Free Republic

“Liberal Professor: My Liberal Students Terrify Me” — so naturally, he goes to Vox.com, the home of Matt “Fighting dishonesty with dishonesty is sometimes the right thing for advocates to do” Yglesias and Ezra “Not everything the Nazis touched was bad” Klein to spill his worst fears. In response, Ace of Spades writes, if a leftwing professor is feeling terrified by his fellow leftists still in the larva stage, “Then all is right. Terror is virtue, Robspierre said. It is through terror that we compel virtue”: I say it’s sort of worth reading because the writer is such a...

THE TRAGIC sinking of a cruise ship on the Yangtze River on Monday night produced a reflexive reaction from China’s communist authorities: censorship. Within hours of the disaster, which left more than 440 people dead or missing, authorities were scrubbing the Internet of questions or comments about the Eastern Star and its passengers. News media were ordered not to send journalists to the scene, to recall those already there and to rely on the official state news and television agencies for their information. Instead of providing detailed accounts, those outlets focused their coverage on Premier Li Keqiang, who was portrayed...

I have often maintained that threats to freedom of expression in this country come predominantly -- probably exclusively -- from the political left. The censoring of a pro-life student club in a Las Vegas high school is a recent egregious example. Angelique Clark, a sophomore at West Career and Technical Academy in Las Vegas, says the Clark County School District denied her application to charter a pro-life club as a chapter of Students for Life of America, the nation's largest youth pro-life organization. The district, according to Clark, said, "It was too controversial, and it would be too exclusive, and...

The fall in to “certain untruth” is almost complete within the ranks of the increasingly mentally disturbed Left. Further, because so much of what the Left is promulgating is in fact certain untruth, it must continually seek to cut off rational debates. It abhors questions about the veracity of its dogma and praxis. Leftists believe it is vitally important to prohibit questions that might undermine them or their system’s credibility. Nothing, absolutely nothing, about the dogma of the Left is to be questioned. It is only to be believed. That is one reason why the Left’s current chief flag bearer,...

A Northwestern University professor was accused of retaliation and investigated after students claimed an article she had written had a “chilling effect” on students’s ability to report sexual misconduct.Writing on Friday in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Laura Kipnis describes an academic climate in which professors lay awake at night in fear of losing their careers over a single careless word or missed trigger warning. A new academic culture is rising in which hurt feelings are considered evidence of an attack. This hypersensitivity is being abetted by an expanding process of Title IX charges which allow anyone with an agenda...

If you search the Loudoun County Public Library website for Ann's book, "!Adios, America!" you come up with NOTHING. No combination of those words will bring you to her book. Search by author brings you to her book, UNDER THE TITLE "OFFENSIVE" Curious, yes?

George Orwell wrote in his preface to Animal Farm that “Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban…At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question, anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness.” This prevailing orthodoxy defines the ideology of the contemporary Left of today. Motivated by abstractions and a vision of a utopian future based upon that which has never existed but which they are convinced they can create, the...

In a speech in South Korea US Secretary of State John Kerry called for government to play a bigger role in what goes on the Internet. Kerry advised that “we take a lesson from what’s going on in North Korea. Sure, there are a lot of things wrong with the way Kim is governing his country, but that doesn’t mean everything he’s doing is a mistake.” “A key positive in Kim’s policies is the government’s larger role in filtering what the citizens of North Korea can see and hear from the Internet,” the Secretary maintained. “Antisocial content that could undermine...

**SNIP** Derision, rather than refutation, seems to be the norm of discourse in mainstream politics as well. Accordingly, opposing views are seen as a sign of some moral defect, not genuine disagreement. Earlier this year, for example, a prominent Democrat compared delaying the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as attorney general (she’s the first African-American woman to be given the role) to Jim Crow segregation. Elsewhere, questioning certain sexual-assault statistics makes one a ‘rape apologist’; proponents of traditional marriage are dismissed as ‘bigots’; and even President Obama is called sexist for arguing with Senator Elizabeth Warren about a trade bill (he...

Kirsten Powers’ new book, “The Silencing,” nails it by showing just how bad things have gotten for free speech in America. It’s going to get a whole lot worse, and I’ll explain why. Powers has dubbed today’s intolerant purveyors of leftist causes the “the illiberal left” because, as a liberal herself, she sees them as anything but liberal about allowing a voice to those who don’t toe their rigid line. Her book catalogues and analyzes the dehumanization and demonization techniques the illiberal Left applies towards anyone who dares to veer from their rigid narratives. Their sacred cows include abortion, climate...

