15. January 2011 by admin.

• 
• ISBN-13: 9781416562856
• ISBN-10: 1416562850
• Publisher: Threshold Editions
• Date: March 2009
• Page Count: 245

The book Liberty and Tyranny was outstanding.  I am a person who enjoys politics, loves listing to news-talk programming (even CNN, though I do end up yelling at the television) and even reading the blogs.  This book can in no way be termed boring, and was a quick read.  

In his New York Times bestselling book, Levin provides two key weapons for anybody who considers himself a conservative.  Firstly, he outlines this history of what he identifies as a shift towards Statist.  While some might read Levin and claim that he is a bit of a conspiracy theorist or that he is blowing things out of proportion (for example when, in Chapter 8, he seems to make the case that the EPA’s banning of DDT wasn’t about ‘protecting the environment’ but was, instead, about controlling the world, even if it meant allowing folks in Africa to die), I read it as being a terrifyingly honest and accurate look at the realities of the world as we know it.

The history of ‘statist’ that he provides is unbelievably eye opening.  BUT, the two most important chapters in the book are on the Constitution and on Federalism.  In his chapter on the Constitution, Levin reminds all of us of the importance of our Constitution.  He provides a short explanation of the biggest lie that Liberals and Statists use: that the Constitution is a ‘living breathing’ document. It is not, as Levin and others have pointed out, living and breathing; it is undying and never changing.  It is the bedrock for our Nation.

Levin uses the Constitution chapter to lead into his discussion of Federalism and its importance.  The obvious argument in favor of Federalism always has been the “experiment” function–the idea that a state can examine and put into practice various ideas in order to find the best and most effective strategy before implementing that idea at the National level.  But Levin also introduces readers to a less discussed function of the Federal system: mobility.  This is not something that is taught in school or in college, nor is it something I had considered before, but Liberty and Tyranny makes an excellent case for this function.  Simply, Federalism allows the citizen to move from state to state to avoid or to find state-level governmental functions that best suit each individual.  The most obvious example is the exodus from New York City of such leading New Yorkers as Rush Limbaugh in response to the ever-rising tax-rates the city imposes.

The title of the book has its roots in a quotation by President Lincoln.  In this quotation, Lincoln points out the obvious incompatibility of the definition of Liberty as provided by Unionists when compared to that provided by Confederates.  Lincoln explains that for some, “[liberty] may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labors.” Now, while Lincoln was describing the views of Southerners during the War, the quotation is equally, as Levin explains, applicable to today’s situation.  The difference: instead of a slaveholder profiting from the work of his slaves, the government is profiting–unjustly–from the labors of its citizenry.

In addition to his history of Statist and of his economics and civics lessons, Levin lays out what he aptly titles a “Conservative Manifesto,” a direct response to the Communist Manifesto, the guiding ideology for Statists of both the Democrat and Republican Party. He addresses ten key issues

• Taxation
• The Environment
• Judges
• The Administrative State (how our Federal Government is run)
• Government Education
• Immigration
• Entitlements
• Foreign Policy and Security
• Faith
• The Constitution

Levin lays a path that is at once grounded in basic Conservative principles (i.e. he advocates abolishing the Federal Department of Education) and forward looking (i.e. invoking sunset rules for all federal agencies contingent upon their reapprove each year by the Congress). It sets a path for rescuing this Nation from the mess BHO et. al. is driving us towards while preserving the heritage that has made this country great.

The great power of ‘Liberty and Tyranny’ lies in the fact that it centers entirely on ageless, timeless principles–the principles which manifest Conservative thought and deed. No Liberal has any principles; that entire citizen Liberals want is for the government to guarantee that nobody can be “better” than they are, and all that Liberal politicians want is power, as much power as they can possibly have over everyone else’s lives. There are no principles in their views–only fear and power-lust, nothing more.

