Free Republic

Can I trust you? Wait … can I really trust you? What if you’d given me your word that you’d never betray me, but then you discovered that betraying me could make you really rich, or really successful, or even just a bit happier? A lot of us discover—sometimes too late—that verbal contracts aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. But, what about social contracts? What about the warp and weft of what keeps humans making moral sense to one another? This always matters. But, it matters especially at the moment, when we are all deciding how we should...

8.6 million people in England were prescribed antidepressants in 2022 to 2023. This is the double the number since 2011. Can you explain this increase, the motivations driving the overprescription of psychiatric drugs and the problems attached to them? Are human emotions being misdiagnosed as mental illness? We are witnessing the effects of mass conditioning amongst western societies to medicalise the human condition in efforts to increase the customer base for psychiatric drugs. Financially, it’s a numbers game for the pharmaceutical executives. The more people identifying with “mental illness”, the more pills they can sell. It's a profit-driven initiative, and...

This condition is associated with decreased threat-detection abilities and increased anxiety. I bet this doesn’t surprise you. “across the spectrum of anxiety disorders, as well as in other disorders that are often comorbid with anxiety, a relatively consistent pattern of reduced amygdala volume has been found”

The term “kafkatrapping” describes a logical fallacy that is popular within gender feminism, racial politics and other ideologies of victimhood. It occurs when you are accused of a thought crime such as sexism, racism or homophobia. You respond with an honest denial, which is then used as further confirmation of your guilt. You are now trapped in a circular and unfalsifiable argument; no one who is accused can be innocent because the structure of kafkatrapping precludes that possibility. The term derives from Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial in which a nondescript bank clerk named Josef K. is arrested; no charges...

Bomb threats targeting synagogues and symbols of hate along Hawaii’s busiest roadway — the messages appear to be connected to a war 9,000 miles away. HONOLULU (Hawaii 7News Now) -- Bomb threats targeting synagogues and symbols of hate along Hawaii’s busiest roadway — the messages appear to be connected to a war 9,000 miles away. Along the H-1 highway by the Barber’s Point exit, one of the many places that have a swastika along with the star of David graffitied onto signs. Those symbols can be seen for about 10 miles along the H-1 heading into town. “We think of...

New research provides evidence that left-wing authoritarianism is a valid concept that predicts important real-world phenomena, including restrictive communication norms and dogmatism. The findings, published in Frontiers in Psychology, are based on data collected from more than 8,000 U.S. residents and more than 60,000 individuals from around the world. “It’s obvious to a lot of people that left-wing persons can be just as authoritarian as right-wing persons, and yet academics have been curiously reluctant to admit that, or even to show interest in studying it. We wanted to provide more definitive scientific evidence that left-wing authoritarianism was a real and...

In 1985, Leo Alexander,one of the most important psychiatrists to grace America, died at age 79 of cancer. He was author of the Nuremberg Code and trial aide and medical consultant to the Nuremberg Tribunal that tried 23 Nazi physicians for war crimes including inhumane experiments and murders of prisoners and concentration camp detainees. His New York Times obituary elaborates: A medical investigator for Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson and an aide to the chief counsel at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, Dr. Alexander wrote the (Nuremberg) code after studying the actions of German SS troops and concentration camp...

Specifically, the studies by Jost and his colleagues, including Michael Strupp-Levitsky, who conducted the work as an NYU undergraduate and is now a doctoral candidate at Long Island University-Brooklyn, showed that those moral foundations known to be more appealing to liberals than conservatives—specifically, fairness and harm avoidance—are linked to empathic motivation, whereas the moral foundations that are more appealing to conservatives than to liberals —such as ingroup loyalty and deference to authority—are not. In fact, the “binding foundations” cited by previous studies as evidence of a broad “moral palette” are associated with authoritarianism, social dominance, and economic system justification—matters quite...

We had just noted in a post yesterday about how you never hear the term “far-left” — from Democrats to the media … even from Republicans. The media’s focus is always on the “far-right wing,” or the “ultra-MAGA conservatives.” The Atlantic just informed us that Twitter is now a “far-right social network.” AOC has said we need to protect Drag Queen Story Hour from the “far-right,” while no one said a word about the far-left militia members who brought AR-15s to protect an “all-ages” drag brunch in Texas. A new study has been published about left-wing extremism, and it links...

Sean Patrick Flanery and Jordan Belfi in Nefarious I don’t do movie reviews because I don’t watch very many movies. I have a handful of movies that I dust off for semi-annual viewings (The Man Who Would Be King, Zulu, The Wind and the Lion, Master and Commander, Patton, We Were Soldiers Once, and Black Hawk Down among them), but movie-going is just not my thing. It seems like that when I do go out; my wife has chosen a movie, like, for instance, Father Stu and The Passion of the Christ.When we do find a non-woke and non-morally...

