Free Republic

There is a liberal progressive global vision for the world in which all religious beliefs, starting with Christianity, are wholly squelched. Those running this political and public relations campaign have the nation of Israel and American Christians in their sights. They continue to shape public opinion in such a way that the influence of Christianity will finally fall prey to 'science' and 'hate speech' as Israel loses its wingman (AMERICA) in their fight for self preservation. All the worlds problems can be solved, after all, if we could just annihilate all those pesky religions.... Looks like Allah hasn't got the...

In 1825 Welsh industrialist, Robert Owen, purchased a religious community on the frontier in Indiana, named Harmony. He renamed the village, New Harmony, and implemented a wide range of social experiments that seemed to hark of John Lennon’s 1971 song, “Imagine.” Things did not go as planned. The popular understanding of communism among North Americans is that its concept began with the writings of Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx then appeared in an extreme form with the advent of 1918 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. In fact, while living in England, Engels attended a Socialist “church” founded by Robert Owen. and...

One of my favorite little moments in the very entertaining new “Star Trek” movie comes when the young James T. Kirk activates the computer system of a car he swiped for a joyride, and the Nokia logo comes up. It’s nice to see Nokia’s still in business in the twenty-third century. Such simple touches help to humanize the Star Trek universe, which had drifted a bit too far from recognizable human experience for audiences to fully engage with its characters. The presence of a good old-fashioned corporate logo in the new movie put me in mind of a long-ago, free-wheeling,...

A few decades ago, marijuana was a topic that relatively few people, mostly counterculture musicians and comedians, spoke about in public. The comedy team of Cheech and Chong made films such as "Up in Smoke" that extolled the pleasures of smoking pot at a time the subject was still taboo."When trouble times begin to bother me," they sang, "I take a toke and all my cares go up in smoke." On the fringes of American society, it was usually possible to find activists who wanted to legalize it, as the reggae artist Peter Tosh famously sang. Efforts to legalize the...

"I can't find anything. Prices are climbing daily," said Jesus Ramirez, a taxi driver who has spent a year trying to replace the 2008 Renault he purchased new for $7,441. He sold the car for over $30,000 five years later. With inflation at 60% a year, among the highest in the world, Venezuelans protect their earnings by buying cars, among other big-ticket items. Car parts needed to keep vehicles on the road have also become difficult to find. That has led thieves to steal parts such as batteries from parked cars. The owner of a Caracas car dealership who said...

This week, the trailer for the latest installment in the Hunger Games series, Mockingjay, was released. As I was watching this trailer, something really struck me: the themes touched on in this film are essentially the endgame of today’s American liberalism. An all-controlling Big Government that forces unity, prosperity; it’s government that calls on you to sacrifice for the greater good. I am not suggesting that today’s Democrat Party will lead us literally to the society depicted in the Hunger Games series, but there are some lessons we can learn when we watch these films based on the dystopian novels.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how people react to the movie – especially considering the fact that Winfrey is most likely playing the role of God. “‘The Shack’ goes to the heart of universal reconciliation, Christian universalism.” It created shock waves among many Christians not only for its theology but also for its portrayal of the Trinity as an elderly black woman, an Asian woman and a carpenter. Universalism is the belief that a God of love and goodness never would allow people to be separated from him forever, which means everyone ends up in heaven.

The United Nations (UN) has delivered its latest verdict on the measures necessary to save the world from global warming and the news is as grim as it is predictable and wearisomely familiar: More regulation from "experts", technocrats and bureaucrats at supranational organisations, such as the one whose initials begin with U and end with N.More taxpayer subsidies for expensive, inefficient renewable energy.More nuclear power (with shale gas used as a transitional fuel to replace coal). The abandonment of fossil fuels. Less meat consumption.A single, globally-regulated price for carbon dioxide. More local-government-enforced walking, cycling and public transportation. More back-door wealth...

I just saw a commercial during the NASCAR race for casting for a new Fox reality show called Utopia. Fox is casting now for its new show, bringing people together who want to build the "perfect" society. I thought this topic would be of interest to FReepers and maybe some might be interested in auditioning.

“In 1934 a high-ranking member of the Communist Party, Sergei Kirov, was assassinated,” Cornell historian Holly Case wrote in The Chronicle Review. “His death, likely orchestrated by Stalin himself, was used to initiate a mass persecution that would result in over a million imprisoned and hundreds of thousands killed.” “Actually, she’s a bit off on the casualty count,” we observed. ... “The late Alexander Yakovlev, the lifelong Soviet apparatchik who in the 1980s became the chief reformer and close aide to Mikhail Gorbachev, and who, in the post-Soviet 1990s, was tasked with the grisly assignment of trying to total the...

