Religion & Liberty Online Archives

News and Events

July 29, 2005

Tocqueville turns 200

Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, was born on this date in 1805. Charles Colson, in his introduction to Carl F.H. Henry’s “Has Democracy Had Its Day?” writes that Tocqueville was a realist and recognized how fragile democracy is. Continue Reading...
July 28, 2005

You catch more bees with honey

Following months of Zimbabwe’s brutal “Drive Out Trash” campaign, pleasantries exchanged between Mugabe and a UN delegation may have made some headway. The UN report on the situation, according to Claudia Rosett, began “with a delicacy over-zealously inappropriate in itself to dealings with the tyrant whose regime has been responsible for wreck of Zimbabwe” by describing Mugabe’s reception of the UN officials with a “warm welcome.” Continue Reading...
July 27, 2005

Seeing the trees, missing the forest

The United Nations has released a report on the ongoing upheavals in Zimbabwe, where tyrant Robert Mugabe has been punishing his political opponents under the guise of “cleaning up” the country’s cities. Continue Reading...
July 27, 2005

Labor unions and free association

The Service Employees International Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have broken away from the AFL-CIO, complaining that the federation has focused too much on political activism in the face of declining union membership and influence. Continue Reading...
July 22, 2005

Drunk pilots going to prison

Thomas Cloyd, 47, of Peoria, Ariz., and co-pilot Christopher Hughes, 44, of Leander, Texas, have been sentenced after a June 8 conviction for being drunk when they settled into the cockpit of a Phoenix-bound America West jetliner in 2002. Continue Reading...
July 20, 2005

Pentagon keeps close watch on China’s military build-up

In an annual report to Congress the Pentagon claims that China now has up to 730 short-range ballistic missiles on its coast opposite Taiwan. Last year’s report found only 500. The Pentagon said China could now be spending up to $90 billion a year on defense, and that its military build-up is putting the region at risk. Continue Reading...
July 19, 2005

For Associate Justice – John G. Roberts, Jr.

President Bush announced tonight that he has chosen federal appeals judge John Roberts to succeed Sandra Day O’Connor as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Roberts is not a well known figure, but has garnered respect from across the political spectrum throughout his career: John G. Continue Reading...
July 14, 2005

Bastille day

On this date in 1789, citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille prison, sparking the French Revolution. Here’s a quote from Lord Acton comparing the American and the French revolutions: “What the French took from the Americans was their theory of revolution, not their theory of government — their cutting, not their sewing.” Continue Reading...
July 13, 2005

Updates from the EU

A morning blend of stories ranging from the strange to the maddening: Car-pool no-no: “a group of French cleaning ladies who organised a car-sharing scheme to get to work are being taken to court by a coach company which accuses them of ‘an act of unfair and parasitical competition’.” Continue Reading...