Free Republic

There are many reasons to think Ron Paul is a bottom feeder. He refuses to support a Constitutional amendment to protect normal, heterosexual marriage. He voted to turn the United States military into a San Francisco bath house by repealing DADT. He wants to see drugs and prostitution legalized. He thinks Islamo-Nazi Iran should have a nuclear weapon. He surrounds himself with lunatics like Cindy Sheehan's love slave, Screwy Lewy Rockwell. In general, there isn't a sewer RuPaul (H/T: Mark Levin) isn't too proud to hunt for food in. Then, there's this. From CBS News: *********************************** "Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul...

"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...

As we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism? Of course, we have the advantage of hindsight, and are able to research and examine the misdeeds of the past at our leisure. Unfortunately, such hindsight does not necessarily shield us from the long cast shadow of tyranny in our...

Some of the folks who have read this column for a while know that I am a diabetic. My pancreas has gone on strike, much like a greedy Wisconsin teacher. (It doesn't produce insulin anymore.) My diabetes has affected my eyesight and my heart. I have had a heart attack and I have a small Charcot break in my left ankle. (A condition common in diabetics with neuropathy.) Needless to say, my health is somewhat like our federal "government". It always teeters on the edge of total disaster. My doctor always tells me: "Alan, it's time to start thinking about...

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...

Tomorrow's release of the movie version of "Atlas Shrugged" is focusing attention on Ayn Rand's 1957 opus and the free-market ideas it espouses. Book sales for "Atlas" have always been brisk—and all the more so in the past few years, as actual events have mirrored Rand's nightmare vision of economic collapse amid massive government expansion. Conservatives are now hailing Rand as a tea party Nostradamus, hence the timing of the movie's premiere on tax day. When Rand created the character of Wesley Mouch, it's as though she was anticipating Barney Frank (D., Mass). Mouch is the economic czar in "Atlas...

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...

Having done nearly fifty shows on the premise of "shrugging out"--and how you should do as much of the "Atlas Shrugged" thing as you can, and be prepared in the modern survivalist sense to 'bug out" of Dodge, wherever your Dodge is--I've decided to do a series of shows on Ayn Rand's epic novel. This isn't a book report, or something you've already endured in that English class you loathed (or perhaps enjoyed). My goal is to try to understand the struggle between individualism and collectivism with the help of the richness and clarity that Ayn Rand set forth in...

The ultimate goal of the left has always been to move our country away from a constitutional republic based on the tenets of the protection of individual rights and personal liberties toward a socialist democracy based on the tenets of collectivism, interdependence and “civil liberties”. Pretty much every point of contention between the left and the right in our country boils down to this basic argument. I bring this up because lately I have noticed many conservative talking heads on the radio, internet and TV referring to the United States of America as a democracy, and in some cases, actually...

THAT TURKEY IS MARXIST. EvergladesInstitute.org ^ | November 23, 2005 | Jan Michael Jacobson Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 8:46:38 PM by GladesGuru THAT TURKEY IS MARXIST. The first Thanksgiving was not at all what most Americans have been taught. The Indians didn’t make the difference between starvation and plenty for the Pilgrims in what they called ‘Ye Plimouth Colonie’. What really made the critical difference between that first year, which Governor Bradford called “The Starving Winter”, and the year of the first Thanksgiving? This critical factor lies at the heart of the American experiment in government. Yet virtually...

Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time — and with the same disastrous results. One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control, and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things...

A great show (and essay, in my humble opinion) in which we review the key topics covered in the prior 19 episodes: - Ayn Rand and her epic novel, “Atlas Shrugged”. - Collectivism, individualism, and the TRUE nature of man. - The flow of events—Short-term chaos, long-term trends. - Generational Dynamics: The most accurate model of historical cycles based on the flow of human generations. - The “crash” of 2008 was just a warning of what’s coming—and we haven’t heeded it. - Don’t bet your future on political change. - “Shrugging Out” combines the concepts of Atlas Shrugged and Modern...

Take the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names, every male, by their polls; From twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: you shall number them by their hosts, you and Aaron. (From this week's Torah portion, Bamidbar, Numbers 1:2-3) The ultimate purpose of the journey of the Israelites in the desert was the establishment of a kingdom of priests - a nation that testifies to the existence of the Creator and expresses His will...

