Free Republic

What if stupidity isn’t about intelligence at all, but about surrendering the will to think? In this chilling and timely video essay, we explore Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity — a terrifying insight into how smart, well-meaning people can become blind instruments of destruction. Drawing on Bonhoeffer’s life, the psychology of conformity, Milgram’s obedience experiments, social media echo chambers, and the rise of AI-driven misinformation, we reveal why stupidity isn't a lack of intellect — it's a surrender of critical thought. 👉 Why do intelligent people support dangerous ideas? 👉 How does groupthink override personal judgment? 👉 What does it...

The Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that a former college football player who was shot by his teammate cannot sue gunmaker Beretta over his injuries. a victory not only for the firearms company, but for common sense as well. In 2018, about four months after Andre Lewis purchased a Beretta APX 9mm handgun, Lewis decided to show it off to his Emporia State University teammate Marquise Johnson while the pair were idling at a stoplight in the town of Emporia. According to the complaint, Lewis wanted to show Johnson that he knew how to properly disassemble the pistol, and apparently...

Some people need a break from TikTok. A mom sheepishly admitted she broke her foot after attempting a stupid TikTok challenge. Klaire Cave, 40, and her cousin Gemma Stephens, 29, were on vacation in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, on Saturday, March 1, for Stephens’ birthday celebration, when Cave decided to record a video following a trend she had seen online. After hanging out at a few bars, the women returned to their hotel room when Cave decided to replicate the #droppingthingsonmyfoot challenge, which is exactly as ridiculous as it sounds. In the videos, people drop increasingly heavy items on their feet from...

Under heavy grey skies and a thin coating of snow, hulking grey and green Cold War relics recall Ukraine’s Soviet past. Missiles, launchers and transporters stand as monuments to an era when Ukraine played a key role in the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons programme - its ultimate line of defence. As a newly independent Ukraine emerged from under Moscow’s shadow in the early 1990s, Kyiv turned its back on nuclear weapons. But nearly three years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, and with no clear agreement among allies on how to guarantee Ukraine’s security when the war ends, many now feel that...

Davi Nunes Moreira, 14, died in hospital in Planalto, Brazil last Thursday after telling staff he had injected a solution made of crushed butterfly into his leg. Believed to have carried out the dangerous procedure as part of an 'online challenge', Moreira began vomiting and struggled to walk before admitting his mistake. The youngster was taken into hospital by his father and remained in the Vitória da Conquista general hospital for a week, receiving specialised support, before he died.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS! In these next few days billions of us around the world celebrate the birth of a Middle Eastern refugee who, 2,000 years ago, changed the course of the world forever. Let me tell you some of his story. This is just a short extract from near the beginning of the adventure. When Maryam, a young, poor, and no doubt terrified Palestinian girl, gives birth in a run-down animal pen, to a baby who was foretold for hundreds of years. To many of us, it is undoubtedly: The Greatest Story Ever Told. Watch the full video here: https://bit.ly/BearGryllsGreatestStory For...

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said New York City subway riders should be scared of Daniel Penny after he was found not guilty in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely — sparking swift backlash from straphangers who blasted the lefty lawmaker as “delusional.” Penny, 26, was acquitted of all charges by a Manhattan jury Monday following the high-profile trial over the fatal, caught-on-camera encounter with the troubled homeless man on an uptown F train last year. In a previous clip that has gone viral on X after the acquittal, Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Penny’s apparent lack of remorse could mean he could...

A piece of conceptual art consisting of a simple banana, duct-taped to a wall, sold for $6.2 million at an auction in New York on Wednesday, with the winning bid coming from a prominent cryptocurrency entrepreneur. "Comedian," by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was a phenomenon when it debuted in 2019 at Art Basel Miami Beach, as festivalgoers tried to make out whether the single yellow piece of fruit affixed to a white wall with silver duct tape was a joke or cheeky commentary on questionable standards among art collectors. At one point, another artist took the banana off the wall...

Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb within months if Donald Trump withdraws US military assistance, according to a briefing paper prepared for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. The country would quickly be able to build a basic device from plutonium with a similar technology to the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, the report states. “Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did within the framework of the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later,” the document reads. With no time to build and run the large facilities required to enrich...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered the recall of nearly 80,000 pounds of butter produced in Texas for Costco. The agency ordered the recall because the product packaging contained no “Contains Milk” allergy statement. Food & Wine reported that the FDA issued a Class II recall on November 7 for 79,200 pounds of Kirkland Signature Sweet Cream Butter (salted and unsalted). The FDA claimed the butter packaging lists “cream” as an ingredient but does not bear the “Contains Milk” allergy statement. The New York Post posted on social media that the recall was based on the “dumbest possible...

