Free Republic

January 25, 2012 (LiveAction.org) - Recently I’ve been discussing the correlation between the problem of emancipating slaves in the American South, and the problem of ending abortion in our country. While most pro-lifers agree abortion must be ended as soon as possible, it doesn’t change the fact that an extra one million babies per year, many born to mothers with limited resources or parenting skills, will put a great strain on federal assistance and social welfare programs. The first part of the solution to this problem is far-reaching and, admittedly, far-fetched. It involves changing the way young people view personal...

Here is the latest skirmish in the ongoing Defining Deviancy Down, to borrow from the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. At WalMart today, I saw for the 3rd or fourth time an in-the-aisle display of KY's latest product, "Date Night." It even has its own link at WalMart.com. It looks like KY is marketing the daylights out of this product (npi), which includes discounts on movie tickets. Call me old-fashioned (no, that's not an action item) but is this the right message to pass on to the general public? Where's the decorum? The concern for the children? Is Nancy Reagan's...

LET's SHOW LOVE TO PEOPLE THIS DAY and EVERY DAY!! GOD BLESS US ALL!

.....[William]Bennett introduces The Book of Man:Readings on the Path to Manhood with tidings of oy. [snip] JamesFreemanClarke (1810–1888), an American theologian and essayist, limned the distinctions between true and false manliness. His essay is a particularly interesting glimpse of the 19th-century ideal, since 20th-century feminism has worked so hard to persuade us that the “patriarchy” taught men to be tyrants and emotional stiffs. "[Manliness]expresses the qualities which go to make a perfect man — truth, courage, conscience, freedom, energy, self-possession, self-control. But it does not exclude gentleness, tenderness, compassion, modesty. A man is not less manly, but more so, because...

December 15, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Few things annoy pro-lifers more than being told by supporters of the practice of killing unborn children in their mothers’ wombs that they need to be more “civil.” “How about you stop ripping babies apart limb from limb, and then we’ll consider being ‘nice’!” we’re tempted to say. Fair enough. But what if a diehard pro-life advocate who works fulltime as an editor for a pro-life and pro-family news website (i.e. me) said that pro-lifers could stand to be more “civil”? Not all pro-lifers, of course. Or even most of them. Heck, there are people...

Newt Gingrich is adamant that he is not a lobbyist, but rather a visionary who traffics in ideas, not influence. But in the eight years since he started his health care consultancy, he has made millions of dollars while helping companies promote their services and gain access to state and federal officials. In a variety of instances, documents and interviews show, Mr. Gingrich arranged meetings between executives and officials, and salted his presentations to lawmakers with pitches for his clients, who pay as much as $200,000 a year to belong to his Center for Health Transformation. When the center sponsored...

I am now officially a self-declared member of the “Not Romney” camp. I will absolutely, positively support Mitt Romney should he win the GOP nomination, but I believe the GOP would meet certain doom if he is the nominee. Therefore, should Gingrich be the only other choice, I’d side with Gingrich over Romney. But I think in the next few weeks conservatives must ask themselves if they are ready to forgive Newt his sins. I’m not talking about his adultery and wives. I’m not really even talking about his ego. What I am talking about is only tangentially related to...

Ever since the conclusion of the FAMiLY Leader’s presidential forum eleven days ago, a handful of presidential candidates, the media, and social conservatives from all across Iowa have been waiting for hear who Bob Vander Plaats and his pro-family organization will publically support. Waiting for word from Vander Plaats seems a lot like waiting for the white smoke to spew out of the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. Just as is the case in the election of a new pope to lead the Catholic Church, political observers are left to only speculate about what is transpiring at the FAMiLY Leader’s...

Republicans who don't want to vote for Mitt Romney had rallied behind the Atlanta businessman, but his campaign has been rocked by accusations of an affair. And the former House speaker has a marital track record of his own. ...Gingrich has vaulted into the top tier on the basis of his performance in televised debates, which have largely driven Republican voter preferences this year... But an indication of discomfort in some quarters over Gingrich's rise came Tuesday when a new attack on the former House speaker surfaced online from a group calling itself Iowans for Christian Leaders in Government. ...."Newt...

