8/27/2010 – Jeffrey Folks -

Vladimir Lenin had a much simpler time of it. Following the October Revolution, he swiftly nationalized nearly all industry, commerce, and agriculture in the Soviet Union. Those who opposed the takeovers, such as those millions of small landowners known as the kulaks, were executed or sent to die in Siberia.

American leftists are far more civilized. Rather than send landowners and stockowners to Siberia, they simply raise federal and state taxes to combined marginal rates of 60% and subject the rest to estate taxes after the owner dies. If the owner fails to pay up, he is marched off to prison. Meanwhile, corporations are subject to another form of control: the tyranny of activists on government agencies that view the private sector as the means of social change. more »

8/19/2010 – Bruce Walker -
One of the unspoken truths of the political and ideological wars which rage around us is the civility gap between the left and conservatives. Anyone who has fought in these battles knows just what I mean. To be sure, there are exceptions among conservatives, those who are not civil, but they receive no quarter from the broader conservative movement.

Once — long ago — when I used to respond to leftist e-mails about my articles, I knew from the first few words of their e-mails what sort of people they were: angry, arrogant, and nasty. more »

President Ronald Reagan

From the archived pages of Imprimis, the monthly speech digest of Hillsdale College, President Ronald Reagan reminds us that economic freedom is an absolute necessity not only for political freedom, but for all freedom. That freedom must be fought for and protected in every generation. That the business community must join this fight and not remain passive.

“It all comes down to this basic premise: if you lose your economic freedom, you lose your political freedom and in fact all freedom. Freedom is something that cannot be passed on genetically. It is never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it. Once freedom is gone, it’s gone for a long, long time. Already, too many of us, particularly those in business and industry, have chosen to switch rather than fight.”

President Reagan clearly understood that government action is the biggest threat to our economic freedom and personal freedom. He correctly identified the government as the problem, not the solution: more »

8/1/2010 – Harvey M. Sheldon -
Many believe the 2010 elections will save America from social and economic disaster. However, the progressives are intent on imposing their vision on us, and they will pull no punches in trying to paint their opponents as Neanderthals, racists, or whatever other slander opportunity provides. They will be funded by untold dollars from a variety of sources, from the naïve and still trusting to the dedicated opportunists, well-heeled socialists, Machiavellian billionaires, and profit-seekers. more »

Aliza Davidovit

6/30/2010 – Aliza Davidovit –

The other day I incidentally drove by the Apple store in Manhattan and was really amused and disheartened by the long line of thousands of people waiting to pick up their iphone 4Gs. As this country is falling apart, it becomes evermore clear to me why: We are still living in La La Land. I questioned when the last time was New Yorkers formed such a queue to protest a government wrongdoing and lined up outside their congressman’s door.

Undoubtedly, these hoarders of high-tech phones have seen a news flash or two and are aware that times are no good and are spiraling quickly downward. So why don’t they get it? Why don’t they realize that they are standing in the “wrong” line? And it dawned on me: It’s because we are a society and a generation reared on Hollywood endings. Things will be OK; things will work out; America will bounce back.

But, my dear readers, as the president and his administration proceed to fundamentally transform America as he promised, the floor under our feet, the one we were hoping to bounce back from, is being shattered. There is a dark deep abyss beneath, an unknown that those not blinded by the happy-ending syndrome believe is a socialist agenda at best, one that will destroy the United States of America. more »

6/28/2010 – Jay Valentine -
There are “movement conservatives,” and there are politicians who change their stripes for every occasion. Right now, the conservative movement is getting rolled by the latter.

Let us remember another day. Health care was all the rage (at least in the press), and leading “conservatives” were leading the third way. Newt Gingrich was working with Hillary Clinton on a more gradual route to universal health care, according to the New York Times and other sources. more »

5/24/2010 – Michael van der Galien -
It’s popular these days for conservatives to criticize the defender of the poor and the oppressed, Robin Hood. Hood, they say, is nothing more than a socialist pretending to be a hero. He is, if you will, Karl Marx with a bow and couple of arrows. He steels from the wealthy and gives to the poor. It’s socialism in action, or so many contemporary conservative commentators argue.

