Free Republic

Some years ago, while flying back to Seattle from Washington, D.C., I sat next to a young marine, who, as we were landing, asked if I would permit him to accompany me to my shuttle, as he “had a personal matter that was weighing heavily” on his heart. While being in our nation’s capital I had already come into contact with many soldiers, all of whom I personally thanked for their service to our country, and all of whom were young enough to be my grandchildren. The young marine reached out to me, not unlike I had with my grandfather,...

The Illusionist How Herbert Marcuse Convinced a Generation that Censorship Is Tolerance & Other Politically Correct Tricks The ancient Greeks had a school of philosophers known as the Sophists, who took pride in their ability to prove impossible things. Some sophists even hired themselves out at public events, where audiences could watch spellbound as they proceeded to prove propositions that were obviously false.The sophist philosopher Gorgias (4th century b.c.) invented an ingenuous argument to prove that: nothing exists; and even if something exists, nothing can be known about it; and even if something exists and something can be known about...

Return to The New Australian The Left's war against America By James Henry Few people appreciate the power of ideas. When they experience the social and economic effects of intellectually inspired long-term trends, many tend to ascribe the process to a conspiracy of some kind. (If only that were so). More than 160 years ago J. S. Mill wrote of how the ideas of a few writers can eventually influence the thinking of a nation's intellectuals. Keynes made a similar point when he wrote: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic...

Don McLean, the 74-year-old singer best known for his 1971 hit “American Pie,” says he is not impressed with the music of today. The singer-songwriter believes times have certainly changed since his early days in the music industry, and he’s claiming there is no longer music of substance when he turns on the radio. The folk-rock singer sat down with Tom Cridland for his YouTube series “The Greatest Music of All Time” to reflect on his musical career highlights. During the candid conversation, McLean partially discusses his political views, claiming that politics no longer “really mean anything,” and he likened...

His advice seems eerily applicable to our own situation, just substitute “pandemic” for “war”:I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We...

Christendom Is the Solution for the Emptiness of our Nihilistic Society Grave moral problems are tearing the country apart. For many, this is apparent in the form of broken homes, procured abortion, shattered communities and lost Faith. Many people get it right when pointing out the problems. However, they get it wrong when looking for solutions. Some get it wrong because they look for solutions that address symptoms, not causes. Others search for a way out that involves the least possible effort. In these politically correct times, people are told not to offend anyone by their proposals. Thus, they automatically...

The alternative is to tell them they’re simply going to die and turn to dust. As a therapist, I’m often asked to explain why depression and anxiety are so common among children and adolescents. One of the most important explanations—and perhaps the most neglected—is declining interest in religion. This cultural shift already has proved disastrous for millions of vulnerable young people. Skip The result? Children or teens who reported attending a religious service at least once per week scored higher on psychological well-being measurements and had lower risks of mental illness. Weekly attendance was associated with higher rates of volunteering,...

In an article in the Wall Street Journal, on October 5, 2001, Francis Fukuyama declared that his "end of history" thesis remains valid twelve years after he first presented it shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Fukuyama’s core argument was that after the defeat of Communism and National Socialism, no serious ideological competitor to Western-style liberal democracy was likely to emerge in the future. Thus, in terms of political philosophy, liberal democracy is the end of the evolutionary process. To be sure, there will be wars and terrorism, but no alternative ideology with a universal appeal...

The suspect in the Dayton shooting early Saturday morning where nine people were killed has been identified as a 24-year-old man.

A nationwide poll has revealed that 89 per cent of 16- to 29-year-olds believe that their lives have no meaning or purpose. The poll, conducted by Japanese company Yakult and reported by The Sun, also found that 30 per cent of young people believe they are stuck in a rut with 84 per cent saying that they believe they are failing to “live their best life”. Across all age groups, over half (51 per cent) of those surveyed believe they were put on the earth to be as happy as they can be, whilst 37 per cent believe that it...

Lonely millennials, you are not alone! A new survey found that over half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 do not have a romantic partner. In spite of the recent rise of dating apps, more young people than ever remain single, according to data released by the General Social Survey from researchers at the University of Chicago.