Sex Week at Yale University has been canceled after efforts made by students from “Let’s Strengthen Marriage - National Marriage Week,” a national campaign to encourage people to strengthen marriages. Eduardo Andino, the co-founder of the Undergraduates for a Better Yale College (UBYC) along with other undergraduates, were behind the campaign to remove Sex Week at Yale campuses. The Sex Week at Yale is a biennial event that was originally organized by students in 2002. Proclaimed to be “an interdisciplinary sex education program designed to pique students’ interest,” the Sex Week explores love, sex and relationship by focusing on how...

Details about the new sex education curriculum in New York City public schools are out -- and some are concerned the lessons are too racy. The New York Post obtained workbooks that will be used for the new recommended curriculum, which begins in middle schools and high schools around the city next spring. Parents, they say, may be shocked by details of the work. Middle school students will be assigned "risk cards" that rate the safety of different activities, the paper says, from French kissing to oral sex. The workbooks for older students direct them to a website run by...

The most common justification for the Shalit deal is to wear it as a perverse badge of moral nobility. "What other country would exchange a thousand terrorists for one man." This is a close cousin of the argument that says the United States treating terrorists with kid gloves proves that it is nobler than them. Both of these insufferable arguments are symptoms of the moral decline of civilization. If the life of a single soldier is more important than the battle, then why have battles or soldiers at all? We don't send soldiers out to fight because we think that...

Wasn't sure exactly Where this post belonged so I hope I'm in the right place!? The other night I turned on the tv and was greeted with an up close shot of a couple kissing. As the camera panned outward, the scene was of two 'guys' sitting on a couch with their arms around each other .. going at it like two boars in heat! The show is a regular which I've never seen and which I Will Never See again. The show is/was "The Good Wife". Tonight, I turn to FX (Fox) a few minutes before the movie "District...

A sociologist from the University of Notre Dame published a study gauging the moral thinking of 18-23 year olds. The results are depressing and for this father of five, they’re scary. David Brooks of the New York Times summarized the study, saying that moral thinking to a large extent was considered a relative matter or not considered at all, even regarding issues such as cheating on a partner or drunken driving. Brooks writes that “when asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not...

Last week, David Brooks of the New York Times wrote a column on an academic study concerning the nearly complete lack of a moral vocabulary among most American young people. Here are excerpts from Brooks’s summary of the study of Americans aged 18 to 23. It was led by “the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith”: � “Smith and company asked about the young people’s moral lives, and the results are depressing.” � “When asked to describe a moral dilemma they had faced, two-thirds of the young people either couldn’t answer the question or described problems that are not moral...

[snip] "This nation has to be governed by someone's values, so let's have Christian values guide" us, Perry said quietly. This was Rick Perry standing tall and proud -- proud to be an American, proud to be a Christian, proud to stand for "a life of consequence" and "faith." And when he advised the students that each, individually, was "a spiritual being meant to live in relationship with God and one another," Philip Rucker of the Washington Post rolled his eyes so hard that he spent the rest of the convocation looking like a character out of the Little Orphan...

Churches across France have become overrun by tourists in skimpy beachwear, showing off bare stomachs and wearing baseball caps, according to priests who have spoken out about the drop in standards. A report in regional newspaper Midi Libre claims that religious leaders have tired of the increasingly disrespectful dress codes of some visitors. “Our church is right by the beach,” said Father Martin Gabet of the Notre Dame des Anges de Collioure church, close to the Spanish border. “As a result, lots of people come in wearing their swimwear. There have even been people who come in just to change...

A South Carolina megachurch pastor has chosen to press through the awkwardness and talk about what an increasing number of churches have been addressing from the pulpit – sex. Pastor Perry Noble of NewSpring Church made it clear to his congregation that when it comes to sex, the church has a lot to learn. "Let's just be honest. Sexual immorality is in the house," he told his congregation, adding that he has seen sexual immorality at each of the three churches he has served. "We can't get mad at people that aren't Christians because they act like they're not Christians....

Every society has its red lines. Areas that are off limits. Behaviors that are unacceptable. Lines that should not be crossed. And the left has progressively dismantled the red lines that constrain it, while seizing control of the infrastructure that marks out a society's red lines. By controlling that cultural infrastructure, the left can insure that all of a society's remaining standards are double standards. The inability to hold the left accountable for its actions is traceable back to this lack of standards. How does one call for accountability when there is no objective standard to measure the wrongness of...

