Free Republic

FREE TO CHOOSE: Created Equal Friedman: From the Victorian novelists to modern reformers, a favorite device to stir our emotions is to contrast extremes of wealth and of poverty. We are expected to conclude that the rich are responsible for the deprivations of the poor __ that they are rich at the expense of the poor. Whether it is in the slums of New Delhi or in the affluence of Las Vegas, it simply isn't fair that there should be any losers. Life is unfair __ there is nothing fair about one man being born blind and another man being...

by Edward Hudgins, The Atlas Society & Objectivist Center On July 4 we celebrate the creation of the United States of America. Our birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence, reads, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal." It states that we're each endowed with "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." It concludes that "to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed." Most Americans give lip service to these sentiments. But how many of us understand...

Is Zionism, Racist? Filed under: Front Page, Opinion, Israel By Ted Belman I recently wrote an article in which I tried to deal with the implications of the recent SC decision in Israel on education budgets or “priority areas”. Bill Narvey commented on it (below) and here is my response. Thanks for this. Most of it I agree in the main. 1. I think we both recognize the tension between democracy and equality. If democracy means majority rule, when and to what extent do minority rights trump democracy? 2. We also recognize that in all democracies, governments reduce equality to...

Ithaca College Feminists will observe National Condom Week by providing programs and information about health risks in sexual relationships from Tuesday to Feb. 21. “Sexual health is an important part of being in charge and in control of one’s own body,” said Laura McKenna, president of the Ithaca College Feminists. National Condom Week dates back to 1978, when students at the University of California-Berkeley wanted to educate others about the risks inherent in sexual intercourse including AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. McKenna said ICFeminists will promote National Condom Week through tabling in the Campus Center lobby until...

Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006 1:15 p.m. EST CORE Blasts King Funeral 'Outrage' The head of one of the nation's oldest civil rights organizations is blasting former President Jimmy Carter and Rev. Joseph Lowery for politicizing the funeral of Coretta Scott King. In a press release Thursday, Roy Innis, chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, called comments by Carter and Lowery attacking President Bush "crass" and "disrespectful." "It was an outrage for such behavior to be exhibited in the presence of the President of the United States, and it was particularly outrageous for it to occur at a funeral for...

At the current pace, European women are not expected to reach parity with men in academic science positions until 2050. —Gerlind Wallon [1] Some have a dream that, one fine day, there will be equal numbers of men and women in all jobs, including those in scientific research. But I think this dream is Utopian; it assumes that if all doors were opened and all discrimination ended, the different sexes would be professionally indistinguishable. The dream is sustained by a cult of political correctness that ignores the facts of life—and thrives only because the human mind likes to bury experience...

To understand any political ideology, one must understand what most animates it. For the Left, it is hatred of inequality. As noted in a previous column, the Left hates inequality even more than it hates evil. Or perhaps more accurately, for the Left, inequality is the ultimate evil. If ever there were a smoking gun as to what animates most leftists, the many expressions of the need for judges to favor "the little guy" in their courtroom constitute that smoking gun. The prime Democratic objection to confirming Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court was that he does not rule...

We demand the extension of the community of equals to include all great apes: human beings, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans. The community of equals is the moral community within which we accept certain basic moral principles or rights as governing our relations with each other and enforceable at law. Among these principles or rights are the following: 1. The Right to Life The lives of members of the community of equals are to be protected. Members of the community of equals may not be killed except in very strictly defined circumstances, for example, self-defense. 2. The Protection of Individual...

WARROAD, Minn. - The Warroad High School boys' team squeaked out a 2-1 victory over the U.S. Olympic women's hockey team Wednesday. Allen McBride's goal with 3:52 remaining - a backhander past Team USA goalie Chanda Gunn - proved to be the game-winner. "They were nice to put a team up against us that was spirited and you could tell by the reactions that it meant as much to those kids as it does to us,'' Team USA coach Ben Smith said. "Hockey is hockey. I think the people liked it. It seemed like a nice crowd and just a...

Golf clubs with one set of rules for men and another for women will fall foul of EU law from December 2007 onward, the European Commission has confirmed. The legal opinion issued Wednesday (4 December) implies that mixed clubs will have to put an end to male-only bars and time-limits on how long female members can play. But Irish and UK press say a loophole will allow people to run male only clubs under a "freedom of association" clause. "There might be some reactionary, neanderthal men who may form more such [single-sex] clubs, but if they do, I think they'll...

