom. This is at odds with the insights summarized in the Catechism. Often they paraphrase the American founders to imply that the existence of government itself is the problem. ...If you listen to some on the political "left", they seem to want to federalize everything. They think that our obligation in solidarity always means establishing more federal government programs. They are wrong. They have forgotten the role of mediating institutions and their vital role in governing...

Portman is unfit to be anybody's veep at any time. He's a Bushie. NO MORE BUSHs! NO MORE GOP-E! Give smaller government a try! I spent a few minutes looking into this guy, and according to the ever unreliable Wikipedia The public debt went up by $469 Billion according to them, and they do point to TreasuryDirect.gov, which I think it's reasonable to say is more reliable. Just plug in the dates. Portman was held the office of OMB from April 18, 2006 to June 19, 2007. The math works out for me to be around $445 Billion. Still too...