Free Republic

The Next American Civil War: The Populist Revolt Against the Liberal Elite Lee Harris Remember those rowdy Town-Hall meetings last summer sparked by President Obama’s proposed health-care reform? Harris wants to make the case that those eruptions of populist anger could prove to be the beginning of the next American civil war. Yes, that kind of civil war. Drawing from a wealth of history and political philosophy, he contends that the philosophical divide between the Tea Party populists and the liberal intellectuals is so deep that nothing short of a “civil breakdown” is likely to mend the rift. And he...

Patrick Henry uttered his famous line, "Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" on March 23, 1775. Now, 235 years after Henry's statement, President Barack Obama signed the health care reform bill into law. Henry was determined to fight for liberty -- the power for the American people to make individual choices. This desire for liberty in Henry and others provided the fuel and supported the belief that the rights of the American people begin with God, are given to individual people and then...

*snip* When the Constitution of the United States was framed it placed the exclusive legislative authority in the hands of Congress and with the President. Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution is concise in its language: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” That is no longer true. The Bill of Rights protected Americans against loss of freedoms. That is no longer true. The Constitution provided for a balanced separation of powers. That is no longer applicable. Perhaps it...