Free Republic

When and why did American life become so coarse, amoral and ungovernable? In his classic 1993 essay, “Defining Deviancy Down”, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan offered a semantic explanation. He concluded that, as the amount of deviant behaviour increased beyond the levels the community can “afford to recognise”, we have been redefining deviancy so as to exempt conduct we used to stigmatise, while also quietly raising the “normal” level in categories where behaviour is now abnormal by any earlier standard. The reasons behind this, he said, were altruism, opportunism and denial — but the result was the same: an...

Our culture is distracted and fragmented due to competing concepts of meaning. In the last 30 or 40 years we have seen the rise of an irrational and radical ultra-tolerance whereby any and all ideologies are accepted because they are different. There is no value judgments placed upon these ideologies, even if they oppose our own because to do so would be to display intolerance; we are sacrificing our nation on the altar of a mistaken and ignorant misunderstanding of the functioning of humanity. Radical tolerance upon which multiculturalism and post-modernism rest is the idea that there is no truth...

IF President Obama were as crafty as, say, Osama bin Laden, you might wonder if his decision last week to release new "torture" photos this month was part of some clever psych-ops scheme. After all, the decision came only a week after Obama & Co. let loose key memos on "brutal" US interrogation techniques. CIA operatives, the memos showed, had "tortured" prisoners and used sinister tactics designed to exploit fears. Now the Obama folks will hand out scores of new photos from investigations at US prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. So is this some new publicity campaign meant to deter...

My dear Mr. President, I've just finished reading the formerly top-secret, classified CIA memos detailing interrogation techniques used in the aftermath of 9/11. And frankly, Barry honey, I'm shocked. Positively shocked that any President of the U.S.A. would make such documents public knowledge. As a mother, who has invested blood, sweat, tears and every last vestige of my natural hair color into raising my children, I am appalled at the apparent casualness with which you are handling your #1 duty, protecting the lives of American citizens. At this very minute, I'm considering forming a new organization, Mothers Against Wimpy Defense....

Very few people can say that they found God or religion at college or graduate school. The university, after all, is a radically secular institution that either ignores or disparages religious belief in God.Yet, one day, when I was a graduate student in international affairs at Columbia University, I had what can honestly be called an epiphany.I remember it very clearly. Since entering graduate school, I was preoccupied with this question: Why did so many learned and intelligent professors believe so many foolish things?Why did so many people at my university believe nonsense such as Marxism? I was a fellow...

DEVELOPING: SECRET SERVICE CONCERN AFTER LOS ANGELES TIMES COMIC DEPICTS 'BUSH ASSASSINATION'