"Darwinism came at the desired time; Darwin's theory that man is the descendant of a lower animal destroyed the entire foundation of Christian dogma." (Anton Pannekoek, "Marxism and Darwinism," translated by Nathan Weiser) As Pannekoek affirms, Darwin's mythological miracle-producing life and change-making evolutionary energy has destroyed the entire foundation of Christian theism. In supplanting Genesis 1-11, it has also destroyed biblical infallibility, transcendent moral law, sexual ethics, the gospel claims of Jesus Christ, and imago Dei, the source of man's personhood and innate dignity. In destroying the foundations of Christianity Darwinism has also destroyed the foundations of our Constitutional Republic,...

As the 2020 election nears, there is as yet no coherent Democratic response to the Trump agenda. If Trump himself is unpopular and polarizing, his agenda is for the most part in sync with a majority of Americans who like the 3% annualized GDP growth; near-record peacetime unemployment; record natural gas and oil production; young, scholarly and constructionist justices; pro-Israel Mideast politics; and realism about NATO laxity, the flawed Iran Deal, and the Paris Climate Accord, Chinese mercantilism, and the past inability of the U.S. to translate battlefield victories abroad into lasting security and strategic advantages. Yet hatred of Trump...

As a neo-pagan evolutionary materialist (pagan animist), Dennett enthusiastically embraces Darwin's evolutionary theory because evolution – an unseen creative energy that acts upon matter – supposedly provides a 'scientific' explanation for the emergence of life from non-life bearing chemicals, thereby supposedly negating the necessity of the living, supernatural Tri-Personal God. Hence Dennett's delusional insistence that there is no soul/spirit (mind, will) associated with the human brain or any supernatural God or life after death. Thus the central concern of Dennett's career has been to explain how, ".... meaning, function and purpose can come to exist in a world that is...

They can sense it. They can feel it. Something is seriously wrong in our civilization, and many people know it. This is why despite the relatively good economic times, most Americans polled say our country is on the “wrong track.” Yet many are like a gravely ill man who knows he’s not well but can’t precisely identify his ailment. Most often, Americans have only a vague sense of cultural malaise, or they “self-diagnose” wrongly. Years ago I had a brief “state of the nation” discussion with a very fine, older country gentleman. While no philosopher, he did offer the following...

Younger Americans are turning on the country and forgetting its ideals, with nearly half believing that it isn’t “great” and many eyeing the U.S. flag as “a sign of intolerance and hatred,” according to a new and disturbing survey. Those who came of age under former President Barack Obama also have a larger-than-life view of the 44th president and feel that he had a “bigger impact” on the United States than the father of the country and leader of the Revolutionary War, former President George Washington. Screen Shot 2018-11-27 at 4.25.17 AM.png (Screenshot/YouGov) The YouGov.com poll was the first “State...

As usual in these situations, the criminal's Facebook and social media gets purged, often before anyone outside of state-controlled media and police can verify what was actually posted. However, there are reports that Ian David Long, a former Marine, wrote a final post on his Facebook page before going into the Borderline Bar & Grill and murdering a dozen people before turning the gun on himself. In that post, he allegedly wrote, "Yeah... I'm insane, but the only thing you people do after these shootings is 'hopes and prayers.'" This doesn't sound like the words of a Marine to me....

Half a century on from the publication of Schaeffer’s seminal books The God Who Is There and Escape from Reason (1968), our culture spins ever faster into irrationality. Schaeffer predicted that plunging below the “line of despair” would lead to social collapse just as surely as the Roman Empire collapsed amid decadence, self-indulgence, and immorality. Others (both Christian and non-Christian) sounded alarms as well. Philip Rieff warned in The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966) that a society released from all restraints would implode. Christopher Lasch argued in The Culture of Narcissism (1979) that no community can flourish where every individual...

From the article: "some of the most important of the Soviet Union’s memetic weapons. Here is that list again: There is no truth, only competing agendas. All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism. There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor. The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable. Crime...

Imagine there’s no heaven It’s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people living for today Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people living life in peace You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope some day you’ll join us And the world will be as one Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can No need for greed or hunger A brotherhood of man Imagine all the people sharing...