Free Republic

I guess I’m a populist even though with a Ph.D. in English I don’t fit the profile. As someone who has attended tea party rallies and town hall meetings here in Georgia I’m supposed to have “common sense” but not much book-learning. You know, we can fix cars, bake a cherry pie, and clean a pistol. But we’re irrationally afraid that the Obama guv’ment will take those guns away from us. I’m part of a group that can be “ugly,” according to Paul Krugman. This sentiment, unfortunately, was repeated by Lee Harris in his new otherwise impressive book titled The...

Several authors have published books on radical Islam’s threat to the West since that shocking morning in September six years ago. With “The Suicide of Reason,” Lee Harris joins their ranks. But he distinguishes himself by going further than most of his counterparts: he considers the very worst possibility — the destruction of the West by radical Islam. There is a sense of urgency in his writing, a desire to shake awake the leaders of the West, to confront them with their failure to understand that they are engaged in a war with an adversary who fights by the law...

The following is a conclusion of a long article by a philosopher Lee Harris where he is deconstructing a frequently heard lately charge of "blowback" to US actions in the world (i.e. that 9/11 was a "blowback" for the United States' foreign policy toward the Muslim world over the past half century or so, going back to the CIA engineered coup in 1953 that ousted Iranian leader Mossadegh, and that  "we had it coming" as a response to "American imperialism") ...This conclusion, however, poses a radical dilemma. A libertarian can plausibly argue that politicians should not interfere with domestic affairs,...

The Reuters headline said: "Mitt Romney Vows Mormon Church Will Not Run White House." Unfortunately, this time Reuters got its story right. In his long-awaited speech designed to win over conservative evangelicals, Romney actually did say something to this effect, making many people wonder why he needed to make such a vow in the first place. It's a bit like hearing Giuliani vow that the mafia will not be running his White House—it is always dangerous to say what should go without saying, because it makes people wonder why you felt the need to say it. Is the Mormon church...

In my new book, The Suicide of Reason, I offer an explanation of why so many are reluctant to use the word fanatic to denote those, like Ghazi and his "supporters," are behaving precisely in the same way that all fanatics have behaved through history. "The problem with much of the Western response to Islamic fanaticism," I write, "is that our refusal to use the word fanaticism appears to be based on our reluctance to recognize the fact of fanaticism. We avoid the word in order to avoid having to think about the thing, thereby leaving the impression that our...

This Enlightenment model, which has worked quite effectively in Europe and the United States, as well as in other parts of the world, has always relied on an advanced elite that brings learning to the masses through universal secular education. Many have hoped that Muslim nations would adopt the same model, with the same results. A minority of Muslim technocrats, who had received Western-style scientific educations, would help lead the Middle East into the modern era. They, too, would be eager to transcend their own narrow cultural perspectives, and to join other like-minded men and women across the globe. But...

Did America overreact to 9/11? This is a question that is much in the air today. Consider, as one example, the essay that recently appeared in the Los Angeles Times written by David A. Bell, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins. The title of the piece is "Putting 9/11 into perspective," and its by-line reads: "The attacks were a horrible act of mass murder, but history says we're overreacting." But does "history" in fact tell us any such thing? Simply put, Bell's argument goes as follows: There have been wars in the past, global wars, in which millions have...

Only thing truly warming is rhetoric David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 For Sunday, I wrote metaphorically about the absurdity of last week's global warming warning from the United Nations ("IPCC/2007," as it will henceforth be known in bureaucratic legend). This was my own warning to my reader, never to take entirely seriously any proclamation that claims to be rocket science, and is endorsed by everyone in sight who has relevant credentials. A look through history will quickly confirm that while a mere majority may sometimes be right, the unanimous agreement of every available expert...

How can anyone be a bystander while someone is stabbed? By Mark Steyn (Filed: 13/09/2003) On September 11, 2001, the first individual to be named among the dead was the wife of the US Solicitor-General, Barbara Olson, whom I'd sat next to at dinner a couple of months earlier. On September 11, 2003, I woke to the news of the death of the Swedish foreign minister, Anna Lindh, whom I also sat next to a couple of months ago, at a conference. I can't claim anything other than the most casual acquaintance with either lady, but even an accidental proximity...

In the European past, many men were given the choice between death and speaking the truth. Today, however, those who wish to speak the truth as they see it are confronted by a far more wrenching choice.Madeleine Bunting, writing in The Guardian, has sharply attacked the Regensburg address of Pope Benedict XVI. Among the points that she makes, there is one that deserves special attention, because it expresses the sentiment of all those who have criticized the Regensburg address for being inflammatory and provocative. "An elderly Catholic nun has already been killed in Somalia, perhaps in retaliation for the pope's...