Starving the Monkeys: Fight Back Smarter “Starving the Monkeys: Fight Back Smarter” is about the struggle of the creative, productive members of society against the parasitic masses that author Tom Baugh refers to as the monkey collective. Monkeys are the looters and moochers who essentially dine from the plates of the producers through the tax and legal structures they have put in place. Baugh contends that the vast army of collectivist monkeys would literally starve if left to their own devices. “Starving the Monkeys” refers to Baugh’s recommendation that the producers strictly limit the monkey diet, by withholding their...

A Noxious 2,400-year old lie, originated by Plato, still cripples us today. And, once more, Karl R. Popper comes to the rescue. Popper has examined, in great detail the writings of Plato. He concludes that Plato, and later thinkers and writers that followed Plato have wreaked havoc in science politics and philosophy down through the centuries. Popper presents the following small table of word definitions. The two columns have opposite definitions .i.e., individualism is the opposite of collectivism. Egotism is the opposite of altruism. Individualism Collectivism egotism altruism To see the whole post:Click here

Two recent stories have defined for me, or rather illustrated under no uncertain terms, what it is that drives and shapes this administration’s political orientation. The first illustration is the recent news that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently issued a recommendation to America’s health care community that mammograms under the age of 50 are counterproductive and unnecessary, even going so far as to discourage breast self-examination in general, citing a "moderate certainty that the harms outweigh the benefits." To be fair, while this is a government funded study (and the agency is part of the U.S. Department of...

Toward the end of a mostly sympathetic profile of the great journalist and critic H. L. Mencken, Christopher Hitchens once claimed that Mencken’s only “brilliance and verve” occurred during “the period between 1910 and the end of Prohibition.” Which is to say, before Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal came along. It’s an all too common refrain. Biographer Terry Teachout characterized Mencken as “blinded partly by his hatred of Roosevelt.” Mencken scholar Charles A. Fecher—whom you’d expect to know better—declared Mencken’s opinion of Roosevelt to be “maniacal—there is no other word to use.” Although it’s true that Mencken ended the 1930s as...

“What is required of us now,” said President Barack Obama in his inaugural speech, “is a new era of responsibility—a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world….” Shortly thereafter, he used the same phrase as the title of his 2010 budget, which Congress has passed with minor alterations. In these and other ways, the President has made it clear that responsibility is to be the theme of his administration, playing the same role in recruiting popular support that the theme of “change” did during his election campaign. This theme...

It's time we get beyond simplistic assertions such as: Big government is bad; private markets are good. Taxes are bad; individual spending is good. Socialism is bad; individualism is good. We need big government to counterbalance big finance. Without big-government intervention in the form of the Troubled Asset Relief Program funds and the stimulus bill, we would be in a big depression. Even the Republican administration of George W. Bush acknowledged the necessity to intervene to prevent a total banking collapse. That having been accomplished, the cost, along with that of the stimulus bill, comes in the form of big...

Dear Sarah, Please forgive my presumption in writing you, but since no one else seems willing or capable of saying these things, which I think sorely need saying, and since they concern you, and what this country is all about, namely: freedom, individuality, and character, I've taken this liberty and beg your indulgence. I'm somewhat appalled by all those who publicly and privately have presumed to know what prompted your decision to step down as Governor of the State of Alaska, and even more appalled by those who presume to tell you what you now ought, or even must do....

Robert Nisbet’s Quest Seattle, WA Robert Nisbet’s 1953 book The Quest for Community has rightfully achieved that rare and estimable status of “classic.” What Nisbet saw more clearly than most of his contemporaries - or ours - is that one of the deepest flaws of the modern era was its hostility to the reality of groups. Modern liberalism (developed, among others by Thomas Hobbes, and later John Locke - and, at its root, Nisbet argued, in developments of Protestant theology) was broadly conceived in the backdrop of a hostility to organizations, institutions, communities and groups by which people defined their...

ALMONT, N.D. (AP) - In his golden years, Chad Skretteberg plans to tell his grandchildren about the night he carried 32 heavy calves on his shoulders, one by one, through ice-cold, waist-high floodwaters to safety. It's a tale that amazes even him. "I don't know how I had the stamina," says Skretteberg, who at 40 is a wiry 5-foot-10 and 185 pounds. "If I tried to attempt that just any day of the week, I would probably just quit, it's so much work. But in those circumstances, your adrenaline kicks in." On this day, the skies are sunny, the air...

