Free Republic

Democrat candidate for Georgia governor Stacey Abrams told a group of working-class voters at a campaign stop in Valdosta, Georgia that "those who oppose President Biden's decree cancelling a portion of students' college debt are being churlish." For those not used to hearing the word, "churlish" is defined as "being rude in a mean-spirited and surly way." "The unity that the Democratic Party is trying to bring to this country requires that each person contribute his or her fair share to the collective welfare," Abrams explained. "Those who don't have what it takes to succeed in college have a duty...

“We now have an intelligentsia which, though very small, is very useful to the cause of Hell.” -C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters A masterful piece of religious prose disguised as satire, C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters is a series of messages from senior devil Screwtape to his protégé Wormwood on how best to corrupt mortals. Originally released during World War II, its tight 175 pages provide charming, timeless wisdom. In an addendum released shortly before the author’s death in 1963 – Screwtape Proposes a Toast – Lewis pivots from dispensing universal wisdom to directly criticizing social trends of his day,...

The front-runner to become Britain’s next prime minister is a portly white man with unkempt blond hair, an adoring base of supporters, disdain for Europe, a dodgy private life and a loose relationship with truth and principle. There are also differences between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump, but the similarities have been much noted in some European circles, with no small misgivings.

Webster’s defines a dupe as “one who is easily deceived.” But a misperception prevails among most people. They think of dupes as ignorant people only. On the contrary, there are large amounts of intelligent dupes in all societies. Brains are no protection against dupery. In fact, I would classify dupery as one of the deadly sins that curse all men and women no matter what level of class and smarts they possess. Dictatorships depend upon dupery to perpetuate themselves – especially dupery among the intelligentsia. There are, in this writer’s opinion, three forms of dupery afflicting the human race, or...

Yeah, Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll, crushing Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. And OK, a CBS poll recently found him tied with Romney among likely Republican primary voters. Sure, he also scored a resounding victory in another straw poll this weekend. And Rasmussen just today released the finding that 56% of GOP voters like Cain's 9-9-9 plan. So is that enough to make the Associated Press consider Cain a first-tier candidate? Nah. On MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" this morning, AP's political editor, Liz Sidoti, sniffed "we still consider him a second-tier candidate." View the video here.

Our unsustainable population levels are depleting resources and denying a decent future to our descendants. We must stop the denial. A 2009 NPR story on U.S. pregnancies reported that half — yes, half — of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended. That's a lot of unintended consumers adding to our future climate change. And that's what the right calls the "liberal" side of the mass media. The politically conservative U.S. mass media cover unsustainable population levels even less. That pretty much reflects the appalling state of U.S. public education today on population. The U.S. approach to population issues across all levels...

I hope I never write another piece on Sarah Palin again. The woman is a disease, and I choose my words carefully there. She is everything that is wrong with America, and indeed, that is the only reason I’m writing this at all. This essay is altogether far more a commentary on Governor Quit’s America than it is on the woman herself. Our national problem is Palinosis far more than it is Palin. There have always been people like Sarah Palin, and presumably there always will be. The two real questions are why anyone cares about them and, most astonishingly,...

A new Gallup poll reveals that voters who identify as more conservative, do not have college degrees and who make less than $24,000 annually are more likely to support former Alaska governor Sarah Palin over Mitt Romney for president in 2012. Romney, on the other hand, has evidently fared better with voters who describe themselves as “liberals to moderate”, have received degrees of higher learning and who make at least $90,000 a year. The split drives home the challenges facing any would-be GOP candidate: Catering to the party’s base without completely alienating those on the fence, and appealing to voters...

Budding guitarists seek the magical powers of rock hero instruments, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Like people from the Middle Ages who sought saints' relics, modern consumers like the budding rock guitarist desire fetishes (objects perceived as magical and possessing extraordinary power)" write authors Karen V. Fernandez (University of Aukland, New Zealand) and John L. Lastovicka (Arizona State University). "We live in a world where anybody with a modest amount of money can buy a close copy or a replica of a desired object," the authors write. "We wanted to know why consumers who...

