Free Republic

Richard Burke spent Monday in Salem, making the rounds of legislative staff to get a feel for the political climate in the Capitol while lawmakers were busy on the floor or elsewhere in the building. Burke, who heads Oregon's Libertarian Party, feels the temperature may be more or less right for a coalition of Libertarians, Republicans and other conservative activists to leave a stamp not only on the state's nearly $12 billion budget, but possibly even on the process lawmakers use to draft one every two years. "You see a little bit of the coalition creeping in there," Burke said...

[State of Fear, by Michael Crichton. 603 pages. Published December 7, 2004, by HarperCollins Publishers. Hardcover, $27.95. Available at www.Amazon.com.] Michael Crichton, the author of The Andromeda Strain, Rising Sun, Jurassic Park and other block-buster thrillers, has penned a novel that could profoundly change the national and even international debate over global warming. It's long overdue. Crichton's State of Fear, with a reported first print run of 1.7 million copies, is an action thriller that doubles as a scientific primer on global warming and other environmental topics. Crichton's protagonists -- a scientist, a lawyer, a philanthropist and two remarkably athletic...

Republicans have given up the pretense that their party is the party of small government. “One of the most misunderstood parts of Hoosier culture is that Hoosiers are reluctant of change of any kind,” State Rep. Luke Messer told Brian Howey, publisher of Indianapolis Eye News, in an article that identifies an undercurrent in Indiana to have a constitutional convention. “If we have a strong leader, Hoosiers are willing to step up and make big changes. Bob Knight and Larry Bird were pretty big figures in Hoosier culture and they have been willing to make big changes. What we want...

After being elected twice as a Republican to the position of county attorney in Anderson County, Kan., Fred Campbell decided following the Nov. 2 elections to drop his Republican Party affiliation in favor of the Libertarian Party, saying the GOP has abandoned the idea of minimal government. Campbell was re-elected in November with no opposition. He has been a Republican for years, primarily because he's "always been in favor of less government rather than more," he said. "I've always thought that the Republican Party was the major party that went along with that philosophy," Campbell explained. "But in the last...

I'm somewhat befuddled as to why objectivists seem so enthralled with The Incredibles. I suppose some of it has to do with some press coverage labelling the movie "Randian". It is understandable for objectivists to bask in the national spotlight that so rarely shines on them. Objectivists seem to be confused by The Incredibles. What underlies their confusion with this movie is their reflexive attempt to fit cultural events into the narrative of Atlas Shrugged. The proper dichotomy should be, they argue, between the strong and the weak, the able and the incompetent. So it is not surprising that they...

There's been a lot of vitriol hurled at both Democrats and Republicans this election, but I'd like to focus on one party that has, until this point, largely escaped some richly deserved criticism. The voters. That's right, the precious American voters: Sacred stewards of democracy. You don't have to spin around in an election cycle for long to discover that a shocking number of voters are in fact gullible, greedy, oblivious to facts, or simply fundamentally retarded. However, three types of voters deserve special mention for taking their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote, and essentially wiping their with it. Let's...

The Atlas Society received a note just two days ago from the Baldwin Entertainment Group. This is the company that is now producing the Atlas Shrugged movie (Howard Baldwin founded the company after the shakeup at Crusader). This is what he says: "...everything is on track and [the movie] hasn’t been held up one bit.... I assure you that this will be a big movie and IT WILL GET MADE." I will keep you posted on the progress--whenever there is progress to report! Cheers, Patrick Stephens Webmaster, The Atlas Society

...There is a special reason why you, the future leaders of the United States Army, need to be philosophically armed today. You are the target of a special attack by the Kantian-Hegelian-collectivist establishment that dominates our cultural institutions at present. You are the army of the last semi-free country left on earth, yet you are accused of being a tool of imperialism--and "imperialism" is the name given to the foreign policy of this country, which has never engaged in military conquest and has never profited from the two world wars, which she did not initiate, but entered and won. (It...

I have created a public register of "bump lists" here on Free Republic. I define a bump list as a name listed in the "To" field used to index articles. Free Republic Bump List Register

Upon reading and rereading Atlas Shrugged and The Lord of the Rings, I find comparison of the two tempting, for both of these novels display firm and compelling visions regarding personal philosophy and the rejection of Evil. One of the most unique aspects of Atlas Shrugged is its rational definition of Good and Evil based on the principles of Objectivism. Good is that which is free, independent, thinking, and productive. Evil is that which attempts to feed upon others through false premises. But fundamentally Good is strong and Evil is weak, for Evil can only perpetuate itself through the consent...

Yes, I inhale. I am one of more than 100,000 California medical cannabis patients. I use cannabis, marijuana, pot or whatever you want to call it, to alleviate symptoms from post-traumatic stress and bipolar disorders. Cannabis allows me to forget about my neuroses and live a productive life as a student, volunteer, and activist. The U.S. government likes to paint cannabis as an evil monster, but that is not true. Most taxpayers are tired of billions of dollars being spent to wage a drug war that's done nothing but widen the profit margin of drug dealers and placed millions of...