North Carolina Judge, Ned Mangum, ordered Venessa Mills to send her children to public school starting next September. The ruling, part of a divorce case resolution, stunned observers. Mills’ home-schooled three children all tested at or above grade level and were deemed well-adjusted according to testimony from psychologists. This, however, bolstered the argument that they ought to attend public school “like normal kids,” in the judge’s eyes. “The home is a sheltered environment,” Mangum said. “It will not provide the kind of stimulus needed if these children are to learn what the world is really like. How will they come...

This is Ronald Reagan in 1961, riffing against some scheme that the left had then to socialize medicine. The scary part is that, if you change the names, he could just as easily be talking today. Nothing about the totalitarian left has changed, except that they are now 50 years closer to reaching their goal of collectivizing, socializing, and controlling us all. Reagan was alarmed and ticked then.... we should be royally pissed off now.

Barack Obama ran for office as a unifier, but it was all a hustle. His brand of politics needs enemies. Like southern slave owners of old, today's conservative Republicans represent the enemy to be vanquished by enlightened progressives from the north.  This is an old storyline that provides unlimited nourishment to America's liberal elites.  Many of us, especially those of us who work in education, have long seen this coming.  In the early stages of the diversity movement for example it didn't take long to realize who was and was not included on the ubiquitous rainbow flag.  "Diversity" was simply...

There are many brave Americans. But most of them are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, or are waiting to deploy there, or have recently returned from there. America is like one of those fancy drinks in which the cream is layered on top, but does not mix with the bulk of the liquid. The cream knows that freedom is worth fighting for. The rest are content to wait for Big Brother to bail them out.

Today marks the 104th anniversary of the birth of Ayn Rand, one of the great minds of Twentieth Century thought. Most notable for her works of fiction, such as We the Living, Anthem, The Fountainhead, and her opus magnus Atlas Shrugged, her contribution to the subject of personal freedom and the defense of capitalism are not be overlooked. While her works of fiction encapsulated her personal philosophy it is in her works of nonfiction we find her greatest contributions to the philosophical doctrine of Objectivism, which will forever remain her crowning achievement. Although never truly accepted by the academic philosophers...

Thoughts on Racial Thinking by Edward Hudgins January 17, 2009 -- January 2009 finds the issue of race front-and-center with the celebration of black civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s birthday followed by the inauguration of Barack Obama as America’s first black president, in Washington, D.C., a majority black city with a black mayor. With Obama’s election, discussions of race have tended to be framed in two ways. First there has been an increased focus on values in black communities and culture. For example, comedian/actor Bill Cosby has received much attention for his strong pronouncements about the need for blacks...

Will America Unite in One Obama? by Edward Hudgins December 29, 2008 - George W. Bush ran for president as “a uniter, not a divider.” He only managed to unite Republicans and Democrats in disappointment—though for different reasons—with his administration. Barack Obama sounded the same theme: “We’re all in this together!” Will he succeed where Dubya failed? Divided States of Americans Many Americans have seen in recent years the culture and politics growing more mean and coarse, contentious and uncivil, malicious and malevolent. We’re bombarded by coast-to-coast belly-aching on 24-hour cable news channels where we’re likely to encounter shout-fests. Talk...

Imagine the frustration of the first Yankees, struggling mightily to convince their Puritanical brethren that private property — not communal wealth-sharing — brings prosperity, freedom and enlightenment. Were they mocked, burned as witches or simply ignored? How did they eventually sway the masses to their view? Not just temporarily, in a fine-whatever kind of agreement, but as the kind of deep change that, within just a handful of generations, saw the Puritans evolve into the rugged Yankees that would pen the world's first written constitution, establish individual freedoms, protect private property and free speech and eventually revolt against the British?...

The Christian faith is the only religion that cannot be manipulated in favor of one worldism or universalism sometimes called the New World Order. This is precisely why the world system and its political leaders hate, despise and persecute Christianity. I hasten to explain that all the phony Christian fronts, televangelists and world evangelists are not Christians, but very much a part of the worldly system of antichrist. All religions are collectivist religions except Christianity, which is an individual and individualist faith. Governments want and must have collectivism under some name whether it be democracy or communism. Collectivism is...

