Free Republic

Every year, New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof ends the year providing a useful and compelling summary of good news from the past year to counteract the general journalistic theme of bad news dominating the headlines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kristof refused to offer that annual summary this year. His reactionary political ethic regarding the President of the United States prevented this work. In his own words: "I’ve done these “best year ever” columns annually, irritating Eeyores. But now I just can’t. The year 2025 was a setback for humanity -- and unfortunately, the United States is a reason for the retreat.”...

The promise of allowing China to enter “most favored nation status” in 1980 and entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 was predicated on the notion that insurgent free markets would revolutionize and liberate the largest communist nation in the world. The economic reality of 2025 is that this project has largely failed. Dictator Xi of China embodies one of the most hardline manifestations of Communist Party power in a generation. Previous reforms are now repealed and a pattern of internal and global human rights abuses are better funded than ever and rationalized in a growing technological network of...

Evangelical thinker, author, and Christian pastor John Piper stirred the Christian community and a larger public intrigued with how Christians may vote in the this election with his recent essay, “Policies, Persons, and Paths to Ruin: Pondering the Implications of the 2020 Election.” Piper concludes: “I will not develop some calculus to determine which path of destruction I will support.” After rejecting the sin of boastfulness with a terminology diagnosed in the Greek with the term “eristikos,” he is willing to forswear voting on or in the Presidential election of 2020. Piper’s critique of leadership character is one of several...