Those accustomed to reading or listening only to liberal commentators may not be aware of “trigger warnings” and “safe zones” on college campuses. It seems that mostly conservative sites and writers are concerned with the increasingly draconian suppression of free speech on college campuses. But then, it is mostly conservative writers and speakers who are treated as though they’re bringing the Ebola virus rather than contrarian ideas to the sensitive ears of what we may as well name the “Swaddled Generation.” A trigger warning is usually conveyed on a sign carried or posted near the auditorium where a speech is...

Citing the “especially grievous slant that FOX gives to the news,” President Obama called for “better policing of the public airways to prevent this intellectual pollution.” “When I see how FOX is constantly undermining what I am trying to do for America by pointing out every flaw and defect of my policies I feel sorry for America,” the President said. “How can our people be joyful if their TVs are parading so-called failures in front of them in their own living rooms?” “The abuse of freedom of the press and freedom of speech for the purpose of destroying faith in...

The Citizen Engagement Laboratory (CEL) wants news outlets to stop using the term “skeptics” for those who question the global climate change meme. Instead, those who fail to adhere to the accepted view are to be universally referred to as “deniers.” CEL Director Ronald Deibert complained that “using the word ‘skeptic’ makes opposition to our theory of global climate change sound reasonable. It implies that their assertion that evidence is needed to prove that mankind is the source of climate change deserves a hearing. It implies that the science of global warming is not settled, that differing interpretations of the...

Bristling at claims that GOP opposition has made the Federal Election Commission "worse than dysfunctional" in the eyes of the Democratic chairwoman, Republicans counter-charge that the left is frustrated because it hasn't succeeded in regulating conservative Internet sites, media and right-leaning super PACs. In an escalating fight on the politically-divided FEC, the former Republican chairman on Monday charged his Democratic replacement with playing politics and trying to belittle foes to get her way. (Snip) "To punctuate her concerns over 'dark money' as the poster issue for Republican lawlessness, she has publicly called out four conservative non-profit organizations: Crossroads GPS, Americans...

Broadcast networks have taken their cues from The New York Times, except when it publishes stories about babies that they don’t like. A study released Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine documented thousands of premature births to discover a small number of babies born at 22 weeks, with medical treatment available to them, survived with few health implications. The findings that could “affect the abortion debate” landed on the front page of the May 7 New York Times and garnered attention from NBC’s Today. Other media, like ABC and CBS, stayed silent during their morning and evening news...

President Barack Obama’s surprise visit to the Teaism Cafe near the White House inspired Time Magazine reporter Zeke Miller to video tape the event. However, the president didn’t want to be taped and ordered Miller to put away his camera. Miller meekly complied. Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained that “certainly, as the most powerful man on the planet, President Obama has the right to decide which of his activities will or won’t be recorded. He is under no obligation to permit random observations and disclosures of his activities if it doesn’t please him to do so.” A disappointed Miller rued...

A new spirit of intolerance has arisen on the Johns Hopkins University campus, and conservative Christians are the targets. The JHU student government’s vote this week to ban any hypothetical future Chick-fil-A outlet from campus because of the company owner’s support for traditional marriage, coming on the heels of the JHU Spring Fair’s censorship of a pro-life fetal-model display as “disturbing” and “triggering,” sends a clear message that students who disagree with liberal orthodoxy are not welcome on the Hopkins campus. The student government’s vote went beyond merely expressing support for same-sex marriage. The Chick-fil-A ban seeks to introduce unprecedented...

As a Marine combat veteran and former Marine of the Year, I am extremely disappointed in the University of Maryland’s decision to silence the story of a man who valiantly served our great nation. Just like the men and women I had the privilege of serving beside in the Marine Corps, Chris Kyle put on his uniform every day to protect and preserve liberty, the open discussion of ideas, and the opportunity for every American — regardless of race, religion, culture, or gender — to succeed and achieve the American Dream.

A generation of liberal indoctrination on campus has led to the widespread acceptance of thought-crime, a monster that says it’s okay to shun those with “unacceptable” views.  Liberals think they can control the monsters they release, but they can’t. Where does it lead?  Straight to the ovens, Rabbi Shmuley Bioteach warned Friday, Fortunately, we have not seen an outbreak of violence in the United States as we have in Europe. Nevertheless, the anti-Semitic acts on college campuses are alarming. No one should be surprised, however, given the nationwide campaign to delegitimize Israel by calling on universities to boycott and divest from the Jewish...

WASHINGTON — A 17-year-old transgender youth, Leelah Alcorn, stunned her friends and a vast Internet audience in December when she threw herself in front of a tractor-trailer after writing in an online suicide note that religious therapists had tried to convert her back to being a boy. In response, President Obama this week will call for an end to such psychiatric therapies aimed at “repairing” gay, lesbian and transgender youth, White House officials said. His decision on the sensitive issue is the latest example of his continuing embrace of gay rights. In a statement to be posted on Wednesday evening...