Free Republic

We are not a violent society. We are a society sheltered from violence. No one in Rwanda spends time wondering what kind of man would murder people. They probably live next door to him. If your neighborhood is diverse enough, you might be unfortunate enough to live next door to war criminals all the way from Eastern Europe to Africa. Guns are how we misspell evil. Guns are how we avoid talking about the ugly realities of human nature while building sandcastles on the shores of utopia. It's not about the fear of what one motivated maniac can do in...

A few weeks ago in Part 1, I finished by discussing how Thomas Jefferson distinguished the U.S. from other countries in asking, "What but education has advanced us beyond the condition of our indigenous neighbors?" But is today's public education system what he and other Founding Fathers were imagining it could be back then? The answer is: Yes and no. Yes, Jefferson foresaw that public education would teach a broad range of basics. But no, he didn't imagine that academia would be run by the federal government or that it would turn into limited indoctrination camps for political correctness and...

When it comes to Vietnam, I'm all for moving on, putting the past behind us, looking forward, letting bygones be bygones, but doing so requires honesty about the past, lest history be forgotten and the memory and honor tarnished of the 60,000 Americans who died in that war. On his visit to Washington last week, President Truong Tan Sang of Vietnam told President Obama the late revolutionary Ho Chi Minh was inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution and by the words of Thomas Jefferson. In an ad in the Washington Post, President Sang even claimed Jefferson's vision...

History: Few comparisons have been as odious as the one offered by the president linking one of the great mass murderers of history to one of America's Founding Fathers and authors of our liberty. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were mortal and inhumane enemies who joined civilization after their hideous barbarism was defeated. They renounced their former brutality, acknowledged their guilt and shame, and became our strongest allies as they genuinely embraced liberty and democracy. They did not forget their past. They repudiated it. Vietnam has never repudiated its past while celebrating a faux victory over an American enemy that...

WASHINGTON, July 4, 2013 ― Is there more than a passing connection between former 60’s radical turned respected Chicagoan Bill Ayers and President Barack Obama? Do we really care anymore? The question of just how well Chicagoans Barack Obama and Bill Ayers actually knew each other is one that does not seem to rest. Ayers is now a retired professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago. In the 1960s he co-founded the anti-Vietnam War Weather Underground group that bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and other buildings, creating fear through radical domestic terrorism. Read more: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/freedom-press-not-free/2013/jul/4/host-senator-obama-4th-july-bbq-ayers-speaks-out-r/#ixzz2YH2kaZj2

<p>Will you be celebrating Natural Law this July 4th? You should be. Your Founding Fathers did.</p> <p>In declaring their independence and asserting their God-given rights, the Founding Fathers—particularly the pen of Thomas Jefferson—acknowledged the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.”</p>

As we celebrate our nation's 237th birthday, a crucial facet of American life has all but vanished. We have forsaken, in a systematic and deliberate public manner, one of our most fundamental duties: fostering civic virtue in each and every one of our citizens. What does it mean to be an American? Politicians in both parties keep pushing to create a new "path to citizenship" for millions of illegal aliens. But if sovereignty and self-preservation still matter in Washington, citizenship must be guarded ferociously against those who would exploit and devalue it at every electoral whim. The pavers of the...

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence? For the record, here's a portrait of the men who pledged "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor" for liberty many years ago. Fifty-six men from each of the original 13 colonies signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Nine of the signers were immigrants, two were brothers and two were cousins. One was an orphan. The average age of a signer was 45. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest delegate at 70. The youngest was Thomas Lynch Jr. of South Carolina...

As Biden speaks at event named for Old Hickory tonight, more appalling stories show party should dump him as icon Spring means that appeals for money are bursting forth from both major political parties. It also means Democratic officials in states and counties around the country are busy getting people out to their major fundraiser, the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. And theyÂ’re bringing in the big guns: Vice President Joe Biden will keynote the South Carolina DemocratsÂ’ dinner tonight.But after an election in which Democrats rode a wave of minority support to keep the White House and Senate, party activists should...

Conservatives might take heart from a recent poll showing a decline in Americans' trust in government. But Chris Cillizza sees it as a "depressing reality." So wrote Cillizza in his "Fix" column in today's Washington Post. Let's consider what Thomas Jefferson's had to say about the need for a healthy distrust of government, and speculate as to why Cillizza is bummed out by the polling news. More here.