In which a lunatic has an aneurism over apparently nothing. Next April, I’m going to turn fifty. I’ll be fifty years old. Good lord. Somehow, I’ve managed to get this far without working in a large corporate office. So today I got my first taste of a world that most of you are already much more familiar with than I am: the world of modern American big business. So what lit me up like a Fourth of July skyrocket was something that seemed to mean nothing at all to the other 23 people in the room, because today, for the...

Revisiting The Organization Man Men today aren’t joiners. They’re disillusioned and cynical about society’s organizations. Politics? Riddled with corruption. Corporations? Run by greedy bastards. Church? Brimming with hypocrites. Fraternal lodges? Just a bunch of old fogies. Men in contemporary society prefer to remain aloof and apathetic, criticizing these organizations from the outside. For many men, manliness has been equated with rugged individuality; the man who does his own thing and associates as little as possible with other people. So is belonging to an organization even desirable? Is it possible to be a part of a group without killing your manliness?...

I think I finally get where Obama may have gone wrong. Let’s face it, when you look at the kid’s childhood and his early adult experiences, and what he was attempting to do in his “save the world” stage, you have to like the guy. Young people with drive often try to “change the world” and get it a little wrong, but their earnestness is admirable, even if their ignorance matches it. But I think what he did wrong was to look at the fervor, energy, and collectiveness of the blacks in the churches, wanted to harness what he saw...

Early in World War II, Japan considered invading the mainland of the United States. Admiral Isoroku Yamoto, commander in chief of the Japanese naval forces and architect of the Pearl Harbor bombing, advised against invading. Twenty years prior, Admiral Yamoto had spent a few years in the United States studying at Harvard University. Based on his experience with American culture, Admiral Yamoto reportedly told his government, “I would never invade the United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.” Admiral Yamoto’s observation speaks to the heart of America’s uniqueness. The Admiral observed, in essence, that America...

SEA Jails Amish Criminals A Sign of Very Bad Things to Come You may never have heard of the SEA, and may not believe it when I tell you what it is. I am not making this up. The SEA is the "Sewage Enforcement Agency." The, "Cambria County Sewage Enforcement Agency," protecting society from two dangerous Amish outhouse operators, apprehended them for violating Pennsylvania state sewage laws. They "were sentenced Thursday to 90 days in jail." Their crime? "Andy Swartzentruber and Sam Yoder do not have permits for outhouses at a school and have been disposing of waste "improperly." The...

Red diaper baby Barack Obama's collectivist beliefs go way back. We dug up an enlightening old article, "What Makes Obama Run?" (by Hank De Zutter, Chicago Reader, Dec. 8, 1995) that offers more insight into what Obama, the Democrats' presumptive presidential candidate, thinks about America and traditional American values. The short answer: not much. In it Obama, at that time a candidate for the Illinois Senate, criticizes individualism as what intellectual John Ralston Saul has called the cult of the Hero: "In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne...

Viewing The 1960s From My 60s By Burt Prelutsky Even though I'm embarrassed to have been a Democrat for so many years, I'm proud that even in my 20's, I thought the 60's was the worst decade in America's history. Because I was born in 1940, I was at UCLA for some of those years and had a bird's eye view of my fellow college students. It was not a pretty sight. What makes that time the source of so much nostalgia for so many people of my age -- the incessant folk songs, the tie-dyed shirts and blouses, the...

There is an old addage that goes: "'Society' is everyone but yourself." As simplistic as this may sound, a moment's reflection reveals it to be true. When people think of or use the term "society," their frame of reference generally encompasses everyone but themselves. And this is true for every member of society, rendering the paradox that "society" must be everyone and yet no one at the same time. One exception to this rule is when the person using the term has brought certain other individuals outside of that frame of reference for purposes specific to a particular topic; e.g.,...

Two important events occurred in October 1957. First, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, named Sputnik, into orbit, causing many to speculate the West was losing to the superior technology and, possibly, inevitable ideology of communism. Second, the novel "Atlas Shrugged" was published. Its author, Ayn Rand, had fled the tyranny of Soviet communism in 1926 for freedom in the West. Today communism in Russia and its satellite countries is dead. "Atlas" and Miss Rand's other works continue to sell millions of copies. A 1992 Library of Congress survey found it to be the most influential book in...

