By Jeffrey Tucker

There are occasions in American life — and they come too often these days — when you want to scream: “what the heck has happened to this country?!” Everyone encounters events that strike a particular nerve, some egregious violations of the norms for a free country that cut very deeply and personally.

We wonder: do we even remember what it means to be free?

You hear slogans about the “land of the free” and we still sing patriotic songs at the ballpark and even at church on Sunday, and these songs are always about our blessed liberty, the battles of our ancestors against tyranny, the special love of liberty that animates our heritage and national self identity. The contrast with reality grows starker by the day.

And it isn’t just about our personal liberty and our freedom to move about with a sense that we are exercising our rights. It hits us in the economic realm, where no goods or services change hands that aren’t subject to the total control of the leviathan state. No business is really safe from being bludgeoned by legislatures, regulators, and the tax police, while objecting only makes you more of a target.

Few dare say it publicly: America has become a police state.

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By Robin of Berkeley

When I was ten years old, I participated in an act of unadulterated group evil. It happened at a sleep-away camp in the Catskill Mountains.

Starting in third grade, I was shipped off to this summer camp for three months at a time. Although I was in no way ready to be so far from home, my parents wanted the summers free and clear — so I was whisked away, like hundreds of other Camp Tawonga kids.

I lived in a bunk with a gaggle of other girls, with two teenagers to oversee us. Since our counselors were more absorbed in the male staff than in us, we girls had the run of the house.

One day, my bunkmates decided to punish Barbara, a popular and confident child. The masterminds held Barb down while a few others stripped off her clothes. Barbara struggled and screamed as the rest of us watched, transfixed. The details are blessedly murky, but they involve mocking Barbara and grabbing at her body.

Although I wasn’t a major player, I also did nothing to stop the madness, which shames me to this day. I even recall feeling a strange, wicked thrill surging through my body. Now that I analyze it, it was the maniacal power of sadism — and evil.

I’ve always wondered why Barbara was chosen to be tortured, and not a nerdy girl instead. But after beholding the horrible treatment of Sarah Palin, I finally understand: Barb was a sweet and happy and innocent child. The leaders of the pack wanted to knock her down from her high horse.

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By Thomas Sowell

With the passage of the legislation allowing the federal government to take control of the medical care system of the United States, a major turning point has been reached in the dismantling of the values and institutions of America.

Even the massive transfer of crucial decisions from millions of doctors and patients to Washington bureaucrats and advisory panels – as momentous as that is – does not measure the full impact of this largely unread and certainly unscrutinized legislation.

If the current legislation does not entail the transmission of all our individual medical records to Washington, it will take only an administrative regulation or, at most, an Executive Order of the President, to do that.

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By David W.

Did you see the movie, The Invention of Lying?

Don’t bother if you haven’t but there was an interesting component to the story line: everyone believed everything that was said because nobody could lie. In fact, they were all brutally honest about everything.

“Mark Bellison,” played by Ricky Gervais, evolved the ability to lie. He was able to manipulate everyone by telling them what he wanted them to think. When “Mark” told a long-time friend that he was black, his friend responded, “I’ve always wanted a black friend.” When he told the bank-teller he wanted to withdraw $800 from his $300 account balance, she said, “the computer must be wrong, here’s your money,” etc.

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By Simon Black

Today I’m writing to you from the base of an ancient, Pre-Colombian pyramid in Central Mexico that pre-dates the Aztecs. Frankly this wasn’t part of my plan at all, but the reason I ended up here has a lot to do with living free.

Freedom is something that I think all people want more of in their lives– freedom of choice, freedom from financial constraints, freedom from bureaucracy and fear, etc.

One of the burdens of freedom, though is knowing what to do with it once you have it. When the artificial handcuffs are finally broken, what are your real priorities?

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By 2020, the National Debt Will Triple Since the Last Republican Budget.

There is no small amount of irony in the record $3.8 trillion budget Washington Democrats are proposing for next year – including a record $1.6 trillion in deficit spending.

Americans fired Republicans in 2006 for their lack of fiscal discipline. Disgusted with congressional spending on bridges to nowhere and other pet projects, voters gave Democrats the majority in Congress.

And look what we got for it.

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To the tune of nearly $500,000.

Last month, Ben Nelson did a TV ad defending his vote on health care. Turns out, though, that it’s not a Ben Nelson campaign ad. It’s hard to read the disclaimer, but the ad was paid for by the Nebraska Democratic Party. It’s one of a series of ads touting Nelson’s “courageous” effort to bring down real health care reform.

So, one wonders, where did the Nebraska Democratic Party get the money to pay for these TV ads?

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What’s a candidate to do when one of the biggest names on the political right — Sarah Palin — endorses his opponent? In Kentucky today, the answer is GO LOCAL.
Palin endorsed upstart Rand Paul in his Senate primary against the candidate preferred by the Republican establishment, Trey Grayson.
Grayson countered with the names of 28 [...]

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Written by Jack Kelly
President Barack Obama evidently thinks he can solve his political problems by changing the lipstick on the pig.

In his State of the Union speech last night (1/27), the president indicated he intends to press forward with the agenda voters in Massachusetts found so objectionable they sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate for the first time in 38 years.

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