Free Republic

I’ve been writing lately about how the crisis of a lack of objectivity—and the disappearance of even basic first- and second-order thinking—creates a cascade of unintended consequences. When people stop asking “what happens next?” or “what happens after that?”, society slowly fills up with individuals who react to everything emotionally and instantly. They become, for lack of a better phrase, human raw nerve endings. Every stimulus produces an immediate response. No reflection, no restraint, no perspective. Just reaction. Not surprisingly, I was asked recently what we can actually do about it. How do we reverse what looks like a pretty...

With so much going on in the world, it's easy to forget that it's only been a little over a year since Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was killed. He was allegedly gunned down by Luigi Mangione, who is awaiting trial on both state and federal charges in conjunction with Thompson's murder. In his alleged manifesto, Mangione wrote "these parasites had it coming" and "I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done." Several prominent Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, defended Mangione's actions, essentially saying violence is wrong, but UnitedHealthcare...

The statue of a Texas Rangers law enforcement figure disappeared under a shroud of controversy nearly six years ago.The Rangers, who love reunions more than most organizations, are bringing back another figure from the past, one who disappeared under a shroud of controversy nearly six years ago. On Monday morning, the club accepted and installed the 12-foot bronze One Riot, One Ranger statue depicting a member of the Texas Rangers law enforcement agency that had previously stood at Dallas Love Field until it was removed during the racially-charged summer of 2020 after a book detailing incidents of police brutality...

Islamists try to show dominance, and the left is going along, except that they picked the wrong issue. ell, that escalated quickly. Islamists are trying to show dominance, and the left is going along, except that they picked the wrong issue. These days, events happen so quickly, it's hard to keep up, but you would have to be living under a rock not to have heard of the left in their red/green alliance stumble into one of the worst 90/10 issues of all time. Along with blaring the call to prayer (noise ordinances, what noise ordinances?), one of New York...

The aggressive push for socialism in America is not just a policy debate. It is a direct assault on the American founding and the prosperity it created. Under the guise of “progress,” bloated liberals are imposing a compulsory, state-led ideology and economy that mirrors failed socialist experiments of the past. In 1988, I escaped the crushing weight of communism in Romania, trading a life of state-mandated silence for the promise of American liberty. As a political refugee, America gave me the soil to rebuild my life from nothing. But today, America’s foundation is shaking. I look at the country that...

Thirty-five years after its theatrical release, the creative team behind one of cinema’s most celebrated psychological thrillers is doing something that has become all too common in Hollywood: apologizing for a film that won the industry’s top honors and captivated millions of viewers.“The Silence of the Lambs,” which hit theaters on Valentine’s Day 1991, became the year’s fifth-highest-grossing title and made history as just the third film to sweep the “big five” Academy Awards: best picture, director, actor, actress, and screenplay. The film starred Jodie Foster as FBI trainee Clarice Starling tracking serial killer Buffalo Bill while consulting with the...

Nothing has changed the culture in the last 30 years quite like the onward march of digital technology. With each tool the industry places in our digital toolkit — the World Wide Web, streaming video, social media, smartphones, podcasts, artificial intelligence — comes new possibilities but also endless challenges. It is no different in the church. We use digital technology for much good in our life together, but that same technology also has the potential for great ill. As a church, we must think through its use critically. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s 2023 convention asked the Commission on Theology and...

The Super Bowl now plays like America’s divorce proceedingsThe country still shares one screen, but not one meaning. One side will dominate the other, or separation will harden into something more permanent.The Seattle Seahawks trampled the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX, but the postgame chatter barely touched football. Fans and pundits argued about anthems, halftime, commercials, and what the whole spectacle “said” about America.For better or worse, the Super Bowl serves as the premier civic liturgy of the American empire, a night when strangers share the same screens and offices share the same small talk. When that...

With Britain on the brink of civil war, engulfed in growing anarchy, it is encouraging to hear three voices exposing the enemies of civilization and attempting to reverse the current decline by appealing to morality and reason. In periods of civilizational stress, the defining intellectuals are rarely those who echo prevailing orthodoxies. Rather, they are individuals insisting on the legitimacy of first principles when those principles have become unfashionable or even dangerous to articulate. In contemporary Britain, Natasha Hausdorff, Douglas Murray, and Matt Goodwin exemplify this truth-seeking, altruistic calling. Each operates within a distinct professional domain—law, cultural criticism, and political...

Americans were forced to sit through one of their biggest cultural events of the year in a language that is not theirs, surrounded by symbols of other, foreign places. The Super Bowl is supposed to be one of the cultural cornerstones in American life that still belongs to Americans. There are only a handful of days each year when most of the country pauses and gathers around the same screen to participate in something recognizably ours. It’s a shared experience — rooted in common language and culture and tradition. Which is why the Super Bowl half time show this year...

