Free Republic

A dagger is pointed at the heart of America. Its point is the deliberate misuse of the English language for the purpose of influencing how Americans speak and think. If the dagger is driven home, reason itself will be the principal victim. Reason is the human faculty concerned with forming good conclusions and making sound judgments.[1] It is the power of intelligent thought, and it takes us step by step on a journey to knowledge. We use words to take that journey because, as the English philosopher Francis Bacon once observed, words are the "footsteps of reason." But, as Bacon...

The putrid comments by David Letterman about Sarah Palin and her daughter, and the dethronement of Carrie Prejean for the vice of honesty, bring home just have savagely civil life has been murdered by the Left.  We no longer have a civil public life.  It has been crushed between pinchers of enraged nihilism and fantasy causes.  "Feminists" or the Ladies Auxiliary of Marxist Enmity (LAME) should be threatening boycotts of the CBS or demanding the de-politicization of beauty contests, but that presumes LAME cares about women:  its disciples care only about venting their private fury towards an empty life. What...

Where does all this stuff that you’ve heard about this morning – the victim feminism, the gay rights movement, the invented statistics, the rewritten history, the lies, the demands, all the rest of it – where does it come from? For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic. We have seen other countries, particularly in this century, where this has been...

Cover    Excerpt from "The Legal Status of Women under Federal Law" - Ruth Bader Ginsburg - Cover Only [PDF format, 11 kb] 1. Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Prostitution:    Excerpt from "The Legal Status of Women under Federal Law" - Ruth Bader Ginsburg - p72 [PDF format, 45 kb] 2. Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Segregating Prisoners by Sex    Excerpt from "The Legal Status of Women under Federal Law" - Ruth Bader Ginsburg - p75 [PDF format, 30 kb] 3. Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Rights of Bigamists    Excerpt from "The Legal Status of Women under Federal Law" - Ruth Bader...

An extension of the Hate Crimes law recently passed the House of Representatives which will essentially codify into national law the "speech codes" that are smothering academic freedom on college campuses today. This law is the back door method Obama and his fellow socialists will use to stifle free speech in this country, as explained in an informative article by Jerry Kane at American Daughter. To heck with the "Fairness Doctrine." Who needs to limit censorship to the airwaves? This legislation will silence anyone who disagrees with them. Hate crimes legislation has its roots in the communist-inspired, so-called Frankfurt School...

A much more insideous move is behind the Gay Rights movement than most of us dare to imagine. It is an attempt to stamp out Moses and the laws handed him by God. You talk about the Audacity of Hope! The leftists are going for the "whole enchilada" on this one.more...

Members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee today rejected an opportunity to protect Christian pastors who preach the biblical condemnation of homosexuality and approved on a 15-12 vote a "hate crimes" bill that supporters admit could be used to bring charges against religious leaders. The bill, H.R. 1913, now will be considered by the full House of Representatives. The committee rejected a number of amendments offered by several members seeking to protect religious liberty, to protect the unborn, to protect against violence by illegal aliens, and to clarify the bill's meanings of "gender identity" and "sexual orientation." One of the...

The distemper of lies, misdirection and tawdry thinking abroad in the world today has now acquired bubonic proportions. This is mainly a a liberal-left phenomenon intent upon a campaign of cultural domination that began with the rainbow revolution of the so-called Woodstock generation and which has finally percolated into every nook and cranny of our daily existence. In its takeover of our cultural life, the generation of the 60s has adhered loyally to the course of action set down for it by two neo-Marxist philosophers, the Italian New Left prophet Antonio Gramsci and the German emigré Herbert Marcuse, whose doctrines...

In The Historical Roots of 'Political Correctness,' author Raymond V. Raehn observed that America is "dominated by an alien system of beliefs, attitudes, and values that we have come to know as 'Political Correctness.' Political Correctness seeks to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans and is therefore totalitarian in nature. Its roots lie in a version of Marxism which seeks a radical inversion of the traditional culture in order to create a social revolution." (www.freecongress.org) Political Correctness and Multiculturalism are a modified version of the gnostic- Marxism formulated by the Frankfurt School. The new version is...

You've heard all about the disputes: "Silent Night" banned at the "holiday" program, artistic references to the Bible censored and faith-inclusive children's programs facing discrimination. Now some people are fed up with public school treatment of Christianity and have launched a campaign calling for a rescue of kids from government education programs – a "Call to Dunkirk."

