Free Republic

LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian police said on Wednesday they had dismantled an alleged criminal ring that had charged as much $21,000 per bed for seriously ill COVID-19 patients in a state-run hospital, aggravating care in a country hit by one of the world's deadliest outbreaks of the virus.... ...The hospital involved in the more recent scandal, administered by the EsSalud social security system, provides free care. Patients must endure a long waiting list for the 80 ICU beds the hospital offers. During the peak of the pandemic, many patients paid large sums of money to private clinics as the public...

The Black Hole of Organizational DysfunctionDystopia Note: When this book was prepared, the terms Dystopia and Utopia were widely used to describe the two complementary but opposite categories of the social system. As progress continued, we evolved away from those popular, but vaguely-defined terms. When you encounter “dystopia,” think organizational dysfunction. When you encounter “Utopia,” think happy prosperity. General Remarks Book 1 of the Pilgrimage to Utopia (P2U), “Philosophy,” presented the purpose of the pilgrimage. It is assumed the reason you’re here is that you are interested in joining one. Following along with the derivation of the paradigm of the...

Jack has just come back to his homeland of Australia after over a decade away in paradise. But after being met at the airport by his brother Frank, Jack discovers that the country has radically changed. Citizens report and fine one another for various civil infractions, using their mobile phones to record and upload offenses to a government app. Jack is in disbelief as he arrives at Frank's home with his wife Margaret, and he can't even believe that swearing is fined and alcohol is banned. There are cameras everywhere, and the only safe place in people's homes is the...

The Democrat bill to levy a 2% wealth tax on rich Americans was stoutly defended by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA). "The private pursuit and accumulation of wealth has been a serious problem for this country since the very beginning," she asserted. "The bill to gradually phase out this blight is a modest endeavor with great ultimate impact." "At 2% per year it would take 50 years to eliminate the entire upper class in America," Jayapal pointed out. "By pushing these elites down into the middle and lower classes we will achieve a greater equality than any other nation has achieved....

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich) and 50 other House members are pushing President Biden to issue an Executive Order that would authorize “monthly $2,000 stimulus checks to every person in the country until the pandemic ends.” “This would mean that a family of four would receive a federal subsidy of $80,000 per year,” Omar exclaimed. “At the stroke of a pen, every family—citizens and non-citizens alike—would never need to work again to support a comfortable lifestyle.” With several COVID experts, like Dr. Anthony Fauci and vaccine maker Moderna, declaring that this virus may...

In a podcast with Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) sharply criticized opponents of abortion. "First they helped Trump win the 2016 presidential election because he promised to protect the lives of unborn babies," she said. "Now that voters have massively elected the most pro-choice president in American history, pro-lifers stubbornly resist the unity our nation so desperately needs." "It is one thing to privately hold onto warped values out of loyalty to out-dated concepts of morality," the Speaker contended. "It is quite another to resist the new reality. In a democracy the determination of what is right or...

The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot sayJ.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the RingAlong that road you will come upon many trees.The Tree of Life and Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil among themSome you will climb, some will provide you with fruit in season, some you will cut down for firewood or to build...

ROME — Pope Francis called for a “new social justice” Sunday in which all well-intentioned people will challenge the reigning utopia. Addressing “social justice judges” from the African and American continents via streaming, the pope congratulated them for their commitment to “social rights,” asserting that the very fact that men and women “come together to think about their work and to build the new social justice is, without a doubt, excellent news.”

SACRAMENTO, CA—In a move to prevent Californians from fleeing by the millions, Gavin Newsom announced a ban on gasoline automobiles this week. The law will make it so that Californians can't drive away and escape the state in a matter of hours, forcing them to instead form migrant caravans and make the treacherous trek across the blistering deserts of the Southwest. "Now, they'll have to cross the desert on foot," Newsom said as he handed down the order. "I'll show them, trying to flee my progressive utopia! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

The hard Left believes its mission is so critical, so morally superior, that all means can be justified to achieve its noble ends. And so almost every institution that the Left has in its line of vision is now petrifying. There was once a tradition of Democratic liberalism. But that wing of the Democratic Party no longer exists and died sometime in the 1990s. Old-style liberalism has been absorbed by Progressivism at best and unapologetic socialism at worst—in a journey on the supposedly predetermined arc of history that bends toward 1984. The new-old leftist aim is not to operate within...

