Free Republic

This essay is specifically written for young black Americans who believe or have absorbed the incessant message that the ghetto and life on the margin are their destiny, that success is unattainable, and that dreams are only for white people. Before you are halfway through the essay, many of you will be condemning and ridiculing me as simplistic, unrealistic, idealistic, and naive. But you ignore my message at your own peril. It is very demanding. Anything worth having is very demanding. Your friends may ostracize you and ridicule you as “trying to be white.” If that’s the case, are they...

If I could ask one question of the protesters, it would be, "Can I please see a copy of your 2018-2019 tax returns?" You burn, you pillage, you destroy---but you contribute nothing. As Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell advised, graduate high school, get a job and get married. If you can't find a job, join the military. Stay outta trouble. I have an article posted on my website, artfuldilettante.com. I will attempt to post it. It's spot on.

My 24-year-old son came up with a fabulous idea to resume spectator sports in our country. Before having your ticket scanned, every ticket holder has to submit to a rectal temperature reading. Every fan has to drop their pants and underwear, bend over and spread 'em, while an attendant takes your temperature. Everybody in line gets to watch the process, optionally of course. If your temperature is within the normal range, you get your ticket scanned and proceed to the metal detector. And they say youth is wasted on the young.

“Public Enemies List: Trump supporters face boycotts, bullying amid calls to be named and shamed” [Fox News headline] “They want to cost people their livelihoods just because you don’t agree with them politically,” Sam DeMarco, Allegheny County councilman and chairman of the county’s Republican Party, told the local CBS affiliate. “It’s not just absurd, but I believe it’s dangerous.” DeMarco continued, “People who they just don’t agree with, they want to take and punish. I absolutely believe this is a fascist behavior, and I totally reject it.” This is real. Anyone who’s a Trump supporter knows that opponents of the...

How did Democrats get so radical? Bill Clinton signed welfare reform and capital gains tax cuts. Although very leftist himself, even Barack Obama was not the full-blown socialist-Communist today’s crop of Democrats are. Joe Biden, a consistent leftist for 50 years, gets to run as a “moderate” alternative to those who seek 90 percent tax rates (evidently he only wants 70 percent). How did it all happen? The answer is simple: There was nowhere left to go. Back at the end of Obama’s term, I wrote about how leftists are grouchy. It was before Donald Trump was taken seriously as...

Wealth and Poverty are Caused by Parenting and Habits APRIL 17, 2014 BY THOMAS C. CORLEY 1 COMMENT There are three types of parents. Rich Parents, Poverty Parents and Middle-Class Parents. Rich Parents teach their kids the Rich Habits and their children grow up to become happy, successful and wealthy. Those who are raised in Rich Parenting households represent about 5% of the population in America. This 5% do not struggle financially, have nice homes, vacation at the nicest places and are generally well educated. Having learned the Rich Habits from their parents, they pass along what they’ve learned to their children and...

Having an open border combined with a welfare state is crazy. It’s like having a really nice house with really nice things inside, and then telling people, “It’s all yours. Come on in any time you want. Take whatever you wish”. What do you think would happen? It’s stupid not to have locks on your doors. But it’s even more stupid to treat all your things as if they all belong to others. Yet that’s pretty much what we’re doing now in America, or at least we WILL be doing if the leftists, Democrats and RINO types get their way....

Here’s how a young person turns socialist. One, envy. Envy is the view, “Others have a lot. I can never have a lot. That’s not fair”. A non-envious person sees success or achievement and thinks, “Wow, if he did that, I can do that too”. An envious person thinks, “He can do/have all that. But I can’t. That’s not fair”. All the young socialists I know are envious. Two, low self-confidence. “I don’t know how to use my mind. I have no clue.” That’s because of Common Core/public education, in most cases. Such schooling is based not just on leftist...

This is a serious question, but I can't get a serious answer. Where can I get a temporary tattoo ? One that lasts as long as I like, be it a day or the rest of my life. It goes like this. One steps into a tattoo parlor. You get the tattoo, and the tattoo parlor gives you a dissolving solution when you leave to be used whenever you like, or not. I cannot believe this has not been invented.

Medicare for All”. Who can argue with that? No more struggles with medical care. No more worries about cost or insurance. You simply go to the doctor … and it’s free. Why SHOULD you have to worry about money? There are so many fallacies here. One you will hear little about in the coming presidential campaign: the rights of doctors. Also the rights of nurses, and all the allied health care professionals. Kamala Harris — the last I checked — was the new front runner for the Democratic Party, at least according to the media. A few weeks back, Harris...