I may be a little worried but I do wish Barack Obama well. He cuts a personable and an attractive figure as a political leader -- provisionally at least -- and these things are important. The soaring rhetoric is in itself also appealing in a political leader especially when viewed from the land of dull-as-ditchwater Gordon Brown. On the negative side, it has to be said, is the vacuous but relentless Change mantra. He always leaves you panting on the edge of your seat waiting for the next sentence; change What? How? Why? that never comes. But you see, we...

November 05, 2008, 9:30 a.m. Eight Wasted YearsAnd the ratchet slips free. By John Derbyshire To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. Thus Barack Obama, writing in his autobiography about his time at the expensive liberal-arts college Occidental in California. I’d like to tell you that he goes on to mock his young...

Uncovering the roots of the disastrous home mortgage bubble that popped last year will keep economic historians busy for decades. Yet, one factor has so far been largely overlooked: the bipartisan social engineering crusade to drive up the rate of homeownership by handing out more mortgages to minorities. More than a negligible amount of the blame for the mortgage meltdown can be traced back to multiculturalism: government-mandated affirmative-action lending, demographic change, illegal immigration, and the mind-numbing effects of political correctness. The chickens have finally come home to roost. About half of all mortgages for blacks and Hispanics are subprime, versus...

The drumbeat. It's always there. Day and night. Rain or shine. Winter or Summer. Sunday or Monday. It comes at you from every direction. It comes over the TV, the radio, at work, at school, in music, in the newspapers, from the politicians, in conversation with others, even in church. It wears you down. It robs you of the will to resist its message. Even short-lived victories, which stop it briefly, leave you with the knowledge that it will return; each minor victory bound to be lost to the redoubled efforts of this patient and persistent force. You can't escape...

The drumbeat. It's always there. Day and night. Rain or shine. Winter or Summer. Sunday or Monday. It comes at you from every direction. It comes over the TV, the radio, at work, at school, in music, in the newspapers, from the politicians, in conversation with others, even in church. It wears you down. It robs you of the will to resist its message. Even short-lived victories, which stop it briefly, leave you with the knowledge that it will return; each minor victory bound to be lost to the redoubled efforts of this patient and persistent force. You can't escape...

Where does all this stuff that you�ve heard about this morning � the victim feminism, the gay rights movement, the invented statistics, the rewritten history, the lies, the demands, all the rest of it � where does it come from? For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic. We have seen other countries, particularly in this century, where this has been...

Cultural MarxismBy Linda Kimball There are two misconceptions held by many Americans.  The first is that communism ceased to be a threat when the Soviet Union imploded.  The second is that the New Left of the Sixties collapsed and disappeared as well.  "The Sixties are dead," wrote columnist George Will ("Slamming the Doors," Newsweek, Mar. 25, 1991) Because the New Left lacked cohesion it fell apart as a political movement.  However, its revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups.  Thus we now have for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war ‘peace' activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists,...

On some issues the public is ahead of its political leaders. Sex education is one of them. By substantial margins, Floridians favor providing students with information about sexually transmitted disease prevention and contraception rather than just an abstinence-only approach favored by the Bush administration. The Legislature should hear this call and put the health of Florida's teens ahead of a narrow, religiously grounded agenda. According to a recent St. Petersburg Times poll, of the nine in 10 Florida voters who agree that the public schools should offer some form of sex eduction, only 8 percent said it should be abstinence-only....

An Oklahoma lawmaker has received an avalanche of criticism, reportedly including a few death threats, for calling homosexuality a greater threat to America than terrorism. Republican state legislator Sally Kern has apparently made the comment in more than one venue, and even now defends her statement while the condemnation rolls in from around the country. Kern has only mellowed it to insist that she meant no gay-bashing: A YouTube audio clip of a state lawmaker’s screed against homosexuality, which she called a bigger threat than terrorism, has outraged gay activists and brought death threats rolling in.“The homosexual agenda is destroying...

National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole sent me an email today. I wasn't particularly touched. It merely had the Subject line: Season's Greetings! and the card below. Mr. Cole, do you mind mentioning the REASON for the Season? This is the kind of secular stupidity that alienates your base, Sir. Merry Christmas! The check's not in the mail.

