Free Republic

When did you first feel like you? Go back in time, right now, to your earliest memories. What do you see? There they are again, those images. Hazy, blurry, but still there. They are lodged forever within you, retrievable at will. You can see a particular room, maybe with your father or mother there with you. Or an outdoor scene. Or traveling somewhere. You can see the colors, recall the textures, maybe even remember a certain smell. You can see yourself there—at least, you can see that scene, even now, through the portal of who you were at that time....

I was focused on the menu when the pub server approached our table. A cheery voice said, "Are we all ready to order?". This was a few nights ago. I looked up. She was young and bright-looking—maybe 23 or 24 . But the tattoo just below her neck revealed something more than cheeriness in her personality. Memento mori, it said. It doesn't translate neatly from Latin. An essentially literal rendition would be "remember dying" (or "death"). But a more accurate (if unavoidably wordy) way of conveying what an ancient Roman would feel and think upon hearing their famous saying is:...

I thought of writing an essay last month in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Beach Boys first big hit, "Surfin' USA". As it happened, I got distracted and wound up calling on God to blow up evildoers. (Priorities). But the release a couple of weeks back of "A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys" got me excited about the idea again, although in a different way. You see, in a world increasingly full of disappointments, the Grammy tribute was a slam dunk. That surprised me. It's been years—decades—since anything about the Grammys resonated with me, or anyone else...

The LG 5.8 cubic foot Capacity Top Load Washer sat in the laundry room, brand new. Maybe it was my imagination, but it looked insouciant. Dad said it was the latest and greatest in laundering technology. Supposedly, some sort of internal sensor system (having something to do with a computer) fine-tuned water levels depending on clothing weight. Or something. I can't remember exactly what he—or was it the moving guy?—said. I did notice the washing machine had several preset wash cycles—Allergiene, Sanitary, Bright Whites, Towels, Heavy Duty, Bedding, and more. You could select them with a shiny, space-age-looking chrome dial....

Continuing on from last time, Greek drama rooted itself in the same acceptance of human limitation as did Greek myth and history. I don't have space for a proper survey here, but we can at least examine a representative sample or two. Let's start with the most famous Greek tragedy of all—Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. It's been big for 2400 years. No less a theatre critic than Aristotle rated it the best tragedy of all time (as of the 4th century BC). Let's see what it suggests about the worldview conveyed by the Greek playwrights. When the play opens, the...

If you're just joining us, this is Part IV of an ongoing series about how patriots can take back their country (see parts I, II, and III). (Thanks all for joining in the fun in the comments section.) My first thought when I considered how patriots might take back their country was, know thine enemy. You know, Sun-Tzu and all. Seemed sensible enough. So, I threw out a few of my own ideas about Wokism's nature and causes, then wound up mining a classic of political psychology, Erich Fromm's 1941 Escape from Freedom, for any additional insights. Fromm contends that...

The brute fact is that the GOP today—unlike its original incarnation—has no rootedness in any specific moral conception of political life. It is an unmoored, mercenary instrument for hire. By Tal Bachman May 14, 2021 Once upon a time, the Republican Party didn’t suck. Actually, there were lots of times it didn’t suck. It didn’t suck when, at its founding in the late 1850s, it declared slavery an inhumane, barbaric practice, and eventually ended it. It didn’t suck when it ended repressive and predatory Mormon polygamy a few decades later. It didn’t suck when it declared late 19th-century corporate monopolies...

It's been a tough few months for conservatives, but I figure it's time we try to get clarity on where we are, why we're here, and where we might go in the future. Yes, it will sting, but what's the alternative? Somehow or other, we must find a way at least to cope with, and at most to replace at some point, what is shaping up to become the most destructive presidential regime in American history. That it seems to essentially be a foreign sort of thing is even more devastating. As nightmarish as it is to contemplate it, the...

I remember when Christians used to actually believe in Christianity. Those were the days. (Some still do, but their numbers are shrinking.) Back then, you could still visit an average (Protestant) church and hear a pastor actually teach real doctrine and share authentic insights. You could hear his thoughts on how to live an upright Christian life, or on why bad things might happen to good people, or how Christian marriages might be improved. And you could hear it all supported by actual Bible passages. After the sermon, you could hear the congregation sing hymns affirming the importance of obedience,...

There must be something wrong with me. The fireworks closing off the Republican National Convention were sensational. The music was inspiring. The speakers throughout the entire convention did well—no major screw-ups that I saw. The stories worked. And through it all, Trump and his proxies articulated a clear case for re-election. As conventions go, it felt like a success. And yet as the last firework fizzled out, some melancholy seized me, and I wondered if the real story of the week wasn't the convention at all, or the upcoming debates, or even the winner of the 2020 election. I wondered...