Free Republic

The secret to selling bad ideas is to make sure they are the only ones available. This is how totalitarian regimes take power. Whether it was Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany or Vladimir Lenin in Communist Russia, the pattern is largely the same – totalitarian dictators come to power by enshrining themselves as cults of personality and then creating political monopolies through often less than delicate campaigns of indoctrination and censorship – especially censorship enshrouded in the intimidating aura of state power.Ironically, these cloven-tongued leaders often rise to dominance by preaching power to those they will dominate, provision to those...

By see-dubya  •  August 8, 2008 01:54 AM Get a load of these guys: Nearly 10,000 of the biggest donors to Republican candidates and causes across the country will probably receive a foreboding “warning” letter in the mail next week. … Led by Tom Matzzie, a liberal political operative who has been involved with some prominent left-wing efforts in recent years, the newly formed nonprofit group, Accountable America, is planning to confront donors to conservative groups, hoping to create a chilling effect that will dry up contributions.“We want to stop the Swift Boating before it gets off the ground,” said Mr....

The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to debate two bills that could give the federal government unprecedented control over the way parents raise their children – even providing funds for state workers to come into homes and screen babies for emotional and developmental problems. The Pre-K Act (HR 3289) and the Education Begins at Home Act (HR 2343) are two bills geared toward military and families who fall below state poverty lines. The measures are said to be a way to prevent child abuse, close the achievement gap in education between poor and minority infants versus middle-class children and...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: World War II, I read today, those of you from the greatest generation, you World War II vets still alive, apparently Monday night PBS is going to run a documentary on World War II in which the whole notion that we were the good guys is going to be turned upside down, that we used totalitarian dictatorship tactics to win World War II, that all we did was bomb the innocent in Dresden and Hamburg and, of course, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that we were not the valiant and valorous victors that we were made out to be,...

Where does all this stuff that you�ve heard about this morning � the victim feminism, the gay rights movement, the invented statistics, the rewritten history, the lies, the demands, all the rest of it � where does it come from? For the first time in our history, Americans have to be fearful of what they say, of what they write, and of what they think. They have to be afraid of using the wrong word, a word denounced as offensive or insensitive, or racist, sexist, or homophobic. We have seen other countries, particularly in this century, where this has been...

Demonised in the West as goons guarding the Olympic torch along its chaotic world tour, these pictures show how China's paramilitary police learn their unwavering discipline. Officers of the People Paramilitary Police preparing for the Olympics are drilled on the parade ground with pins in their collars and crosses on their backs to ensure perfect posture. But instead of the blue tracksuits members wore while escorting the flame, they are kitted out in full dress uniform during the exercise at their base in Shenyang, Liaoning province.

Return to the Article April 27, 2008Another Obama MarxistBy Lance Fairchok Barack Obama has a thing for Marxists. He befriends them, listens to their counsel, and he even hires them to work in his campaign.  And they seem to feel the warmth.  President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, who led a revolution there in 1979,  says Barack Obama's presidential bid is a "revolutionary" phenomenon, and Americans are "laying the foundations for a revolutionary change." A captured computer revealed that an unknown person chatted with Marxist FARC guerillas on Obama's behalf (they believed), stating he would be the next President and US policy...

PARIS (Reuters) - French former film star Brigitte Bardot went on trial on Tuesday for insulting Muslims, the fifth time she has faced the charge of "inciting racial hatred" over her controversial remarks about Islam and its followers. Prosecutors asked that the Paris court hand the 73-year-old former sex symbol a two-month suspended prison sentence and fine her 15,000 euros ($23,760) for saying the Muslim community was "destroying our country and imposing its acts." Since retiring from the film industry in the 1970s, Bardot has become a prominent animal rights activist but she has also courted controversy by denouncing Muslim...