Mark Levin lays out in exquisite detail and clear, concise, consistent prose precisely where Conservative principles have their origins, the objective evidence for why they work, and their historical precedents. He actually does not call the Liberals by that name throughout most of the book, as that label has historically been applied in different ways and could cause some confusion; instead, he calls them “Statists”: those who worship government and/or work in the government who want to expand its power relentlessly and, in truth, infinitely.

Perhaps the entire book can be summarized in a quotation from Reagan that Levin cites on p. 197:

How can limited government and fiscal restraint be equated with lack of compassion for the poor? How can a tax break that puts a little more money in the weekly paychecks of working people be seen as an attack on the needy? Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes—one rich, one poor—both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?”

Words to live by, my friends.

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24. May 2010 by RichardFL.

by Tom Baugh
Paperback, 420 pages
ISBN:978-0-9825431-0-8
Price: $19.95 US

Warning: This book is NOT the typical heavily-digested cartoon-book political pundit pap.

Nor is it a scholarly work intended to talk down to you from an ivory tower as you swim around in the moat in a world that doesn’t seem to make sense anymore, and gets worse each day.  In fact, books like both of those I describe above are part of the problem. They whip people up into a frenzy, or bore them to tears, but don’t offer any practical advice other than to tell you to try to teach someone else.  And yet, the problems seem to grow worse the more we try to teach. And now our problems are no longer simple-issue problems

“Starving the Monkeys: Fight Back Smarter” is about the struggle of the creative, productive members of society against the parasitic masses that author Tom Baugh refers to as the monkey collective. Monkeys are the looters and moochers who essentially dine from the plates of the producers through the tax and legal structures they have put in place. Baugh contends that the vast army of collectivist monkeys would literally starve if left to their own devices.

“Starving the Monkeys” refers to Baugh’s recommendation that the producers strictly limit the monkey diet, by withholding their productive efforts on behalf of the collective. Not by refusing to pay taxes, but by temporarily throttling back on their productive output, and thereby hastening the fall of the monkey collective, which is even now teetering on the brink. He advises retreating into a personal “Galt’s Gulch” until after the impending financial and social collapse, and then emerging with one’s intellectual and productive tools intact. In the former Soviet Union, beleaguered individualists referred to this as “internal emigration.” Whether this strategy will be taken up by enough producers to have an effect on the collective remains to be seen, but it reflects the “Atlas Shrugged” meme that is echoing loudly today, as employers hold off on new hiring for just one example.

Environmentalism, which used to seem almost harmless, now threatens to box in our quality of life in ways we never intended. Left unchecked, this particular bit of insanity threatens to starve billions of people. And some of those billions will be right here among us. Investing and saving no longer makes sense. Real estate, stable industries, essential commodities, all of these traditionally sound places to put your money just flop around and seem to only exist to extract your savings. And now hyperinflation will strip away almost everything you earned, particularly if you listen to the advice of pundits that demand that you pay down credit and save every penny. Why, so that hyperinflation can just chew your nest egg down to nothing? You are told at every turn to care about the children, yet no one seems to care about yours. Why won’t they get off of your back and just let you raise your own kids? Public schools are turning into indoctrination camps, while homeschoolers are demonized more each day.

Although this is a book designed to help you survive what may be our imminent financial Armageddon, you won’t find recommendations on long-term food storage or home defense firearms. Other recent titles cover that ground, such as Fernando Aguirre’s “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse,” and John Rawles’s “How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It.” According to Baugh, by far the most critical survival weapon is the one between your ears. This book is all about honing your mental edge to razor sharpness for the purpose of surviving the collapse intact.

Starving the Monkeys is not an easy read. It’s extremely challenging, not only to political correctness but to many popular dogmas, including some religious ones. No sacred cow or ox is left ungored. I guarantee that thin-skinned feminists will be highly offended. If you have a low tolerance for seeing your pet beliefs or heroes under attack, this is not the book for you. For example, if you think that Lincoln was our greatest president, you will certainly not enjoy this book, to say the least. I picked the ingrained American devotion to “Honest Abe” as one example among countless others. Be warned. Baugh comes after numerous cultural and social beliefs and traditions with a steel crowbar, to pry them apart and analyze their weaknesses as he sees them. In fairness, he turns the same critical analysis on himself.

