Free Republic

When it comes to the size of government, Hispanics are more likely than the general public to say they would rather have a bigger government providing more services than a smaller government with fewer services. Some 75% of Hispanics say this, while 19% say they would rather have a smaller government with fewer services. By contrast, just 41% of the general U.S. public say they want a bigger government, while nearly half (48%) say they want a smaller government.

Offer free reverse-lobotomies? Probably not. This is a rant. So sue me. A Hell of a Lot!The problemsAn article at American Thinker is titled Three Reasons Conservatives are Losing the Battle for America. Although it struck me as excessively repetitive it's probably correct for the most part and well worth reading. The "legitimate media"(AKA Department of Information) are substantially dominated by libruls and present all of the news that fits their world view. Libruls want nothing to do with anything, or anybody, conservative and shut their ears, eyes and therefore minds accordingly. Political correctness is running amok, which limits not...

Professor George Lakoff describes himself as a cognitive scientist. In his book, Moral Politics How Liberals and Conservatives Think, Professor Lakoff illustrates the problem of accurately describing the dichotomy between contemporary liberalism and contemporary conservatism in America. From the section, The Worldview Problem for Cognitive Science in chapter two:~The job of the cognitive scientist in this instance is to characterize the largely unconscious liberal and conservative worldviews accurately enough so that an analyst can see just why the puzzles for liberals are not puzzles for conservatives, and conversely. Any cognitive scientist who seeks to describe the conservative and liberal worldviews...

It’s hard for a lot of people, particularly on the right, to recognize that the conservative movement’s problems are mostly problems of success. But the Republican party’s problems are much more recognizable as the problems of failure, including the failure to recognize the limits of that movement’s success. American conservatism began as a kind of intellectual hobbyists’ group with little hope of changing the broader society. Albert Jay Nock, the cape-wearing libertarian intellectual — he called himself a “philosophical anarchist” — who inspired a very young William F. Buckley Jr., argued that political change was impossible because the masses were...

Spending quality time with God appears to make benevolent love possible for many Americans, new research indicates. The Godly Love National Survey, led by researchers at the University of Akron and the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, found people who most often reported feeling God’s love were more than twice as likely as the average American to give time to those in need more than once a week. More than four in five respondents said they experience God’s love at least “once in a while;” a similar number said they felt God’s love increasing their compassion for others. The...

Statistical correlations This is a compilation of how states rank according to their voting record, faith, beliefs, etc., from polls and records, and their possible relations to each other. Also, demographical map below More national stats on the spiritual, etc. State of the Union here. Rankings (1,2,3...) mostly by this author (could have slight errors). Click on the word "rank" to go to the sources. Duplicate percentages = same rank, thus highest rank less than 50. Press F11 key on most browsers for full screen viewing. PDF download here. Political rank determined by average margins of victory in last...

Is Hillary Clinton's insistence yesterday that the leaked State Department e-mails were "not evidence" yet more evidence that indicates the Obama White House not only knew what was going on but deliberately turned a blind eye to Benghazi because of that ideology? Specifically, did an ideological soft spot for Sharia -- Obama's name is being used by his step-grandmother to raise funds to educate kids in Sharia -- blind the U.S. government to the threat posed by Ansar Al-Sharia? A group whose objective, says its Libyan leader, is to "impose Sharia" on Libya.

As a straight consequence of the "arab spring" , we have heard 2 days ago that the Emir of Qatar went to the Gaza strip through the new Egypt to fund the islamlists of Hamas..... Mr Obama is a dangerous ideologue , Mr Romney ! Could be time to say something....

Conservative columnist Jacob Sullum may have planted a dangerous seed the other day when he suggested – one can only hope tongue-in-cheek – that in addition to criminal and mental health background check requirements, one’s ideology must also be determined before that citizen is allowed to buy a gun. Sullum offered the suggestion in a column originally published by Town Hall on Aug. 8 and more recently in the Desert Dispatch on Tuesday. He notes that the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is now lobbying Congress and the two mainstream presidential contenders to “do something” about guns. Writing about...

There are two ways to run against Barack Obama: stewardship or ideology. You can run against his record or you can run against his ideas.The stewardship case is pretty straightforward: the worst recovery in U.S. history, 42 consecutive months of 8-plus percent unemployment, declining economic growth — all achieved at a price of an additional $5 trillion of accumulated debt.The ideological case is also simple. Just play in toto (and therefore in context) Obama’s Roanoke riff telling small-business owners: “You didn’t build that.” Real credit for your success belongs not to you — you think you did well because of...