A healthy society needs censorship to survive, 1950s musical icon Pat Boone said yesterday. He added that he would welcome strong content restrictions governing movies and other artistic works. "I don't think censorship is a bad word, but it has become a bad word because everybody associates it with some kind of restriction on liberty," said Mr. Boone, who is in Washington making the rounds as the national spokesman for the 60-Plus Association, a conservative senior citizen lobby.

"I won’t go to jail." Bob Schulz announces this in late January to a rapt crowd of 200 gathered in an auditorium in Crystal City, Virginia. It’s the first national conference of the We The People Foundation for Constitutional Education, a nonprofit advocacy group Schulz founded and runs. He delivers his declaration not with reckless bravado but with a dignified, quiet, middle-management-lifer assurance, in keeping with his general mien. Schulz is a serious white male in a nice conservative dark suit, a former environmental engineer for both General Electric and the Environmental Protection Agency. He’s been married for 38 years...

After a 15-year absence from the big screen, Ayn Rand’s film classic, We The Living, will return to the theaters on December 3rd at in Los Angeles. Producer and film distributor Duncan Scott—who worked with Rand and her associates Erika and Henry Mark Holzer to restore the film—has announced that this showing will be the first of a series of theatrical showings nationally throughout the fall of 2003 and the spring of 2004. (The film is also slated to run in San Francisco at the Castro Theater on March 3 and 4, 2004.) ---------------snip------------------------------------ Film buffs have long been fascinated...

P>So much has been written about the 9-11 terrorist attacks that it is difficult to add much that is new or enlightening. Perhaps it is sufficient to reflect that most of the observations and lessons make one point in common: A rational philosophy is literally a matter of life and death. Real philosophy is not constituted in dry, dusty books, nor in senseless and soul-killing rules to be followed by rote. The Objectivist philosophy instructs us on the nature of reality (existence exists); about how we can discover truth (through the use our rational faculty); on what code of values...

Kidney donor pushes his altruism to the extremeBy Stephanie StromThe New York Times PHILADELPHIA — Having given one kidney to a total stranger, Zell Kravinsky was sipping an orange-mango Snapple and, unprompted, making a case for giving away his other one. "What if someone needed it who could produce more good than me?" Kravinsky said last week. "What if I was a perfect match for a dying scientist who was the intellectual driving force behind a breakthrough cure for cancer or AIDS or on the brink of unlocking the secrets of cell regeneration?" The consequences of Kravinsky giving away his...

A VILLAGE OFF THE MAP AND OUTSIDE THE CLOCK Villagers make wine-drinking a key element in their social lives.A EurasiaNet Photo Essay by Giga Chikhladze: 6/20/03 A villager tastes a cask of young wine. Affection for Stalin abides with other antiquated customs. Akhalsopheli village, in northwest Georgia, is so small that one cannot find it on most maps. Villagers never lock their doors, worry about getting fired, or introduce themselves to strangers. It is not hard to know the entire town: its population consists of fewer than 50 elderly couples. Their children have moved out to cities long ago...

In 1972, a renowned and insightful libertarian economist of the Austrian School and a former associate of Ayn Rand, Dr. Murray Rothbard (1926-1995), composed a purported analysis of the “cult dynamics” of Ayn Rand’s personal associations wherein he compared the early development of Objectivism to a Soviet-like hierarchy of unquestioned subordination and an essentially religious acceptance on faith of the positions upheld by a master “guru.” While Rothbard does validly pinpoint some of the foibles which lay within even so ingenious, industrious, and intellectually colossal mind as Rand’s, his exposition should by no means be interpreted as a refutation of...

Over twenty years after her death, Ayn Rand’s works continue to sell at bestseller levels. In fact, sales of Rand’s books have reached all-time highs. According to Penguin/Putnam, publisher of her books, sales of their paperback editions of her masterwork, Atlas Shrugged, exceeded 140,000 copies in 2002, up ten percent from the preceding year. Sales of Anthem soared an astonishing twenty percent. Combined sales of all four of her novels in paperback (which also include The Fountainhead and We the Living) exceeded 374,000 copies. That level is higher than any since Rand’s death in 1982. If we add to this...

Phillip Anschutz's Crusader Entertainment has acquired film rights to Ayn Rand's bestselling novel "Atlas Shrugged" and tapped James V. Hart to write the screenplay. The story, first published in 1957, revovles around an economic collapse in the near-future United States as its top innovators and industrialists inexplicably disappear amid the growing power of politicians. The novel is also widely recognized for espousing Rand's philosphy of Objectivism, which advocates laissez-faire capitalism and self-sufficiency. "We are so thrilled to have gotten the rights to such a tremendous work -- it is a great story that has equal parts mystery and romance and...