Free Republic

Shielded by the media glare of presidential politics and daily explosions in Iraq, two crucial issues are about to be decided by the U.S. Senate, without the knowledge of the American people. Issue 1: Should the United States ratify the Law of the Seas Treaty (Treaty Doc. 103-39)? Issue 2: Should any U.N. treaty be ratified without full, open debate and a recorded vote? The answer to both questions should be a resounding "no." Nevertheless, the treaty is very near ratification by unanimous consent, having never been debated, and without a recorded vote. This is the same procedure used to...

Still crazy after all these years. PRESIDENT BUSH has demonstrated his willingness to stand alone internationally. Yet for little better reason than go-along, get-along multilateralism, the administration is now pushing the Senate to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty, which was just unanimously voted out of Richard Lugar's Senate Foreign Relations Committee. At a committee meeting in February, Lugar noted a wide range of support from American interests "for U.S. accession to be completed swiftly." However, the treaty is a flawed document, and there would be serious costs from accepting it. The Law of the Sea Treaty originated in...

Here's a flash movie that is very interesting I think. The creator attempts to show how liberty works: can this help when you are trying to explain to a teenager or others that Liberty is precious and must be protected? The movie goes into a lot of different areas, personal freedoms, majority tyranny over the minority and force of government as a vehicle for slavery and corruption. http://www.freedom21santacruz.net/liberty.html

When I first heard of the LOST (Law Of the Sea Treaty), it sounded like a bad plot for a science-fiction movie. In the '60s and '70s, when the United Nations organized and led a series of conferences on the Law of the Sea, most considered the idea too weird to be taken seriously. However, this maritime nightmare is about to become a reality. The LOST was hatched by a group of internationalists who want to give the United Nations control of seven-tenths of the earth's surface area. It creates an International Seabed Authority to regulate the vast oceans and...

John Kerry wants a world in which the United Nations calls the shots and U.S. freedom of action, in the absence of the U.N.'s permission, is sharply circumscribed. Most Americans recognize that this would be a formula for disaster — a world in which the lowest-common-multilateral-denominator would routinely trump, and often jeopardize, our security interests. President George W. Bush's supporters believe that he rejects this Kerry-Clinton worldview. They look forward to a national election in which voters get to choose between his Reaganesque philosophy of peace through American strength and Kerry's U.N. uber alles. So why would the Bush administration...

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL ADDRESS TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY New York, 23 September 2003Koffee Annon*snip*I respectfully suggest to you, Excellencies, that in the eyes of your peoples the difficulty of reaching agreement does not excuse your failure to do so. If you want the Council’s decisions to command greater respect, particularly in the developing world, you need to address the issue of its composition with greater urgency. But the Security Council is not the only institution that needs strengthening. As you know, I am doing my best to make the Secretariat more effective – and I look to this Assembly to support...

The gun control movement in America has lost momentum in recent years, as evidenced by the Democratic party’s conspicuous silence on the issue in the 2000 and 2002 elections. In the midst of declining public support for new gun laws, more and more states have adopted concealed-carry programs. The September 11th terrorist attacks only made matters worse for gun control advocates, as millions of Americans were starkly reminded that we cannot rely on government to protect us from criminals. Perhaps the biggest threat to gun rights in America today comes not from domestic lawmakers, but from abroad. Even as support...

<p>Ward Connerly filed suit against state officials Tuesday, claiming a newly signed law violates California's constitutional ban on race-based preferences.</p> <p>Connerly contends that AB 703 is an "end run" around Proposition 209, passed by voters in 1996 to prohibit preferences in state hiring, contracting and education.</p>

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix now believes Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago and that intelligence agencies were wrong in their weapons assessment that led to war. In an interview with Australian radio from Sweden, Blix said the search for evidence of biological, chemical or nuclear weapons would probably only uncover documents at best. "The more time that has passed, the more I think it's unlikely that anything will be found," Blix said in the interview, which was broadcast on Wednesday. "I'm certainly more and more to the conclusion that...

Vol. 19, No. 19September 22, 2003Table of Contents More on Gun Control Exercising the Rightby Robert W. Lee"... the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."Fighting BackShortly before 5:30 a.m. on June 16th, Stephen Heller was chatting with a young woman who had arrived moments earlier at his home in Sanger, Texas, when two masked men dressed in black and wearing gloves suddenly barged into the residence. At least one was armed.The intruders apparently intended to rob Heller, but the homeowner resisted fiercely. He was able to stab one with a knife he...