TORONTO, ON (The Interim) - There is nothing right or left-wing about pro-life, but pro-lifers are repeatedly and ridiculously condemned and dismissed as being on the right. Life, however, is more important than political labels.

As we all know by now, Israel has lost the battle for public opinion in the west. Even the Israel government is now acknowledging this fact. Israel and its defenders have been outclassed and outmanoeuvred in a war of the mind being waged on a battleground it never even acknowledged it was on. Calls for more and better hasbara, however, are meaningless if the message or narrative promoted by Israel and its defenders misses the point of the attack being waged upon it. And it does miss that point, by a mile. You cannot resist or overcome a threat unless...

Even the Aspen Ideas Festival, an annual gathering of the country's brightest lights, isn't Obama country anymore. Lloyd Grove on the president's waning support among the intelligentsia. You’d think the well-heeled and enlightened eggheads at the Aspen Ideas Festival—which is running all week in this fashionable resort town with heady panel discussions and earnest disquisitions involving all manner of deep thinkers and do-gooders—would be receptive to an intellectually ambitious president with big ideas of his own. In a way, the folks attending this cerebral conclave pairing the Aspen Institute think tank with the Atlantic Monthly magazine might even be seen...

Singer explains Benatar’s antinatalist philosophy, which bases its moral framework by weighing the consequences of existence, in this way: “everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none.” Singer then invites readers to engage in a thought experiment: "So why don’t we make ourselves the last generation on earth? If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required — we could party our way into extinction!"

One fashionable notion among some of the intel ligentsia is that old peo ple have "a duty to die," rather than become a burden to others. This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already Britain's government-run medical system is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. It seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when US medical care is taken over by the government. Make no mistake: Letting old people die is a lot cheaper than spending the kind of money required to...

David Brooks notes that in the last year, something dire has happened: The public has turned decisively against the "educated classes" and all of their works. At the same time, it has also moved against Barack Obama, who began his term with approval ratings that bumped up against 70, and have now sunk to the high to mid-40s, with "strongly disapprove" ratings that rival those of George W. Bush at his worst. It has also moved strongly against his -- and the educated classes' -- ideas. It is more pro-life, more anti-climate change, more free market, less statist, more inclined...

USSR, 1959: I am a "young pioneer" in school. History classes remind us that there is a higher authority than their parents and teachers: the leaders of the Communist Party. The story of young pioneer Pavlik Morozov is required reading. Pavlik reported his father to the secret police for disobeying government regulations. His life exemplified the duty of all good Soviet citizens to serve their government. From the first year in school, all of us are made aware of our ethnicity (ethnic Russian, Jewish, Asian, etc.) and class (proletariat, intelligentsia), around which society is structured. This inherent divisiveness makes it...

I missed Clintonite moldy oldie-turned-Obama economic adviser Robert Reich’s testimony a few weeks ago on how the government should spend federal stimulus money. The Berkeley professor engaged in academic fantasy land talk about getting all the cash out to workers as quickly as possible — a pipe dream debunked by the CBO report I mentioned in my column yesterday. Even more noteworthy, however, were the comments Reich made about which workers deserve the stimulus bucks most. Reich’s proposal exposes the lie that the Obama administration is actually interested in revitalizing basic infrastructure for the good of the economy. No, what...

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit. Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D. I'm bathing in holy water as I type. To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh. Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth -- as long as we're setting ourselves free -- is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among...

Cannot Post due to copyright issues: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/03/17/080317taco_talk_hertzberg

Postmodern Epistemologies by: Bethany Stotts, February 19, 2008 ...How does style affect our perception of the text, and does style itself impart its own distinct meaning?...Modern Language Association (MLA) professors attempted to answer these questions by drawing upon postmodern academics who remain skeptical of absolute knowledge, one of whom belongs to the radical “naturalist” Brights movement. Among the scholars mentioned were Donald Freeman, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Mark Turner, Daniel Dennett, and Noam Chomsky.... Instead, Chodat referred the audience to the works of radical atheist and Brights Movement member Dennett, who is listed on the site as one of the movement’s “enthusiastic...