Received from a Navy buddy who has since been seduced by the Dark Side. ===================================================== The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says "State" instead of "Country" (the Framers knew the difference - see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia's vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too. In the beginning, there were the militias. In the South, they were also called the "slave patrols," and they...

"Second Term Begins With a Sweeping Agenda for Equality," ran the eight-column banner in which The Washington Post captured the essence of Obama's second inaugural. There he declared: "What binds this nation together ... what makes us exceptional -- what makes us American -- is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago." Obama then quoted our Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit...

So here we convene, to discuss our worries, concerns and solutions...but should our solutions be public forum? It's time of a underground movement, one worthy of being protected, entrusted, and earned. My Grandmother use to say; “fools names, and fools faces are found in public places!" I for one wear red white and blue with pride, I worship Jesus, and pledge allegiance to our flag...but the time has come for those of us who have wish insight and present foresight to heed the statement; "Lose Lips Sink Ships" I might be in the wrong, but one would think our Founding...

From the days surrounding the American Revolution, Baptists used religious arguments to make political points and political arguments to make religious points, historian James P. Byrd, associate dean at Vanderbilt Divinity School, told a conference at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. At the same time Baptists argued for separation of church and state, they did not hesitate to preach on political topics or embrace patriotic causes with religious fervor, Byrd said, addressing an Oct. 12-13 conference on “Baptists and the Shaping of American Culture.” In a sense, Baptists reflected their culture. Neither Thomas Jefferson nor Benjamin Franklin accepted orthodox Christian...

During last week's vice presidential debate, the candidates clashed over whose team would be better able to impose "crippling" sanctions on Iran. The problem of sanctions is an old one. President Jefferson tried to impose a trade embargo on Britain in 1807 to stop the Royal Navy from seizing our sailors on the high seas. This Embargo was an attempt to use peaceful coercion to bring about a change in policy by the British. It failed. It was Jefferson's greatest failure as president. We have a Bicentennial Walking Tour of the War of 1812 at the U.S. Naval Academy. I'd...

...“One cannot question the genuineness of Jefferson’s liberal dreams,” writes historian David Brion Davis. “He was one of the first statesmen in any part of the world to advocate concrete measures for restricting and eradicating Negro slavery.” But in the 1790s, Davis continues, “the most remarkable thing about Jefferson’s stand on slavery is his immense silence.” And later, Davis finds, Jefferson’s emancipation efforts “virtually ceased.” Somewhere in a short span of years during the 1780s and into the early 1790s, a transformation came over Jefferson. The very existence of slavery in the era of the American Revolution presents a paradox,...

The Religion of "Peace" is at it again. Police are responding with teargas to try and disperse the crowd. Of course they are chanting "ALLH AKBAR". Meanwhile, Obama is meeting with Morsi next week, after telling Netanyahu to go to hell. WHAT PART OF HOPEY-CHANGEY were the Embassy attacks? Didn't the Mainstream MEdia tell us that they would LOVE US, if we only elected Obama?

They said the demonstrators smashed windows of the security offices outside the embassy before breaking through the main gate of the heavily fortified compound in eastern Sanaa. Security guards opened fire and there were reports of casualties on both sides but no details were immediately available.

Every July much is said by eloquent historians, civic and religious leaders, and—thanks to blogs and social media—Americans everywhere, about the Declaration of Independence, the meaning of the American Experiment, and the price of freedom. Independence Day is a moment to be grateful for the blessings of liberty and to remember the gifts many sacrificed so much to leave us. But this year we also mark the 180th anniversary of the death in 1832 of the last surviving signer of the Declaration. Charles Carroll’s life spanned nearly a century. By the fiftieth anniversary of July 4, 1776, Carroll had outlived...

It's somehow not enough that longtime PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers has to join his fellow leftists in denouncing America's origins for Independence Day. But the supposedly probing journalist descended to spreading the historical myth that Thomas Jefferson sired slave children with Sally Hemings. He hasn't read the books of Jefferson scholars denouncing these tales as "An American Travesty"? Moyers also scooped this refuse on his latest PBS show Moyers & Company. On Alternet, the Moyers column was titled "Celebrating An Unfinished Revolution." The founders surely knew that when they let these ideas loose in the world, they could never again...