Free Republic

Ottawa, Canada - Fresh on the tail of banning handguns, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has initiated a ban on poutine. Poutine, a staple in Canadian diets, is French fries covered in gravy and cheese curds.A spokesman for Trudeau issued the announcement, "Now that we've eliminated handguns, we need to look at the real big killer in Canada, eh. Far more people are dying of poutine-related heart disease than were ever killed by guns. We Canadians are usually too polite to shoot each other, but we're also too polite to say 'no' to a second helping of poutine."Opposition leader Pierre...

[H/T McGruff]SNIP"The notion that Ukraine was such an appealing democratic model in Eastern Europe that the country’s mere existence terrified Putin may be a comforting myth to U.S. politicians and pundits, but it is a myth. Ukraine is far from being a democratic‐​capitalist model and an irresistible magnet for Russia’s groaning masses. The reality is murkier and troubling: Ukraine has long been one of the more corrupt countries in the international system. In its annual report published in January 2022, Transparency International ranked Ukraine 123rd of the 180 countries it examined, with a score of 32 on a one to...

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) issued a report on Wednesday that found democracy in retreat around the world, with twice as many nations moving toward authoritarianism as those which sought to become more democratic. IDEA is an advocacy group based in Stockholm, Sweden, with 34 member nations represented on its board. The United States is not a member but has “official observer” status. The stated mission of the group is “advancing democracy worldwide, as a universal human aspiration and an enabler of sustainable development, through support to the building, strengthening and safeguarding of democratic political...

Has China’s handling of Covid-19 increased the government’s popularity or decreased it? I find the question fascinating and confusing. When the authorities first placed Wuhan under lockdown in their effort to contain the outbreak of the virus, people in the West watched the stringent measures with a mixture of amazement and disgust. In China, however, the pandemic has actually boosted the government’s popularity, or at least that was the case until recently. Cary Wu, an assistant professor of sociology from York University, and his team conducted a large-scale online survey in April 2020. It found that trust in all levels...

Russian citizens who criticize the Kremlin could find themselves on the receiving end of a nasty visit from Chechen forces, according to an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin’s attempted "partial mobilization" of fighting-aged Russians into the war in Ukraine has prompted a wave of social displeasure, including a mass exodus of apparent draft dodgers and protests in the outlying regions where people are bearing the brunt of the war. Russian lawmaker Adam Delimkhanov, an ethnic Chechen politician known for threatening to decapitate the relatives of a human rights activist, warned university students against any display of disrespect. “I...

Two journalists surface today with two different aspects to the same big picture story. First, Julie Kelly notes the DOJ is using social media chat messages as evidence in court against J6 detainees: “DOJ and Big Tech are working seamlessly to excavate private messages and info from deleted accounts to use as incriminating evidence for J6ers.” (link) Second, Miranda Devine is writing in the New York Post about Facebook spying on private messages to identify people who questioned the outcome of the 2020 election (link) This ‘surveillance system‘ has been of great interest to CTH for several years, in part...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, said Sunday that "there's no question we see some signs" of authoritarianism as members of his own party criticized the FBI's search of former President Donald Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago. "Well, there's no question we see some- some signs of that," Hogan said Sunday on "Face the Nation." "And I'm, you know, one of the ones speaking out."

Many of those who opposed lockdowns for the pandemic, predicted that the policy — if normalised — could one day be taken advantage of by opportunistic political forces to deal with almost any crisis. It was, as Lord Sumption once suggested, a potential pathway to authoritarianism. “If we confer despotic powers on government to deal with perils, which are an ordinary feature of human existence, we will end up doing it most or all of the time,” he wrote in November 2021.Well, we are now facing just such a crisis. And there is a not insignificant chance that lockdowns might...

Ruth Ben-Ghiat spends a lot of time thinking about authoritarianism. An historian at New York University, she is an expert on the rise of fascism in Italy and, most recently, author of the the book, "Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present," tracing the erosion of democracy from Russia to the United States of America. She is keenly focused on what happens when those in power lose their grip on it. "The authoritarian playbook has no chapter on failure," Ben-Ghiat wrote in a November 2020 piece for The Washington Post. "Nothing prepares the ruler to see his propaganda ignored and his charismatic...

This is a video based upon the article written by CJ Hopkins in Oct. 2020 that states we are in the midst of a global totalitarian movement. Runtime 5:48. Worth the watch.

