General Books - Page 7

Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America

Mark Levin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 229 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Educational and Fascinating 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I recommend this book to everyone. The information contained in this book is not only educational, but it is pertinent to the cultural battle that is underway today by liberals using activist judges to circumvent our constitution. An easy read, and a must read, and you will understand how the courts are having an effect upon you and your children, whether you realize it or not, by bypassing the legislative process to make the government do things we would never vote for in a million years.

More Greatness from the Great One 5 out of 5 stars.
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What's the most pressing problem facing our nation? Well, there are a ton to choose from. You could say external forces looking to exterminate us. That would certainly be valid, but I'm always been more of an implosion versus explosion guy in terms threats. Frankly, I think our own seditionists are the biggest threat to our liberty. They'll bring down this country far earlier than any terrorists ever will. Over the last forty years the radicals have marched through our organizations, universities, and government and allowed what was once the counter-culture to become the culture. Nowhere is this more true than in our judiciary wherein the laws crafted by our representatives in the legislature have been struck down by judges who think it is their role to teach us what we should really want.

In the words of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall: You do what you think is right and let the law catch up. Only, it's not the judiciary's role to make laws and that's why Mark Levin penned his masterpiece Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America. The book came out in 2005 so, as always, I got to its pages a little late. Unfortunately, nothing is going to change in the immediate future so it remains pertinent. Some of you may know Mark Levin's name, but, honestly, before this year I never listened to his talk radio show. After a month I discovered he's the best host out of them all. He also excels at writing. Essentially, Men in Black mirrors his approach to verbal conservatism: it's insightful, concise, and ruthlessly on topic. There's not a wasted word here. What I found most attractive about its narrative is that he makes extensive use of primary source documents. He lets the justices, in their opinions, tell their own tale. The book is a compilation of history and cogent analysis. He discusses specifically several of the 100 justices who have been members of the Supreme Court, and their flaws were readily apparent. They were men, not gods.

Levin offers readers an outstanding discussion of the most important court cases in our nation's history. Many of them I had read about before but have long since forgotten. His discussion of religion in Chapter 3 and the establishment clause was thoroughly enlightening. Specifically, we see how cases like Everson v. Board of Education created the fallacious doctrine of there being a "wall of separation" between church and state. Justice Rehnquist's opinion in Wallace v. Jeffree illustrates the method by which this notion was created. "Justices in the Bedroom" in Chapter Five was a standout as well, but most topical was Chapter Ten, "Silencing Political Debate." To what extent does McCain-Feingold erode our liberties? Right now it's hard to say. I agree with the author that advertising is speech, and the recent letter Obama sent to the Justice Department concerning the William Ayers ad put out by a 527 organization is an example of how the left will take advantage of any loophole as a means to silence their critics. Overall, we are not as free as we used to be and Mark Levin's Men in Black illustrates why this is the case.

Editorial Review:

The bestselling Men in Black--first time in paperback! Lawyer and hugely popular radio talk show host Mark Levin throws the book at out-of-control liberal judges who ignore the Constitution, dismantle the rights of American citizens, and make up their own coercive law from the bench.

Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism

Susan Jacoby

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Total reviews: 75 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

At a time when the separation of church and state is under attack as never before, Freethinkers offers a powerful defense of the secularist heritage that gave Americans the first government in the world founded not on the authority of religion but on the bedrock of human reason. In impassioned, elegant prose, celebrated author Susan Jacoby paints a striking portrait of more than two hundred years of secularist activism, beginning with the fierce debate over the omission of God from the Constitution. Moving from nineteenth-century abolitionism and suffragism through the twentieth century's civil liberties, civil rights, and feminist movements, Freethinkers illuminates the neglected accomplishments of secularists who, allied with liberal and tolerant religious believers, have stood at the forefront of the battle for reforms opposed by reactionary forces in the past and today. Rich with such iconic figures as Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Clarence Darrow-as well as once-famous secularists such as Robert Green Ingersoll, 'the Great Agnostic'-Freethinkers restores to history generations of dedicated humanists. It is they, Jacoby shows, who have led the struggle to uphold the combination of secular government and religious liberty that is the glory of the American system.

Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart

Patrick J. Buchanan

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Total reviews: 66 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Insightful beyond the daily news 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Pat Buchanan has condensed United States history and our economy from World War II to the present time, used language we all understand, opened our eyes and cleared our minds to allow for reality to set in.

It is a make sense book. Mr. Buchanan has used his years in politics and studying American history to wake up the reader. Do you know why the U.S. has become the policeman of the world? Do you know why our one time national industries are now owned by foreign concerns? Do you know how and why our country has been falling apart for years since WWII?

