Free Republic

Need Help on Roman History Reading List....

This is Whittle's own repost of one of his best essays. Long, but worth every second (IMHO of course) A note from Bill Whittle: I'm slowly trying to move the best of the old archives over here to the new. Mostly that consists of the SILENT AMERICA essays, but there were a number of pieces that I really liked, and this is one of them -- courtesy of a request by an old friend who was looking for it.In a month or two I'm going to be putting out two compilations of previously unpublished materials: SEEING THE UNSEEN: ADVENTURES IN...

Columbia was, he declared, “a citadel of the mind swaying in the vertigo of a civilization changing (without admitting it) the basis of its faith from a two thousand-year-old Christian culture to the new secular and scientific culture.” Whereas the Christian culture “placed God at the center of man’s hope,” the new secular faith, which was “exclusively rational and scientific,” replaced God with Man. This was not indoctrination into communism, at least not explicitly. “No member of the Columbia faculty ever consciously guided me toward Communism,” he stated. “Columbia did not teach me Communism. It taught me despair.” That despair...

A sea change has occurred in the education of American women: young girls often academically out-perform boys, are more likely to succeed in college and have flooded once all-male professional schools, notably law and business. For example, U.S. Census Bureau figures show that while the male and female population is about equal, males comprise some 58 percent of all high school drop-outs. Similarly, the number of females entering college between 1967 and 2000 increased by 20 percent, while the proportion of men declined by 4 percent. The American Council on Education’s statistics revealed that in 2005 women earned 57 percent...

With Western Civilization under such vicious attack by secular humanism, it is extremely important to understand how Western Civilization came into being. And more importantly -- what civilization is being left to our children.

Losing a beachhead Back to School: Rob Koons, a University of Texas at Austin philosophy professor and a Christian, poured six years into development of a UT Program in Western Civilization and American Institutions. Then administrators yanked it away from him | Marvin Olasky AUSTIN, Texas —"And Jesus said to His disciples . . . 'it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.' When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, 'Who then can be saved?'" (Matthew 19:23-25). "Work your fingers...

Review: How the Byzantines Saved Europe Posted by JOHN COURETAS on MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 2009 The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Edited by Elizabeth Jeffreys, John Haldon, Robin Cormack. Oxford University Press (2008)Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire by Judith Herrin. Princeton University Press (2008) Ask the average college student to identify the 1,100 year old empire that was, at various points in its history, the political, commercial, artistic and ecclesiastical center of Europe and, indeed, was responsible for the very survival and flourishing of what we know today as Europe and you’re not likely to get the...

While the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding was good cinema, it was also a big fat Hollywood fiction.  With Greece's fertility rate of 1.36 children per woman  -- well below the replacement level of 2.1 -- "big" is not a modifier demographers would associate with today's Greek families.  In fact, a more accurate film might be called My Big Fat Muslim Wedding.  Worse still, Greece is no anomaly.  Long ago the cradle of Western civilization and more recently one of its backwaters, it's now part of a phalanx of Western demographic failures.  In fact, while it may seem counterintuitive...

A student group that bills itself as "America's right wing youth movement" focused on countering radical multiculturism, socialism and mass immigration is causing a stir on a growing number of college campuses across the country. The ultra-conservative political group Youth for Western Civilization is currently organized on at least seven university campuses. According to its Web site, the group hopes to inspire Western youth on the "basis of pride in their American and Western heritage," counter and ultimately defeat "leftism on campus" and create a social movement in which a right-wing subculture is an alternative to what it calls a...

ritain is leading the way (and has been for quite some time as I point out here and here) for the rest of Europe in committing cultural suicide. This is but just the latest example of Britain’s rabid determination to break one of the most distinguishable and binding links to their former greatness and hegemony in the Western World. Of course, they are not alone. Several other countries in Europe seem just as eager to pass out the razor blades. I wonder what C.S. Lewis would think of his country today? Probably something along the lines of this, “A man...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Critics say the freedom to criticize Islam in Europe has been put in jeopardy after Dutch politician Geert Wilders was banned last week from entering Britain because of his attacks on Islam. But while the controversial politician may have failed to enter the United Kingdom, the Dutch public has rallied around Wilders, and support for his party has exploded.