WASHINGTON – In an ironic twist, Planned Parenthood, the health care and industry-leading abortion provider, has joined some of its longtime pro-life antagonists in condemning a Florida jury’s decision to acquit Tot Mom Casey Anthony of murdering her daughter, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary. While the organization may find itself in agreement with some of its archenemies on the issue of the promiscuous procreator’s alleged actions, it took a very different path in getting there. According to a statement it released, Planned Parenthood believes “This case sets a dangerous precedent. If women can so easily be acquitted...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Anthony Weiner's behavior has been "inappropriate" and "a distraction," the White House said Monday as the House returned to work for the first time since eruption of the sexting scandal that has brought calls for the New York Democrat's resignation. White House spokesman Jay Carney wouldn't say whether President Barack Obama believes Weiner should resign - as other Democratic leaders have said. Weiner is on a temporary leave of absence, in treatment for an undisclosed disorder at an undisclosed location. He has acknowledged exchanging messages and photos that ranged from sexually suggestive to explicit, with several women...

The sentiments expressed by John F. Kennedy in his famous 1960 speech on religion and politics are being swept away by Republican presidential contenders. [snip] "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute;...... I believe in a president whose views on religion are his own private affair, neither imposed upon him by the nation, nor imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office." If, as seems increasingly likely, Texas Gov. Rick Perry jumps into the current race for the Republican presidential nomination, Houston also will be the scene of...

....."It is cheating in that it came from the same space inside him," said Kerry Cohen, an Oregon psychotherapist and author of "Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity." "It is a betrayal, absolutely." Like former President Bill Clinton, who officiated at Weiner's wedding, Weiner is a powerful public figure who got caught in a sex scandal. Their straying, Cohen added, "comes from the need to be seen and attended to" in ways politics can't. ..John Portmann, editor of the anthology "In Defense of Sin" said.... "I don't believe that Weiner cheated on his wife, not at all," said Portmann, an...

Rep. Anthony Weiner has called an afternoon news conference Monday amid a fresh round of sordid allegations involving the married congressman, including the release of a new set of photos that appear to show him posing shirtless. The website BigGovernment.com, run by conservative rabble-rouser Andrew Breitbart, reignited the frenzy it started last week involving the New York Democrat in a series of posts Monday. [snip] Weiner's office has not responded to a request for comment. He will address the media at 4 p.m. EDT from a midtown Manhattan hotel. [snip] Many of Weiner's supporters pointed to Breitbart when news of...

The Eight Blunders of the World · Pleasure without conscience · Wealth without work · Knowledge without character · Commerce without morality · Science without humanity · Worship without sacrifice · Politics without principle Rights without responsibilities.

If George Orwell were alive today he’d be censored by today’s Orwellian press-police. As America’s poshest-acting, bisexual neo-conservative, Christopher Hitchens points out in Why Orwell Matters (pages 79-80): It is true on the face of it that Orwell was one of the founding fathers of anti-Communism; that he had a strong patriotic sense and a very potent instinct for what we might call elementary right and wrong; that he despised government and bureaucracy and was a stout individualist; that he distrusted intellectuals and academics and reposed a faith in popular wisdom; that he upheld a somewhat orthodoxy in sexual matters...

On the Imprudence and Uncharitableness of ImmodestyBy: Msgr. Charles Pope The video below contains a  fascinating interview between Sean Hannity and two women on the question of immodest dress as a dangerous thing for a woman. It would seem that a Toronto police officer was quoted as saying, “Women can avoid rape by not dressing as sluts.” He said this in the context of a lecture to college students about a recent campus crime wave. He has since apologized, but some will not accept it, or do not think he was specific enough in his apology. His remarks have...

He's 24, but she is older than his mother. He’s a strict Muslim, she has fervent Kabbalah beliefs. So it was hardly likely to last. Madonna, 52, has split from her lover Brahim Zaibat, a hip-hop dancer, after nine months, the Daily Mail has learned. Last night a close friend of Zaibat’s said sarcastically: ‘Who’s Madonna?’ The friend added: ‘Brahim has been home and he’s a single guy

Of late, various Americans have opined that there is a war on women. Usually, this claim is made when funding to Planned Parenthood operations is on the federal budget table or when peer reviewed medical studies are released that conclude that now routine testing is not necessary for female specific diseases. Along these lines, one colleague complained to me last week at a conference that there were no women on a panel for discussion (the criterion for inclusion was that the panelists be the top three people in the region in a specific field. They happened to all be guys.)....