There’s a clip going around where some obnoxious woman decides that a guy walking out of a Quik-i-Mart is a nice guy and she takes it upon herself, being the heroine and the main character of the epic saga that is her life, to knock his cup of coffee from his hands. He’s a fairly big guy, fit, and he doesn’t lay her out across the parking lot with a right cross. It’s not that she doesn’t deserve it – she does. It’s that he is still defaulting to the male role in a chivalry system that no longer exists....

World War I not only toppled empires and redrew borders—it remade the modern world, with few nations feeling the effects as profoundly as Great Britain. The country’s deadliest war—from which 6 percent of its men never returned—accelerated sweeping social, economic and political changes that fractured the rigid British class system and weakened the aristocracy. For centuries, hereditary landowners exercised a near feudal dominance of the British countryside. As late as 1873, fewer than 5 percent of Britons owned all of England’s property. But an agricultural depression in the late 1800s had already begun to erode their dominance as the First...

It's probably best to begin by letting everyone know that this column isn't about politics. Whenever I write anything about the National Football League, my comments section is stormed by an army of conservative keyboard warriors who, in their Colin Kaepernick-filled rage, are all too eager to unload on Roger Goodell and the organization over which he presides. Trust me, dear readers, I have plenty of bad things to say about Roger Goodell, but they're mostly about the game of football. My lament comes from a place of deep, lifelong fandom and is triggered by the fact that I don't...

At a time when we Americans routinely worry about the health of our civic culture, the U.S. Department of Education has made a notable investment. Earlier this month, the department approved a $1.9-million grant for The American Civic Tradition at 250, a joint initiative of Texas Southern University and West Texas A&M University aimed at improving civic literacy in underserved communities. The timing is deliberate. With the nation approaching its 250th anniversary, the program is designed to reconnect teachers and students with the ideas and institutions that undergird American self-government—an area where national assessments show persistent weakness. According to the...

I was the middle child of five, growing up in Ohio during the 1960s. My father worked double shifts at the factory. My mother stretched every dollar until it squeaked. And most afternoons, my brothers and I roamed the neighborhood unsupervised until the streetlights flickered on. Looking back, I realize our childhoods looked nothing like what kids experience today. There were no smartphones, no helicopter parents, no curated activities designed to optimize our development. There was just life, unfiltered and unscheduled.

Minnesota’s Post-Assimilation RealityOur country requires a common culture.What is unfolding in Minnesota cannot be understood without first confronting a difficult truth: some cultures arrive intact. They do not dissolve on contact with modern society, nor do they gently adapt—they replicate.Somali society is organized around the clan. Loyalty is not abstract, nor is it civic. It is biological and binding. The individual exists only insofar as he serves the group. Protection, marriage, honor, silence, and punishment are governed by this code. Obligations flow inward, sanctions flow downward. The clan precedes the individual and outlives him.This structure is pre-modern, but it is...

https://x.com/kellytx2/status/1892554634549657932TRANSCRIPT BELOWFebruary 20, 2025~~~TRANSCRIPT BEGINS~~~Victor David Hanson:And they call it the MAGA revolution? It's not a revolution. It is a counterrevolution. There's a big difference. This is a restoration. Let's use the word 'Trump Restoration.'We don't know really, we don't really appreciate what we've been through with 8 years of the Obama Revolution, and the 4-year, more radical, 3rd term of using or employing the waxen effigy of Joe Biden.A revolution that we've experienced was a cultural, economic, political, social revolution.It was very similar to the French Revolution under the Robespierre brothers. Remember what they tried to do? They changed...

Why do we suffer? It's complicated. It amounts to some issues about the nature of generosity and gratitude. A first principle is that you should never do for others what they can do for themselves, because they will be ungrateful and, moreover, despise the gifts given to them. Then the ingrates will criticize you and, ultimately, turn on you, and maybe even attack you. Why do we never get an answer, when we're knocking at the door, With a thousand million questions, about hate and death and war?, 'Cause when we stop and look around us, there is nothing that...

The culture wars are taking their toll, and the nation could suffer irreparable damage. The late Andrew Breitbart emphasized that “politics is downstream from culture,” meaning that culture shapes society’s values, which in turn determine its politics. Today, we are in the midst of a colossal culture war, with zealous radicals seeking to overturn our long-standing traditions and institutions. One ongoing struggle that has received national attention is the absurd claim that a male who decides he’s a female has a constitutional right to compete in women’s sports. At this time, 27 states have laws or policies prohibiting the gender...

You stub your toe on the bedpost. Before your brain even registers the pain, a word explodes from your mouth — sharp, loud and oddly satisfying. Far from being a simple slip in manners, swearing is a reflex rooted deep in the structure of the human body, drawing on networks in the brain and autonomic nervous system that evolved to help us survive pain and shock. Research shows that a well-placed expletive can dull pain, regulate the heart and help the body recover from stress. The occasional outburst, it seems, isn’t a moral failure — it’s a protective reflex wired...