Alan Ehrenhalt explains it in his 1995 book, The Lost City. It's about growing up in Chicago in the 1950s and the world of strong, safe neighborhoods that we've lost in the last four or five decades. Mr. Ehrenhalt, certainly no nostalgist, points out that all the good things people miss about the era — most of all, a sense of community — cannot be separated from the cultural conformity, lack of mobility and dearth of individual choice that contemporary Americans would find unacceptable. Mr. Ehrenhalt's inconvenient truth: "There is no easy way to have an orderly world without somebody...

During last month's debate among Democratic presidential candidates, NBC's Brian Williams asked Hillary Clinton, "How is America a better place because of all these burgeoning hedge funds?" He was referring to the loosely regulated investment vehicles that frequently generate massive returns for their wealthy investors by using debt to leverage huge bets on movements in the commodity futures market and other financial arenas. Considering her extraordinary success during 1978 and 1979, when, as a novice trader, she turned a $1,000 investment into a $100,000 profit in the highly risky cattle-futures market, Clinton was the right person to ask. Today, hedge...

Protestantism and Islam: Points of Contact Protestantism may well have begun as a genuine movement of reform. Accepting the teachings of the Church, its adherents wanted to bring the practice of the Church into line with its teachings. This is the object of all Christian movements. However, it very soon developed into something far more radical, jettisoning basic Christian teachings, bringing in doctrines entirely new to Christianity, and having to meld the results into a coherent whole. This involved developing doctrinal and practical solutions to new problems in the field of Christian faith and morals. Most of Protestant teaching was...

Racism and Anti-Semitism—Part VII by Reginald Firehammer Anti-Semitism is just one manifestation of the vicious and hateful form of racism that is also manifest today as hatred of Christians, of businessmen, of the West in general, particularly of the United States. The emphasis has been on anti-Semitism for a reason. Defending Jews? I am defending the Jews. I'm defending their right as people to believe whatever they choose, to live however they choose, wherever they choose, and to defend themselves in whatever way they deem necessary. I find the history of the Jews fascinating. In spite of the persecution and...

The 18th-century Enlightenment was the single most important intellectual development in human history; it made possible the comfortable, prosperous, stable, and relatively free Western civilization that we enjoy today. Enlightenment thinkers believed in a single, knowable, absolute reality guided by rational natural laws. Individuals—said Enlightenment thinkers—had the faculty of reason, which enabled them to accurately understand the absolute reality. Using reason, individuals could understand not only the factual data of reality but a rational moral system which would instruct them on how they ought to behave. The Enlightenment cultivated the rights of every human being to his life, liberty, property,...

"Money has been said to change people's motivation (mainly for the better) and their behavior toward others (mainly for the worse). The results of nine experiments suggest that money brings about a self-sufficient orientation in which people prefer to be free of dependency and dependents...."

Connections by Reginald Firehammer Everything is connected. We tend to see things separately and often fail to see the relationships between ideas and events that affect us until it is too late. For example, three articles I recently read seem to be about different and only loosely related subjects, but in fact have profound connections—connections that must be recognized if Western Civilization is to be saved. The recent elections in this country are proof that most people do not see the connections, else they would understand the politicians they have elected are doing all in their power to hasten the...

OINO's Paranoid Fear of Christians As though to prove the thesis of my recent article, "An Atheist's Defence of Christianity" [also on Free Republic], the usually brilliant and highly respected (at least by me) Leonard Peikoff shocked me with a piece of unobjective illogic that I can hardly believe. From the question and answer piece on his website: "In my judgment, anyone who votes Republican or abstains from voting in this election has no understanding of the practical role of philosophy in man's actual life ..." Why did he say that? Because he believes the US is on the verge...

Korea: Now And ThenAs I read the news about North Korea's problems in the world, my memories take me back to 1958, when, two months after graduating from high school, I enlisted in the United States Air Force. I was stationed at Osan Air Base, South Korea, where I quickly learned the power of military discipline and the art of self-defense. I ate, drank, walked, talked and slept military life. And, after watching a display of Korean karate (called tang soo do) in a small village, a fire consumed me for the martial arts. I learned a lesson back then...

Murakami Yoshiaki (that's my son's name, too...but no doubt the characters are different) faces a possible three years in prison and a fine of up to $30,000 - small change when you consider the billions he has made. Murakami is a corporate raider in a land where business is done by consensus. In the end, he admitted to inadvertently "breaking the law" by buying shares after he had "heard" that a company might be the target of a hostile takeover. Normally, this is called insider trading. But the Japanese also have a way of not saying things directly. It causes...