Free Republic

One of my consistent themes is that in the post-Christian West, sexual pleasure and hedonism have been elevated to the highest human good. Human beings are driven to ask, "What is the meaning of life," and when God exits stage left, what usually replaces Him is "pleasure." That's natural, of course, since pleasure by its nature is self-reinforcing. "If it feels good, do it" is hardly revolutionary, despite what the hippies said. Without religion, human beings struggle to come up with reasons to deny our darkest desires without appealing to moral standards that are generally rooted in religion, or at...

Rainforests are disappearing at a frightening rate, the students were taught, so they raised $523 for an activist group’s "protect an acre" program. At the behest of their teacher and the group, they trekked into Manhattan to ask a major bank to "stop lending money to projects that destroy endangered forests and cause global warming." Indoctrination and manipulation are deplorable enough when high school or college students are involved. But these were second graders, and the close cooperation between their teacher and radical environmentalists underscores a widening problem. People want to live in a clean, civil and safe world, activists...