'I am so glad not to be in high school anymore," Mary Hardy tells me. The wise college sophomore was responding to an article I asked her to read about adolescent girls dressing badly. As in, like sluts. Mary tells me: 'My parents never let me dress like that and I am grateful -- only now -- to them because the boys in high school, although they did not say it, did respect me more especially at the dances, where no one tried to come up and 'dance' with me in the manner they did with the other girls, whose...

I recently had a conversation with a missionary who has worked in the Middle East and South Asia. He told me that most Middle Easterners who get internet access, usually get to learn about America's huge internet pornography industry. He says that the porn industry causes many foreigners to have contempt for America, as a nation of moral degenerates. This greatly harms attempts by American missionaries to get converts. It also harms US foreign policy, because their image of American culture, is that of gay sex pictures, bestiality pictures, and other peversions. I do not favor completely outlawing pornography. But...

When your enemies do not follow the rules of war... An eye-opening interview with the man who helps set the IDF’s ethical parameters Tel Aviv University philosophy professor Asa Kasher co-authored the first IDF Code of Ethics and continues to work on the moral doctrines that shape the parameters of our army’s actions. He has taught at the IDF colleges since the late 1970s and for a long time was the only professor talking to officers about military ethics. When the IDF decided to try writing a Code of Ethics, he was approached and appointed head of a team of...

A pill to enhance moral behaviour, a treatment for racist thoughts, a therapy to increase your empathy for people in other countries - these may sound like the stuff of science fiction but with medicine getting closer to altering our moral state, society should be preparing for the consequences, according to a book that reviews scientific developments in the field. Drugs such as Prozac that alter a patient's mental state already have an impact on moral behaviour, but scientists predict that future medical advances may allow much more sophisticated manipulations. The field is in its infancy, but "it's very far...

Featured Term (selected at random):PURITY Freedom from anything that weakness or impairs or changes the nature of a being or its activity. Purity of faith means the absence of error what is contrary to the revealed truth; purity of intention is the exclusion of self-will in the desire to perform the will of God; purity of morals commonly refers to the virtue of chastity and therefore freedom from wrongdoing in sexual activity, but on a broader level it means the absence of misbehavior, especially in one's external or publicly recognizable conduct. (Etym. Latin puritas, clearness, cleanness, uprightness.) All items in...

LITTLE ROCK – (AP/The Blaze) – A high school teacher in Little Rock was placed on paid administrative leave Friday after school officials learned she pleaded guilty in November to a prostitution charge. “I was scared more than anything else because I was thinking of my son,” Solona Islam recalled following her arrest last October. “If I do go to jail, what am I supposed to do?” Islam says her financial struggles with credit card debt and caring for her 18-month-old son led her to make a poor decision. She has a masters degree and is working on a Ph.D.

...this is not just about Christian persecution but about the right to choose with whom you share the living space that you are renting out. So, now to the politically correct-pop culture guide to writing a want ad for a roommate. It is to read something like this: Seeking non-faith specific, non-gender specific, not specifically anything in particular generic personage to share a living space.

Sluthood wasn't always considered a virtue. Most normal, rational people look at sleeping around as something sad and wrong. It's not healthy, physically or mentally, it can be damaging to a young girl's reputation, and it can also be incredibly dangerous. Women that sleep around oftentimes end up feeling used and regret their choices when they get older and decide to settle down. Other women end up contracting STDs, which may or may not be treatable. For these reasons and more, being a slut is understandably looked down upon -- it can be genuinely harmful. Today's pseudo-feminists, however, have...

Election Day is almost here! Now I would never presume to tell you for whom to vote. However, I would like to let some Founding Fathers remind you of some very good principles to follow when voting. Have you decided yet for whom to vote? If so, what criteria did you use to make your decision? We all certainly look at the positions of the candidates on the issues that are most important to us and try to find the one that matches our positions the best. But, have you considered the most important quality? Here’s what Noah Webster said...

A reader just sent me a link, with the explanation: "They're at it again." And so they are. "They" is the National Review, the leading publication of the religious wing of the mainstream right. And "it" is bashing Ayn Rand. There is a long history to this. All the way back in the 1950s, when Ayn Rand's magnum opus Atlas Shrugged—which I have described as "Capitalism's Epic"—was first published, William F. Buckley attempted to kick Ayn Rand out of the right. Her atheism and her ethics of individualism was a threat to Buckley's goal of cobbling together a "fusionist" coalition...