<p>UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday that aims to strengthen protection of its personnel and other humanitarian workers throughout the world.</p> <p>The 15-member Security Council passed the resolution one week after the United Nations' Baghdad headquarters was destroyed by a truck bomb.</p>

Air conditioner airlift delayed By SEAN O'SULLIVAN and ROBIN BROWNStaff reporters08/22/2003 The cool breeze provided to U.S. troops in Iraq through the Delaware-based Operation Air Conditioner has been switched off. Late last week, the U.S. Postal Service told Frankie Mayo of Bear - who has been sending soldiers air conditioners - that she no longer can ship them through the mail because the chemical coolant in the units is considered a hazardous substance. Tad Kelley, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, said international law prohibits hazardous substances from being sent through the mail by any nation or postal service....

We live in a global economy, right? But the elites mouthing this mantra haven't shared with the U.S. people the news that globalism not only means open borders for the movement of goods and the migration of peoples, but also textbooks teaching children to be citizens of the world instead of patriots. Globalism also means bending the U.S. Constitution to conform to the opinions of foreigners who pompously enunciate new laws and new human rights. The utterings of these self-important bureaucrats in the United Nations and Europe could be merely matters for TV humor if it were not that U.S....

Democrats-Communist Link Revealed Here Here is a snapshot of the Website of the Communist Party USA: Notice the Link to anti-American group, Moveon.org in the lower left corner: Now see this picture of Algore from the website of Moveon.org. As you may recall, he gave a speech to the members of Moveon.org last week: Now tell me, if this evidence of complicity between the Democrats and the Communists is not enough, what is? If someone here has contacts at FoxNews, may be we can get them to carry it.

Sharon Votaw April 21, 2003 My husband and I bought some farmland in the California Delta over 30 years ago. This is prime agricultural land with deep, rich soils, ample water and a long growing season. In the beginning we would plant a crop; either beans or tomatoes or alfalfa, hay, wheat, corn, oats or barley. Then we hoped for favorable weather and a strong market. Farming has always been gambler’s choice. Some years were good and some years were lean, but we paid our bills and enjoyed life. Unbeknownst to us, in the early 1990’s the government again became...

United States: UN rights expert expresses alarm over military trial of detainees 7 July – A senior United Nations rights expert today expressed alarm over reports that six detainees may be brought to trial before a military commission by the United States Government, saying such "drastic measures to counter terrorism" are in defiance of the world body's resolutions. The detainees were last week declared liable for a military tribunal as suspected members of Al-Qaeda or "otherwise involved in terrorism directed against the United States." "In proceeding to apply these drastic measures to counter terrorism, the United States Government is seen...

On Liberia: Intervention for me, but not for thee By W. James Antle III web posted July 7, 2003 Just when you thought the United States was a hated imperialist superpower using its might to achieve global hegemony, calls for yet another American military intervention abroad are coming from surprising sources. The United Nations, European diplomats, leaders of developing nations in Africa and the antiwar left's darling in the Democratic presidential field, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, have all called upon the United States to send troops to Liberia. Their mission would then be to lead a multilateral peacekeeping force...

LAW OF THE LAND Justice: Can Constitution make it in global age? On TV, Breyer wonders whether it will 'fit into governing documents of other nations' Posted: July 7, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com In a rare appearance on a television news show, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer questioned whether the U.S. Constitution, the oldest governing document in use in the world today, will continue to be relevant in an age of globalism. Speaking with ABC News' "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos and his colleague Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Breyer took issue with Justice Antonin Scalia, who,...

As the Supreme Court ruling on Texas' sodomy law continues to generate controversy, Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute reveals a disturbing new element. The US Supreme Court used foreign precedents in formulating their decision. In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy referred to a "Friend of the Court" brief submitted by former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson. "This Court should not decide in a vacuum whether criminalization of same-sex sodomy between consenting adults violates constitutional guarantees of privacy and equal protection. Other nations with similar histories, legal systems, and political cultures have...

With a cast of characters including a former prime minister, some of the richest executives in France and Germany, Paris' biggest-ever corporate crime trial continued this week with 37 defendants in the dock. France's largest-ever corporate corruption trial resumed in Paris this week with more drama than your average Mexican soap opera. The case offered further tales of illicit backroom dealing, a €5 million divorce settlement tab picked up by French taxpayers and allegations that a former French prime minister accepted bribes in connection with a string of acquisitions made by the state-owned French oil conglomerate Elf Aquitane in the...