Free Republic

Conservatives are keeping quiet about their beliefs. The dominant force in America and many other Western countries today is fear of the Left.This is a result of the fact that the most dynamic religion of the past 100 years has been neither Christianity nor Islam. It has been leftism. Whoever does not recognize this does not understand the contemporary world. Leftism — in its incarnations, such as Marxism, Communism, and socialism; expressed through egalitarianism, environmentalism, and feminism; in its denigration of capitalism and Western civilization, especially America and Israel; in its supplanting of Christianity and Judaism; through its influence on...

Even the headline of the short essay in the New Yorker was meant to offend, and it did: “Chick-fil-A’s Creepy Infiltration of New York City.” The piece, by Dan Piepenbring, has been read, attacked, defended, and ridiculed by far more people than ordinarily read the New Yorker. If the editors’ goal was to attract online readers, they succeeded. Piepenbring makes no effort to veil his contempt for the famously clean and friendly fast-food restaurant, of which there are now four in Manhattan. He visited the grand opening of the largest and most recently built one, on Fulton Street in Lower...

Welcome back everyone - straight to the crazy! 4/12 - Government of Canada launches Expert Panel to help Canada tap into trillion-dollar opportunity from clean growth and climate actionFor some reason this press release showed up in my LinkedIn feed. In other words, governments authorize a scam to transfer wealth from the productive segment of society into their pockets 4/13 - Polar Opposite: NY Times Outraged by Climate ‘Denialists’ Pointing Out Polar Bear Population IncreaseUsing facts, reality, and science to make an argument? How dare they! 4/13 - Laura Ingraham Advertiser Comes Back With Tail Between Its Legs…I guess that...

The mayor of Jacksonville has responded to growing outrage after Jaguar Power Sports was issued a warning citation for their patriotic rooftop flag display. Store employees say the incident also involved mistreatment of a veteran....snip...On Monday, Melinda Power, a city of Jacksonville inspector, issued a warning citation for the display, saying the military flags were in violation of city code. She entered the store accompanied by her supervisor.

Jonah Goldberg has a new book coming out next week and today National Review published a lengthy piece adapted from the book. There’s a tremendous amount to unpack in this piece so I won’t even try to do it justice in a single blog post, but there is an idea here that really struck me as insightful and worthwhile: Conservatism is a form of gratitude. There’s a foundation to this idea. According to Goldberg, we’re living through a historical “miracle” brought about by the triumph of liberal-Democratic capitalism. On any longer time scale, Goldberg points out, our current lives are...

"Conservatism has all-too-often found itself unable to articulate a coherent positive doctrine. By this I mean specifically that the laudable conservative tendency to preserve the best of past has too-often manifested itself in a series of "thou shalt not" statements, instead of laying out a manifesto of fundamental values that might serve to unite people around a set of common ambitions. I am attempting to rectify this problem with this statement of principles, some of which I believe might have the additional virtue of being attractive to young people, looking for mature and forthright purpose and responsibility. I am not...

"What is political extremism? Professor of psychology Jordan Peterson points out that America knows what right-wing radicalism looks like: The doctrine of racial superiority is where conservatives have drawn the line. "What’s interesting is that on the conservative side of the spectrum we’ve figured out how to box-in the radicals and say, 'No, you’re outside the domain of acceptable opinion,'" says Peterson. But where's that line for the Left? There is no universal marker of what extreme liberalism looks like, which is devastating to the ideology itself but also to political discourse as a whole....

"The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it may eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy....If the system breaks down the...

We've been told conservatives don't believe in science and that there's a "Republican war on science." But John Tierney, who's written about science for The New York Times for 25 years and now writes for the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, told me in my latest online video, "The real war on science is the one from the left." Really? Conservatives are more likely to be creationists -- denying evolution. "Right," says Tierney. "But creationism doesn't affect the way science is done." What about President George W. Bush banning government funding of stem cell research? "He didn't stop stem cell research,"...

The only way to save Western civilization is to convince more people that leftism — not liberalism — is a nihilistic force. Quite literally, whatever the left touches it ruins. So, here is a partial listing of the damage done by the left and the Democratic Party: The most obvious — and, therefore, the one more and Americans can resonate with — is the near destruction of most American universities as places of learning. In the words of Harvard professor Steven Pinker — an atheist and a liberal — outside of the natural sciences and a few other disciplines (such...