If you know these answers, buy the book anyway. You will still learn something new. If you don't know the answers, buy the book. You will understand how un-united we have been as a result of greed and the superman attitude we have taken over the years. The American public has been told for decades by politicians that we are following a path for the betterment of our lives and the world. Wow, have we been duped.

The book is a good read for one that deals with history and the economy.

Editorial Review:

While free enterprise is good, the worship of 'free trade' is de-industrializing America, killing the middle class, and imperiling U.S. economic independence. While America must stand for freedom, liberty and self-determination, the use of U.S. troops to police the planet or serve as advance guard is imperial folly that will bring down the republic. While America should speak out for human rights, the idea that we get in Russia's face and hand out moral report cards to every nation on earth is moral arrogance. While we have benefited from immigration, the idea we can import limitless numbers of aliens and remain anything like a real country is absurd. To save America the first imperative is to remove from power the ideologues of both parties who have nearly killed the country.

Godless: The Church of Liberalism

Ann Coulter

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Total reviews: 947 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"If a martian landed in America and set out to determine the nation's official state religion, he would have to conclude it is liberalism, while Christianity and Judaism are prohibited by law.

Many Americans are outraged by liberal hostility to traditional religion. But as Ann Coulter reveals in this, her most explosive book yet, to focus solely on the Left's attacks on our Judeo-Christian tradition is to miss a larger point: liberalism is a religion—a godless one.

And it is now entrenched as the state religion of this county.

Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, it bears all the attributes of a religion. In Godless, Coulter throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism, showing us its sacraments (abortion), its holy writ (Roe v. Wade), its martyrs (from Soviet spy Alger Hiss to cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal), its clergy (public school teachers), its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free), its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland), and its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident).

Then, of course, there's the liberal creation myth: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

For liberals, evolution is the touchstone that separates the enlightened from the benighted. But Coulter neatly reverses the pretense that liberals are rationalists guided by the ideals of free inquiry and the scientific method. She exposes the essential truth about Darwinian evolution that liberals refuse to confront: it is bogus science.

Writing with a keen appreciation for genuine science, Coulter reveals that the so-called gaps in the theory of evolution are all there is—Darwinism is nothing but a gap. After 150 years of dedicated searching into the fossil record, evolution's proponents have failed utterly to substantiate its claims. And a long line of supposed evidence, from the infamous Piltdown Man to the "evolving" peppered moths of England, has been exposed as hoaxes. Still, liberals treat those who question evolution as religious heretics and prohibit students from hearing about real science when it contradicts Darwinism. And these are the people who say they want to keep faith out of the classroom?

Liberals' absolute devotion to Darwinism, Coulter shows, has nothing to do with evolution's scientific validity and everything to do with its refusal to admit the possibility of God as a guiding force. They will brook no challenges to the official religion.

Fearlessly confronting the high priests of the Church of Liberalism and ringing with Coulter's razor-sharp wit, Godless is the most important and riveting book yet from one of today's most lively and impassioned conservative voices.


"Liberals love to boast that they are not 'religious,' which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion. Of course liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its own explanation of the existence of the universe. In other words, liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as 'religion.'" —From Godless


From the Hardcover edition.

Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy

Gwyneth Cravens

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Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this timely book, Gwyneth Cravens takes an informed and clarifying look at the myths, the fears, and the truth about nuclear energy.

With concerns about catastrophic global warming mounting, it is vital that we examine all our energy options. Power to Save the World describes the efforts of one determined woman, Gwyneth Cravens, initially a skeptic about nuclear power, as she spends nearly a decade immersing herself in the subject. She teams up with a leading expert in risk assessment and nuclear safety who is also a committed environmentalist to trace the path of uranium—the source of nuclear fuel—from start to finish. As we accompany them on visits to mines as well as to experimental reactor laboratories, fortress-like power plants, and remote waste sites normally off-limits to the public, we come to see that we already have a feasible way to address the causes of global warming on a large scale.

On the nuclear tour, Cravens converses with scientists from many disciplines, public health and counterterrorism experts, engineers, and researchers who study both the harmful and benign effects of radiation; she watches remote-controlled robotic manipulators unbolt a canister of spent uranium fuel inside a “hot cell” bathed in eerie orange light; observes the dark haze from fossil-fuel combustion obscuring once-pristine New Mexico skies and the leaky, rusted pipes and sooty puddles in a coal-fired plant; glimpses rainbows made by salt dust in the deep subterranean corridors of a working nuclear waste repository.