…Contrary to what the New York Times reported, Ratzinger is not providing merely "a note on jihad" that has no real bearing on the central message of his address. According to his own words, the topic of jihad constitutes "the starting-point" for his reflection on faith and reason. Ratzinger uses the Islamic concept of jihad to elucidate his critique of modern reason from within. Modern reason argues that questions of ethics, of religion, and of God are outside its compass. Because there is no scientific method by which such questions can be answered, modern reason cannot concern itself with them,...

First of all, this is not the same article that has been posted from Tech Central Station. It just has the same title.... I owe this title to writer Lee Harris. Last month Harris posed this headliner question in a piece he wrote for Tech Central Station's Web site, TCSDaily. Harris is right to ask; socialism's track record is abysmal.The milder forms of it have yielded economic stagnation where and whenever tried: England in the 1970s; France today. The more impatient strains--"socialism in a hurry," as Lenin reputedly called communism--did nothing but plunder economies and destroy lives. Their fine leaders...

The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, celebrated May Day by ordering soldiers to occupy his country's natural gas fields. The purpose of this exercise was not military, but economic: Morales has demanded that all foreign companies currently operating these fields must sign a contract with Bolivia that would allow them to retain only 18% of the production, while the remainder would go to Bolivia's state-owned oil company. The 18% concession to the foreign companies was not an act of generosity on the part of Morales, but simply of expediency: Bolivia needs these companies to tap its natural gas resources, because...

Socialism may well spring back to life with a force shocking to those who have declared socialism to be no longer viable. Lee Harris on the challenge that capitalism faces today. Whether it will rise to the challenge is perhaps the most urgent question of our time.

Lee Harris has written a must read thesis, Why Isn't Socialism Dead. The full article can read at TSC Daily . The following is an excerpt of this thesis where I have inserted DI for Democrat Ideology each time the term "socialism" is used. It is amazing how it accurately describes the Democrat Party. "The shrewd and realistic Florentine statesman and thinker, Guicciardini once advised: 'Never fight against religion...This concept has too much empire over the minds of men.' And to the extent that socialism {DI} is a religion, then those who wish to fight it with mere reason and...

For most Americans, the phrase "general strike" may not pack much of a wallop. But it was once a revolutionary slogan.The photograph showed an elderly Hispanic man holding up a placard with the words Paró General written on it, and it accompanied an internet article about the strike of immigrant workers scheduled for May the First -- a strike that its sponsors pledged would "shut down" cities. As I glanced at the picture, groping through my very limited mental Spanish lexicon, I made the connection: Paró General is the Spanish phrase for general strike. No wonder, I thought to myself,...

What a terrific guy that Vladimir Putin must be. Here we all were, worried silly about the chance of Iran getting its hands on nukes, debating about international sanctions, when suddenly Russia decides to help us out of our dilemma by trying to make a deal with the Iranians. Of course, the United States and the UN were tickled pink to accept Putin's mediation, and it is now reported that the Russians have magnanimously offered to enrich uranium for Iran on their own soil -- soil that shares a long and convenient border with Iran. And even if this deal...

The word iconoclast, when it is used nowadays, most often refers to a person who "attacks established beliefs, ideals, customs, or institution," as Webster's Third puts it -- a definition that turns the iconoclast into a cultural rebel or a free thinker, an individual willing to buck the establishment. By this standard, the Danish cartoonist who drew the controversial caricatures of Mohammed was an iconoclast in our modern sense, and was simply doing what many cartoonists have done before him, using his gifts to poke fun at sacred cows. True, the sacred cow, in this case, was the Prophet...

There’s No Clash Here Only one civilization cares to put up a fight. By Lee Harris Does the so-called "cartoon war" represent the clash of civilizations? I wish I could answer "yes," but I can't. In order for there to be a clash of civilizations, it is necessary for there to be two civilizations, both of which are prepared to defend their deepest cultural values. Those in the Islamic world who are violently protesting the Danish cartoons clearly represent a civilization that is keen on maintaining its own deeply held traditions and convictions, as the Muslim rioters are prepared to...

Today among populist Muslim leaders, there is a rallying cry in the making, and this rallying cry is a denial of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. First, the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shocked the world community by flatly denying that the Holocaust ever occurred. Then, only a few weeks later, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition party in Egypt, came out and he too denied the existence of the Holocaust. Efraim Zuroff, the head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem, has recently warned that "There's no question that a very ugly...