Yes, at first glance the title of this piece appears to be provocative (indeed, some probably stopped there and refused to continue reading). However, it is provocative only under two conditions. First, it is provocative when viewed within the frame of reference to which we’ve become conditioned – that is, that Progressivism and religion are examined as totally separate and distinct topics, a conceptual version of the so-called “separation of church and state” if you will. Second, it is provocative if this writer had deliberately crafted it just to get a reaction..... More at Link:

On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, if you can indulge me a quick soapbox about the political use and abuse of his legacy. I'm not going to argue that MLK was exclusively a man of the right. He wasn't and his legacy isn't. Most of us know of his too close for comfort associations with Communists, as well as the extent to which some of his ideals and rhetoric veered off into leftist territory, particular in his later (and less successful) years. But there is far too much that is valuable about...

In "Why God? Explaining Religious Phenomena", sociologist Rodney Stark writes that these godless movements do not count as religions because "without the existence of a conscious divine being ... these 'Godless religions' can offer no otherworldly rewards, no miracles, not even any reason for prayer or worship." (Skip) ... he makes the following proposition: "The everlasting basis for religion will be the human conviction and hope that life has meaning." Is this not exactly the point of Marxism: that instead of the endless cycle of exploitation of man by man, we are entering an era in which workers of the...

In an odd social narrative twist, Salon released an article titled, “Banning child marriage in America: An uphill fight against evangelical pressure.” Its argument indicates a remarkable double standard.The article opens asserting, “Child marriage is a real problem in the United States, one that isn’t talked about much. Like human trafficking, we assume that child marriage is something that happens in other countries, countries with antiquated world views and gender norms.” It goes on to state, “Between 2000 and 2015, 86 percent of the reported 207,468 child marriages that took place in the United States were between minors and...

Nikolas Cruz and David Hogg are both members of Generation Z – the most spiritually destitute generation in American history. In their public educations and cultural indoctrination, they have been deprived of learning the lasting peace of self-transcending love. Their educations have robbed them of love of God and of seeing God's presence in everyone, which alone grants equal and universal human worth regardless of race, sex, or any material condition. They know only the conditional love of the world, which today means despising Judeo-Christian morality and the humility it teaches, while scapegoating the new despicables – white people, men,...

Happy Saturday! Another week, and no shortage of craziness form our friends from The Radical Left! But first, let's hop into the Wayback Machine and travel back in time to... two months ago. 1/14 - Why is liberal California the poverty capital of America?If only there were some explanation... 2/28 - Stop treating the Southern Poverty Law Center like it's a respectable and responsible organizationPersonally, I'd respect the SPLC a lot more if they would just label the SPLC a Hate Group. 3/6 - Now There's a Play Called 'Kill Climate Deniers,' Because Why NotThis week's edition of, "Hey Lefties,...

In a recent article, David Brooks (New York Times “conservative” columnist who — surprise — writes as a “progressive”) suggests that “the culture war” is over or close to over: progressives have already won. Their opponents, “the … less educated ... tribalists” have “self-marginalized over the past two years.” In addition, progressives “are getting better and more aggressive at silencing dissenting behavior. ...” As a result, they could now “be on the verge of delegitimizing their foes, on guns but also much else, rendering them untouchable for anybody who wants to stay in polite society … [avoid being] morally illegitimate...

I have known Dana Loesch for a long time and I’ve been pleased to see her work her way up the food chain on the Right. She didn’t get to where she is because of a publicity stunt, because her whole gig is to offend people or because she mindlessly shills for the Republican Party. Instead, she’s someone with talent who was out there working her butt off for years.Is Dana Loesch a mainstream grassroots conservative? Absolutely. Is she someone who should be considered a feminist role model? You bet. Having met her and her husband on numerous occasions, I...

Welcome back everybody! Leftist crazy never sleeps and neither do we! 03/01 - Why Did It Take Two Weeks To Discover Parkland Students’ Astroturfing?This post isn't as inflammatory as its title suggests, but an interesting look at how the sausage gets made. It's also something our side needs to step up and do more of, and yes that includes your faithful blogger. 3/1 - Philadelphia Soda Tax Fizzles, Brings in $13 Million Less Than ExpectedRadical Left policy checklist: 1) Ideas founded in economic illiteracy? Check! 2) Policy will disproportionately hurt the poor? Check! 3) Ultimately fails? Check and check! 3/1...

Do they really hate ordinary people that much? Yes, they do. For liberals, the distinction between the "dumb masses" and their enlightened selves renders life meaningful. Disdain for ordinary folks is not just an ancillary trait of liberalism. It is fundamental to the its nature. At its heart, liberalism is a gnostic religion, and the essence of that religion is the believer's faith that he possesses the means of changing the world for the better. The belief that the world must be changed requires there to be a mass of individuals whose lives are in need of change. Following this...