Although I understand it that conservatives automatically oppose all those who dare “redistribute wealth” (or appear to), they are sorely mistaken to do so with Hood. Dismissing him as a Marxist is ludicrous and counterproductive; the former because he is actually a very American (classically liberal and conservative) hero, the latter because the audience will sympathize with him regardless of the criticism. more »

5/16/2010 – James Lewis -
History is full of Obamas, and the people who idolized such power-hungry self-glorifying narcissists. The Founders understood human history in their very bones, because they read history from the Bible to the Roman Empire, Europe’s bloody and tyrannical history, and the Americas. If you want to understand Obama, just look at any idolized hero in Latin America: Chavez, Fidel, Bolivar, Juan Peron. Look at European monarchs. Look at Napoleon.

They are all the famous Man on Horseback, the hero of the hour who instantly turns into a tyrant. Even today Latin America is bedeviled by its own Obamas, who all demand to be idolized and worshipped. Obamas are a dime a dozen. more »

Chuck Colson

5/11/2010 – Chuck Colson –
Is the U.S. Flag Offensive?

The right of free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution. The right to not be offended is not. But guess which right trumped the other in a California school last week.

The two students were minding their own business—just sitting at a table on a school break, chatting with their friends. And then the vice principal of the school walked up to the boys—and ordered them to remove their American flag bandanas. Their T-shirts also featured the Stars and Stripes. The boys were told to turn them inside out, so the flags wouldn’t show.

The boys—who often wore these kind of clothes—refused, and were sent to the principal’s office. There, they were told their T-shirts were “incendiary,” and would provoke fights. more »

5/6/2010 – Troy Senik -
Liberal journalists (but I repeat myself) – a fraternity for whom indignation is proof of sentience – believed they had found just cause to be aghast last week in the nation’s fourth largest state. Deeming themselves the keepers of political Wisdom, the chattering class bayed at the news that Florida Governor Charlie Crist is leaving the Republican Party to continue his pursuit of a seat in the U.S. Senate as an Independent. more »

5/6/2010 – Jack Hunter -
For true conservative victory, simply voting Republican won’t do
Barack Obama is the most socialist president in American history. Before Obama, George W. Bush was the most socialist president in American history. Before Dubya, it was Bill Clinton, then Bush Sr., Reagan, and so on. Each successive administration, by and large, has presided over a federal government that has assumed more power and spent more money than the last. more »

4/30/2010 – Doug Patton – Human Events

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” – Ayn Rand

Author and objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand was born in Russia just before the Bolshevik Revolution. She literally witnessed the slaughter and the dismantling of her country from the window of her father’s pharmacy—which was subsequently seized by the Leninist state. As a young woman, she fled to the United States, where she never forgot what she saw in her native country. She developed a deep distrust of government as she became one of the most celebrated writers of the mid-20th Century. more »

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signs the illegal-immigration bill

Washington Examiner | by Byron York | 4/26/2010

The chattering class is aghast at Arizona’s new immigration law. “Harkens back to apartheid,” says the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker. “Shameful,” says the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne. “Terrible…an invitation to abuse,” says the New York Times’ David Brooks.

For his part, President Obama calls the law “misguided” and says it “threaten[s] to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans.” Obama has ordered the Justice Department to “closely monitor the situation and examine the civil rights and other implications of this legislation. more »

Dennis Prager

by Dennis Prager | 4/27/2010

Opponents of the popular expression of conservative opposition to big government, the tea party, regularly note that tea partiers are overwhelmingly white. This is intended to disqualify the tea parties from serious moral consideration.

But there are two other facts that are far more troubling: The first is the observation itself. The fact that the Left believes that the preponderance of whites among tea partiers invalidates the tea party movement tells us much more about the Left than it does about the tea partiers.

It confirms that the Left really does see the world through the prism of race, gender and class rather than through the moral prism of right and wrong. more »

American Thinker | by Justin Blackman | 4/25/2010

Individual rights must be the rallying point for reclaiming liberty.

The Founders of the United States hoped to create a society of free individuals, but for at least a century, the nation has been marching ever more quickly in the direction of tyranny. The independent Tea Party movement represents a renewed desire to roll back the tide of government expansion, but this cause will fail unless its participants take an uncompromising stand in favor of individual rights. A building, no matter how rigid, cannot stand upon a weak and cracked foundation. In the same vein, errors and inconsistencies in a society’s philosophical foundation will cause its downfall — even in one as great as ours. more »