Former President Barack Obama in a major speech on Thursday called for more regulation of social media content, in order to diminish “disinformation.” The former president delivered a speech on the issue at Stanford University after spending months studying the subject.

When the U.S. security state announces that Big Tech's centralized censorship power must be preserved, we should ask what this reveals about whom this regime serves. A group of former intelligence and national security officials on Monday issued a jointly signed letter warning that pending legislative attempts to restrict or break up the power of Big Tech monopolies — Facebook, Google, and Amazon — would jeopardize national security because, they argue, their centralized censorship power is crucial to advancing U.S. foreign policy. The majority of this letter is devoted to repeatedly invoking the grave threat allegedly posed to the U.S....

It is hard to read or listen to an article on the Ukrainian invasion without it beginning with the lines: “The world as we knew it is over.” Tanks rolling through the streets of a European-style city, nuclear saber-rattling, as well as disruptions of everything from energy to wheat, make the headline plausible. The recent gathering in Europe of western NATO allies was epoch-making. Not to take the focus off the horror of the Ukrainian struggle for survival or turn away from the slaughter of civilians and the plight of the refugees, however, it might be useful to understand how...

"Canada and our allies will defend democracy. We are taking these actions today, to stand against authoritarianism," Trudeau said. Trudeau has come under fire from many critics and world leaders for his response to freedom protests in his own country, and has been accused of authoritarianism and tyranny.

“We have officers from across the province and country here to help us; every person supporting this effort is proud to be here,” he (Steve Bell, Ottawa Interim Chief of Police) declared, suggesting that there is little hesitance among officers about enforcing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s emergency powers clampdown on protestors. [cut] Members of the press gave the police chief some mild pushback on his claim that his men have acted with restraint, with one asking “with respect, sir, can you explain what appears to be excessive force by police officers when a protestor is arrested; there is multiple videos...

"There are many genuine threats facing humanity. None of them require authoritarianism or the infringement of civil liberties. A recent study published in American Political Science Review, a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University, begins with a teasing question: “Is authoritarian power ever legitimate?” For many, the answer is clearly no, concedes the study’s author—Ross Mittiga, an assistant professor of political theory at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. But Mittiga, in the abstract to the study, suggests otherwise: ..."

The abrupt disappearance of a live feed showing Taiwan’s digital minister occurred because the White House panicked over a map showing Taiwan in a different color than China, Reuters claimed on Monday. Audrey Tang, formally a “minister without portfolio” in the Taiwanese government, was speaking during President Joe Biden’s “Summit for Democracy,” a series of video addresses from some of the world’s states. Biden included the island nation of Taiwan despite the fact that the American government does not recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty as doing so would immediately sever all diplomatic ties with communist China. Taiwan is a free, democratic sovereign...

Governments have whipped up and weaponized fear to unleash a new form of tyranny on humanity. The synthetically produced COVID-19 is still around and its devastating consequences for peoples and economies are long-lasting. What has changed since it first appeared in December 2019? Everything actually. Never before have we seen such a drastic shift to totalitarian-style policies and strategies claiming to contain its spread and save lives but actually destroying every aspect of our usual way of life and most of our hard-won freedoms for centuries. Despite differing perceptions about its impact, nothing is the same anymore. Our private and...

Freedom anywhere is a threat to authoritarianism everywhere. That is why authoritarians must destroy all freedom and why liberty lovers, and even the merely “lib-curious” (liberty curious), must not just resist blatant authoritarianism, but reject it in all its guises. The fate of the nation, and the world, again hangs in the balance. To the extent that any freedom persists, authoritarian diktat can be subverted, albeit at a cost. History is rife with examples of bizarre entities, like nonbank banks (I kid you not!), rent-a-banks (ditto!), and gold caches, designed to work around branching restrictions, usury laws (maximum interest rates),...

The United States is not just dealing with mutations of COVID-19. Our government and our culture have been infected with mutated strains of collectivism and corporate authoritarianism, already engaged in censorship and moving swiftly toward perpetual surveillance and control over our property, our finances, our health care and our most personal decisions. And those who are busy cramming authoritarianism down our gullets are simultaneously maintaining the illusion of our meaningful participation in government. Americans love to tell themselves, "That can't happen here." On the contrary, it is happening here. For at least the past 20 years, we have been ensnared...