BEIJING (AFP) - China bluntly told the world Olympics chief Thursday to keep out of politics, in a tart exchange on human rights following days of protests that have shadowed the Olympic torch around the world. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said the Games were in "crisis" following the demonstrations, and urged China to respect its pledge to improve its rights record before the event begins in August. China fired back that Rogge should keep politics out of the Olympics, which Beijing hoped would showcase its much-touted "peaceful rise" to power -- but which have instead become a public...

"I am afraid there are people who want to stop the economic growth, the rise in the standard of living (though not their own) and the ability of man to use the expanding wealth, science and technology for solving the actual pressing problems of mankind, especially of the developing countries." "I am also afraid that the same people, imprisoned in the Malthusian tenets and in their own megalomaniacal ambitions, want to regulate and constrain demographic development, which is something only the totalitarian regimes have until now dared to experiment with."

Globalization relates to social change and the connectivity of societies around the world. The goal of globalization is to create one global village that has mutual understanding and friendship between all citizens of the world community. The signs of globalization are many. Some major ones are: 1. “Increase in international trade at a faster rate than the growth in the world economy 2. Greater international cultural exchange 3. Greater international travel and tourism 4. Greater immigration, including illegal immigration 5. Development of global telecommunications infrastructure 6. Development of global financial systems 7. Increase in the share of the world economy...

Police in San Mateo County, California apparently first spent months investigating the small-stakes poker game. From this firsthand account, it looks like a couple of the officers were playing regularly for several weeks before sending in the SWAT team, guns drawn, last week. If California is like most states (and I believe it is), a poker game is only illegal if the house is taking a rake off the top. In this case, it looks like that "rake" was the $5 the extra the hosts asked from each buy-in to pay for pizza and beer. Police also took a 13-year-old...

Saudi lawyer in rape victim plea Story Highlights - Woman sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail under Islamic law - Judge more than doubled 19-year-old's sentence for speaking to the media - Woman's lawyer loses law license for speaking to Saudi-controlled media - Human rights group: Lawyer faces three-year suspension and disbarment (CNN) -- A Saudi Arabian human rights attorney is asking the government to allow him to represent a woman who was gang-raped -- and then sentenced to prison for speaking out about the case. The attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, had his license revoked last week by...

POLICE STATE, GERMANY Court: Homeschooling is 'child endangerment' Gives 2 kids to government, castigates social workers for letting family flee A court decision that categorized homeschooling as "child welfare endangerment" has assigned custody of two children to the government and criticized a social services agency for allowing a family to flee Germany, where homeschooling remains illegal. Federal High Court in Karlsruhe, Germany's highest court, was reported by the German edition of Agence France-Presse, as well as Netwerk Bildungsfreiheit, an organization that advocates for homeschoolers against the repression in Germany. The report did not directly identify the family involved, but described...

Remembering Kristallnacht, the 'Night of Broken Glass' By Hilda Pierce November 9, 2007 Crystal Night is a beautiful name for an evil event that took place in Austria and Germany on the night of Nov. 9, 1938. It was orchestrated on the orders of Adolph Hitler's minister of propaganda, Josef Goebbels. Adolf Eichmann also had a part in organizing the “Night of Broken Glass,” the night of burning synagogues, smashing windows of Jewish stores, looting, killing or torturing Jews on the streets and in their homes, 69 years ago today. It is a historical date because it was also the...

This afternoon [10/18/2007] the editorial desk of Noticiero Digital contacted the news department of Mérida radio station Estudio 102.7 FM, who confirmed the information reported this morning. They added that the recently inaugurated monument was destroyed by gunfire. The glass monument honoring Argentinian guerilla Ernesto Guevara was not well received by the area's communities, to whom [Che] represented a figure who was totally foreign to its history and values.

The Chinese government has launched a campaign to limit the number of hours teenagers spend online playing games. Under new rules that took effect Monday, Chinese Internet gaming companies must install a program that requires users to enter their ID card numbers. After three hours, players under 18 are prompted to stop and "do suitable physical exercise." If they continue, the software slashes by half any points earned in the game. All points are wiped out if players stay on more than five hours. The program is part of a government campaign to combat Internet gaming addiction, "clean up the...

