Free Republic

I recently re-watched one of the most eye-opening programs on the 20th century, The Century of the Self (BBC 2002). It looks at the development of advertising, particularly the theories and work of Edward Bernays. You’ve seen his work, but you didn’t know it. He was one of the pioneers of modern advertising as well as modern government propaganda. Particularly in the 1920’s, he played a key role in moving America from a need-based economy to desire-based consumerism. One result was a flourishing and growing wealth across the land (except for the collapse in the Great Depression). America moved past...

Is the foundation of our revolt against the elites – which the liberals and the Fredocons call “Trumpism” because they don’t want to face the fact that Normals are tired of their corruption and incompetence – merely trolling by a bunch of malcontents? True, we do enjoy messing with them. You look at the avatar of the movement, Donald Trump, and he’s the Trollmaster Level XII Emeritus. This guy lays down the smack, and a lot of Americans are delighted by his antics.But is that all this is? Is our movement simply about slamming the people we’re annoyed at and...

"The Man who would one day be Pope Francis had come to hold a service far from the grandeur of the great cathedral of Buenos Aires. He had travelled – taking the subway train and then the bus – to arrive in one of the shanty-towns, which Argentines call villas miserias – misery villages. He had picked his way down crooked and chaotic alleyways, criss-crossed with water pipes and dangling electricity cables, along which open sewers ran as malodorous streams when the rain came. There, amid ramshackle houses of crudely- cemented terracotta breezeblock, he fell into conversation with the middle-aged...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Madrid health authorities have put down Ebola patient Teresa Romero Ramos' dog, Excalibur, despite protests. The animal was sedated prior to euthanasia to avoid its suffering, the Health Ministry of Madrid said in a statement. More than 330,000 people had signed a petition on Change.org to save Excalibur. Ramos, a nurse's assistant, is in isolation after testing positive for the deadly Ebola virus earlier this week. Health authorities worried her dog may have also become infected. Which warrants the questions: Can dogs really get Ebola and spread it to humans? What about other animals? In Africa, Ebola infection "has been...

A jury acquitted a man of carrying a concealed weapon after hearing that he had borrowed the gun for protection in the Sunnydale neighborhood, according to the San Francisco Public Defenders Office. Jurors acquitted Johnny Stone, 23, of Reno, Nev., on Thursday after five hours of deliberation, and hung on a second misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon. The judge dismissed a third charge, possession of nunchaku. Stone was arrested Sept. 9, 2009, while visiting family members in the Sunnydale housing projects. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Arial Boyce-Smith, said that he had borrowed the gun for a trip...

When we consider the cars we drive, the mobile phones we talk on morning, noon and night, and the computers most of us couldn't function without--all were once inaccessible luxury items to the average American. Though today all three are available to nearly all income classes in the U.S., there was a time when they were primarily the baubles of the rich. While the subject of health care has been debated by all sides to death--with no resolution--it's fair to suggest that whichever side commentators found themselves on, they tended to agree that health care and the insurance meant to...

Microevolution, Macroevolution; Chance, Necessityby Jean F. Drew A friend asked me the other day, “What’s your understanding of the mechanism that causes microevolution, and how would that mechanism differ in the case of macroevolution?” The question struck me as loaded. So I thought it might be good to unpack its elements, beginning with an analysis of the terms microevolution and macroevolution. As Doron Aurbach, Professor of Chemistry at Bar Han University, Israel, has pointed out, “When we examine what is universally known as evolution theory, we need to distinguish between two distinct aspects of the theory, namely, micro- and macro-evolution.”...

CHAPEL HILL - After Shawn Turschak saw two sets of McCain-Palin signs disappear from his yard within hours of being planted, he took steps to protect the latest pair. On Monday, he ran wires from his house and hooked the signs into a power source for an electric pet fence. Then he mounted a surveillance camera in a nearby tree and wired it to a digital recorder. Tuesday afternoon, the camera saw this: A neighbor trotting up with an Obama-Biden sign, grabbing a handful of volts as he touched a McCain-Palin sign, then fleeing at top 9-year-old boy speed. A...

