Free Republic

Excerpts: Apollo granted to his Trojan priestess Cassandra the gift of prophecy. But because she resisted his advances he punished her by ensuring that nobody would ever believe what she said. Such has been the fate of pessimists down the ages. Those who interrupt the good cheer of their fellows with the thought that the things about which they are all agreed might go badly wrong are either dismissed as madmen or condemned as fools. ... We have witnessed something similar in the so-called Arab Spring. “Unscrupulous optimism,” as Schopenhauer called it, led both the United States and the nations...

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Fewer than four-in-10 Americans (39 percent) rate the US in a positive manner – the most negative feedback the country has produced since 1979. A new Gallup poll finds that Americans are as negative about the country’s prospects as they have been in more than three decades. Americans are more upbeat in their predictions of where the U.S. will be in five years (48 percent positive), but this is the lowest rating since an August 1979 Gallup poll was conducted. The negativity about the current state of the US has a politically partisan split – Republicans...

A few days ago, going through some memorabilia of my mother's, I found the original promotional material for this syndicated column, launched in 1993. I was billed as "A New Conservative Voice for Young Women!" More than 17 years ago, I set out to explain how a Yale-educated young woman from a secular Oregon family could become a social conservative: Every life is precious. It is better to care for your children than to kill them. Divorce hurts children; it also breaks apart life's most precious commitment -- a family. Men and women are different. A society that pretends otherwise...

By any political, cultural or economic measure the nations of the West are in total decline. The historic virtues of hard work, free-market thinking and a common cultural integrity as well as religious and historical principles are gone. They have been subverted and replaced by an emphasis on rampant materialism and a consumer driven society that exceeds 70 percent of GNP in addition to private and public debt. Furthermore, a kind of parasitism has laid claim to Western culture by which sports stars, politicians, media darlings and financial scam artists get recognition and exorbitant incomes while real workers find their...

Saw this the other day and can't stop thinking about it. It makes all the sense in the world that conservatives would be despondent after Obama's re-election. But more despondent than liberals were after the Bushitler's re-election?A lot more, as it turns out:Why are the numbers so much worse for Republicans now than they were for Democrats in 2004? It can’t be because the GOP thinks Obama’s done irreversible damage to the U.S.; Bush-hating liberals thought the same about Dubya. Besides, we’ve got a deep bench for 2016. Is it a demographic thing, with Republicans fearing that they’ll never (or...

OptimismRevolution   h/t Vince

I am an American. If I end up in a gulag, I will make vodka from potato peels and sell it for a profit. If there are no potato peels, I will use grass. If there is no grass, I will invent the first method of extracting vodka from thin air. I will sell the technology and the vodka. And the air. I am an American. This is America And we can take it.

L e t    F r e e d o m    S i n g Here are a few songs you might want to kick back and enjoy tomorrow night (Tuesday, November 6, 2012), as the election results decisively flow in and verify the Romney/Ryan victory, marking the end of America's recent long nightmare with B.O. and his anti-American team of nefarious, nattering nabobs of negatvism, and their co-conspirators, the other evil, diabolical dealers of the culture of death, as well as the dim-bulbed dingleberts and pernicious prevaricators who make up the sleazy, treasonous, so-called "mainstream-media" who always...

Today's conservative, optimistic ideal cannot support the excessive weight of the current crises and realities at hand. This fact must be recognized and accepted by the conservative right in this country. The current crises are reaching gigantic proportions - both nationally and globally. The good intentions and well wishes of this flawed ideology (Conservative optimism) has had its place in the past, but now in light of the global climate affected by ever-increasing human depravity, it is but a “spider’s web” of hope and a delusional lie and refuge in which many are holding on to (Job 8:14). For harnessing...

Laughter may not exactly be the best medicine. But a cheerful outlook on life may be good for your heart. So concludes new research on the impact of happiness and optimism on cardiovascular health. Scientists have known about the reverse relationship between psychological health and heart health for some time; studies show that depression and anxiety can worsen outcomes for heart patients. But the findings on happiness and its medical impact over the years have not been as consistent. In a new analysis, researchers at Harvard sought a more definitive conclusion by reviewing the results of more than 200 studies...