Survey shows Americans’ personal misery has increased since early 1990s Discussion at PhysOrgForum General Science : December 29, 2005 As Americans pause to reflect on time gone by on the threshold of a new year, many will have reason to think that their lives have not gotten better, according to a new study by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. In the decade-and-a-half since NORC first surveyed people’s negative life events, researchers have found that the number of troubles people report has increased. Chief among those problems are more incidents of illness, inability to afford medical...

THE ugly are seeking refuge from a hostile world in a German club specially founded to cater for their needs and allay their anxieties. Hamburg's Ugly Club requires of its members only that they identify the one thing about themselves that they are most unhappy about. Stomachs are at the top of the list, followed by noses and hips. Harald Gasper, a creative director in an advertising agency with a jowly face and a big nose, established the club with his wife Regina, a tall journalist with big feet. "We're tired of the idea that you have to be beautiful...

[...] Today, Souvaine chairs the Tufts University computer science department, which has more female professors than male. But few younger women have followed in her generation's footsteps. Next spring, when 22 computer science graduates accept their Tufts diplomas, only four will be women. Born in contemporary times, free of the male-dominated legacy common to other sciences and engineering, computer science could have become a model for gender equality. [...] When Tara Espiritu arrived at Tufts, she was the rare young woman planning to become a computer scientist.[...]The same men always spoke up, often to raise some technical point that meant...

Fifteen percent of all workers say they have been discriminated against in their workplace during the past year, according to a new Gallup Organization poll. The survey was conducted to discover workers' perceptions of discrimination in their workplaces during a year that marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC's chairwoman, Cari M. Dominguez, said the information will help the agency compare employee perceptions of discrimination with complaints actually filed with the agency. For example, 31 percent of Asians surveyed reported incidents of...

In his welcome Washington Post "Outlook" piece, “Disappearing Act: Where Have the Men Gone? No Place Good,” Michael Gurian reports that colleges and universities across the country are “grappling with the case of the mysteriously vanishing male.” The author of books on the compelling brain research that reveals significant sex differences in learning styles notes that men make up only 43 percent of college students. Gurian laments that we have failed to react to a “significant crisis” that damages the life prospects of millions of young men. He marshals the evidence of boys in trouble and effectively demands attention...

Dennis Prager recently argued that the Left values equality more than it hates evil. He is absolutely right. But I can go Dennis Prager one better: the Left hates sex. Not sexual activity, mind you. No, the Left is hyper-active sexually. I mean something much deeper: the Left is war with the fact that we are sexual beings. Let me explain. The Left can not accept that we are born as either male or female. You might expect me to say that the Left hates gender. But to say that is to accept their terms for the debate. Gender is...

In a town full of dirty little secrets, the composition of writers in Hollywood rises to the level of scandal. Though Tinsel Town pays lip service to liberalism and equality, women and minority film and television writers get work and get paid with a disparity that is striking.

Raising Boys Without Men by Peggy Drexler, Ph.D. Benefit to society or slap in the face to fathers? If you're a single or lesbian mom who is raising a boy without his father and you want assurance that you can raise him to be a decent man, “Raising Boys Without Men” is the book for you. Peggy Drexler takes us on a feel-good journey through the lives of several boys being raised by single moms and lesbian couples. What she found was these boys were essentially the same as the boys being raised in heterosexual families. She states, “I came...

In my run for Congress (California's 48th District U.S. House Representative), I wish to support a women's right to "equal pay for equal work." This right was put into law with the "Equal Pay Act of 1963." Most women will tell you that they do not possess significant equality of equal pay compared to men doing the same job. I'd like to see the many corporate businesses of the 48th District set an example of gender equity for women.

'How to beat your wife' imam must study equality By Isambard Wilkinson in Madrid (Filed: 29/09/2005) An imam who wrote a book on how to beat your wife without leaving marks on her body has been ordered by a judge in Spain to study the country's constitution. The judge told Mohamed Kamal Mustafa, imam of a mosque in the southern resort of Fuengirola, to spend six months studying three articles of the constitution and the universal declaration of human rights. Mr Kamal was sentenced to 15 months in jail and fined £1,500 last year after being found guilty of inciting...

Controversy and intrigue have swirled around Venezuela's Hugo Chavez ever since he was elected president seven years ago and established himself as a leftist force. Chavez's rising influence in Latin American politics, his country's role as a major supplier of crude oil for U.S. refiners and his close ties to Cuba's Fidel Castro have alarmed policymakers in the Bush administration. Last month, on his television show, the Rev. Pat Robertson actually went so far as to suggest the United States should assassinate the 51-year-old Chavez. (Robertson later apologized.)While Chavez was in New York last week for the gathering of world...

