Free Republic

Muslim-led nations seek ban on insult As the U.N. General Assembly convenes this week in New York, several leaders of mostly Muslim nations are suggesting that the world body consider sanctions on blasphemy, amid widespread protests against an amateur movie that denigrates Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he will focus at least part of his remarks on the film when he addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. “I am the prime minister of a nation, of which most are Muslims, that has declared anti-Semitism a crime against humanity. But the West hasn’t recognized...

If you want to know what really goes on in our public schools, go to a teacher-of-the-year banquet. Here you will see why schools aren't about academics anymore. Educators will never admit it openly, but an event like this reveals so much that outsiders never get to see.

Don't get me wrong. Not every conservative has a winning personality and not every liberal is a toothache in search of a mouth to inhabit. In fact, one of the single nicest people I know is a liberal (Hi, Julie Joyce!) Yet and still, it's not a reach to say that most liberals, especially the ones that are politically active, are just generally difficult to get along with. It's not just me saying that either. I've interviewed more than one big name conservative who has told me that they moved over to the right in large part because the...

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Sunday ruled out the chance of a US default following S&P's decision to downgrade America's credit rating. The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default" said Greenspan on NBC's Meet the Press. "What I think the S&P thing did was to hit a nerve that there's something basically bad going on, and it's hit the self-esteem of the United States, the psyche" said Greenspan.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Instead of feeling stressed by the money they owe, many young adults actually feel empowered by their credit card and education debts, according to a new nationwide study. Researchers found that the more credit card and college loan debt held by young adults aged 18 to 27, the higher their self-esteem and the more they felt like they were in control of their lives. The effect was strongest among those in the lowest economic class. Only the oldest of those studied – those aged 28 to 34 – began showing signs of stress about the money they...

Charles Darwin observed “ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” That was certainly true in 1995 when a man named McArthur Wheeler boldly robbed two banks in Pittsburgh without using a disguise. Security camera footage of him was broadcast on the evening news the same day as the robberies, and he was arrested an hour later. Mr. Wheeler was surprised when the police explained how they had used the surveillance tapes to catch him. “But I wore the juice,” he mumbled incredulously. He seemed to believe that rubbing his face with lemon juice would blur his image and make...

By now, most people (with the exception of many psychotherapists) recognize that the self-esteem movement officially launched by California in 1986 has been at best silly, and at worst injurious to society, despite whatever small benefit it may have had to some individuals. The movement was begun by California assemblyman John Vasconcellos. As the New York Times reported, “Mr. Vasconcellos, a 53-year-old Democrat, is described by an aide as ‘the most radical humanist in the Legislature.’” In an interview at the time, Mr. Vasconcellos told me he had personally benefited from therapy. It enabled him to improve the poor self-esteem...

The business of politics got a little dirty on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" Thursday night. Meghan McCain (yes, daughter of Arizona Senator John McCain) joined Stewart last night to chat about her book, "Dirty Sexy Politics," and the conversation soon veered into Palin territory. The book, Stewart pointed out, "is a view of the campaign trail that’s very personal" - almost like he was reading someone's diary, he said. “I basically wrote a very real book," McCain explained. "It’s very sad and I talk about everything – I talk about sex and politics and everything in between and...

The politics of many liberals are motivated by a lack of self-love and self-esteem. This claim can be inductively proven by an analysis of their behavior. People with a low sense of self can be found in any occupation. However the types of work to which they are drawn include positions of power and control over others (to compensate for their lack of power over how they think and feel about themselves), positions that can draw fame or praise (to fill their longing for esteem), occupations that involve emotions more than reason, and positions that are somewhat removed from reality...

In general, low self-esteem and a lack of self-love are the basis for the ideology of liberals. Liberals are those who would use government to reduce the freedoms of some people to provide benefits for others. Liberals argue for fairness and equality for all people, but neither is possible. Other than identical twins all people are genetically different and without exception each has unique life experiences that are interpreted differently. We are necessarily and naturally unequal in a worldly sense. (If "all men are created equal" in a Godly sense nothing more needs to be done to ensure it.) Liberals,...

In this spoof, NASA has a new plan for reaching out to Muslims and making them feel good about their historic contributions to science. Barack H. Obama 666 Pennsylvania Ave Washington, DC 20006 Dear Sir, I cannot tell you how much we appreciate your budget cuts, your cancellation of the space shuttle and any replacement launch vehicle for it, forcing us to rely on Russian Soyuz ships and their space program, which can't It will take approximately 3000 suicide bombers within the SRB's to provide adequate liftoff thrust for the shuttle launch. All systems go! even seem to dock with...

