Free Republic

I think we're 300 million people and if we lose a few hundred people a year to terrorists, that doesn't change who we are and it shouldn't change the fabric of our society. Frankly I think we should get used to losing—as long as we're taking the stance in the world of being the military superpower, you're going to have people nipping at you. And if it's hundreds or thousands—we lose 15,000 people a year to have the right to bear arms and most people think that's a good deal, year after year. We spend 15,000 people for the right...

Rick Steves October 31 at 5:27pm · .. Hitler was all the rage in 1932. Here’s a short clip (with a daring little pun buried inside) from one of the new episodes of my TV show, airing now across the country on public television and online at www.ricksteves.com/tv. We had a fascinating time filming the Nazi Documentation Center in Hitler’s favorite city, Nürnberg. It’s fascinating (and, hopefully, instructive) to think of the tenor of those turbulent times in Germany and how Hitler came to power. His specialty: huge rallies, stoking the fears of angry masses (especially fears of minorities), and...

If you are a patriotic Conservative, Rick Steves is NOT your tour. Recently, a friend of mine took a tour to Sicily sponsored by Mr. Steves. The Tour went fine until the last day when they visited a war museum in Catania. The Tour Guide, a creature called "Alfeo" went on a long anti-American tirade, attacking us for our effort in Europe, blaming Black Lives Matter on the police, stating American troops raped Sicilian women, American flag waving Sicilians were forced to do so under armed force, 9-11 was our own fault, etc. My friend spoke out and told the...

An extensive study by the Pew Research Center has revealed that Christians are declining sharply in America in terms of population share, while the religiously unaffiliated are rising, and now make up a larger share than American Catholics. The rise of religious intermarriages was one trend linked to the growth of the unaffiliated. The report, which was released on Tuesday, stated: "The drop in the Christian share of the population has been driven mainly by declines among mainline Protestants and Catholics. Each of those large religious traditions has shrunk by approximately 3 percentage points since 2007. The evangelical Protestant share...

EDMONDS, Wash. — Travel guru Rick Steves says he's trying to make a political statement by giving $1 million to an arts center in his hometown. He says the amount equals what he saved from tax cuts approved by former President George W. Bush beginning in 2001. The Herald newspaper of Everett reports ( http://bit.ly/quuOap) that Steves says he's alarmed that the tax burden on rich people has dropped while public funding for important local programs has been slashed.

To bring some diverse experience into the discussion on health care reform here in the USA, I've asked my friends in Europe to share how health care works in their lives. In this final of four entries, here are comments from my friends in Switzerland and Belgium (and Italy Part 3): From Fritz in Switzerland: In Switzerland, everyone has health insurance provided either through an employer (by payroll deduction) or by paying privately to a health insurance company. A family with two children has an annual premium of about 8,000 CHF (about $7,300). For every doctor's bill, the insured person...

Here we go yet again. This time we were off for a week in Italy - Rome, Venice, and Milan with our Rick Steve's Travel Guides in hand. Of all the places we've been so far, the books paid off handsomely in Italy. And next to the Swedes up in Kiruna, the Italians are some of the nicest Europeans we've met to date. No wonder so many Americans were there at the same time as we were. We land in Rome in the evening and catch a cab to the hotel. What can you say about Italian cab drivers? After...

The greatest risk to our society today is not Islamo-fascist terrorism, but the people who use that term to scare us. As the human, fiscal and ecological damage caused by our nation's economic priorities grows, it's becoming clear that we're addicted to more than oil — we're addicted to military spending, too. The United States spends as much on its military as the rest of humanity combined: more than $400 billion annually (not including the hundreds of billions of dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). These military expenses are "off limits" as we sharpen our collective pencils to...