So why should you read such a problematic and often uncomfortable book, by a consistently prickly and acerbic (but always hilarious) writer? Simple. For the equally consistent brilliance of thought displayed. You may disagree vehemently with many of Baugh’s suppositions (as I certainly did), but you cannot deny the breadth and power of his thinking. The single chapter titled “The Idea Factory” is worth the entire price of the book, and so are several others.

Consider the number of moochers and looters that surround each of us.

If you can’t outthink them, do you really believe that you and yours can hold them off your property, family, and life?

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12. January 2010 by RichardFL.

In his provocative and well-researched book, Johan Goldberg probes modern liberalism’s spooky origins in early 20th-century fascist politics. Scholars would support Goldberg in certain respects. He is correct that many fascists, including Mussolini (but not Hitler) started as socialists — though almost none started as liberals, who stood for representative government and mild reform-ism. Moreover, fascism’s combination of nationalism, statist, discipline and a promise to “transcend” class conflict was initially popular in many countries. Though fascism was always less popular in democracies such as the United States, some American intellectuals did flirt with its ideas. With chapter titles such as Adolf Hitler: Man of the Left, From Kennedy’s myth to Johnson’s Dream: Liberal Fascism and the cult of the State and Brave New Village: Hillary Clinton and the Meaning of Liberal Fascism—Goldberg argues that fascism has always been a phenomenon of the left. Goldberg’s study of the conceptual overlap between fascism and ideas emanating from the environmental movement, Hollywood, the Democratic Party and what he calls other left-wing organs is shocking and hilarious. He lays low such lights of liberal history as Margaret Sanger, a radical eugenicist, and JFK, whose cult of personality, according to Goldberg, reeks of fascist political theater. Much of this will be music to conservatives’ ears, while other readers may be stopped cold by the parallels made between Nazi Germany and the New Deal.

What really distinguished fascists from other mainstream movements of the time were proud, “principled” — as they saw it — violence and authoritarianism? Fascists took their model of governance from their experience as soldiers and officers in World War I. They believed that disciplined violence, military comradeship and obedience to leaders could solve society’s problems. Goldberg finds similarities between fascism’s so-called “third way” — neither capitalism nor socialism — and liberals who use the same phrase today to signify an attempt to compromise between business and labor. But there is a fundamental difference. The fascist solution was not brokered compromise but forcibly knocking heads together. Italian fascists formed a paramilitary, not a political, party. The Nazis did have a separate party, but alongside two paramilitaries, the SA and the SS, whose first mission was to attack and, if necessary, to kill socialists, communists and liberals. In reality, the fascists knocked labor’s head, not capital’s. The Nazis practiced on the left for their later killing of Jews, gypsies and others. And all fascists proudly proclaimed the “leadership principle,” hailing dictatorship and totalitarianism.

The book’s tone oscillates between revisionist historical analysis and the application of fascist themes to American popular culture; nonetheless, the controversial arc Goldberg draws from Mussolini to The Matrix is well-researched, seriously argued—and somewhat humorous.

• Pub. Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Doubleday Publishing
• Format: Hardcover, 272pp

• ISBN-13: 9780385511841
• ISBN: 0385511841

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6. December 2009 by RichardFL.

Though he’s no stranger to the bestseller list, TV and radio personality Glenn Beck ventures into new territory with his latest book, The Christmas Sweater, a heart - wrenching holiday story drawn from a painful episode in his boyhood.