Progressivism was the reform movement that ran from the late 19th century through the first decades of the 20th century, during which leading intellectuals and social reformers in the United States sought to address the economic, political, and cultural questions that had arisen in the context of the rapid changes brought with the Industrial Revolution and the growth of modern capitalism in America. The Progressives believed that these changes marked the end of the old order and required the creation of a new order appropriate for the new industrial age. There are, of course, many different representations of Progressivism: the...

A controversial bill that bans bias against homosexuals, transgenders, and bisexuals in public schools was passed on Thursday by the California Senate, unleashing a wave of concern through those opposed to normalizing homosexuality. SB 777 went through by a 23-13 vote, and would prohibit all classes, textbooks, and teachers from any instruction that "reflects or promotes bias against" those perceived with gender issues. All instructional materials and school activities would then have to positively portray all of these sexually alternative lifestyles, something many refuse to support. Children starting from kindergarten would learn about the practices, as a result, and would...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Airport officials have fired a luggage attendant who admitted playing a Bible verse that offended a gay couple over an airport speaker system. Jethro Monestime acknowledged that he played the message twice just after midnight on May 1. He told investigators Sunday that it was a prank. Monestime said he used his cell phone to play a recording that said, quote: "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, they should be put to death." The announcement came from a variation of Leviticus 20:13. Broward County Mayor Josephus Eggelletion Junior said...

HOUSTON, May 11 — Rudolph W. Giuliani directly challenged Republican orthodoxy on Friday, asserting that his support for abortion rights, gun control and gay rights should not disqualify him from winning the party’s presidential nomination. He said that Republicans needed to be tolerant of dissenting views on those issues if they wanted to retain the White House. In a forceful summation of the substantive and political case for his candidacy, delivered to a conservative audience at Houston Baptist College, Mr. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, acknowledged that his views on social issues were out of line with those...

Much has been written recently about the fact that Democrats, arguably with malicious intent, mercilessly attack Republican positions, programs, and political appointees without offering any positive alternatives of their own. This has been ascribed variously to their hatred of George W. Bush (which is certainly a factor), to the fact that a significant percentage of the Democrat base and their elected representatives are unrepentant '60s-style liberals (this, too, plays into the current scenario), even, as Michael Medved has put it, to "an internal contradiction deep within the liberal soul." The bottom line is that, no matter how we might characterize...

The Framing Wars By MATT BAI Published: July 17, 2005 After last November's defeat, Democrats were like aviation investigators sifting through twisted metal in a cornfield, struggling to posit theories about the disaster all around them. *snip* *snip* Democrats thought they knew the answer. Even before the election, a new political word had begun to take hold of the party, beginning on the West Coast and spreading like a virus all the way to the inner offices of the Capitol. That word was ''framing.'' Republicans, of course, were the ones who had always excelled at framing controversial issues, having invented...

Once elected, the party of "tolerance" will implement its jihad against conservatives, morality, and most of all, Christians! NoDNC.com staff reportThe "Democrat" agenda is nothing but a front for implementing the collapse of America that Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci defined long ago.  His plan was simple, expand the Marxist class warfare, which is economically focused, to the areas of values and morality.  In other words, wage a war on virtue, values, morality, and of course, any religious view that espouses morality - can we say Christianity and Catholicism?If the Democrats take control of one or both Houses of Congress...

Are American Democrats De Facto Socialists? by Lee Ellis Date: May 4, 2007 The only way to conquer a nation is to infiltrate its institutions and churches with strong, left-leaning indoctrination, advised the founder of modern socialism. FSM Contributing Editor Lee Ellis explores the methods by which current DNC leaders have morphed into unabashed Socialists. You can’t afford to ignore this stunning report.Are American Democrats De Facto Socialists? By Lee Ellis Many people who love America and the values it has established over the years have written to me, expressing great concern about the sudden spiraling down of our nation....

Homosexual activist predicted takeover of nation by Randy Sharp In 1987, gay revolutionist Michael Swift accurately outlined the homosexual movement in America. In less than two decades, Swift's predictions have come to pass. When first published, American Family Association reprinted it in the October 1987, edition of the National Federation for Decency (NFD is now American Family Association (AFA)) Journal. Ironically, many in the Christian community scoffed at the contention that the homosexual movement could actually attain the article's outrageous goals. In the text below are the ominous predictions by Michael Swift, "Gay Revolutionary," printed in bold type [note: I've...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court threw out death sentences for three Texas killers Wednesday because of problems with instructions given jurors who were deciding between life in prison and death. In the case of LaRoyce Lathair Smith, the court set aside the death penalty for the second time. It also reversed death sentences for Brent Ray Brewer and Jalil Abdul-Kabir. The cases all stem from jury instructions that Texas hasn't used since 1991. Under those rules, courts have found that jurors were not allowed to give sufficient weight to factors that might cause them to impose a life sentence...