As a result of the repudiation of Judeo-Christian values, we are witnessing the ascendance of the feminine in Western society. There are two reasons for this. One is the overriding belief in equality, which to those who reject Judeo-Christian values means sameness. Judeo-Christian values emphatically affirm the equality of the sexes. In fact, given that the creation story in Genesis proceeds from primitive to elevated, the last creation, woman, can easily be seen as the most elevated of the creations. Every man knows how much a good woman helps him transcend his animal nature. Judeo-Christian values do not conflate equality...

Equality under the law is a cherished American principle, albeit one that was widely violated for too many decades. Thankfully, politicians, courts and voters have erased gratuitous and demeaning legal discriminations, most famously racial segregation laws, in more recent years. The political and legal debates continue, however. When gay couples seek the right to marry, for instance, they are seeking what they regard to be equality under the law. When civil rights activists complain about racial profiling by police, they are complaining about what they regard as inequality under the law. When Latino leaders demand driver's licenses for illegal immigrants,...

...Whatever the merits of [gender differences elsewhere, in] movies... the classic trope of female vulnerability and male strength has been upended and replaced with the childish and somewhat delusional notion that women can surpass men in every area of competition. One of this summer's biggest movies, "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," about a married couple who don't realize that they are both paid assassins, stars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt and received a lot of buzz for the supposedly heated off-screen romance between the two actors. Less remarked upon, however, was the violence their characters inflict on each other onscreen and...

When Alexis de Tocqueville and his traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, arrived in Newport, R.I., in May 1831, the country was barely 50 years old--and Tocqueville wasn't yet 26. Andrew Jackson was president and John C. Calhoun was vice president. Politically, the event of the year was Nat Turner's slave revolt in Virginia. Steamships existed and a primitive rail system had just come into service, but the first of the wagon trains had yet to cross the Rockies. In faraway Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, then 22, gave his first political speech (atop a beer keg) on the subject of "the navigation...

Iranian Women Take On the Constitution * Mahsa Shekarloo * July 21, 2005 (Mahsa Shekarloo is a member of the non-governmental Women's Cultural Center in Tehran, which helped to organize the unauthorized June 12 sit-in for women's rights. She maintains a website at www.badjens.com.) Activists for women's rights are prominent among the many Iranians who fear a reinvigorated crackdown on personal and social freedoms in the wake of the surprise election of the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency of the Islamic Republic. Though Ahmadinejad sought to soften his image on gender issues during the week before the runoff on...

Islam is a religion of peace. Right—and Paris Hilton is a virgin. But “moderate” Muslims—an oxymoron if ever there was one—would have us trying to reconcile the completely irreconcilable. After last week’s civilian bombings by Islamists in London, England, I was walking through Toronto’s Dundas Square when a man handed me a booklet entitled “Islam: Does it Make Sense?” Complete with subheadings like “the religion of balance and moderation”, “the religion of human equality”, “the most tolerant and inclusive religion”, and “the liberating religion”, it makes for a nice spun-out version of Islam for kids, lefties, or anyone with an...

The plain truth is VAWA is unconstitutional. Nothing in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States of America, including the Commerce Clause, authorizes the Congress to regulate and control personal relations between individuals. Further, the blatant and undeniable gender bias seen on the face of VAWA is discrimination against a subject class, men, in direct violation of Section 1 of Amendment XIV of the Constitution notwithstanding pious statements to the contrary by uninformed Senators. Destruction of Civil Liberties We oppose domestic violence and believe attackers of any innocent person should be brought to trial. However,...

Do conservatives regard women as inferior? I sat in church on Mother's Day and listened to the pastor build his sermon around the book of Proverbs. Sadly, one point of emphasis was that "it is better for a man to live in the corner of a roof than share a house with a complaining wife." The pastor predictably joked that "his point was scriptural and not personal." But then went on in poor taste to make other jokes concerning his wife's shopping habits and the number of shoes in her closet. On Father's Day, another pastor spoke, again from Proverbs....

Equality has a wonderful "ring" to it, but when politicians, whose political life hinges on reelection, begin to tell us what/who is equal and what/who is not, it portends disaster. One dictionary defines "Equal" as: . "of the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another; . identical in mathematical value or logical denotation." The question is, "are men and women equal?" . The anatomical answer is, "no;" . The psychological answer is, "no;" . The common sense answer is, "no;" and . One writer even suggests that men are from Mars and women from Venus-hardly equal, although the "Venusian"...

