Free Republic

Fears of a growing totalitarian tendency in the United States have swelled during 2020–2022. But how close are we really to a totalitarian state? How have such regimes come about historically and what are the warning signs? This article will answer these questions by examining totalitarian regimes in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries and the pattern by which they came to power. Stage 1: Discontent and Rumblings Every new order rises on the ruins of the old. Those who would establish a new regime must tap into or generate dissatisfaction with the status quo. However much those desiring a reset...

Murphy said he hopes people "get asked to leave" if they're not wearing a mask or face covering inside a store. But the Murphy administration clarified the rule, saying if somebody enters a supermarket without one, they can still access the store – espcially if there is a medical reason – only the store can limit their time and contact.

The three dozen or so people that Barack Obama has surrounded himself with to handle this problem or that issue, and yet are not confirmed by the Senate or operating an agency created by Congress, are not really his "czars." These people are, instead, his "commissars." Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany both called those vague, undefined figures appointed by the Leader to carry out his intentions "commissars" (Hollywood never speaks of Nazi commissars for the same reason that it never notes that Nazi Party members called each other "comrade" - the pretense that Nazis and Bolsheviks were polar opposites rather...

Tommy Thompson Gets Chip Implant Implanted microchips are getting a plug from a heavy hitter - former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. Thompson plans to promote a product made by his new company � a medical info chip � by having one implanted in his arm. "It doesn't cause any pain," Thompson told Paul Bedard, who writes the Washington Whispers column in U.S. News & World Report. The chip is made by Florida-based VeriChip, which recently added Thompson to its board of directors. The rice-size chip contains a 16-digit identification code that can be scanned at hospitals and...

Armies of the North Philip Gourevitch talks about North Korea, and its President, Kim Jong Il. Posted 2003-09-01 This week in the magazine, Philip Gourevitch writes about the North Korean dictatorship and its role in the world’s political order. Here he discusses with The New Yorker’s Amy Davidson the unparalleled cult of personality around North Korea’s President, Kim Jong Il, and the threat that the country poses to international peace. AMY DAVIDSON: How brutal is the North Korean government? PHILIP GOUREVITCH: It’s one of the most brutal governments on earth. One of the difficulties in assessing the nature of existence...