Free Republic

Catturd ™ @catturd2 I admit when I'm wrong and I was 100% wrong about @elonmusk changing Twitter. The new Twitter moderation council is just a bunch of far left fanatic groups who were never targeted here. No average Joes, no real Conservatives, no one to represent the PEOPLE ACTUALLY TARGETED!

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is once again calling for reform of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) Section 230 – as he once is again appearing before a US Congress committee. Zuckerberg’s testimony on Thursday before the House Energy Committee revealed that Zuckerberg is proposing replacing automatic immunity from prosecution for user generated content with platforms like his own demonstrating that they have implemented “adequate” moderation and censorship systems. He said that these systems would be used for “identifying unlawful content and removing it.” The thought behind this seems to be to convince critics that tech giants are doing everything to...

“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” said 1964 Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater. “Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” He was wrong on both counts. Zeal for liberty can be (and sometimes is) taken way too far, and without moderation, even the noblest of goals is easily turned into something evil. A great example of this: the French Revolution. The revolution began with some long-overdue reforms. It abolished the special privileges of nobles and clergy and guaranteed Frenchmen fundamental rights similar to those promised in our own Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights....

<p>Washington (AFP) -- Facebook said Thursday it would soon open up nominations for a new 40-member oversight panel to make tough decisions on content moderation, saying it would be independent of governments and management of the social networking giant.</p> <p>A report on the process was released following more than six months of consultations in 88 countries on how to deal with the delicate topics of allowing and removing controversial comments and images.</p>

Valerie Stull was 12 when she ate her first insect. “I was on a trip with my parents in Central America and we were served fried ants,” she says. “I remember being so grossed out initially, but when I put the ant in my mouth, I was really surprised because it tasted like food — and it was good!” Today, Stull, a recent doctoral graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, is the lead author of a new pilot clinical trial published in the journal Scientific Reports that looks at what eating crickets does to the...

Vid at link

OK, I confess: I’m a Luddite. What’s a Luddite? For those who have smartphones, you can look it up. For those who don’t, I’ll tell you. Luddites (purportedly named after a Mr. Ludd) were a loosely organized English saboteur group in the early 1800s who objected to the increasing use of manufacturing machinery on the grounds that it would put many artisans out of work. They went around smashing the offensive machines in hopes that people would understand the economic impact of mechanization on cottage industries. In modern parlance, Luddites are those who resist embracing the latest whiz-bang technology and...

A focus group of media professionals convened by Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly burst into a heated yelling match on Wednesday during a discussion of CNN anchor Candy Crowley’s performance as the moderator of the second presidential debate. RELATED: Candy Crowley’s Debate Moderation Exemplifies Why Americans Do Not Trust Their Media Several of the Republican focus group participants said that they believed Crowley’s fact checking was inappropriate, both because she was supposed to be the impartial moderator and because the fact that she checked was debatable. Media writer and entrepreneur Carol Roth said that it was “clear that she was...

After consultation with many fellow supporters of my proposed change in the California Republican Party Bylaws, I made the very difficult decision just a few minutes ago to withdraw the change. To make a long story short, while I am confident that the votes were there to pass the change at the convention, the matter was becoming extremely divisive due to a lot of misinformation being spread about the proposal, and its effects.

Peter Berkowitz, who reviewed my book Liberty and Tyranny for the Weekly Standard, and did a pretty poor job of it, sees the most aggressive assault on representative and constitutional government in modern history and preaches moderation and, ultimately, inevitability. In the first sentence of his review he asserts "Moderation ... is an essential political virtue and a quintessentially conservative virtue." This is the way forward for conservatism, he insists. At no time does he define "moderation" or any governing principles, other than to misapply moderation as prudence, when prudence is, in fact, about judgment. Edmund Burke, who Berkowitz misunderstands...

LOS ANGELES - In a year when Republicans are slouching toward a post-Bush era, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he has a winning strategy for his party — be like me. California's popular governor is known for his kaleidoscopic political stripes, and that's his point. He said Republicans could face a future of Election Day misery unless the party makes a decisive shift to the political center and claims issues usually associated with the Democratic agenda, like global warming and health-care reform. "We are dying at the box office," the actor-politician told party activists, lamenting a decline in Republican registration that...

