Free Republic

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,...

I identify myself politically as a (independent) conservative. While there are certainly extremists and radicals in every political affiliation they are, without exception, in the minority. However, the mainstream media, politically ‘correct’ bloggers, certain minority groups and the liberal left in general have been largely successful in defining and portraying (for various self-serving and chiefly political reasons) all conservatives as right-wing religious fanatics, hate-filled homophobes, xenophobes, misogynists, racists and warmongers. Unfortunately, this view seems to be widely believed, at least generally, among non-conservatives. Therefore, and since I fall into none of those categories listed, I wish to clarify and express...

From the days of Adam right down to our own time, the devilish belief that man is God has danced across history, seducing millions in its path. Early Church Father John of Damascus identifies barbarism as the primordial heresy, the idea that man is god: "Barbarism is that which prevailed from the days of Adam down through ten generations to the time of Noah. It is called barbarism because of the fact that in those times men had no ruling authority or mutual accord, but every man was independent and a law unto himself after the dictates of his own...

Will Arizona get federal help for their wildfires? I doubt it.

Conservatism is a thinking mans ideology. It requires understanding and wisdom, research and knowledge, and the ability and willingness to judge right from wrong. It requires a moral compass, a fortitude for righteousness, and above all a love of liberty. To be a true conservative the value of the individual must be nourished and a fierce independence cultivated that can withstand the petty criticisms, persecutions and mockeries of those who have yet to see the light and embrace the truth. The conservative ideology cannot be separated from logic or from common sense. To me being a political blogger and commentator...

Frustrating! That's the appropriate word for what is happening in the wake of the Osama bin Laden raid. Besides the precision of the Navy SEALs, the big story to emerge from the action is that coerced interrogation gave the CIA vital information used to track bin Laden to his lair. Current CIA Chief Leon Panetta has confirmed that.Of course, that exposition is embarrassing to the left, including President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Clinton, who are all on record as saying coerced interrogation does not work. Apparently, they were wrong in a big way.The nails-on-the-blackboard part of...

From the moment Barack Obama took center stage at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the world has been busily trying to decipher the man. No one has been more busy reading Obama in the years since than the chair of the Harvard History Department, the esteemed Dr. James Kloppenberg. At numerous symposia, on both sides of the Atlantic, he has shared his distinctive insights on our 44th president. In his new book, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition, Kloppenberg has assembled his insights into a misreading of Obama so sincere and so profound that it causes one...

When I covered George W. Bush’s White House, my job was made easier by the simplicity of the subject. The president had a few defining mantras — Cut taxes! Rally the base! Terrorists hate freedom! With us or against us! — and most of his decisions could be understood, even predicted, by applying one of the overarching philosophies. With President Obama, there is no such luxury. The political right is befuddled as it tries to explain him: First, Obama was a tyrant and a socialist; now he’s a weakling who refuses to lead. The political left is almost as confused,...

When I first read Paul Johnson’s seminal work on the History of the Modern World, now published under a different title, I was thunderstruck by the assembled evidence of the rape, pillage and murder of those unfortunate to be governed by the Russian Communist state. The precise numbers are difficult to ascertain with authority but Johnson’s sources indicate that 10% of the population were subjected to Stalin’s penitentiary establishments. If you reckon around a million died in the Gulag every year between 1936 and Stalin’s death in 1953 that would account for 17 million of his fellow, and no doubt...

With quiet dignity a hooded figure revealed himself from the protective ring of trees. Mounting a small hillock he faced the sea of expectant faces. A measured sweep of his hands pulled back the hood to reveal a wizened face framed by a long white beard. For a long moment not a sound was heard or movement evident in the crowd. The robed figure examined the myriad of faces before him with watery blue eyes that shone with intelligence and understanding. What he saw before him was hope. Hope on faces that only hours before had expressed only despair and...

America is an increasingly conservative nation, by ideology and by political affiliation, according to polling results from the Gallup Organization. While conservatives have long outnumbered liberals and moderates across the U.S., the study sheds new light on state-by-state patterns. The map below shows the pattern for the 50 states. Mississippi is the first state with more than 50% conservative identification, with Idaho, Alabama, Wyoming, and Utah approaching that level, and Arkansas, South Carolina, North Dakota, Louisiana, and South Dakota (the rest of the top ten conservative states) 45% or higher. Conservatives outnumber liberals in even the most liberal-leaning states (excluding...

If public-school teachers spent more time teaching in classrooms and less time community-organizing in political war rooms, maybe taxpayers wouldn't feel as ripped off as they do. Before the Big Labor bosses start complaining about "teacher-bashing," let's be clear: An increasing number of rank-and-file teachers feel exactly the same way. Retired New York teacher Vinne Cusimano, who was required to pay forced union dues in order to work, wrote me this week after receiving the March 2011 edition of his union's monthly publication. The cover of the New York State United Teachers magazine reads: "Defend What Matters! Educate. Collaborate. AGITATE."...