Che Guevara: PC Icon by Larry Pratt July 12, 2007 02:00 PM EST Che Guevara's image graces many a T-shirt worn in the US. Wearing one of these seems to be intended as a statement that it is good to be free of the crushing norms of a civilization tricked up by dead white men. The T-shirt image depicts a long-haired 1960’s hippy gazing steadfastly into the future. The truth is, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the one-time number three in Fidel Castro's thugocracy, would have had a guy looking like Guevara's resemblance arrested and sent to a concentration camp known by...

'Mohammad cartoon' publisher appalled at reaction to Rushdie's knighting Chad Groening OneNewsNow.com July 9, 2007 The man responsible for publishing the controversial cartoons that angered the Islamic world almost two years ago says he's seeing similar reaction to the decision by Queen Elizabeth to knight author Salman Rushdie, who received death threats for writing The Satanic Verses. Hear this Report Flemming Rose is the cultural editor for Jyllands Posten, the Danish newspaper that published the "Mohammad cartoons" that sparked one of the most significant discussions of free speech of this generation. He sees similarities between Muslim reaction to that and...

Frustrated by a legislative session that left many key issues hanging, Gov. Eliot Spitzer said Tuesday that he could govern without lawmakers. Downplaying the importance of passing laws, the freshman governor said he favored regulatory changes and executive orders to run the state -- neither of which require prior approval by the legislature. The Democratic governor repeated his criticism of a decision by the Senate's Republican majority to go home June 21, the official end of the six-month session, though many bills remain to be considered.

North Korea has increased its public executions against cell phone users and those who circulate outside information in the communist country, a South Korean government think tank said Thursday. The phenomenon of executions of those who "circulate South Korean leaflets and sell videos and use cell phones are on the rise," the South's government-affiliated Korea Institute for National Unification think tank said in a white paper on the North's human rights conditions. No exact figures were given. North Koreans are officially banned from communicating with the outside world but some of them listen to foreign news and use cell phones...

Che Guevara: Mass Murderer and Coward By Jamie Glazov FrontPageMagazine.com June 13, 2007 Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Cuban-born Humberto Fontova, who left Cuba in 1961 at age seven, has written for several conservative magazines and is the author of Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant. He has appeared on many radio and television shows and is active in the Cuban American community. He is the author of the new book Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him. FP: Humberto Fontova, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Fontova: It's my pleasure. Let's face it: how many media outlets are...

Malaysia: 37 books that 'undermine Islam' banned Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST Jun. 6, 2007 Malaysia has banned 37 books and other publications on Islam, saying they contain "twisted facts" that could undermine Muslims' faith. Che Din Yusoh, a senior official of the Publications and Quranic Texts Control Division, said in a statement Wednesday that 21 of the items were English-language publications from the US, UK and Jordan, and 16 others were in the Bahasa Malaysia language, published in Malaysia and Indonesia. "These publications can cause confusion and apprehension among Muslims and eventually jeopardize public order," Che Din said in...

A Chinese-language international TV station called New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV) recently broadcast a news item on Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv's adamant prohibition of Jews deriving any benefit from Chinese organ harvesting, even in life-threatening situations. Elyashiv, the most respected halachic authority among haredi Lithuanian Jewry, ruled over a month ago that it was forbidden to use organs harvested from members of the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that is being persecuted by the Chinese Communist regime. Although Elyashiv did not mention the Falun Gong by name, he said it was a desecration of God's name for Jews to exploit...

1989 : Tiananmen Square Massacre Takes Place Chinese troops storm through Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, killing and arresting thousands of pro-democracy protesters. The brutal Chinese government assault on the protesters shocked the West and brought denunciations and sanctions from the United States. In May 1989, nearly a million Chinese, mostly young students, crowded into central Beijing to protest for greater democracy and call for the resignations of Chinese Communist Party leaders deemed too repressive. For nearly three weeks, the protesters kept up daily vigils, and marched and chanted. Western reporters captured much of the drama for television...

