Free Republic

My teammate X was sprawled on the hotel bed, muttering "Why? Why?" as he contemplated the failure of his legal genius. X was the smartest member of my law school's moot court team. He wasn't the finest of public speakers and his legal writing style wasn't textbook perfect, but who could question his monumental intellect? He won the award for highest first-year GPA. He read abstruse law and philosophy journals for fun. He debated with professors after class, exercising a subject mastery that left onlookers slack-jawed. And when he proudly announced to his moot court teammates that he had found...

Somewhere between Guantanamo Bay and bin Laden, madness lies DOUBLETHINK, George Orwell wrote, “means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them”. The reaction of those who object to the manner in which the American and British governments are conducting the campaign against Islamist terrorism illustrates his point perfectly. During the past ten days, we have witnessed sneering cynicism and despondent defeatism. Neither attitude is justified by the evidence. The response of one vocal camp to the wave of captures in Pakistan, the elevation of terror alert levels in the United States...

This essay is the eighth in a series designed to dissect the totalitarian mentality portrayed in George Orwell's 1984 and to draw parallels to trends in modern academia and the socipolitical arena of today. The following is an index of previous portions of this commentary: 1. Collectivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Collectivism.html 2. Antiprogressivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Orwells_Warning.html 3. Relativism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Relativism.html 4. Doublethink: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Doublethink.html 5. Popular Culture: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Popular_Culture.html 6. Newspeak: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Newspeak.html 7. Vaporization: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Vaporization.html 8. The Origin of Tyranny - You are here. Read on to continue your analysis of this topic. The Party had first manifested itself in Oceania following a hypothetical massive armed conflict between...

This essay is the seventh in a series designed to dissect the totalitarian mentality portrayed in George Orwell's 1984 and to draw parallels to trends in modern academia and the socipolitical arena of today. The following is an index of previous portions of this commentary: 1. Collectivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Collectivism.html 2. Antiprogressivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Orwells_Warning.html 3. Relativism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Relativism.html 4. Doublethink: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Doublethink.html 5. Popular Culture: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Popular_Culture.html 6. Newspeak: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Newspeak.html 7. Vaporization - You are here. Read on to continue your analysis of this topic. Dissent. The fear of that word and it alone had resulted in reactionary institutions of mass hypnotism, such as doublethink, popular...

This essay is the sixth in a series designed to dissect the totalitarian mentality portrayed in George Orwell's 1984 and to draw parallels to trends in modern academia and the socipolitical arena of today. The following is an index of previous portions of this commentary: 1. Collectivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Collectivism.html 2. Antiprogressivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Orwells_Warning.html 3. Relativism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Relativism.html 4. Doublethink: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Doublethink.html 5. Popular Culture: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Popular_Culture.html 6. Newspeak - You are here. Read on to continue your analysis of this topic. Nevertheless, continuous expenditures of resources for the purpose of maintaining popular complicity would seem a time drain on the Witch Doctor mechanism. It is...

The Rational Argumentator A Journal for Western Man-- Issue XII Orwell's Warning: Popular Culture G. Stolyarov II This essay is the fifth in a series designed to dissect the totalitarian mentality portrayed in George Orwell's 1984 and to draw parallels to trends in modern academia and the socipolitical arena of today. The following is an index of previous portions of this commentary: 1. Collectivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Collectivism.html 2. Antiprogressivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Orwells_Warning.html 3. Relativism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Relativism.html 4. Doublethink: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Doublethink.html 5. Popular Culture - You are here. Read on to continue your analysis of this topic. With the basics of its enforcement firmly established and its...

This essay is the fourth in a series designed to dissect the totalitarian mentality portrayed in George Orwell's 1984 and to draw parallels to trends in modern academia and the socipolitical arena of today. The following is an index of previous portions of this commentary: 1. Collectivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Collectivism.html 2. Antiprogressivism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Orwells_Warning.html 3. Relativism: http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Relativism.html 4. Doublethink - You are here. Read on to continue your analysis of this topic. It is apparent at present that the fallacy of relativism is littered with assertions of infantile naïveté and a complete disregard for man's welfare. Relativism, evaluated from the perspective of logic,...

We have all heard anti-war protestors and Hollywood celebrities complain that their right of free speech is being trampled, especially when evil right-wing conspirators (that's us, folks) say mean things about them. As Jeanine Garofalo (certainly a noted legal scholar) recently declared, "All of your criticism of the peace activists is suppressing free speech!" One might wonder where they get this vision of their rights. As a public service, I have researched this subject, and have discovered the text of an otherwise unknown Constitutional Amendment that seems to be common knowledge among lefties. I wanted to call it Amendment "X"...

The Initiative for Software Choice, which counts Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Intel among its backers, said in comments filed Tuesday that the department should "avoid crafting needless and potentially detrimental IT policy to promote the use" of open-source software. "Open source" means every software developer can view the source code for software, modify it, and use it for free. The initiative, which launched in May and is chaired by a group called CompTIA, an organization that has close ties to Microsoft, is worried about a recent report that concluded the Defense Department relies on open-source software and recommended its further...