Free Republic

There were two thinkers who were greatly influential in forming philosophies that would affect the future political theories that followed. The greatest thinker of the modern age was John Locke, who provided the framework that would allow for liberal democracy. A thinker who perhaps inadvertently laid down the foundation for totalitarianism was Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Both Locke and Rousseau were grand thinkers, but Rousseau was an advocate of his own form of collectivism while Locke believed in individualism, the basis for a truly free society. It is sensible to begin by analyzing Locke, as he preceded Rousseau. John Locke writes in...

"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythologies, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins — or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that at least he won his own kingdom — Lucifer." Rules for Radicals, Saul Alinsky "A radical programme of social legislation, particularly unemployment insurance; the shifting of the burden of taxation to the wealthy classes; free popular-education — all these and similar measures, which in themselves do...

Those who still think that it's a good idea for government to "spread the wealth around" must think they're "wiser than God." That's what Plymouth Governor William Bradford concluded nearly 400 years ago after one of America's first socialist experiments led not to shared wealth, but pooled poverty. The Pilgrims, whom we remember at Thanksgiving, started life in the New World with a system of common ownership forced on them by Plymouth colony investors. That quasi-socialist arrangement proved disastrous, and had to be scrapped for one which gave these first Americans the right to keep the fruits of their labor...

Have you ever noticed that people on the left hold the public sector and the private sector to a different set of standards? If a public official and a private citizen commit the exact same wrongful act, the private citizen will be judged much more harshly. Consider this revelation in the news the other day: · Arizona…plans to limit adult Medicaid recipients to 25 days of hospital coverage a year, starting as soon as the end of October.· Hawaii plans to cut Medicaid coverage to 10 days a year in April.· Other states have already limited hospital stays under Medicaid:...

Elizabeth Warren, Harvard law professor and former Obama administration regulator (for consumer protection), is modern liberalism incarnate. As she seeks the Senate seat Democrats held for 57 years before 2010, when Scott Brown impertinently won it, she clarifies the liberal project and the stakes of contemporary politics. The project is to dilute the concept of individualism, thereby refuting respect for the individual's zone of sovereignty. The regulatory state, liberalism's instrument, constantly tries to contract that zone — for the individual's own good, it says. Warren says: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You...

Looks like Barack Obama really made an impression on the Congressional Black Caucus this weekend — but not the one he intended. Maxine Waters tells CBS that she’s not sure exactly who Obama thought he was addressing, and claimed that the CBC has worked a whole lot more on unemployment than the President has, without whining about their critics. But Waters goes one better by telling CBS that Obama wouldn’t have dared telling a couple of other identity groups to stop griping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI0drr-F-2U&feature=player_embedded

Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren dismissed the GOP’s “class warfare” criticism of President Obama’s push for tax increases as “founded on fantastical notions about individual rights.” “The argument that people somehow have a ‘right’ to keep what they earn is totally bogus,” Warren contended. “In our complex economy it takes cooperation to produce anything. Who can say what anybody has ‘earned?’” Rather than leave the allocation of rewards to what she characterized as “the arbitrary whims of the market,” Warren argued for a “socially determined distribution of the jointly produced output.” “Wouldn’t it be more equitable for the people’s...

Combine class warfare, demonizing the rich, getting as many people onto the welfare rolls as possible, and pushing the economic system to collapse and you have a flawless formula for Cloward-Piven 2.0 -- and a vehicle that ensures Obama remains in power.

De-Emphasizing marriage and abolishing State Marriage would definitely have been seen as liberal, up until very recently. Certainly, removing state control over an area where it is not required is definitely liberal. That was the understanding when I began to back this long term goal back in 2004. (snip) ...the reason why we are fighting for marriage equality is because we have to work with the present governmental system for a while yet. Marriage equality is currently easier to achieve than getting government out of the business, but the latter should be our long term goal. As for de-emphasizing marriage...

Brock Chisolm, former Director of the (United Nations) World Health Organization, is quoted as saying, "To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men, their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism and religious dogmas." [GWB quote of the day, 7/7/1999]. Remove from the minds of men? Doesn't that sound like mental conditioning? How does that square with the Alexander Downer/Tim Fischer version of globalism as freer markets? It doesn't, does it? Some years ago another hero of the globalist-Left, B.F.Skinner, in his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity, mounted a concerted attack on what he...