From those omniscient clerics at Islam Question and Answer: Ruling on female circumcision Question No 1188 Question:Is female circumcision sunnah or a bad practice? I read in a magazine that female circumcision in any form is a bad practice that is harmful from a medical point of view, and that it may sometimes lead to sterility. Is this correct?Answer: Praise be to Allaah. Circumcising females is sunnah; it is neither a bad practice or harmful, if it is done within moderation. When extreme forms of female circumcision are carried out, harm may result. Okay. As long as it is done in moderation.

I am the current Religion Moderator and have general responsibility for this Religion Forum on Free Republic. However, all moderators have authority on the RF as well – and prior RMs may log in with my handle. So the person handling your abuse reports may or may not be me, but usually it will be. I diligently try to read all of your posts, but am not here 24/7 and cannot remember all of the slights and parties involved on every single sidebar much less when posters carry grudges between threads. So if you are wondering why I singled one...

Is there something cyclical, but nevertheless extraordinary, happening in American politics these days? Are we moving from a period of partisan confrontation and division, to one that values consensus and seeks more unity among our public figures? Otherwise, how can we account for the unusual persistence with which moderates like Rudy Guiliani and Senator John McCain are holding their large leads in the Republican primary electorate? Or, the surprising surge of perceived-moderate Senator Barack Obama into second place in the Democratic field? The conservative right is trailing ignominiously in the polls for the Republican nomination, while Hillary is tied with...

MODERATION IS a virtue in many things like eating and drinking, but it's a sin in politics and public policy. The surest way to make the next two years a waste of everyone's time is to pretend that the lesson of the last election is that policy advocates of every philosophical stripe should abandon all principle in search of some sort of weak-kneed, Milquetoast fiction called the moderate position. Every politician and policy advocate has some sort of philosophical belief system. While loosely grouped under two parties or perhaps two broad ideological monikers (conservative and liberal), almost every belief system...

British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for an "alliance of moderation" to counter the "arc of extremism" stretching across the Middle East, saying in a speech to be delivered Tuesday that a soft approach is as important as military action. Blair said he still hoped for a quick end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas hostilities in southern Lebanon, and once that happens, the global approach to a lasting settlement in the Middle East needs to be reconsidered. "We will continue to do all we can to halt the hostilities," said Blair in remarks prepared for delivery in...

Once I read that the number of Germans directly involved in the Holocaust — giving orders in Berlin, building the infrastructure of the death camps, rounding up victims, piloting trains, releasing the gas, hunting down escapees and so forth — was 100,000. In 1939 the population of the Reich was 80 million, so slightly more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the Germans were actually involved in murdering Jews. Yet, somehow, I never see anyone trying to clear the German volk of the guilt of the crimes of Hitler's "tiny extremist minority." No, the verdict of history is that all...

Muslim groups apologize for violence This web site has attracted attention as a voice of moderation from the Muslim world. The website www.sorrynorwaydenmark.com has a clear message from the moderate Arab and Muslim world. The web site argues that the images of Arab and Muslim wrath at the publication of caricatures of the prophet Mohammed seen around the world are not representative of what Muslims at large feel, and apologizes for and condemns acts of violence against Denmark, Norway and the European Union. "A group of Arab and Muslim youth who live in Arab nations and other places are behind...

The choice of Harriet Miers to be nominated to the Supreme Court, and her subsequent withdrawal, shows that caution is sometimes the most dangerous policy.She was obviously chosen cautiously as a "stealth" nominee -- someone without a paper trail or a judicial record that could ignite controversy -- in hopes of avoiding a confirmation fight that the Senate Republicans had the votes to win, but had neither the unity nor the guts required to make victory certain.Harriet Miers was a choice made from political weakness. Now she is gone but the political weakness remains. So celebrations in conservative quarters may...

Political operatives on both sides of the aisle are discussing the 2008 election as if it is only days away. But hardly a dismissal of the important issues facing President Bush in his second term, this talk of the next presidential race is representative of the pivotal changes in the political landscape that occurred last November. Unfortunately, the forces of “moderation” are still at work within the GOP, threatening to undermine the tremendous gains made by conservatives in the elections. Arnold Schwarzenegger contends that the Republican Party should move “to the center” (which means to the left) on social issues....