She refutes the major arguments against nuclear power one by one, making clear, for example, that a stroll through Grand Central Terminal exposes a person to more radiation than a walk of equal length through a uranium mine; that average background radiation around Chernobyl and in Hiroshima is lower than in Denver; that there are no “cancer clusters” near nuclear facilities; that terrorists could neither penetrate the security at an American nuclear plant nor make an atomic bomb from its fuel; that nuclear waste can be—and already is—safely stored; that wind and solar power, while important, can meet only a fraction of the demand for electricity; that a coal-fired plant releases more radiation than a nuclear plant and also emits deadly toxic waste that kills thousands of Americans a month; that in its fifty-year history American nuclear power has not caused a single death. And she demonstrates how, time and again, political fearmongering and misperceptions about risk have trumped science in the dialogue about the feasibility of nuclear energy.

In the end, we see how nuclear power has been successfully and economically harnessed here and around the globe to become the single largest displacer of greenhouse gases, and how its overall risks and benefits compare with those of other energy sources.

Power to Save the World is an eloquent, convincing argument for nuclear power as a safe energy source and an essential deterrent to global warming.

The Conservative Mind

Russell Kirk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good writer, bad communicator 2 out of 5 stars.
5 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Kirk is a "good writer" but an appalling communicator. Instead of just saying what he has to say, clearly and simply, his passages read as if they were a puzzle to be solved. Fancy words, obscure references, half-made hints and suggestions - it quickly becomes irritating.

I get the feeling that Kirk wants to impress us with his intellect. But any writer that leads with his ego is in trouble, and this is a fine example.

Man, God, and Law 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This is a very readable book of political theory, as Russell Kirk, the Scholar of Mecosta, Michigan, presents us with the great conservative thinkers since Edmund Burke and their ideas. Don't call Kirk an intellectual, which is a Marxist word; call him a cleric or a scholar.

What defines the historical conservative? I must say this conservative is different from a reactionary such Julius Evola who advocated an absolute monarchy who would be a representative of god on earth and closely connected to God to preserve the union of the state. From what I gather from this book, the conservative is for a democracy, but in a limited way, and is for change, as long as it does rock the foundations of tradition. Change is thought to be providential, although I have my doubts. The struggle for conservatives since Burke's time, around 1789, the year of the French Revolution, is to slow down change so that it reforms institutions, but does not destroy them by radical revolution. The main trouble has been that the conservatives were unable to control democracy, this bucking bronco, so that it would be limited within the boundaries of wisdom of tradition and custom, which Burke called "prejudice and prescription".

To get down to the details, arguments about who should be voting are covered. The ever expanding franchise of voting has dismayed conservatives who would rather have men of wealth, ability, and qualification voting in elections for various interests in society. These representatives are not delegates, so once they are voted in to office, do not call them with your opinion, they know better than you how to govern and you should show deference to their authority. The one man-one vote system today does not distinguish between an informed vote and an uninformed one. By limiting democracy to its best representatives, society will not be leveled down to grey uniformity of the envious proletariat who wish that no man be better than another and vote to have income stolen from the rich to give to the poor. It would be better for society not to tax the creative class, the natural aristocracy, who produce the enterprises which give the proletariat their jobs. This creative class is largely responsible for robustness of the economy, not labor. However, those who become rich should make their money in an honorable way.

Conservatives were against such intellectuals as Jefferson, Rousseau, Bentham, J.S. Mill, and Marx. One fault they found with Bentham and Mill were their tendencies to treat society like a machine; by calculating the greatest good for the greatest number, they would atomize society into making everyone just cogs in a machine. But a man is actually supposed to be more than just an unconnected individual; he must have ties to a certain class, guild, church, place, and community to be happy. The philosophies of the radicals have a dehumanizing effect on society. The argument against Rousseau and Marx is that they dream of unworkable utopias and deny the doctrine of original sin which makes it impossible and inhumane to perfect forever fallible human beings. Without taking sin and limitation into account, social policies will not work. These secular philosophers do not realize that morality is severely weakened when it has no transcendent reference to religion.

Such idealists like to talk about giving power to the people. But referring to the people as homogeneous whole is absurd. Which people are you talking about? Government can only serve people as they are grouped in different categories with differing interests. And idealists should not refer to people's rights when they are actually just aspirations or desires. The conservative wants God to save the King, the aristocracy, the country gentlemen, the middle and working classes. Each level should be granted their appropriate rights and privileges. But if we keep following the footsteps of radical democracy, we will find ourselves less free, more equal, and more miserable because we have denied the differences between men.

Another complaint from conservatives is that democratic societies have a lust for innovation by passing an overabundance of laws when it would be better not to pass any at all. In this democratic age, people suffer from impatience and will not wait for prudent reforms. Some radicals throughout history have reduced their arguments down to "Pass this law or I will slit your throat!" But this foot dragging of the conservative amuses me sometimes: As for slavery reform, a conservative before 1860 could have said "Give us more time!" Kirk mentions the joke from Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary about how the conservative is comfortable with existing evils and the liberal wants to replace existing evils with new ones. And I think sometimes a conservative may place too much faith is the wisdom of tradition, as if the tradition had some pure, infallible beginning.