Latin America's leading newspapers devoted their Monday editorials to the discontinuation of 53-year old private TV channel Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV). They all claimed that the arbitrary measure taken against an enterprise that pioneered TV broadcasting in Venezuela was "a step backwards" in the freedoms of the country and the whole region. Editor of Venezuelan evening newspaper Tal Cual Teodoro Petkoff pointed out in the Argentinean Clarín daily that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is pressing ahead with "his plans to set up a mass media hegemonic position." In this regard, he said that if the excuse not to renew a...

(03/20/2007) CODEPINK's Desiree Fairooz interrupts Hillary Clinton Fundraiser with the "Why, Why, Hillary Why?" song to the tune of "American Pie" as another CODEPINK protester Jodie Evans gets dragged out by 3-4 secret service officers. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=960_1174488595&p=1

France is one of three EU countries to sign an extradition text with China France has signed an extradition treaty with China despite concerns expressed by human rights groups over Beijing's use of the death penalty. France's justice minister said a suspect would be extradited in cases punishable by death only if China guaranteed they would not be executed. Pascal Clement also said the treaty excluded offences judged to be political or military. France is the third EU country after Spain and Portugal to sign such a pact. "This treaty explicitly anticipates the rejection of extradition requests based on...

Speech codes. Censorship. Enforced political conformity. Hostility to diversity of opinion. Sensitivity training. We usually associate such things with the worst excesses of fascism and communism, not with the American universities that nurtured the free speech movement. But American higher education bears a disturbing resemblance to the totalitarian societies that are anathema to our nation’s ideal of liberty. Evan Coyne Maloney’s documentary film, Indoctrinate U, reveals the breathtaking institutional intolerance you won't read about in the glossy marketing brochures of Harvard, Berkeley, Michigan, Yale, and hundreds of other American colleges and universities. "When we think of going to college, we...

Several vehicles were burned out in the riot Security is tight in a town in central China following riots that involved as many as 20,000 people.A BBC correspondent in the town, in Hunan province, has seen riot police and soldiers protecting government buildings and patrolling the streets. He says it appears the protests began after a local firm took over the town's bus routes and doubled the fares. Vehicles were burned and several people were injured in clashes with police as the protests climaxed on Monday. Reports said one person had been killed, although this was denied on Wednesday...

A teenager taken from her home and parents by German police officers and institionalized in a psychiatric ward for homeschooling is pleading with the international community for help so she can return home. "I want to ask you for help, to get my right to go back to my family, as I wish," Melissa Busekros wrote in an English letter hand-delivered to the International Human Rights Group, whose lawyers have been working on her case. More than six weeks ago she was taken "with more than 15 police men" from her home to a psychiatric hospital in Nuremberg, she wrote,...

A protest staged by thousands of rural workers in central China ended in violent clashes last week, media reports and an official said.Several people were injured as up to 20,000 people clashed with 1,000 police in Hunan province on Friday, a local official told Reuters news agency. A report on the Boxun Chinese news website said the clash was sparked by rising public transport costs. Rural regions of China have mounting unrest in recent years. Thousands of protests were held last year amid growing discontent over the widening gap between rich and poor and corruption among officials at local...

Locking up as mentally ill those who refuse to obey a tyrannical state was a favorite tactic of Stalin and his successors. The New Europe is learning to love this reinforcement of government power. According to Paul Belien, the editor of Brussels Journal, a sixteen-year old girl in Germany has been locked up in a psychiatric ward for "school phobia" --- resisting state schooling after years of being home schooled. Belien quotes the one-paragraph psychiatrist's report on Melissa Busekros. Judging by her photo, she seems about as healthy and normal as teenage girls get. One "Dr. Siegfried Schanda" --- I'm not kidding,...

