Free Republic

"(T)here is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," said Hamlet, who thereby raised some crucial questions: Is moral truth subjective? Does it change with changing times and changing attitudes? Or is there a higher law, a permanent law, God's law, immutable and eternal, to which man's law should conform? Are, for example, the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament, Christian teaching and natural law unchangeable and applicable to all men at all times? Or can some of the 10 be consigned to the dumpster of antiquated moral prohibitions? This question has been brought straight into the...

The president's request for the authorization to use military force against the Islamic State has landed in a Congress as divided as the country. That division was mirrored in the disparate receptions Obama's resolution received from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. To the Times, Obama's AUMF is "alarmingly broad. It does not limit the battlefield to Syria and Iraq." Moreover, Obama "seeks permission to attack 'associated persons or forces.'" This would give the White House "virtually unrestricted power to engage in attacks around the globe as long as it can justify a connection, however tenuous, to...

John Hawkins apparently has taken on a mission to prove that the Bush Administration is not creating a North American Union to replace the United States, or a new currency -- the Amero -- to replace the U.S. dollar. Recently, in a blog debate on this website, I exchanged views with Mr. Hawkins. When Mr. Hawkins declined to respond in what the editors termed “Round 4” of that debate, I concluded Mr. Hawkins allowed me to have the final word because he lacked a convincing rejoinder. Now, we see Mr. Hawkins wants to carry on the debate but this time...

Saying that the Joint Chiefs and combatant commanders “strongly support” ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has stated that the measure “ensures the ability of the US Armed Forces to operate freely across the vast expanse of the world’s oceans under the authority of widely recognized and accepted international law.” [1] But would our military leaders support the treaty if they knew that the activists behind it were also instrumental in promoting the International Criminal Court (ICC), which could prosecute and imprison American troops and military...

When the official autopsy is performed on the corpse of Trent Lott, it will be revealed that he died of a stab wound that came from above. This time, Caesar knifed Brutus. Before a black audience in Philadelphia, Bush rose to declare in piety and self-righteousness, "Recent comments by Sen. Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country. He has apologized and rightly so. Every day that America was segregated was a day that America was unfaithful to our ideals." Thus did the president join those who had placed the most malign construction on Lott's ill-chosen but innocent...

Dear Reader: I would like to bring to your attention two unusual television transcripts from Tuesday, August 27. In the first, Ali Al-Ahmed of the Saudi Institute says some remarkable things about the Saudi government (“They arrest everybody that sneezes in the country, except al Qaeda members”) and about U.S. policy (“America should not let Saudi Arabia have any role in the Iraqi liberation campaign because if they do, they put their hand in it, it will stink”). In the second, I have a civil and even constructive conversation with Pat Buchanan. Daniel Pipes Interview With Ali Al-Ahmed, Daniel Pipes...