Editorial Review:

Kirk defines what he terms "the conservative mind" by examining the thoughts of many brilliant men, including Edmund Burke, James Fenimore Cooper, John Quincy Adams, Karl Marx, and others. 15 cassettes.

Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision

Thom Hartmann

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Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A must for debaters 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Thom gets to the heart of putting your point across. He details how to put emotion into your presentation, how to cover the "filing" schemes for various personality types, and how to frame the question.

Editorial Review:

Millions of working Americans talk, act, and vote as if their economic interests match those of the megawealthy, global corporations, and the politicians who do their bidding. How did this happen? According to Air America radio host Thom Hartmann, the apologists of the Right have become masters of the subtle and largely subconscious aspects of political communication. It's not an escalation in Iraq, it's a surge; it's not the inheritance tax, it's the death tax; it's not drilling for oil, it's exploring for energy. Conservatives didn't intuit the path to persuasive messaging; they learned these techniques. There is no reason why progressives can't learn them too. In Cracking the Code, Hartmann shows you how. Drawing on his background as a psychotherapist and advertising executive as well as a national radio host, he breaks down the structure for effective communication, sharing exercises and examples for practical application.

Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (American Empire Project)

Noam Chomsky

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Total reviews: 273 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Reading Chomsky today is sobering and instructive . . . He is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read voice on foreign policy on the planet." -The New York Times Book Review

An immediate national bestseller, Hegemony or Survival demonstrates how, for more than half a century the United States has been pursuing a grand imperial strategy with the aim of staking out the globe. Our leaders have shown themselves willing-as in the Cuban missile crisis-to follow the dream of dominance no matter how high the risks. World-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky investigates how we came to this perilous moment and why our rulers are willing to jeopardize the future of our species.

With the striking logic that is his trademark, Chomsky tracks the U.S. government's aggressive pursuit of "full spectrum dominance" and vividly lays out how the most recent manifestations of the politics of global control-from unilateralism to the dismantling of international agreements to state terrorism-cohere in a drive for hegemony that ultimately threatens our existence. Lucidly written, thoroughly documented, and featuring a new afterword by the author, Hegemony or Survival is a definitive statement from one of today's most influential thinkers.

Reclaiming Conservatism: How a Great American Political Movement Got Lost--And How It Can Find Its Way Back

Mickey Edwards

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Editorial Review:

The conservative movement--which once nominated Barry Goldwater for President, and later elected Ronald Reagan--was based on a distinctly American kind of conservatism which drew its inspiration directly from the United States Constitution--in particular, an overriding belief in individual liberty and limited government. But today, Edwards argues, the mantle of conservatism has been taken over by people whose beliefs and policies threaten the entire constitutional system of government. By abetting an imperial presidency, he contends, so-called "conservatives" have gutted the system of checks and balances, abandoned due process, and trampled upon our cherished civil liberties. Today's conservatives endorse unprecedented assertions of government power--from the creation of secret prisons to illegal wiretapping. Once, they fought to protect citizens from government intrusion; today, they seem to recognize few limits on what government can do. The movement that was once the Constitution's--and freedom's--strongest defender is now at risk of becoming its most dangerous enemy. Edwards ends with a blueprint for reclaiming the essence of conservatism in America.
Touching upon many current issues, this passionately argued book concludes that many of today's conservatives seem to have it all backwards. They have turned conservatism upside down--and this book calls them on it.

33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask

Thomas E. Woods Jr.

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Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

News flash: The Indians didn’t save the Pilgrims from starvation by teaching them to grow corn. The “Wild West” was more peaceful and a lot safer than most modern cities. And the biggest scandal of the Clinton years didn’t involve an intern in a blue dress.

Surprised? Don’t be. In America, where history is riddled with misrepresentations, misunderstandings, and flat-out lies about the people and events that have shaped the nation, there’s the history you know and then there’s the truth. In 33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask, New York Times bestselling author Thomas E. Woods Jr. reveals the tough questions about our nation’s history that have long been buried because they’re too politically incorrect to discuss, including:

Are liberals really so antiwar?

Was the Civil War all about slavery?

Did the Framers really look to the American Indians as the model for the U.S. political system?

Did Bill Clinton actually stop a genocide in Kosovo, as we’re told?

The answer to all those questions is no. Woods’s eye-opening exploration reveals just how much of the historical record has been whitewashed,overlooked, and skewed beyond recognition. 33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask will have you wondering just how much of your nation’s past you haven’t been told.