COMMENTARY BY Portrait of Katrina Trinko Katrina Trinko @KatrinaTrinko Katrina Trinko is editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal. Send an email to Katrina. In California, “stranger danger” may be about to acquire a whole new meaning. Forget warning kids. It’s the parents in California who will need to be terrified of strangers if a new bill passes. Snuck into AB 665, legislation ostensibly about extending mental health care to lower-income California youths, is a provision that effectively would terminate parents’ rights over their kids as soon as they turn 12. The California Family Council warns that this bill “would allow children...

Canada doesn’t have reeducation camps…yet.But Justin Trudeau’s Canada is making progress towards becoming China’s North American twin. Compliance with the ideological diktats of the intelligentsia is apparently a requirement in order to keep your job these days.Yesterday Jordan Peterson revealed and the College of Ontario Psychologists acknowledged that he has been “sentenced” to mandatory retraining in order to retain his license to practice clinical psychology in Canada.I am to take a course of such training (with reports documenting my "progress" or face an in-person tribunal and suspension of my right to operate as a licensed clinical psychologist.— Dr Jordan B...

ANALYSIS Left unaddressed, gaslighting can take a significant toll on your self-esteem and overall mental health You are overthinking... We all have often come across phrases in our daily life at least once or on repeated terms such as -- You have always been crazy; I don’t know what you want me to say; It’s your fault; Everyone agrees with me; That’s not how it happened; Your memory seems to be slipping; I did that because I was trying to help you. Such phrases undermine our trust and belief. The more we hear them, the more we stop trusting ourselves....

Very good YouTube 17 min. video from HistoryLegends on the ongoing battle in Bakhmut. They do an excellent job (complete with pictures and maps) to spell out the pros and cons for both sides in this fierce battle. Also spells out KIA casualty figures for both sides to date in the Ukraine war. Over 100,000 KIA Ukrainians; 15,000 KIA Russians. The presenter has a sense of humor and does a good job mimicking neocons complete with accents...:-)

Looking into some of the Japanese Twitter accounts that were crucial in spreading misinformation about the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, it was learned in August that some of the same accounts actively spread other conspiracy theories in the past. Is it a coincidence that the accounts that spread rumors saying the Abe assassination was a “fake” were previously linked to Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine and COVID-19 theories against vaccines? Never Tweeted About Abe Before A Sendai-based internet security company, Sola.com, analyzed tweets posted in Japan regarding the Abe assassination from July 8, when Mr....

A university in Mexico has initiated proceedings against a recent psychology graduate after a group of professors expressed concerns over his graduation speech defending the family and the sanctity of life, which might cost him his license to practice. The Autonomous University of Baja California received complaints against the student, Christian Cortez Pérez, and has started formal proceedings to ban him from practicing psychology, human rights group ADF International said Friday. As the top of his class at the university’s School of Medicine and Psychology, Pérez earned the right to deliver the commencement address at his graduation ceremony on June...

How do you know so-called transgender women aren’t real women? Because they act just like predatory men who, rather than having sympathy for women concerned when physically intact men invade their territory, revel in the ability to impose their will on these women.(snip) Will Thomas, who identifies as “Lia Thomas,” has male genitalia, is tall and broad-shouldered, and is built like a male swimmer. Oh, and he’s sexually attracted to women. By calling himself female, he was empowered to stroll around a female locker room despite the women made uncomfortable as he looked at them and strolled about naked, his...

Unabomber Ted Kaczynski has been transferred from the Colorado supermax prison to a federal medical facility in North Carolina - a sign the infamous domestic terrorist's health is deteriorating. Kaczynski, 79 - a mathematics prodigy who gained notoriety for his manifesto after sending a series of bombs in the mail over 17 years that killed three people and injured 23 - has been moved to FMC Butner, which is known for treating inmates with significant health problems. He was transferred on December 14 from supermax prison Florence-ADMAX - the 'Alcatraz of the Rockies' - where he has been serving multiple...

Elon Musk's 18 year-old son has filed court documents seeking to legally change their gender from male to female and lose his last name, stating: 'I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.' Xavier Musk, 18, filed the paperwork in Santa Monica, California, on April 18, seeking to be known as Vivian Jenna Wilson. The transgender teenage explained that she wishes to take her mother's last name to distance herself from her dad. She has not commented on whether she receives financial support from her dad - whose...

Obama Issues Executive Order for the government to use individual's behavioral data.