Glenn’s previous books, including the New York Times #1 bestseller, An Inconvenient Book, deal with the political and social issues he explores on his radio talk show and during his two - year prime - time stint on CNN’s Headline News. (The conservative host has moved to the Fox News Channel in the 5pm timeslot.) Beck’s new book follows the anguished journey of 13 - year - old Eddie, who is bitterly disappointed with his mother’s handcrafted gift. When his mother is killed in a car accident shortly after Christmas, Eddie is forced to re - evaluate his life and priorities. Though the tale is presented as fiction, Beck, whose mother died when he was 13, acknowledges that the story was drawn directly from his own life. BookPage recently asked the author to reflect on his holiday traditions and plans. What was the best holiday gift you received as a child? The best gift I ever got was the sweater my mom made for me shortly before she died. I didn’t know it was the best gift at the time - in fact I hated it. I wanted something cool like the other kids got. I tossed it in the corner of the room and left it in a crumpled mess. Looking back, I realized that the sweater was all my mom could give and that she worked really hard to make it for me. To me it’s a reminder of how much she loved me. Did you have a favorite holiday book when you were young? My favorite books as a child were magic books. Yeah, yeah - I didn’t have a lot of friends. But the worst part is I wasn’t even really good at magic either. Aspiring magician with no talent for magic - not a recipe for coolness. What are your favorite books to give as gifts? Of course I like to give out the books I have authored - but aside from those I’m the guy that people dread getting books from - because I give them the tough stuff. America Alone by Mark Stein, The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes and The 5000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen. Sure, they may take a couple of months to read - but when they are finally done they will have a really firm understanding about what is going on in the world - and how we can avoid repeating the mistakes of our past. What are you reading now? At the moment I’m reading Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. If I ever had another career it would be in teaching (scary to many, I’m sure) because I feel that slowly but surely our nation’s history is being carefully edited to fit an agenda. I don’t want to let my children grow up getting an education that’s left out key parts of our nation’s history, so I’m reading as much about history and education as I possibly can. What books are you planning to give as gifts? I’ll probably buy people books from some of my favorite fiction authors - Ted Bell, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, Daniel Silva and others like them. I feel many of these authors are taking real news events and intertwining them with fiction - and that’s the best kind of entertainment. You can learn about what is going on in the world yet be completely entertained at the same time. What would you like to get from Santa this year? Actually, I’m very blessed - there’s nothing I really need. For me, Christmas is a time to be with family and also volunteering out in the community and helping those who are less fortunate. That’s the best gift I could ever get - the feeling that comes when you’ve helped someone you have never met, that lonely person in need. Nothing compares to helping someone else. No gift could ever feel better. Well, a 100 - inch plasma would come pretty close.

This book is a unique read and refreshingly worthwhile.

Threshold
$19.99
ISBN: 9781416594857
Inspirational Fiction

Review Date: December 2009

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3. December 2009 by RichardFL.

As a stand-up comedian and recently, in his WB television program “Blue Collar TV,” Jeff Foxworthy has gained a reputation for having a little more savoir faire than his redneck peers. That doesn’t by any means put Jeff Foxworthy’s Redneck Dictionary on the highbrow end of comic material. This compendium, compiled by Foxworthy and four other comedy writers, looks for the “punning” nature to be found in “cornpone-speak,” as old words emerge with new meanings. The text is arranged like a conventional dictionary, including pronunciation and usage tips, with each word used with its applied meaning “appropriately” in a sentence. Take, for example, intense: “Next time we go campin’, I suggest we sleep intense.” So it goes through a couple hundred entries, which celebrate the stereotyped view of working-class Southerners and their distinctive dialect. It is entertaining and a good look at the rye of side deep southern conversation. It may actually improve the understanding of those northern and western individuals who find discussing ANYTHING with a southern redneck very frustrating.

Villard
$16.95
ISBN: 1400064651
Nonfiction
Review Date: December 2009

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18. November 2009 by James-AL.

Welcome fellow Patriots,  We here at 912 Roll-Call is proud to bring to you our new Book Review Blog.  We will be reviewing books at first on a monthly basis and as time proceeds we will do our best to review more and more of the books that are out there for the America loving American.

912 Roll-Call Management Team

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