Sick and tired of ordinary hospitals? You owe it to yourself to check out and check into Equality Diversity Hospital, where caring is sharing and weepers are sleepers. Our staff of desiccated professionals—practical nurses, practical surgeons, cooks, caterer's assistants, manicurists, porters, mortars, pathologists, phrenologists, ornithologists, herpetologists, lepidopterists, and a few dendrologists for full flavor—that is, the whole kit and caboodle—Shave all been hired in proportion to their representation in the general population. No hospital in the entire US is as equal as Equality Diversity—or as diverse. Approximately fifty-three percent of ED staff are apparently female (we ask, but they don't...

Please sign the New Hampshire petition for Protection of Parenting Equality. And please visit www.nhcustody.org for an education on the problems in New Hampshire and across the country relating to how the family courts continue to sever the parent/child relationship after a no-fault divorce or separation and are thus creating huge numbers of NH and American children with only a single parent. Equal parenting rights require protections explicitly written into our states' child custody statutes, even though these same [parental] rights have been historically upheld as amongst the most sacred liberties protected by the constitution's 14th amendment equal protection clause....

The death of Terri Schiavo has taught us some tough lessons about the matter of life and death and about the proponents on both sides of this issue. Pro-life and pro-choice (right to die) advocates hooked up in a battle for the ages. While they set their feet in cement in this war of good and evil, they succeeded only in cementing the fate of the only powerless person in this entire sordid affair, namely, Terri Schiavo. Terri, was given a pair of cement shoes and was sent off to wear them in a better place where she would no...

Reporter's Notebook: Path of Afghan Women Saturday, March 12, 2005 By Scott Heidler KABUL, Afghanistan — Debbie Rodriguez's "girls" are at the forefront of an Afghan cultural change, one where women play a stronger role in this nation's economic fabric. This week, as many in the world reflected on the achievements made by women around the globe, Rodriguez's beauty students kept their expectations low. Tuesday was International Women's Day (search), meant to be "a major day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements" of women. Celebrations in Afghanistan were muted. The beauty profession is one of the...

“Man and Woman”, “Wife”, “Husband”, “Widow”, “Widower” Banished From all Ontario Law Terms, when referring to spouses, are banned from all government programs, services, documentsToronto, February 25, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – With the obscenely rapid, three-day introduction and passage of its same-sex “marriage” Bill 171, the Ontario government has advanced a revolutionary change in the way all laws and government programs and institutions refer to marriage and married persons. Everything referring to spouses must now be gender neutral. No longer can a married couple be referred to as “husband and wife” or “man and woman”. The terms “Widow” and “widower” are...

Butlers-in-training flock here to learn the tricks of the trade from 70-year-old Rick Fink, who has served British royalty and aristocracy for more than half a century. Fink, whose stately bearing and traditional dress recall an era filled with balls and hunting parties, is devoted to passing on his considerable knowledge to the next generation of butlers. [...] The recent rise of butling schools -- Fink has several competitors -- illustrates the comeback and the modernization of butling. With the proliferation of millionaires, butlers have become the ultimate household manager. [...] High salaries, the potential for travel, and the challenge...

The Trees Words by Neil Pert There is unrest in the forest There is trouble with the trees For the maples want more sunlight And the oaks ignore their pleas The trouble with the maples (And they're quite convinced they're right) They say the oaks are just too lofty And they grab up all the light But the oaks can't help their feelings If they like the way they're made And they wonder why the maples Can't be happy in their shade There is trouble in the forest And the creatures all have fled As the maples scream 'Oppression!' And...

Do you think that women have the same opportunities in the United States as men? Choice Votes Percentage of 1755 Votes Yes 620 35% No 1135 65%

Police in Northampton, Massachusetts, have arrested two young woman on rape and assault charges stemming from a violent incident involving another female, a Smith College student. Rachel Ann Klobertanz, 22, and Augusta Claire Kendall, 22, who also attends Smith, appeared before District Court Judge W. Michael Goggins on Tueday of this week and pleaded innocent to charges of rape and sexual assault. Both women told police that on the previous Friday night, January 14, they engaged in consensual sex with another female, a 20-year-old. However, what they described as commencing as a night of socializing apparently spiraled into a lurid...

Liberalism's definition of "equality" rests on a denial of reality. That is, a denial of real differences. Under liberal thought, "equality" means sameness, even amongst things that are obviously not the same. Why do liberals mark off as a no-go area the recognition of stark differences between men and women? Because to say the sexes are different is to threaten "equality." Anyone wishing to enter polite liberal society must not merely say that men and women possess the same dignity; they must say that men and women are exactly the same, in every respect, even if that means ignoring something...