A RINO can be extremely dangerous when he uses Moral Equivalency to advance his political schemes, and a discerning conservative should know how to identify a RINO by his tactics. According to Websters Online Dictionary, Moral Equivalence is: “…a term used in political debate, usually to criticize any denial that a moral hierarchy can be assessed of two sides in a conflict, or in the actions or tactics of two sides. It could be considered a form of the rhetorical fallacy of equivocation.” In plain terms, when a politician uses Moral Equivalency he is attempting to equate an immoral position...

Moral* principles do more harm than good. We apply them self-servingly and selectively. They operate at the wrong level of abstraction, distracting us from the right level. I'm deeply committed to morality but I've never met a moral principle I could trust. I can illustrate this best by example. Consider these two moral principles: Don't cling. Show commitment. What's the difference between clinging and commitment? From what I can tell, they are indistinguishable except that clinging is bad and should never occur and commitment is good and should always occur. Clinging and commitment both describe a preference for keeping something...

You know something is changing in American mores when the supposed leader of the culture wars from the right, Sarah Palin, declares that smoking pot is “a minimal problem” and that “if somebody’s gonna smoke a joint in their house and not do anybody any harm, then perhaps there are other things our cops should be looking at to engage in.”

When the framers of the United States Constitution completed their work in 1787, they acknowledged that the success and future of the republic as established by that document was dependent on the honor and integrity of its leaders and citizens. As John Adams wrote: “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Today, the Obama administration, the majority of the members of Congress, much of the Judiciary, academia, and the media represent the culmination of the degradation of ethics and character, which has put the United States in...

At the end of the most recent semester I sat with some of my undergrads and did something that, they said, their professors rarely did: I opened a discussion about personal ethics, commitments and choices and how they shape our lives. We talked about people like Eliot Spitzer, John Edwards, and other figures whose careers and family lives were destroyed by serious lapses and about how people starting out in life could try to protect themselves from this kind of tragedy. I don’t know that my contributions to that discussion revealed any particular wisdom, but this was clearly something the...

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Opponents of the popular expression of conservative opposition to big government, the tea party, regularly note that tea partiers are overwhelmingly white. This is intended to disqualify the tea parties from serious moral consideration. But there are two other facts that are far more troubling: The first is the observation itself. The fact that the Left believes that the preponderance of whites among tea partiers invalidates the tea party movement tells us much more about the Left than it does about the tea partiers. It confirms that the Left really does see the world through the prism of race, gender...

Rebirth Possible. Experts agree that a rebirth of Liberty is possible if all Americans put Truth and Morals back into their hearts. A people cannot be free, if they prey on each other, and look to improve their lot by obtaining favors from "the man."We must all cast away, and challenge, falsehoods whenever they arise. We must set our values by using the Ten Commandments. We cannot live a life of confusion and muddled thinking. Republicans can counter “CHANGE” with LIBERTY. If the Republicans adopt Liberty and put Truth and morals in their hearts, it will be Viva los Republicanos...

CNN's Larry King is splitting from his seventh wife, who says the 76-year-old cheated on her. The talk show anchor and his wife Shawn Southwick, 50, both filed for divorce Wednesday citing "irreconcilable differences." The marriage crumbled after Southwick accused King of having an affair with one of her close relatives, TMZ reported. In December, the National Enquirer reported King cheated on his wife with her younger sister Shannon Engemann, quoting an unnamed friend of Southwick's. The tabloid also said Southwick had an affair with her son's baseball coach in 2008 - a claim she denied. "It's a very...

About two dozen women took a walk down Congress Street topless Saturday, attracting a large crowd as they tried to preach that partial female nudity is not worthy of attracting a crowd. The point of the march was that a topless woman out in public should attract no more attention than a man walking around without a shirt on, said Ty MacDowell, 20, of Westbrook, who organized Saturday's event and promoted it on Facebook. But as the event got under way in Longfellow Square, the marchers were soon outnumbered by scores of onlookers -- mostly young men eagerly snapping...

Can something be legal, but not equitable? Can behavior be ethical but not moral? Legal, for instance, is something that is permitted by law. Legal behavior gets its authority from law. Equitable, on the other hand, is something that is fair and just. Ethical behavior is government by rules of conduct recognized by a particular class of human actions or a particular group of people. For instance, an attorney cannot get a speeding ticket in Illinois if that attorney is on his/her way to court. But going down the road at 80 mph at 7 pm would not be ethical...