Congressman Allen West blasted Robert Crowder, his Republican opponent in the upcoming 18th Congressional District race. He also took a few swipes at the Palm Beach Post in a scathing letter that the Post chose to publish on July 3rd. In the letter, West said he would not accept requests by Crowder to debate him. "I refuse to waste the voters’ time by dignifying Crowder’s cynical political maneuvering." West also explained why he refused to interview with the Palm Beach Post editorial board

Like so many teenagers, Jonathan Krohn says he cringes when he thinks of some of the deeply uncool things he said when he was 13. Unlike most teenagers, Krohn said those things on camera in a speech at the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference, making him a YouTube sensation. Now? Krohn tells Politico's Patrick Gavin he's not a conservative anymore. He likes gay marriage and Obamacare. He's going to New York University in the fall. He name drops German philosophers. But his old fans can't accept that he's changed. "Come on, I was thirteen," he told Politico. "I was thirteen."

Opinion versus Fact: Why Opposing Beliefs Leave No Room for Compromise Between Republicans and Democrats In Senator Jim DeMint’s new book, Now or Never, he boldly states, “The differences between the Democratic and Republican Parties are irreconcilable: there can be no compromise between collectivism and freedom.” How refreshing that someone in the U.S. Senate has the courage to speak the truth. I totally concur with Senator DeMint’s position. The vast majority of Democrats are not interested in truth. They are not interested in logic. They are not interested in helping others. And they certainly are not interested in upholding and...

Few things make this conservative happier than when progressives drop their holier-than-thou facade and reveal their true intentions. A column written by NY Times columnist Adam Liptak entitled “‘We the People’ Loses Appeal With People Around the World” is a textbook example. Essentially Mr. Liptak, and no doubt many of his progressive soul-mates, are ready to kick the Constitution of the United States to the curb because they consider it an “obsolete” document. Yet in explaining why, Liptak inadvertently reveals something else along the way: progressivism is an utterly bankrupt ideology. Why is the Constitution “obsolete?” “There are lots of...

Consider another media critic convinced. Gabriel Sherman, a contributing editor at New York magazine who has spent many a word on Fox News, wrote a post for the magazine's Daily Intel blog Monday suggesting Fox has adopted a "new strategy" for 2012. "Fox is trying to credibly capture the center without alienating its loyal core of rabid viewers. To this end, the network is flexing its news-gathering muscles in high-profile ways that will capture media attention," Sherman wrote. Sherman is not the first media critic to make this claim. Howard Kurtz did so back in September after talking with network...

Islam or Islamist? That is the question. Is the term “Islamist” a politically incorrect fabrication to dodge the inconvenient truth that Islam itself is inherently and inevitably chauvinistic and totalitarian? Or is it a necessary distinction to draw: denominating supremacist Muslims striving to impose on societies a classical, rigid construction of Islamic law, distinguishing them from authentic Muslim moderates who elevate reason, embrace pluralism, and take sharia as spiritual guidance rather than the mandatory law for civil society? I think we have to separate Islamists from Islam. My friend Robert Spencer disagrees. As NRO readers may know from my reviews...

"In 1919, Georg Lukacs became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun regime in Hungary. He immediately set plans in motion to de-Christianize Hungary. Reasoning that if Christian sexual ethics could be undermined among children, then both the hated (traditional) family and the Church would be dealt a crippling blow, Lukacs launched a radical sex education program in the schools. Sex lectures were organized and literature handed out which graphically instructed youth in free love (promiscuity) and sexual intercourse while simultaneously encouraging them to deride and reject Christian moral ethics, monogamy, and parental and church authority. All...

Report: Occupy Oakland Devolves into “Lord of the Flies” John on October 20, 2011 at 12:01 am From the Oakland Tribune: The next thing Hughes knew he was in a headlock, then he was being punched, and then he was on the ground as a large man began to choke him. This happened as Hughes, a substitute teacher and Occupy Oakland resident, tried to keep a larger man who also lived in the camp from threatening a woman there. Finally, after another threatening incident involving the same individual, the occupiers had had enough: About 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, a group of...

Lots of people are taking this Elizabeth Warren person out behind the woodshed. I thought I’d add my two cents. Let us note first off that none of what she said is particularly surprising. It’s painfully obvious that she’s a perfesser, and that’s just what perfessers do. Trust me: I’ve observed the species in their native habitat a long time now (there’s a reason I call this blog Academic Zoology), and I can recognize them on sight. Just by looking at her, you know Elizabeth Warren has three cats and a collection of “world music” on her iPod. She’s got...

This is truly a great mystery to me: How can a US President fail so badly after trying so hard to revive the failed ideologies of Keynesian Instant Spending Socialism, or as it is better known: " KISS, " and Socialism itself? It just doesn't make any sense! It must be very discouraging for Dictator Obama to take the very best of the failed ideologies of the past, work so hard, be so arrogant, make so many, many pretty speeches, and sign so many Pork Barrel, no ear-mark, no targeted, ( govspeak in the District of Corruption changes so fast,...