NABE: Economists Are Getting More Optimistic About The US Economy AP Febuary 27, 2012NEW YORK (AP) — Economists are increasingly confident that some pillars of the U.S. economy will improve this year, but they still remain cautious in their expectations on the overall pace of economic growth. The National Association for Business Economics said Monday that forecasters have raised their expectations for employment, new home construction and business spending this year. But they held on to their average prediction that America's gross domestic product, or GDP, will grow at a rate of 2.4 percent. That's a slight improvement from 2011,...

Look for moments of maximum pessimism. To the legendary value investor Sir John Templeton, this was the secret to learning how to buy low and sell high. In recent months, I've been feeling the pessimism in a big way. You probably have too. Watching the scroll of headlines on cable news channels this summer, I thought I was in an overdone disaster film. Riots break out across the globe, screamed a Drudge headline. Markets were crashing. An earthquake cracked the Washington Monument. In my hands, Mark Steyn's new book After America -- a rollicking read that makes a strong case...

...LYNN SHERR: Do you feel as if the other candidates have been ganging up on in the debates? RICK PERRY:“When you come into the fray and you’re leading in the polls, you’re going to get attacked by everyone. I get it. I’m a big boy, and I know how to play that game. “ Your critics say you’re not electable... “Well, I disregard that. Americans are looking for somebody to stand up and tell them the truth, and I have a record to back it up. Ultimately, if I can explain my heart, my jobs record, and my philosophy to...

Amid change, Egyptian Christians are asking for prayer. In an e-mail shared with Baptist Press, an Egyptian Christian asked specifically that believers pray for Mubarak to be succeeded by a godly president who cares for the people; for freedom, including freedom of worship; for a democratic government; for a lifting of the oppression and injustice; and for the Arab and Muslim world to experience God moving.

Large corporations have the means and motive to hire. Small companies are starting to see credit thaw to help them buy new machines and new workers. Consumers are opening their wallets, and leading indicators are looking up. Heck, Goldman Sachs is getting excited about the next two years, shouldn't you? Yes, you should! But if the recovery is ready to fly, there are some important strings holding it down. We still don't know what taxes will look like in 2011. We still don't know if the Euro zone will implode in 2011. We still don't know what the US housing...

I’ve debated with myself over whether I should respond to Tommy Ice’s awful article about me and my book End Times Fiction that Brannon Howse published on his Worldview Weekend site. ... The head of a worldview ministry is responsible for answering his critics honestly. So far, Brannon has not done this. Tommy claims that I’m “jealous ... Tommy claims to know my motives in writing End Times Fiction. He doesn’t. I write my books because I believe there is a need for their message. Anyway, suppose jealousy is the reason I wrote the first edition of End Times Fiction....

Conservative leaders and their followers are absolutely fired up about a promising 2010 victory and are anxiously awaiting the elections this fall. Conservative leaders and their base are also touting that they can see the light at the end of the "Big Government" tunnel and are very optimistic and jazzed. Though we should be excited about what may transpire this fall we should not be putting all our optimistic eggs into this cankering basket. What we will be witnessing in a future 2010 victory are the last struggling convulsions of a nation on the precipice of total collapse. The absolute...

Our brief national encounter with optimism is now well and truly over. We have had the greatest fiscal and monetary stimulus in modern times. We have had a whole series of programs to pay people to buy cars, purchase homes, pay off their mortgages, weatherize their homes, and install solar paneling on their roofs. Yet the recovery remains feeble and the aftershocks of the post-bubble credit collapse are ongoing. We are at least 2.5 million jobs short of getting back to the unemployment rate of under 8% promised by the Obama administration. Concern grows that we are looking at a...

LONDON (Reuters) – World stocks briefly hit a two-week peak on Monday as expectations rose that U.S. corporate earnings this week would point to a sustainable economic recovery in the world's biggest economy. The euro slid as jitters grew ahead of the results of European bank stress tests due later this month and the yen slipped after Japan's ruling coalition lost its upper house majority in Sunday's election, putting the government's policies to deal with the country's massive debt at risk. Wall Street had its best week in a year last week ahead of this week's key earnings, which include...

Pessimism is the lazy stepchild of vigilance. There. IÂ’ve said it. ThatÂ’s the one bit of wisdom for today. Why bring it up? Well, thereÂ’s another new book out that I want to read, but probably wonÂ’t, for lack of time. ItÂ’s The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley. Ridley is one of those biology journalists who relate recent advances in the life sciences to how we think and feel and move about on the planet. You know, one of those Learn From the Baboons guys. IÂ’ve not read his new book. I am pretty sure IÂ’ve read bits of at...