Yes, we have a self-esteem problem in our country, but we don’t recognize it because, well, we have a self-esteem problem. We need look no further than the bewildering popularity of the reality-TV show Jersey Shore and the instant celebrity garnered from its inhabitants despite their complete absence of qualifications. Though, admittedly, the bar for “success” in America these days is set scarily low; in the case of Jersey Shore and most of the famous-for-being-famous world), dark tans (haven’t they heard of melanoma?), large breasts, muscles, and ‘tude seem sufficient. It is safe to say that these New Jersey denizens...

Rich married men who are approaching retirement have the highest self esteem, scientists have discovered. Researchers found that confidence is lowest amongst young adults, but increases with age until it peaks around sixty. However, after this, retirement and failing health cause a decline in self regard, researchers said "We cannot know for certain that more wealth and better health directly lead to higher self-esteem, but it does appear to be linked in some way. "

With the coyness of someone revealing a bizarre sexual taste, my patients would often say to me, "Doctor, I think I'm suffering from low self-esteem." This, they believed, was at the root of their problem, whatever it was, for there is hardly any undesirable behavior or experience that has not been attributed, in the press and on the air, in books and in private conversations, to low self-esteem, from eating too much to mass murder. Self-esteem is, of course, a term in the modern lexicon of psychobabble, and psychobabble is itself the verbal expression of self-absorption without self-examination. The former...

Growing numbers of British school-leavers have 'attitude problems' and believe the world 'owes them a living', a Tesco boss warned today. Youngsters too often turn up late for work and interviews and fail to see the importance of dressing neatly and working with others, said Lucy Neville-Rolfe, director of corporate and legal affairs. Many also struggle with basic maths and English as exams become easier and schools fail to properly enforce discipline. In a hard-hitting speech, Mrs Neville-Rolfe, 56, one of the most powerful and well-paid women in British business, blamed failures in our education system. She said shortcomings among...

One afternoon in the spring of 2006, for reasons unknown to those who knew him, Mitchell Henderson, a seventh grader from Rochester, Minn., took a .22-caliber rifle down from a shelf in his parents’ bedroom closet and shot himself in the head. The next morning, Mitchell’s school assembled in the gym to begin mourning. His classmates created a virtual memorial on MySpace and garlanded it with remembrances. One wrote that Mitchell was “an hero to take that shot, to leave us all behind. God do we wish we could take it back. . . . ” Someone e-mailed a clipping...

The Me Diploma by: Malcolm A. Kline, July 28, 2009 When international test scores came out showing that American students scored lower on standardized math tests than Koreans but felt better about themselves, statisticians scratched their heads. It turns out that the Yanks may actually have been living up to what they were trained for. “In a recent study, 39% of American eighth-graders were confident of their math skills, compared to only 6% of Korean eighth-graders,” Jean M. Twenge and W. Keith Campbell report in The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement. “The Koreans, however, far exceeded...

The Logan's daughter hung herself after she sent a naked photo of herself to her boyfriend. He passed it on to several students in several schools. "My only baby that I will never be able to touch again," Cynthia Logan said through tears. "I will never have grandchildren. I will never be able to hand down my heirlooms. I'm just devastated by these parents that allow their children to do and say anything they want.""Schools need to understand our kids are targeting each other and how technology is being used as a weapon," Aftab said. "None of them (the schools)...

School staff and parents feel they cannot criticise their children for fear of upsetting them, according to Dr Carol Craig, leaving them with an “all about me” mentality. Mothers and fathers now often tell teachers that it is “bad for his self-esteem” if their son fails a spelling test, or that their daughter is left “unhappy” by missing out on a part in the school pantomime, she claimed. Dr Craig called the self-esteem agenda, which has been imported from the United States, a “fashionable idea” that has gone too far and urged schools to reclaim their role as educators, not...

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Aren't you ashamed of yourself? All these years, you've been trying to build up your child's self-esteem, and now a growing body of research suggests you may be making a big mistake. A study published in the December issue of Child Development finds that early adolescents with high self-esteem are more likely to react aggressively when they feel ashamed than their peers with lower levels of self-esteem.