A paper published by several college professors, entitled Organizing the Curriculum for Labor Consciousness, calls for more weaving of Big Labor history and tactics into every day curriculum. Take the case of Kate Lyman, a teacher in the Madison, Wisconsin school district. According to an article she penned for the leftist Rethinking Schools magazine, she was swept into the protests by her daughter and Facebook, because “that’s how they did it in Egypt.” When teacher staged a “sick out,” Lyman described it as “four exhilarating days, four confusing days, four stressful and exhausting days.” For the record, she’s speaking of...

As you pump 13 gallons into your Honda CR-V -- American's best-selling SUV with 28 mpg on the highway and 21 in town -- it's nearly impossible to view the $50 you're spending with a positive attitude. With the national average for regular at $3.81, it's easy to label oil executives as pond scum, but try to remain open-minded. Think of the big picture: Though that promised road trip to Disney World has gone up in carbon monoxide, high gas prices may actually have an upside. Not for you and your family personally, maybe, but perhaps for the United States...

You've sent me emails in the past, commenting on my appearances on CNBC's Kudlow Report, my columns for the Wall Street Journal, National Review, SmartMoney or TheStreet.com, my Krugman Truth Squad column, or my blog The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor & Stupid. So I thought you'd like to know that thanks to the encouragement of people like you, I've written a book that brings together all the ideas I've been talking about, writing about and blogging about over the past ten years. My new book, written with Andrew Greta, is called I Am John Galt, and it was...

Lately, there have been duelling stories in the entertainment press about the future of ”Atlas Shrugged.” With disappointing box office returns, the producers have been asked if they will go ahead and complete the franchise and in one interview we’re being told there will be no trilogy and in another we’re being told that there will. To clear the air, I reached out via email and “Atlas” producers John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow were both good enough to respond with exclusive quotes that should help to calm fears of “Atlas” fans everywhere. Most surprising, though, was the revelation CNN, CNBC,...

One week til it opens. Anticipation High. Atlas Shrugged Site IMDb Site Rotten Tomatoes Site -- wow, right now a whopping 82?? First of 3 in series if box office is good. DO read the book if you have not done so. It is long but doable in a week. Get paperback at local Bookstore etc. Understand most libraries have waiting lists

I just finished reading Ayn Rand’s, The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution which is a compilation of articles she wrote in the late sixties and early seventies. In these articles she takes dead aim at the drug induced hippie movement and dissects them with her unique philosophy, objectivism. While she was recounting the debauchery and horrors of Woodstock, I was left wondering; did America’s greatest generation give birth to America’s worst generation? Tom Brokaw coined the term for those who came of age during the Great Depression and then went on to fight in World War II in his book...

I remember being grouped together with other students as early as the first grade. Rather than being arranged in rows of individual desks, we were clustered in groups of four, facing each other. We were given work to do as a group, rather than as individuals. I despised the practice then, and I continued to all the way through college. It didn't seem right to have to compensate for others and share a grade. The result was always the same. I did less and worse than I would have individually. It was far more work to pull others along than...

“…Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya, in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians…”Thus began a press conference with President Barack Obama. It was Saturday March 19th. While traveling in Brazil, he took a few minutes to announce that a military response to the Gaddafi crisis was underway. Calling the matter “a limited military action in Libya” that would “protect Libyan civilians” was an earnest attempt at a positive spin. But this fact remains: after spending the first two years of his presidency insisting that the...

What do Moveon.org, thinkprogress.org, americanprogress.org, and mediamatters.org all have in common ? Well, they're all part of Pharoah $oros' empire....They're all followed by the 2+2=5 crowd....They all hate America.....Oh yeah, NOT ONE OF THEM HAS COME OUT AGAINST CHAIRMAN OBAMA'S LIBYAN ADVENTURE! If you'll kindly take a stroll with me down Memory Hole Lane, you'll recall that all of the above websites and parent organizations were virulently against the wars in Afganistan and Iraq. They often compared then President Bush to Adolf Hitler, chanted nonsense like "Not in my name!", held peace rallies, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. It...

He's going to try fleshing it out in real life. For the uninitiated, Directive 10-289 is ratified roughly halfway through Atlas Shrugged as an emergency measure. It locks the economy in place. As they learned the hard way in the subsequent pages, economy, like an education, is motion, not a status, position or level. To lock it in place is to kill it. Point One: All workers, wage earners, and employees of any kind whatsoever shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed nor change employment... Point Two: All industrial, commercial, manufacturing, and business...