(Reuters) - The White House will send a group of top officials to Detroit on Friday to offer millions in assistance for knocking down empty buildings, hiring firefighters and adding buses to the city fleet, as the city struggles after filing for bankruptcy. The federal aid has been tapped from a variety of existing programs and is part of a patchwork of grants complementing investments by the city, state and private foundations. "We're going to continue to support the efforts under way in Detroit and ensure the federal government is an active partner in supporting the revitalization of the city,"...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Folks, let me tell you something. You know, privately there are a lot of Democrats that tell me that they are just distressed over what Obama has done to the health care industry and to jobs. They are afraid to say anything about it because of recriminations, because this regime fights back. I mean, this regime does not take internal criticism at all, just like they try to eliminate all conservative opposition. Likewise, if anybody in the Democrat Party goes public with the slightest disagreement or problem with what Obama's doing, it could be curtains for them,...

The introduction to "The Faber Book of Utopias," edited by John Carey, chronicles the methods of creating ideal citizens, which historically have been repeatedly promoted by utopian philosophers via the deconstruction or abolition of the family. Originally proposed by Plato in his magnum opus, "The Republic," this simple yet dramatic blueprint has influenced a number of social philosophers as diverse as More, Hobbes, Voltaire, Rousseau, to Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, B.F. Skinner, to socialist, liberal, progressive thinkers and politicians in modern times. Plato promoted the belief that the family should be completely deconstructed and its component parts used as...

California's highways continue to rank among the worst in the nation -- a sorry distinction the state has held for more than a decade. The Golden State's highway system is ranked 47th among the 50 states in overall highway performance and efficiency in the latest annual highway report by the Reason Foundation. That is a slight improvement for California, which ranked 48th in the two previous studies and has ranked in the bottom 10 every year since 2000. Only Alaska, Rhode Island and Hawaii have worse roads, while North Dakota, Kansas and Wyoming have the best and most cost-effective highways....

For a long time conservatives have warned that the heavy propaganda and regulatory hands of the Obama administration were not going to change the exercise or eating habits of 315 million Americans... Now comes early statistical proof that after reelecting Obama with fewer votes the second time and 1,567 days of his reign of government intervention and stimulation, many Americans are deciding that maybe the Obamas' plans for their lives do not fit their plans for their own lives.

Jihad has blown up The Liberal Utopia. The visionary liberal land of political and social perfection. President Obama is not happy — and he isn’t alone. You know the place. • The Liberal Utopia is a land where gun background checks prevent mass murder. • The Liberal Utopia is a land where Islamic fundamentalists have changed their perception of America because the President travels to Muslim nations to give lovely speeches, believes that the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere is a wonderful sign of an Arab Spring, and refuses to use the word “terrorist” whether his administration is investigating...

What futurists in 1988 imagined Los Angeles would be like in 2013 With the year 2013 a quarter of a century away, the Los Angeles Times in 1988 asked 30 futurists and other experts what they thought life in their city would look like in 2013. They may have overshot the sophistication of our robots, but many of those predictions for 2013 have come true—or at least come close. Reporter Nicole Yorkin wrote the futurism pieces for the April 3, 1988 issue of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, compiling the information from her various interviews. The articles include illustrations by...

I recently read the new biography of Trotsky by Oxford don Robert Service, published in 2009 by Pan Books. It is well-written and surprisingly interesting. The book does a great public service in describing the life of the actual Trotsky, whose previous “biographies” were little more than hagiographies written by his toady worshippers (people like Isaac Deutscher). The last time that I had taken any interest in Trotsky was when I was a teenager and had fleeting delusions of believing in “socialism.” Reading the new book as an adult and as an economist, I found it a useful opportunity to...

Exclusive: William Murray blasts establishment for still ignoring so-called social issues A politician who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the vote of Paul. This statement was obviously proven in the election of Barack Obama who spent four years expanding the ranks of dependency using every avenue of government possible, from food stamps to mortgage reductions. At the founding of our nation, Benjamin Franklin said, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” California has lead the way to hell in numerous ways for decades, and in...

How quickly people will give up their freedoms today for the illusion of security, and the false hope of prosperity through government control. The point that this cartoon seems to be making, is beware of any individual, organization, or administration that attempts to escalate class, or race warfare to divide the country and make socialism appear to be the only solution. We will always have our differences, but putting the government in charge of everything, and surrendering person freedom is not the solution. This cartoon is timeless and is just as true today as it was in 1948! Obama's Socialism...