Free Republic

The introduction to "The Faber Book of Utopias," edited by John Carey, chronicles the methods of creating ideal citizens, which historically have been repeatedly promoted by utopian philosophers via the deconstruction or abolition of the family. Originally proposed by Plato in his magnum opus, "The Republic," this simple yet dramatic blueprint has influenced a number of social philosophers as diverse as More, Hobbes, Voltaire, Rousseau, to Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, B.F. Skinner, to socialist, liberal, progressive thinkers and politicians in modern times. Plato promoted the belief that the family should be completely deconstructed and its component parts used as...

Among the many concerns that captivated the American educated class early in the last century, few were thought to be as urgent as the threat posed to the nation by sexually insatiable female morons. This may sound silly; today, our fear of morons is rather abstract, and on a national scale confined mostly to whomever is the current resident of the White House. But a hundred years ago, morons were public enemy No. 1, seen as a drain on the nation’s resources and a grave danger to its stability. The situation was most keenly appreciated by progressives — scientists,...

“Intellectuals and Race“ by Thomas Sowell, Basic Books, 2013, 184 pages, $25.99. Thomas Sowell, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is not a newcomer to the theme of intellectuals and race. In his 1985 Marxism: Philosophy and Economics he noted that Karl Marx referred to German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle as a “Jewish n–ger,” based on his “cranial formation” and hair growth. Marx also said that Lassalle’s paternal grandmother or mother was “crossed with a n–ger” and that “the fellow’s importunity is also n–ger-like.” Sowell’s The Economics and Politics of Race, along other writings from a conservative viewpoint, drew attacks from...

A LETTER FROM PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT ON RACE SUICIDE (1907) [After reading Dr. Cronin's article on "The Doctor in the Public School," in the April number of the Review Of Reviews, President Roosevelt dictated the following letter to the editor of this magazine. Owing to the widespread interest in the subject, the President has acceded to the editor's request that the letter be given to the public. It is perhaps only fair to Dr. Cronin to call attention to the fact that he was dealing in his article with the question of large families in some of the crowded sections of...

The Oxford English Dictionary defines "poison" as "a substance that is capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed." The legal definition of the term is "any product or substance that can harm someone if it is used in the wrong way, by the wrong person, or in the wrong amount." The medical condition of poisoning is even broader: It can be caused by substances that are not even legally required to carry the label "poison." Therefore, can food become poisonous? Of course it can if it is infected, tampered with or altered...

Massive inbreeding within the Muslim culture during the last 1.400 years may have done catastrophic damage to their gene pool. The consequences of intermarriage between first cousins often have serious impact on the offspring’s intelligence, sanity, health and on their surroundings The most famous example of inbreeding is in ancient Egypt, where several Pharaonic dynasties collapsed after a couple of hundred years. In order to keep wealth and power within the family, the Pharaohs often married their own sister or half-sister and after a handful of generations the offspring were mentally and physically unfit to rule. Another historical example is...

One of the more effective arguments used by those arguing for same-sex marriage and sexual orientation anti-discrimination laws is that homosexuals have no choice in the matter -- that sexual orientation is something that you are born with, and you can't change it. The claim is that this is a natural part of human variability, no different from skin color or hair color or how tall you are. As an acquaintance -- a generally conservative, gay high power rifle shooter (talk about being a member of the world's smallest cross-section of identity groups) told me once, "Why would anyone choose...

In a chilling story by Rebekah Maxwell, people with disabilities in the UK are being targeted to be euthanized based on what she claims is the almighty dollar. From Do No Harm: Doctors Killing Disabled People?: “But a much more practical motivation also exists, and it goes ka-ching. In a land of nationalized health care, every worker pays into the system, so everybody can access the system. But some people are too weak, too old, too disabled to work. Yet they still need medical treatment, draining the system of resources without contributing to the pot. No longer does the UK...

Hospital staff at a mass sterilization camp in West Bengal dumped more than 100 women in a field to recover after their painful operations. Four doctors at the government-run Manikchak Rural Hospital in West Bengal are under investigation after conducting as many as 106 sterilization operations on Wednesday, the Times of India reports. Medical officials say that each of these patients should have been kept under close watch for at least three hours. Instead, doctors ordered them to be placed in an open, dirty field adjacent to the hospital, exposed to infection and to the eyes of onlookers.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Protesters rallied in dozens of cities Saturday as part of a global protest against seed giant Monsanto and the genetically modified food it produces, organizers said. Organizers said "March Against Monsanto" protests were held in 52 countries and 436 cities, including Los Angeles where demonstrators waved signs that read "Real Food 4 Real People" and "Label GMOs, It's Our Right to Know."… The U.S. Senate this week overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would allow states to require labeling of genetically modified foods.