So the inevitable has now come about in the teetering civilisation of Europe, and it has happened first in the Netherlands. One of the supposedly most liberal societies on the planet wants to criminalise someone for telling the truth. The BBC reports that Dutch Freedom Party MP Geert Wilders is to be put on trial ‘...for for inciting hatred and discrimination, based on comments by him in various media on Muslims and their beliefs’...In March 2008, Mr Wilders posted a film about the Koran on the internet, prompting angry protests across the Muslim World. The opening scenes of Fitna -...

From The Times January 22, 2009 President Obama's first call 'was to President Abbas' President Obama placed the Middle East at the forefront of his first hours in office yesterday as he sought to make good on his promise of “ushering in a new era of peace”. In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, he reached out to leaders in the region and vowed to engage immediately in pursuit of a permanent Arab-Israeli settlement. The spokesman for President Abbas revealed that Mr Obama had told the Palestinian leader that their conversation was his first with a foreign...

President Obama placed the Middle East at the forefront of his first hours in office yesterday as he sought to make good on his promise of “ushering in a new era of peace”. In a flurry of telephone calls from the Oval Office, he reached out to leaders in the region and vowed to engage immediately in pursuit of a permanent Arab-Israeli settlement. The spokesman for President Abbas revealed that Mr Obama had told the Palestinian leader that their conversation was his first with a foreign statesman since taking office. Mr Obama also spoke to President Mubarak of Egypt, Ehud...

You are a freshman university student on the first day of a philosophy course. Your professor poses this ethical dilemma: A devoutly religious man is shooting at you with an AK-47. He is determined to kill you and your family. Is it moral to shoot back? Before you answer; consider that he is shielded by his pregnant wife and three young children. Ordinary Israelis know what any undergraduate not suffering from a death-wish intuitively appreciates - namely, that human beings should not intentionally injure other human beings but may sometimes need to resort to violence to keep themselves and others...

The world must be wondering, 17 days into Operation Cast Lead, why it is taking so long for Jerusalem to cave into pressure for a cease-fire in Gaza. From the UN Security Council, that renowned bastion of international probity, and the constellation of Muslim, Arab and non-aligned states to our unwavering European allies, the international community - and much of the media - wants Israel to stop fighting. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Gabriela Shalev and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at a Security Council meeting about the situation in Gaza, UN headquarters in New York, Tuesday. Photo:...

Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday. The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.

The war of aggression waged by Hamas, against which Israel has commenced a robust response, must not be seen in a vacuum. Hamas is an agent of radical Islam's revolutionary jihad. Israel, the "little Satan," is a proxy of Western modernity. The conflict in Gaza is merely the latest round: a continuation of the war which flared up during the summer of 2006 and which rages still in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and other theaters. So what can the big Satan do to help? Obviously, we are not going to contribute military force. We already subsidize Israel's defense, and,...

Israel’s Worst Fears Its U.S. ambassador says the big threat is that Iran has almost enough fuel for its first nuclear weapon. NEWSWEEK Jan 12, 2009 Sallai Meridor has been Israel's ambassador to the United States since 2006. During that time, his government's main strategic worry has been Iran, and that remains so today despite the fighting in Gaza. Israel warns that Iran is making rapid progress toward a nuclear bomb—Meridor calculates that Tehran should have enough fuel for its first bomb sometime in 2009—and that Israel will take military action unless the United States and other allies step in.

Good evening!We're down to the last few days of the Bush Presidency. Who among us doesn't have some concern about our nation's security in the months ahead? And will those who criticized the President so constantly on this front not come to recognize the margin of safety he gave us?Israel continues to destroy Hamas terrorist sites and agents in Gaza,sadly, much to the world's apparent dismay and loathing.