Girls are taking the nation's colleges by storm. They're streaming to campuses in greater numbers, earning better grades and graduating more often. The same phenomenal success shows in high schools, where girls dominate honor rolls, hold more student government spots and rake in most of the academic awards.

Go here: http://www.koliber.net/index/index.php?action=show&object=article&id=2654 to read a story from POLAND on how KoLiber Poznan, a conservative group protesting against the discrimination against men, against the unborn, against the wealthy (through high taxes) and against people with traditional Christian views on morality was BANNED from a DECLAREDLY pro-tolerance, pro-equality, pro-democracy and pro-freedom "Equality March". The march was organized by a cluster of liberal, feminist and homosexual groups and was effectively a gay-pride march under the cover of an "equality" event and pretending to be fighting for equal rights for people of ALL views. How typical.

In a case that could affect women's health clubs across California, the state filed a lawsuit accusing a Petaluma women's fitness center of sex discrimination. The lawsuit in Sonoma County Superior Court alleges Elan Fitness Center fails to provide "full and equal accommodations" for men, in violation of the state's civil rights law. The suit stems from a discrimination complaint filed last year by a Santa Rosa man who said he was discouraged from joining the fitness club. The state Department of Fair Employment and Housing said Phillip Kottle was the victim of discrimination because of his gender . The...

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com, Web Site: www.assistnews.netFriday, October 22, 2004 SHARI'A COURT SENTENCES NIGERIAN WOMAN TO DEATH FOR ADULTERY Muslim Militants Threaten Nurses Holding Worship Services; ‘Taliban’ Group Fires On Police By Michael IrelandChief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service NIGERIA  (ANS) -- A Shari'a court sentenced a young Muslim woman to death for becoming pregnant out of wedlock earlier in October. Hajara Ibrahim from Bauchi state, central eastern Nigeria, had confessed to having had a physical relationship with a man named Dauda Sani, whom she claims had promised to...

Women would be forced to pay hundreds of pounds more for their car insurance under new EU anti-sexism laws expected to come under heavy fire from a parliamentary inquiry this week. Female drivers are charged up to 30 per cent less than male drivers because they have fewer crashes. They also pay less for life insurance, because they are less likely to die young. The measures proposed by the European Commission to enforce 'gender equality' would force the financial services industry to treat the sexes equally. It argues that differences in men and women's life expectancy are down to potentially...

NEWS: August 19, 2004 Bird’s Eye View of the News Atila Sinke Guimarães KAZAN, THE END OF STORY – The holy icon of Our Lady of Kazan, which was being used as a pawn by John Paul II to win a visit to Russia, will be delivered to the Russian Schismatic Church without the visit. The unconditional decision of the Pope was announced June 10 and will become a reality on August 28. Navarro-Valls, spokesman for the Pope, said JPII hopes that this gift will improve the dialogue. A commission is being appointed to deliver the icon to Alexis...

How to Oppose Liberal Intolerance By Lawrence Auster FrontPageMagazine.com | August 11, 2004 The double standard may well be the most characteristic feature of the leftist cultural order under which we now live. A particularly revealing instance of the double standard was the media's wall-to-wall obsession with the Abu Ghraib abuses, combined with its refusal to show the tape of the savage beheadings of innocent Americans by Islamist killers. While conservatives complain endlessly (one might even say boringly) about the double standard, however, they have signally failed to understand it. One explanation may be that today's leftists deceptively describe their...

Comments and criticisms of the PDF material at http://www.modernliberalism.org would be most welcome.

A record-breaking new class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart claims that this retail chain discriminates against women, for which of course vast millions of dollars are being demanded. The New York Times aptly summarized the case -- "about 65 percent of the company's hourly-paid workers are women, but only 33 percent of its managers are." The grand fallacy of our times is that various groups would be equally represented in institutions and occupations if it were not for discrimination. This preconception has undermined, if not destroyed, the crucial centuries-old legal principle that the burden of proof is on the accuser. Wal-Mart is...

To secure the continuing existence of the United States democracy against intractable religious fanaticism, whose goal is nothing less than a Muslim theocracy for all of planet Earth, it is inevitable that military conscription will again be implemented during the months following the 2004 Presidential Election. The nature of this struggle renders irrelevant the person or party who wins the election. With very rare exceptions, every male residing in the United States 18 to 26 years of age is required by the Military Selective Service Act to register with the Selective Service System, and thereby subject himself to the possibility...