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Two candidates in local elections here in March, a soccer star and figure skating champion, have no known intention of giving up sports for legislative politics. If they win, as they almost certainly will, their Kremlin-friendly parties, not the voters, will choose the candidates to fill their seats.... The elections here on March 11, like those in 13 other regions, will preview coming national elections in which voters’ choices will be severely limited at best. “Democracy?” asked Vladimir I. Fyodorov, a leader of the Communist Party here, which faces an uphill task of winning any seats...

Dr. Daniels begins predictably witht this: ...Why should Orwell be so desired and desirable, in short so unanswerable, an ally? He is a secular saint, over whose relics everyone squabbles. There are good reasons for this, no doubt. In his essay, Why I Write, published in 1946, Orwell disarmingly tells us that all writers are to some extent egotistical: they desire to seem clever, to be talked about and admired, and to be remembered after their death.... But finally Dr. Daniels points this out: ...But by far the worst aspect of Homage to Catalonia is its strong advocacy of totalitarianism....

Synopsis: Designating specified firearms as assault weapons; prohibiting with specified exceptions a person from transporting an assault weapon into the State or possessing, selling, offering to sell, transferring, or receiving an assault weapon; requiring the Handgun Roster Board to compile and maintain a roster of prohibited assault weapons; etc. Senate Bill 43 is a pdf file: http://mlis.state.md.us/2007RS/bills/sb/sb0043f.pdf

Kwanzaa: A Holiday From the FBI by Ann Coulter President Bush's 2005 Kwanzaa message began with the patently absurd statement: "African-Americans and people around the world reflect on African heritage during Kwanzaa." I believe more African-Americans spent this season reflecting on the birth of Christ than some phony non-Christian holiday invented a few decades ago by an FBI stooge. Kwanzaa is a holiday for white liberals, not blacks. It is a fact that Kwanzaa was invented in 1966 by a black radical FBI stooge, Ron Karenga, aka Dr. Maulana Karenga. Karenga was a founder of United Slaves, a violent nationalist...

BEIJING (Reuters) - The Internet Society of China has recommended to the government that bloggers be required to use their real names when they register blogs, state media said on Monday, in the latest attempt to regulate free-wheeling Web content. The society, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Information Industry, said no decision had been made but that a 'real name system' was inevitable. "A real name system will be an unavoidable choice if China wants to standardise and develop its blog industry," the official Xinhua news agency quoted the Internet Society's secretary general, Huang Chengqing, as saying. "We...

We can -- and perhaps should -- have a discussion about the value or even the morality of rendition. However, we should be clear about something right off the bat, so we are not using incorrect terminology or assertions. Terrorists, stateless actors, pirates, etc. are not covered by the Geneva Convention. It's important that we all get that right, so we are not starting out with false assertions. That said, those in our custody are being afforded **most** (albeit not all) of the considerations that would be given someone who is covered thereby. And as far as I am concerned,...

The left talks a good game about rights and freedoms and all that, but the truth is, the more power people on the left get, the more totalitarian they become. In America, they are strongest in the universities, and sure enough, it's within many universities that you find speech codes; denials of tenure and funding based on political alignment or positions; the suppression of certain kinds of ideological expression; open attacks on conservatives and Jews; and the tacit encouragement or official endorsement of left-wing (and sometimes violent, Jihadist, anti-Semitic, or simply vile) ideological and artistic expressions. And in America, we're...

Mayor Bloomberg has been hit with another lawsuit in connection with his campaign to crack down on illegal guns. A South Carolina gun dealer became the second storeowner to sue after Mr. Bloomberg targeted it a few months ago in an undercover sting operation designed to stymie illegal gun sales. The lawsuit, filed in South Carolina, seeks damages and claims that the city smeared the storeowner's reputation. Meanwhile, a gun dealer in Queens targeted by the city's investigators, Michael Spallone, 41, pleaded guilty yesterday to disorderly conduct. Mr. Bloomberg touted that plea as a victory, saying it sends a strong...

