Free Republic

“‘I’d rather be myself,’ he said. ‘Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.’” – Aldous Huxley, Brave New World “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance “Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can offer with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation, but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance “Even despotism does not produce...

Although busy hives filled with honeybees tend to dominate mainstream imagery and conversations about bee populations, 90 percent of the insects are actually solitary creatures that prefer to live outside of a colony. This majority, which is comprised of tens of thousands of species, are also superior pollinators in comparison to their social counterparts because they’re polylectic, meaning they collect the sticky substance from multiple sources, making them even more crucial to maintaining crops and biodiversity.

  Home of the Brave? Not So Much David C. Stolinsky Dec. 12, 2011 Listing courage among the other virtues implies that it is separate from them. This assumes that it is possible to have charity, kindness, honesty, loyalty, faith, hope, or any other virtue you can name, and yet lack courage. I don’t think so. Courage is not a separate virtue. Courage is the indispensable quality without which all other virtues are merely good intentions: People are like pearls. No matter how smooth and delicate a pearl may be, it has a grain of sand at its center....

A member of the local school board told me, “In the 21st century they’ll have to be able to work in groups, so we may as well teach them how to do it.” He was so confident in his pronouncement, and seemed to think there was nothing else to say. His confidence had the opposite effect on me. I heard nothing but sophistry in that little comment; and I realized, with some regret, I had to write an article explaining why Cooperative Learning is just another tawdry gimmick. First, let’s stand back and ask: did something happen in the universe,...

A young married couple, Paul and Nancy, were neighbors of mine back in the seventies. Nancy was extremely excited because an unexpected opportunity arose for her to attend college. This would broaden her horizons and enable her to pursue opportunities beyond her then-current minimum-wage jobs. Paul was dead set against it. He confided in me, "I'm afraid if she gets educated, she may not want me anymore." I thought, So rather than allowing Nancy, whom you profess to love, to be all she can be, you would prefer to keep her down. In the eighties, I was a member of...

“End-of-life counseling” for people whose lives are not ending is a thinly veiled suggestion that their lives SHOULD end. But if that is how the government treats our veterans, to whom we owe our freedom, how will it treat ordinary people? The “Cash for Clunkers” program was aimed at getting rid of uneconomical cars. Will we now get rid of uneconomical people? Will we treat people as “economic units,” not as human beings? My country doesn’t act like that. My country is America. It’s a nice place to visit, but it’s an even better place to live. I am determined...

It is time that we take the word liberal away from the left. The word that is identified with liberty and freedom has been hijacked by those who loath the very concepts that liberty implies. Words such as liberal, socialist and communist have become archaic, and have lost their true meanings. We should choose a new fitting and more descriptive word that better illustrates what leftists are really all about. Liberal theory will always fail because it denies the very nature of human beings. We are individuals and will always live and act in our own self interests. To the...