Conservatism

Republican Phonies

by Sheldon Richman November 12, 2010

For freedom’s sake, divided government beats monolithic government. Even a casual look at recent history confirms that truth. Therefore advocates of freedom will gladly accept bitter partisan rivalry if that’s what it takes to arrest the growth of Leviathan. Come January we will have divided government. But does that mean anything more than a holding action? Will we see any ...

NPR Flap Shows True Nature of Conservatives

by Laurence M. Vance November 3, 2010

Although it isn’t often that conservatives and Fox News come to the defense of a liberal journalist, I come not to congratulate them, but to condemn them. Award-winning liberal journalist Juan Williams was fired by NPR on October 20 for politically incorrect remarks he made about Muslims on The O’Reilly Factor. Fox News then granted him a $2 million, three-year ...

Have Republicans Finally Seen the Light?

by Laurence M. Vance October 29, 2010

How many Republicans does it take to screw up a light bulb? If you said ninety-five then you must be familiar with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that mandates the phase-out of incandescent light bulbs. Although it is true that Republicans never reverse the legislative damage done by Democrats, sometimes they do make a lame, half-hearted attempt ...

Obama: Neoconservative

by Sheldon Richman September 13, 2010

President Barack Obama was far from candid when he announced the end of combat operations in Iraq last month, but he did nothing to hide the fact that he is a neoconservative when it comes to the American empire. That was not lost on leading neoconservatives, who tend to prefer Republicans. William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, told a ...

Declaring Independence from the Federal Government

by Ken Sturzenacker July 20, 2010

The thousands of 4th of July celebrations did not focus much on our 1776 Declaration of Independence from England. Listening to the list of complaints against England’s King George would sound too much like the complaints against our own Congress and presidents over the past five decades or so. Instead, the official part of the festivities focused on our supposed status as 50 united ...

Republican Witch-Hunters Embrace Dictatorship

by Andy Worthington March 15, 2010

Are there no depths to which conservatives will not sink in their ardent embrace of the war on terrorism? The latest monstrosity from the right came courtesy of Keep America Safe, a toxic organization headed by Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently put out a disgraceful TV ad, Who ...

McCain’s Self-Righteous Fakery

by Sheldon Richman September 10, 2008

If John McCain keeps up that self-righteous fakery about wanting to be our servant, were in for two rather tedious months until election day. First of all, he also says he wants to be our leader. How can he be both our leader and our servant? We know whats really going on here. The servant shtick is phony humility intended ...

George Bush, Big-Government Man

by Sheldon Richman April 14, 2008

In an unscripted and candid moment, a top spokesman for President-elect Barack Obama let the cat out of the bag. On Meet the Press, interviewer Tom Brokaw asked transition co-chair Valerie Jarrett, I wonder if, as a Democrat, which has always represented the party of big government, ... there will be a kind of paradigm shift this time, that ...

The CIA’s Detention, Interrogation, and Rendition Program (video)

by Joanne Mariner November 16, 2007

On June 3, 2007, Joanne Mariner gave the following Speech at FFF’s conference Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy and Civil Liberties. The speech can viewed below in its entirety.

They Deserved to Lose

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 8, 2006

Having lost control over the U.S. House of Representatives and possibly also the U.S. Senate, Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. They deserved to lose. For years, Republicans have used libertarian rhetoric in their political campaigns. We favor freedom, free enterprise, limited government, and responsibility, Republican candidates have so often proclaimed. Were opposed to big government, they loved ...

The Trouble with Conservatives

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2006

The trouble with conservatives is that they fail to live the principles of freedom that they expound. The problem, however, is not simply that conservatives set high standards and then fail to meet them after striving to do so. The problem is that conservatives expound standards that they knowingly and deliberately violate. Consider, for example, the mission statement of the ...

So, Who’s a Conservative?

by James Muhm March 1, 2006

It wasnt so long ago that most people, if they thought about politics at all, tended to categorize themselves as either liberal or conservative. And most of those people considered themselves to be conservative rather than liberal, by a margin of more than two to one. For most of the past 50 or so years, labeling oneself a conservative ...