Caleb James Williams was arrested and accused of brandishing his weapon at two women, ages 71 and 54, police said. Police arrested an 18-year-old wielding a machete with an 18-inch blade outside a polling station in Florida on Tuesday, saying he was part of a group of teenagers accused of intimidating Democratic supporters. The teenager, Caleb James Williams, was arrested after 4 p.m. when officers were called to the Beaches Branch Library in Neptune Beach. Williams was arrested on charges of aggravated assault, accused of brandishing his weapon at two unidentified women, ages 71 and 54, and improper exhibition of...

Criminals opened fire on at least 134 police officers during routine traffic stops from 2021 through 2023, federal data show. Now, an equity commission convened by the Biden-Harris administration wants to spend $20 million on a pilot program that would deploy unarmed cops to conduct traffic enforcement. The Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity, an Obama-era body revived by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg last year, said in a report released this month that cops don’t need to carry guns or tasers with them when out on the streets enforcing traffic laws. The commission, whose membership includes an activist who once said...

A camera inside a house caught this bad (but fortunate) dog in the act of burning down his owner’s house, and now fire officials are using this video as a cautionary tale against the “dangers of lithium-ion batteries” and rechargeable electronics (click image to watch on X): ...the fire was “destructive” and caused “significant damage” to the home but miraculously, no one was hurt, and the three pets seen in the video all got out of the home through a doggie door; firefighters also took the opportunity to remind people of this: Lithium-ion batteries can explode and spark fires when...

A woman has admitted that her husband was stealing from a truck in the middle of the night last week — but she's questioning why the owner fatally shot him. Police in Tulsa, Oklahoma, are investigating what went down around 2:15 a.m. Wednesday in the area of the 9200 block of East 90th Street, the Broken Arrow Sentinel reported. A report from KOTV-DT indicates the fatal shooting happened near 91st and Mingo. [snip] Lawson added to the station that "Blane was trying to get into the car, and that's when I saw the shot go off, and I saw the...

A program that offers free booze to the homeless alcoholics that roam San Francisco caught flak this week when a tech CEO questioned the logic of feeding the addictions of the city’s street dwellers. Adam Nathan, founder and CEO of the small business AI marketing tool Blaze and the chair of the Salvation Army San Francisco Metro Advisory Board, posted a thread on X slamming the program after watching a string of unhoused drunks line up for their shots, stating it “just doesn’t feel right.” “Did you know San Francisco spends $2 million a year on a “Managed Alcohol Program?”...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - On Thursday, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced a lawsuit against Sheetz, alleging the convenience store and gas chain of denying employment to a class of job application due to their race. The U.S. EEOC alleges that Sheetz has a practice of screening all applicants for records of criminal conviction and then denying them employment based on said record. The EEOC's charge claims that Sheetz disproportionally screened out applicants who are black, Native American, and multiracial.

Whoopi Goldberg caught attention on social media again for all the wrong reasons, making headlines for her inane meltdown over former President Trump’s latest remarks on abortions. The co-hosts of “The View” weighed in on Trump’s stance which he shared on Truth Social, saying he supports in vitro fertilization (IVF) and that states should individually determine their abortion laws, making exceptions for rape, incest, and dangers to the life of the mother. Goldberg declared that abortion isn’t included in the Ten Commandments during Monday’s episode of the ABC daytime talk show, throwing in some head-scratching arguments in favor of killing...

A San Francisco supervisor wants to require grocery stores to provide six months of notice before closing a location A San Francisco lawmaker introduced a proposal that would require grocery stores in the city to provide six months of notice before closing a store and to explore a replacement supermarket at the vacated location. Dean Preston, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, introduced what he calls the Grocery Protection Act – which is based on a proposal the board approved in 1984 that was vetoed by then-San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein. Preston's proposal would require grocery store...

It didn’t take long for Oregon to realize decriminalizing hard drugs was a bad idea. On Tuesday, Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, signed legislation that recriminalizes drug possession, reversing Measure 110, which 58 percent of voters approved in 2020. By August, however, 56 percent of Oregonians disapproved after a major uptick in overdose deaths and addiction in the state. Lawmakers from both parties got to work drafting legislation to reverse the measure.

A Chinese couple working at Canada's highest biosecurity lab were secretly sending information to Beijing and mailed live Ebola to China, a bombshell investigation has found. In a 600-page report released this week by the Canadian intelligence service, the pair were also accused of allowing visitors into the lab who tried to leave carrying plastic bags of vials containing an unknown substance. Dr Xiangguo Qiu and Dr Keding Cheng were found to have left visitors with ties to the Chinese government and military unsupervised at the facility.