"A plan being shoved down the fast tract of the Oregon State Legislature would give homosexuals a vast range of new state laws they could use to impose their moral perspective on Christians across the state, according to opponents who fear for their speech and religious expression rights. Senate Bill 2, on its face, is written to enshrine in state law special protections for homosexuals by classifying them as a protected civil rights group....."

BRASILIA, Brazil, MARCH 18, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Debate continues over so-called homophobia legislation, which seeks to criminalize anything considered a condemnation of homosexuality, including priests who speak against the practice in homilies. Priests could face two to five years imprisonment for preaching against homosexuality. And a rector of a seminary who refuses admission to a homosexual student could face three to five years. Thursday, Brazil's Senate declined to vote on the legislation. Instead, the senators decided to form a work group, which will organize public audiences to hear specialists on the subject. According to ZENIT sources, a number of citizens voiced...

From: LifeSiteNews US Court Rules it's OK to Censor the Terms 'Natural Family,' 'Marriage' and 'Family Values' Attorney representing harassed Christian employess warns, "If we choose to be silent, silenced we shall be" TEMECULA, California, March 8, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Earlier this week, San Francisco's United States notorious Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the matter of Good News Employees Association v. Hicks that municipal employers can completely censor the terms "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" as hate speech. The court concluded that municipalities have a right to literally dictate what form an employee's speech may take, even...

I wanted to write something about the degenerative effects of incivility in politics in the wake of the comments and commentary today. Instead, a CQ reader sent me a link to a speech three years ago by Heritage Foundation president Dr. Edwin J. Fuelner. In speaking to the graduating class of Hillsdale College on May 8, 2004, Dr. Fuelner warned the young men and women that our democracy depends on the healthy exchange of ideas and arguments -- and that incivility degrades the social compact on which that debate depends: This is the real danger of incivility. Our free, self-governing...

"Horst Wessel was murdered because he was a National Socialist." Joseph Goebbels-1930 "Matthew Shepherd was killed because he was gay" Common Belief-Today Both statements tell stories that don't reflect all the facts of the original cases. Adolf Hitler postulated in "Mein Kampf" that if you tell a big lie, it would be believed more than the small ones that everyone tells and accepts as being lies. Hitler also believed that even if the truth came out later, the lie would still stick. Horst Wessel was a Nazi Storm Trooper (Brownshirt) who left his wealthy family to live on the streets....

All of a sudden the “fusionist conservatism” of libertarian means and traditionalist ends that created the modern conservative movement is in the news, and under fire. Ryan Sager has written a book—The Elephant in the Room--on how the traditionalists have pushed aside the libertarians, selling out freedom by legislating traditional ends. As a result, CATOs Brink Lindsey went so far as to demand a “new fusionism” between his libertarians and liberal progressives as a better bargain for those who favor liberty. snip What is the debate all about? Before the 1950s there were no conservatives, only traditionalists and libertarians of...

Lawyers representing a Massachusetts school district named as a defendant in a parent's civil rights complaint have said teachers at Estabrook Elementary School have a "legitimate state interest" in teaching the homosexual lifestyle, and parents have no input into those decisions.... ...."The state must fight 'discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation' in ways that 'do not perpetuate stereotypes,'" the lawyers for the school district argued. They also explained to the judge that, in their opinion, parents have no right to control what ideas the school presents to elementary schoolchildren, and if parents disagree with that dictate, they can take...

There are two misconceptions held by many Americans.  The first is that communism ceased to be a threat when the Soviet Union imploded.  The second is that the New Left of the Sixties collapsed and disappeared as well.  "The Sixties are dead," wrote columnist George Will ("Slamming the Doors," Newsweek, Mar. 25, 1991) Because the New Left lacked cohesion it fell apart as a political movement. However, its revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups. Thus we now have for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war ‘peace' activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, and ‘gay' rights groups....

On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb.

On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb. *snip* By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get. I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on...

....I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future....

