Free Republic

Anti-Trump protesters believe they are fighting the good fight to stop a racist, homophobic, sexist monster. But about half of the country – the half that I’m in – is in a different movie. In our movie, we selected a new president and half of the country is in cognitive dissonance over it. Assuming the protesters are the ones experiencing the illusion, and not us, how can we release them from their zombie-like existence so they will stop blocking traffic? I’ll tell you the general approach. The main thing you have to do is violate the frame. Clinton framed Trump...

Imagine you lived in a world in which no one except one senior citizen ever drank alcoholic beverages. Would you think it is a good idea to choose this one person – the only drinker in the world – to be in charge of the nuclear arsenal? No, that would be crazy. We know alcohol impairs judgment. And a president is on-call for emergencies 24-hours a day. Alcohol plus life-and-death decisions is a dangerous combination. The only reason social drinking (or worse) is not automatically disqualifying for the Commander-in-Chief job is because … wait for it … many of us...

If the latest groping/kissing allegations against Trump hold up – and I assume they will, based on quantity if not credibility – it won’t matter what Wikileaks says about Clinton. She will win easily. If Clinton wins, you’ll wonder if this invalidates the Master Persuader Hypothesis. The short answer is no, because the concept doesn’t account for unknowns of this magnitude. If a meteor had struck Trump a day before election day, it wouldn’t say much about his skill as a persuader. The Master Persuasion Hypothesis worked splendidly until the double-whammy of the Access Hollywood tape and the “octopus” meteor....

None other than anti-Trump GOP establishmentarian Erick Erickson (yeah seriously) threw down the gauntlet at Dilbert Creator Scott Adams following the Access Hollywood recording in which Donald Trump said bad things eleven years ago. @EWErickson tweets: I'm waiting for the guy who writes Dilbert to pen 5000 words on why this Access Hollywood tape is actually a brilliant thing for Trump. Well, he didn't have to wait long. Challenge accepted! I’ll give you my thoughts, in no particular order.1. If this were anyone else, the election would be over. But keep in mind that Trump doesn’t need to outrun the...

<p>Donald Trump scares a lot of people. They worry that he is a crazy racist who can’t be trusted with the nuclear codes. They worry that he will needlessly insult foreign leaders. They worry that he isn’t sufficiently knowledgeable to do the job. And so on.</p>

Yesterday Hillary Clinton announced her VP running mate, Tim Kaine. Let me tell you how that decision looks from a persuasion standpoint. I’ll ignore Kaine’s education, experience, political preferences, and anything else that voters say they care about but don’t. Today, let’s just talk about how people will feel about it.

Last week, a young Christian male asked me a pretty direct question. He wanted to know whether I ever worried that my blunt commentary on social media was “turning people away from Christianity.” I thought it was an honest question. So I gave him an honest answer. I told him that I believe the problem is just the opposite of what he considers it to be. In other words, it isn’t occasional blunt commentary that turns people away from Christianity. It is the constant displays of Christian cowardice that make people both reticent to join and quick to attack us....

I need to add one level to the BOTTOM of the persuasion stack. That level involves arguing about the definition of a word. Persuasion Stack Identity (best) Analogy (okay, not great) Reason (useless) Definition (capitulation) You'll see a lot of debate on whether Trump is a true conservative or not. That is argument by definition. It is the linguistic equivalent of throwing your gun at a monster because the clip is empty. National Review's cover story, in which the big question comes down to whether Trump is a true conservative or not, is your tell for capitulation on the right....

Dan Haggerty, who fans know as Grizzly Adams, died early Friday morning at the age of 74 from cancer, ABC News has confirmed with the actor's manager Terry Bomar. Haggerty starred as Grizzly Adams in the 1974 film "The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams" and the subsequent TV series of the same name, which ran from 1977 to 1978.

Some readers may have noticed that six months have passed since I wrote a column criticizing the whacky leftist administration at my university, UNC-Wilmington. I am happy to report the reason for the silence is that the wacky leftist administrators are now gone. In addition to that, on July 1st of this year our university got its first out of the closet conservative chancellor. You heard that right. UNC-Wilmington is now under the leadership of a conservative chancellor. And he makes no effort to hide it. Jose "Zito" Sartarelli is just the man we have been looking for. Unlike me,...

Author's Note: Universities are supposed to prepare people to be productive citizens. They are failing miserably because they are failing to reward hard work and initiative. In fact, it is worse than that. They have actually started rewarding dependency in our government schools. At the beginning of every semester, I try to inform students that things will be very different in my class. This latest message, which I have written to my students and will send to them early next month when classes begin, is illustrative. If you are tired of our public schools and universities producing helpless, dependent children...

"In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of...

John Quincy Adams wrote (reacting to the Russo-Turkish wars): "In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the...

A former soldier has been arrested by detectives investigating the events of Bloody Sunday in Londonderry. Thirteen people were killed when British paratroopers opened fire on a civil rights march through the city in January 1972. A fourteenth died later. The 66-year-old is a former member of the Parachute Regiment. He was detained in County Antrim on Tuesday by the PSNI's Legacy Investigation Branch. He is the first person to be arrested as part of the investigation.

Professor John Lewis Gaddis’ recent provocative analysis of the origins of “unilateralism” in American foreign policy highlights the pivotal role of John Quincy Adams.... (snip) John Quincy Adams possessed a remarkably clear, uncompromised understanding of the permanent Islamic institutions of jihad war and dhimmitude. Regarding jihad, Adams states in his essay series, “…he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind…The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God.” ... (snip) (Adams) Remonstrating Against the Moral Equivalence of Britain and...

A recent letter to the editor written by Professor Bruce McKinney shows why we cannot trust most college professors and administrators to defend free speech. In just four short paragraphs, McKinney misrepresents key facts, misapplies relevant law, and attempts to project his own hypocrisy upon those who are committed to defending the free exchange of ideas. His letter is presented in full with my commentary interspersed between each paragraph:A recent letter cited "UNCW's administration attempt to stop freedom of speech" in which very large graphic images of aborted fetuses were shown on campus.If Professor McKinneyÂ’s letter stopped here, he would...

My liberal friends, all three of them, are up in arms over the Indiana RFRA controversy. As usual, their views on the issue are driven by emotion, not reason. That is because liberalism is not really a political philosophy. It is a stage of arrested emotional development. Since the Indiana RFRA controversy revolves around their core religion, which is the so-called gay rights movement, their emotionally laden “political” observations are not likely to subside in the near future. Until then, it helps to understand what the current crisis in Indiana is really all about. Hint: It’s the same thing we...

If you are reading my column, you are familiar with the claim that campus administrators often seek to deprive young conservatives of the ability to defend their beliefs in the marketplace of ideas. But you may not have heard the claim that campus administrators often deprive young leftists of the ability to defend their beliefs in the marketplace of ideas. The latter contention is the subject of the present column. It begins with a salient example from my own campus, UNC-Wilmington. Here on my campus, a bold Christian organization called Ratio Christi often seeks to open up the marketplace of...

The Obama White House has finally released the names of the fourteen Muslim “leaders” who met with the President this past week. Among the group — which included a comedian, along with a hijab-wearing basketball player and a handful of left wing activists — were a select few individuals with disturbingly close ties to the global Muslim Brotherhood.

Over the last several years, the presence of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) operatives working inside the federal government advising our senior leaders has been definitively documented (see articles here , here and here). This penetration of our system is shocking and constitutes an immediate danger for American citizens. The success of the MB’s influence operation from within our government is now manifesting itself with national and global implications for the security of America and its citizens. In July of this year, the CIA hosted a 2-day training program at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia entitled “Countering Violent Extremism Workshop for the...