**SNIP** Secession is considered treason by mobs hauling down Confederate statues in other cities, but it’s the very basis of CHAZ, Seattle’s separate “autonomous zone.” Signs at the barricades read “Property of the People” and “Leaving USA.” But from a video tour of the new country, it doesn’t look promising so far. Solomon Simone, a 30-year-old dreadlocked artist whose nom de guerre is Raz, is the self-styled leader of the 300 or 400 CHAZians. Critics call him a “warlord.” But it’s been discovered that he sent out ugly homophobic tweets several years ago, so he could be deposed. Raz claims...

Murderous millennial preachers and prophets take over the German city of Munster after Martin Luther unleashes a Pandora’s Box of religious anarchy with the Protestant Reformation.

Brave New World is an adaptation of the classic Aldous Huxley novel and will broadcast on NBC's streaming service, Peacock which launched in the US this week. The dystopian story is centred around the futuristic New London where people are sorted into an intelligence based hierachy. Demi, 57, plays Linda who moved from New London to an outlying reservation with her son John. Peace has been achieved in the seemingly utopian New London thanks to prohibiting monogamy, privacy, money, family, and history itself. Other cast members include Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey), Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo),...

If you want to understand a human being or the human condition, what is the single most important question you should ask? Most religious people would probably ask, "Do you believe in God?" The most important question most secular people, especially progressives, could imagine asking is probably a policy question. Today it would be "Do you support Donald Trump?" Otherwise it might be "Do you support abortion rights?" or "Do you support gay marriage?" As important as all of these questions are, in attempting to understand human beings, especially large groups of human beings -- i.e., their society -- the...

Finland's new Prime Minister has called for the introduction of a flexible working schedule in the country that would involve a four-day-week and six-hour working day. Sanna Marin, 34, - who is the second youngest head of government in the world - said it would allow workers to spend more time with their families. The mother-of-one

What is the level of happiness among modern American leftists about the impeachment of President Trump? Do they celebrate this Christmas gift on the streets? (Sorry, my fellow collectivists, there is no attempt here to offend you with the word “Christmas”). One would assume that leftists do celebrate the event, but the reality is quite different and more complex. ... What is going on? One could understand that intraspecific competition among leftists is fierce, but who would predict most of American leftists unite against not only Trump, but their fellow comrades-in-ideological-arms – Democrats? Leftists still are not able to decide...

(Skip) Cries of "social justice," "affirmative action," "racial prejudice," etc., ad nauseam, enfranchise the Left to wallow in a fictitious self-regard of moralizing sentimentality. Anyone who opposes leftists is automatically demonized as inhumane. Cowardly Republicans, large corporations like Procter & Gamble, and bureaucrats are shaken down and extorted to comply, for fear of appearing insensitive toward "oppression." Any evidence of political incorrectness can damage employment prospects or even get one fired. We are being thought-controlled and speech-tyrannized. How can we push back against such imperious "bleeding heart" compassion? The ideology has a stranglehold on academia and is being rolled out...

In October 1917, Lenin's Bolshevik Party seized power and inaugurated the first communist workers' state, founded on the principles of Karl Marx's “Das Kapital.” Almost immediately, the race was on to turn antiquated, almost feudal imperial Russia into a communist utopia. It was a tall order in Russia: the vast majority of the population of the nascent Soviet state were illiterate peasants, for whom the traditions and tenants of Orthodox Christianity were the sole cultural and spiritual bedrock. Replacing it with the more complicated economic and social principles of Marxism took ingenuity, dedication and ruthlessness. The state embarked on a...

Alibaba Group Chairman Jack Ma told the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai Thursday that artificial intelligence should enable people to work 4 hours a day, 3 days a week, Bloomberg reports. Why it matters: It's a remarkable demonstration of Ma's faith in AI, given he's known for endorsing the Chinese tech sector's standard "996" schedule, which consists of a 72-hour workweek: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week. The big picture: Ma appeared onstage at the event with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with whom he had a disagreement on whether humans can be outsmarted by computers.

I hear more and more frequently concerns about an impending civil war. It is certain that something momentous is taking place; the signs are all around us, but I’m not at all sure that the something will turn out to be two sides of the same country warring over principles, like the Civil War, which was mainly about slavery and states’ rights. Now, we’re up to our nose-piercings in politically polarizing problems and the leftist contingent of the country doesn’t even like America anymore. If we come to open warfare, it will be as two separate nations battling it out....