Hillary Clinton created climate she now decries - she was part of staff of House committee during former Pres. RIchard M. Nixon's impeachment considerations - Column Mark R. Levin A few weeks ago, the only first lady to testify before a grand jury, Hillary Rodham Clinton, was on the Larry King Show lamenting the criticism she and her husband have received, particularly regarding the firing of the White House Travel Office staff. "I don't think you can get used to it," she said. "It's painful sometimes. It does upset me." She later added, "I think that what prepared me most...

John McCain showed such moral uprightness in 2008--Kerry Tried to use him as a pawn but Kerry found him to be more of a Bishop or a Knight, the dudes a POW, he's sensitive yet again-he stands up for whats right. An Officer and a Gentleman---Questions? Answers? Whatever your race or creed, I think this guy deserves a serious look, more serious than 2004.

"Palestinians" death cult - Humanity turned Upside down 9/11 & other terror victims in agony are to be cheered, danced & laughed at but monsters on humanity (on non Arabs & on their own people like) Al-Zarqawi & Saddam Hussein are to be sympathized with. They tell us day & night that they are about "freedom", yet, in their entire violent totalitarian society, not one person is ever really free. If they deliberately send their kids to be killed as murderers (bombers or shields for adult shooters), How do they expect us to take them seriously when they make a...

China's Growing Challenge To U.S. Posted 5/25/2006 Defense: The Pentagon's annual report on Chinese military power reveals that Beijing will soon be as much of a threat to America's security as it is to Taiwan's. We may soon have more to worry about than cheap imports.China's threat to Taiwan has been long-standing, growing and pretty much common knowledge, but the 2006 edition of the Pentagon's annual report to Congress, "Military Power of the People's Republic of China," makes it clear that China's ambitions and abilities go far beyond recovering what it considers its lost province.The 58-page assessment notes that while...

AmericanEconomicAlert.org | Fighting for American Companies, Fighting for American Jobs China Seeks to Perpetuate Advantages, Not Solve Problems By William R. Hawkins Thursday, April 20, 2006 As Chinese President Hu Jintao comes to Washington for a summit with President George W. Bush, all those watching the media reports and reading the official statements released by the two governments should remember the most famous words of the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, “Warfare is the Way (Tao) of deception.” The techniques of Chinese propaganda developed during the Cold War have not been abandoned, only modernized. Over the last year, Beijing has...

Vladimir Bukovksy, the 63-year old former Soviet dissident, fears that the European Union is on its way to becoming another Soviet Union. In a speech he delivered in Brussels last week Mr Bukovsky called the EU a “monster” that must be destroyed, the sooner the better, before it develops into a fullfledged totalitarian state.

Hysteria Central October 2005 Michael O'Brien is an accomplished Catholic novelist. His strength is fiction. In The Catholic World Report (April), he ventures into nonfiction, specifically political science, and what he writes turns out to be fiction as well. He writes about "The New Totalitarianism" that is already here or on its way because of "hate" crimes legislation and same-sex "marriage." The NOR has spoken out against active homosexuals (even calling them fags, rump rangers, and light in the loafers), and as a result subscriptions have been canceled. And the NOR has spoken out against "hate" crimes legislation and same-sex...

Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place Citizens Would Also Have To Show ID UPDATED: 7:22 pm EST December 19, 2005 CLEVELAND -- A bill on Gov. Bob Taft's desk right now is drawing a lot of criticism, NewsChannel5 reported. One state representative said it resembles Gestapo-style tactics of government, and there could be changes coming on the streets of Ohio's small towns and big cities. The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The...

A Venezuelan court has sentenced one of the most prominent leaders of the opposition to 15 years in prison. Carlos Ortega, who once led powerful trade unions, was found guilty of inciting civil unrest during a strike that began in late 2002. The two-month strike paralysed Venezuela's vital oil industry. Ortega said the verdict was politically motivated, and his lawyers immediately announced an appeal. Ortega was arrested in the capital, Caracas, in March. He was found in possession of identity papers with an assumed name, a police official said earlier. Family members said Ortega secretly returned to Venezuela in last...