...Bottles of psychiatric medications fill the shelves. Stephen, 15, takes the antidepressants Zoloft and Desyrel for depression, the anticonvulsant Lamictal to moderate his moods and the stimulant Focalin XR to improve concentration. Jacob, 14, takes Focalin XR for concentration, the anticonvulsant Depakote to moderate his moods, the antipsychotic Risperdal to reduce anger and the antihypertensive Catapres to induce sleep. Over the last three years, each boy has been prescribed 28 different psychiatric drugs. “Sometimes, when you look at all the drugs they’ve taken, you wonder, ‘Wow, did I really do this to my kids?’ ” said their mother, Tricia Kehoe...

Today the media gave us two decidedly different takes on porkbusting. USA Today's Richard Wolf lauded the 'blogosphere' -- the quotes demonstrating that we pesky kids still haven't quite made it yet! -- for pushing for greater government oversight and uniting across partisan lines to fight pork-barrel politics: When watchdog groups that monitor federal spending wanted more information on 1,800 "pork barrel" projects buried in a House appropriations bill, they listed them on the Internet and asked readers to dig deeper. Within days, details began pouring in. The same thing happened when Porkbusters.org enlisted readers of its website to find...

FATHER’S LETTER TO HIS SONS THE WORLD SITUATION * A LETTER TO MY SONS This was written by a retired attorney, to his sons, May 19, 2004. Dear Tom, Kevin, Kirby and Ted, As your father, I believe I owe it to you to share some thoughts on the present world situation. We have over the years discussed a lot of important things, like going to college, jobs and so forth. But this really takes precedence over any of those discussions. I hope this might give you a longer term perspective that fewer and fewer of my generation are left...

September 1999 No. 34 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This issue of the Angelus English-Language edition of SISINONO is the second part of a series of two studies - one theological and one canonical - regarding the "state of necessity" invoked by Archbishop Lefebvre to justify his consecration of four bishops on June 30, 1988. These remarks are for those who admit the existence of an extraordinary crisis in the Catholic Church but do not know how to justify the extraordinary action of Archbishop Lefebvre on June 30, 1988 when, lacking permission from Pope John Paul II, he transmitted the power of episcopal orders...

True Papal Authority and the Necessity of Keeping the Faith Alive I am now continuing to answer objections that can be or have been brought up against my theses in installments 1-5, which exonerate Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and Bishops Antonio de Castro Mayer, Richard Williamson, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Alfonso de Galarreta, and Bernard Fellay from the charges of excommunication and schism due to the illicit episcopal consecrations of June 30, 1988. In installment 6, I answered 3 possible objections. This is where I'm picking up now. Objection 4: The First Vatican Council teaches: ". . . the judgment of...

<p>WASHINGTON - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $15 billion bond plan "is a necessity, unfortunately," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday.</p> <p>"It's not a good option," Pelosi, D-San Francisco, said during her weekly news briefing. "It's a bad option among many bad options."</p>

NECESSITARIANS. The doctrine of necessity regards the origin of human actions, and the specific mode of the divine government; and it seems to be the immediate result of the materiality of man; for mechanism is the undoubted consequence of materialism. Hence all materialists are of course necessitarians; but it does not follow that all necessitarians are or must be materialists. Whatever is done by a cause or power that is irresistible, is by necessity; in which sense this term is opposed to freedom. Man is, therefore, a necessary agent, if all his actions be so determined by the causes preceding...

WE propose in this chapter, to examine some of the principal objections which have been urged against the view taken in the preceding chapter of the freedom of the will. Those most worthy of notice are the following, viz.: I. It is said to be absurd in itself. II. It is said to be irreconcilable with the Scripture account of the divine prescience. III. It is said to conflict with the doctrine of motives. We propose a respectful attention to each of these grand objections. I. It is alleged that the view we have taken of the proper freedom of...

THE subject now before us—the moral agency of man—is one of great interest and importance. It has been said by an excellent writer, that "The proper study of mankind is man." If this is true, as it unquestionably is, when the terms are understood to relate to the true character, moral relations, and eternal destiny of man, it is likewise true that no question ever agitated in relation to man can be of greater interest than the one now proposed—his proper moral agency. This subject has elicited a large amount of philosophical research from the most acute metaphysicians in every...