Until recently, if a pregnant woman wanted to determine the genetic health of her baby, she had to endure a series of crude and invasive tests. Early in her second trimester, she would be given a blood test called the triple screen, which measures levels of three hormones in her bloodstream. The results of that test, combined with other factors such as the mother’s age, weight, and ethnicity as well as information gleaned from a high-definition ultrasound, provided a clue to whether her baby was at risk of having a chromosomal disorder (such as Down syndrome) or a neural tube...

"The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it." Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923)On blacks, immigrants and indigents: "...human weeds,' 'reckless breeders,' 'spawning... human beings who never should have been born." Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people

A 68-year-old councillor who said disabled children should be ‘put down’ sparked further controversy today by comparing them to deformed lambs who need to be culled. Cornwall Council veteran member Collin Brewer said children with disabilities should only be allowed to live after the cost has been evaluated - much like farmers who kill the runt of the litter. Independent Mr Brewer stood down earlier this year after he claimed disabled children could be put to death to save taxpayers’ money. He later apologised and quit the council - but then won back his seat in this month's local elections...

Were the theories of John Maynard Keynes blemished by the fact that he was a staunch eugenicist, a homosexual, and a bigot? Ricardo Crespo, an expert on Keynes, believes that these factors are not significant in evaluating Keynes' contribution. Ricardo Crespo John Maynard Keynes, the last century’s most famous economist, was in the news this week. Harvard’s celebrity economic historian Niall Ferguson was addressing the Altegris strategic investment conference in California, an event for investors and financial analysts, when he was asked a question about Keynes’s impact upon modern economies. To the consternation of his audience, he said that the...

One hundred years ago today, Woodrow Wilson brought Jim Crow to the North. He had been inaugurated on March 4, 1913. At a cabinet meeting on April 11, his postmaster general, Albert S. Burleson, suggested that the new administration segregate the railway mail service; and treasury secretary William G. McAdoo, who would soon become Wilson’s son-in-law, chimed in to signal his support. Wilson followed their lead. He had made a bid for the African-American vote in 1912, and he had attracted the support of figures such as W. E. B. Du Bois, but, as he put it at the meeting,...

I read somewhere that while both George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World contained dystopian futures, Huxley's world, where humans are made in "hatcheries" and the people were kept compliant, not by the threat of Big Brother, but by the numbing of their senses with the pleasure-inducing drug "soma," was a more plausible scenario. After reading "In vitro eugenics" by Dr. Robert Sparrow in the Journal of Medical Ethics, I have to agree. Dr. Sparrow explores the possibility of creating embryos in the lab, then using the stem cells from those embryos to create egg and sperm cells,...

Thanks to grass-roots activism, limited-government think tanks, whistle-blowing educators and bloggers, vigilant local and state legislators, and tireless parents committed to protecting their children, the truth about federalized Common Core standards is spreading.… Some stalwart conservatives inside the RNC get it. They’re bucking the mooooooderate Republican line on Common Core and have put forth a resolution being considered this afternoon at the RNC spring meeting. I heard from one of the co-sponsors of the resolution today, who believes it will pass. I’ll update with developments. Here’s the full text of the resolution, via Shane Vander Hart at Truth in American...

Continuing their commitment to controlling global population growth through artificial contraception, sterilization, and abortion initiatives, Microsoft founder and philanthropist, Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, a self-described “practicing” Catholic, are now attempting to control the curriculum of the nation’s public schools. Subsidizing the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed more than $76 million to support teachers in implementing the Common Core—a standardized national curriculum.   This, on top of the tens of millions they have already awarded to the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers...

Two Australian ethicists created a firestorm of controversy last year when they argued for after-birth abortions. Another Australian ethicist has taken up their torch, gleefully celebrating the idea of designer humans and in vitro eugenics. A series of recent scientific results suggest that, in the not-too-distant future, it will be possible to create viable human gametes from human stem cells. This paper discusses the potential of this technology to make possible what I call ‘in vitro eugenics’: the deliberate breeding of human beings in vitro by fusing sperm and egg derived from different stem-cell lines to create an embryo and...

President Obama approved a temporary spending bill this week that averted a government shutdown but also riled a slew of groups that say one provision protects Monsanto and other makers of genetically modified seeds and crops from federal courts. The so-called Monsanto Protection Act essentially requires the Agriculture Department to approve the growing, harvesting and selling of such crops, even if the courts rule environmental studies are incomplete -- undermining the judicial review system and posing potential health risks, critics say.