The New Soviet Union: America and the West January 23, 2007 Vox Populi By Linda Kimball In “The Historical Roots of ‘Political Correctness,’ author Raymond V. Raehn observed that America is “dominated by an alien system of beliefs, attitudes, and values that we have come to know as ‘Political Correctness.’ Political Correctness seeks to impose a uniformity of thought and behavior on all Americans and is therefore totalitarian in nature. Its roots lie in a version of Marxism which seeks a radical inversion of the traditional culture in order to create a social revolution.” (www.freecongress.org) Political Correctness and Multiculturalism are...

We hear a lot these days about a divided nation. So I began wondering this week why our nation has begun to embrace a relatively new celebration known as Kwanzaa, which is not as innocent as it appears on the surface. Launched in 1966, Kwanzaa is celebrated for seven days, beginning Dec. 26. The weeklong festival was introduced by Ron Karenga (aka Ron Everett), a black author and Marxist devotee, who has a very dubious history. Mr. Karenga's Marxist roots should be a warning signal right off the bat, but there's more to be concerned about here. In 1969, on...

BUNGLING mail chiefs were yesterday accused of taking the Christ out of Christmas. They unveiled this year’s festive stamps – which ignore the season’s holy background. Furious Christian politicians joined the Church of England to condemn the Royal Mail over its six faith-free designs. Instead of biblical scenes like the Nativity, the Star of Bethlehem and the Three Wise Men, executives opted for secular symbols including snowmen, reindeer and Santa Claus. Last night critics accused the Royal Mail of snubbing Britain’s Christian heritage in a politically-correct bid to avoid offending other religions. A Church of England spokesman said: "Last year...

I think this is the greatest article I've read in a long time. It's a long read, but well worth it. Political Correctness — The Revenge of Marxism by Baron Bodissey The Fjordman Report The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report as a guest-post at Gates of Vienna. FrontPage Magazine: You make the shrewd observation of how political correctness engenders evil because of “the violence that it does to people’s souls by forcing them to say or imply what they do not believe, but must not question.” Can you talk about this a bit? Theodore Dalrymple: Political correctness is...

Generally, there are two types of marijuana users. First is the most commonly stereotyped “stoner,” depicted in the media of movies (e.g. Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and television (e.g. Shaggy from Scooby Doo). These are the dead-end job, ambitionless abusers who ingest marijuana to escape their already dismal lives. They represent the image which is most often associated with marijuana use. Certainly, the average American high school is teeming with similar directionless pot-smoking losers, further cementing this public perception.

Conservatives swore that they’d shrink the government once they got power. Well, they have it -- and the government is bigger than ever. Now, some on the right have a surprising response: Embrace the welfare state. Taking its name from a series of antityranny pamphlets published in the early 18th century, the libertarian Cato Institute is the foremost advocate for small-government principles in American life. Its 95 full-time employees, 70 adjunct scholars, 20 fellows, and army of interns work out of an eye-catching cube of glass and steel on Massachusetts Avenue and generated more than $22.4 million in revenues in...

There are two misconceptions held by many Americans. The first is that communism ceased to be a threat when the Soviet Union imploded. The second is that the New Left of the Sixties collapsed and disappeared as well. “The Sixties are dead,” wrote columnist George Will (Slamming the Doors, Newsweek, Mar. 25, 1991) Because the New Left lacked cohesion it fell apart as a political movement. However, its revolutionaries reorganized themselves into a multitude of single issue groups. Thus we now have for example, radical feminists, black extremists, anti-war ‘peace’ activists, animal rights groups, radical environmentalists, and ‘gay’ rights groups....

Most Americans have been politically corrected and don't even know it, because it is beginning to feel so natural. If you find yourself compromising your principles in order to get along with those with whom you don't agree, you, my friend have been infected with political correctness. Political correctness is a politically correct word for cultural Marxism. Just how do you know if you have been affected? The simple test is that if you have been afraid of using the wrong word because someone might find it offensive or insensitive you have been infected. If you want to say something...

Bill requires gays' history to be taught STATE SENATOR WANTS CALIFORNIA TO LEAD WAY By Aaron C. Davis Mercury News Sacramento Bureau SACRAMENTO - The state Senate will consider a bill that would require California schools to teach students about the contributions gay people have made to society -- an effort that supporters say is an attempt to battle discrimination and opponents say is designed to use the classroom to get children to embrace homosexuality. The bill, which was passed by a Senate committee Tuesday, would require schools to buy textbooks ``accurately'' portraying ``the sexual diversity of our society.'' More...