"Send her back” is not an affirmation of racism. It’s an affirmation of “I love my country — and if you don’t love it, get out.” When your country is a free country, to love your country is to love your freedom. Properly and rationally, you see people who hate your country as a threat to your freedom. Of course you want them out! And if these toxic members of Congress now known as “The Squad” hate freedom so much, why on earth would they want to stay here? For only one reason: To use their power in Congress and...

Privatizing Public Lands Doesn't Mean Building Shopping Centers 07/18/2019Gor Mkrtchian Protected public lands in the United States — including national forests, national parks, and similar areas — cover nearly 500,000 square miles, or 14 percent of the land area of the United States. The existence of these government-controlled lands gives the federal government immense power over much of the United States, and in some US states, the federal government controls a majorityof the land area. Thanks to the popularity of some public lands, known for their natural beauty, federal control of so much land nonetheless remains popular, and the idea of privatizing...

Borderline Personality Disorder and Snowflake America In psychology, there’s a term called “borderline personality disorder”. Borderline personalities see themselves as victims, even though they’re not victims. Usually, they blame everything on their parents. Interestingly, in their failure to launch, they typically remain at home with their parents into their 20s, 30s and even beyond. This helplessness and failure reinforces their unhealthy narrative that their parents are to blame for everything. And yet: If their parents are so evil, aren’t they the last people they would wish to live with? Wouldn’t they make it the central purpose of their lives to...

I don’t understand the idea that ideology is a bad thing. Notice the contradiction here? “Ideas are a bad thing.” That itself is an idea. Democrats, some party insiders say, are going over a cliff. They’re going all-out socialist. Even Communist. One of their leading figures wants to tear down every single building in America and build new ones, conforming to environmentalist standards. Most of her colleagues in the Establishment either agree, or are reluctant to be seen disagreeing. Is ideology to blame for this madness? No way. It’s not ideology that’s to blame. Ideology simply means the presence of...

Accountability is an ethical issue. But it’s also a psychological one. When you go through life never being held accountable, it impairs you psychologically. You might have otherwise been a decent, rational person. But when everyone walks around on eggshells about your feelings — never questioning or challenging you in any way — then it creates an unrealistic bubble around your mind and life. Some people are more emotional than others. Some are more sensitive than others. We don’t really know why, but that’s how it is. Being more sensitive is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, deeper and...

The first and chief design of every system of government is to maintain justice: to prevent the members of society from incroaching on one another’s property, or seizing what is not their own. The design here is to give each one the secure and peacable possession of his own property. - Adam Smith Utilizing property greatly advances a person’s opportunity to investment their time, intellect, labor and money. Coupled with limitless and competitive exchanges of ideas and products, these investments propel commerce, science, art and charity. Civilization advances. The USA: How Government Confiscates Private Property People seeking freedom throughout the...

The so-called Green New Deal that was recently posted as a congressional Resolution and endorsed by many high-profile Democrats is essentially a twenty-first century version of the 1888 utopian novel, Looking Backward, by the Marxist-inspired writer Edward Bellamy. The main character of the novel, one Julian West, falls asleep for 113 years and awakes in the year 2000 delighting in the fact that America had been turned into a socialist utopia. A major theme of the novel is that all the evils of society can be eradicated by more-or-less totalitarian government controls, mandates, and regulations. That is also the theme...

The environmentalist movement was never about smog, pollution or even global warming. In the minds of naive people who fell for the propaganda, it was. But the reality was always implicit. The environmentalist movement was always about control. And shame. The “Green New Deal” has exposed the environmentalist movement for what it is. It has made the insanity explicit. If you want to sum up environmentalism, you might call it urban religion. It’s an expression of guilt. “You live in a land of plenty. It’s shameful.” Today’s environmentalists are the modern Puritans. They’re repressive, shaming and hostile to comfort and...

If you think that the “tax the rich”rhetoric from the left-wing of the Democratic Party is primarily about economics you would be sadly mistaken. After all, there isn’t enough tax revenue in the highest income bracket, even with a 90% marginal rate, to fund anyone’s pet social program for more than 48 hours. Do progressives know this? Of course they do. The same observation holds true for the so-called ”Green New Deal” legislation recently proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the outrageous media darling from Queens. It’s true that this grab bag of environmental regulation, if enacted, would likely cost trillions and...

Years ago, in 1941, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm published a book called “Escape from Freedom”. Amazon summarizes the book as follows: The pursuit of freedom has indelibly marked Western culture since Renaissance humanism and Protestantism began the fight for individualism and self-determination. This freedom, however, can make people feel unmoored, and is often accompanied by feelings of isolation, fear, and the loss of self, all leading to a desire for authoritarianism, conformity, or destructiveness. It is not only the question of freedom that makes Fromm’s debut book a timeless classic. In this examination of the roots of Nazism and fascism in...