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“Uttering lines that send liberals into paroxysms of rage, otherwise known as ‘citing facts,’ is the spice of life. When I see the hot spittle flying from their mouths and the veins bulging and pulsing above their eyes, well, that’s when I feel truly alive.”

So begins If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans, Ann Coulter’s funniest, most devastating, and, yes, most outrageous book to date.

Coulter has become the brightest star in the conservative firmament thanks to her razor-sharp reasoning and biting wit. Of course, practically any time she opens her mouth, liberal elites denounce Ann, insisting that “She’s gone too far!” and hopefully predicting that this time it will bring a crashing end to her career.

Now you can read all the quotes that have so outraged her enemies and so delighted her legions of fans. More than just the definitive collection of Coulterisms, If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans includes dozens of brand-new commentaries written by Coulter and hundreds of never-before-published quotations. This is Ann at her best, covering every topic from A to Z. Here you’ll read Coulter’s take on:

•Her politics: “As far as I’m concerned, I’m a middle-of-the-road moderate and the rest of you are crazy.”
•Hillary Clinton: “Hillary wants to be the first woman president, which would also make her the first woman in a Clinton administration to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office instead of under it.”
•The environment: “God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ‘Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’”
•Religion: “It’s become increasingly difficult to distinguish the pronouncements of the Episcopal Church from the latest Madonna video.”
•Global warming: “The temperature of the planet has increased about one degree Fahrenheit in the last century. So imagine a summer afternoon when it’s 63 degrees and the next thing you know it’s . . . 64 degrees. Ahhhh!!!! Run for your lives, everybody! Women and children first!”
•Gun control: “Mass murderers apparently can’t read, since they are constantly shooting up ‘gun-free zones.’”
•Bill Clinton: “Bill Clinton’s library is the first one to ever feature an Adults Only section.”
•Illegal aliens: “I am the illegal alien of commentary. I will do the jokes that no one else will do.”

If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans is a must-have for anyone who loves (or loves to hate) Ann Coulter.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (394)

Mindless Hatred
What is it with fascist pundits and their hatred for the vast majority of people who have to work for a living?Accusing Democrats of not having brains?If you are in the top 1% or 2% of income, you should vote Republican -- it is the party of creepy old rich people.If you are in the bottom 98% of income and vote Republican, you are an easily misled tool.

Ann at her best
Classic Coulter!!Loved this book. Ann very unbashedly brings to light many of the myths surrounding the culture of the Democrats.It's interesting to note how much of what she writes continues to be the platform STILL used by this group of politicians.ANN FOR PRESIDENT.

If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans
lets see.

approval rating for this book is 60%.
40% would still vote for 0bama.

taken together that implies 100% approval of this book.

If you find Ann attractive...
If you find Ms. Coulter attractive, I recommend going to the library and xeroxing the cover.You can hang it on your wall or carry it with you and look longingly at her when you get bored--but save your money and your time....don't bother reading this book.

I dare you to read this one!
This is one of those books you could nearly read in an afternoon. Ann takes you through some of her best work in a topical fashion. She is one of the best at quick-witted one liners that make the left (and sometimes the right) squirm but you will more often than not agree with her sentiment.
There is a lack of substance in this book however since it goes through her best work rather than take on an issue with renewed vigilance but I can wait for the next book (or interview) to see her do that.
I dare you to read this one! :D ... Read more

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A lively exploration of the pros and cons of bureaucracy. The author views bureaucracy as necessary in certain governmental agencies, but claims bureaucracy spells ruin for economic production and distribution. 4 cassettes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Shows bureaucracy for what it is.
This is an excellent book and a devastating critique against bureaucracy. Even though this book was written in 1944 many of the problems, irritations and false hopes of bureaucracy as outlined in this book are still relevant, if not more so, today. Times may change but bureaucracy does not.

Brilliant Analysis
This stands as one of Mises's best books.The author offers an insightful and detailed analysis of bureaucratic management and compares it to private management.He also discusses the affects the former can have on private enterprise.Other topics related to bureaucracy, of course, are discussed.I enjoyed reading this book very much and walked away a better economist because of it.

The most thorough and objective analysis of the method of government I have ever read.
Brilliant, concise, extraordinarily objective and analytical, while delving into the exposition of bureaucracy so thoroughly this reader at least, found the case quite damning.

Now More that Ever!
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RIOGBMEF9HCGS Ludwig von Mises' stuff is worth reading twice and this book remains highly pertinent today.

As timely and insightful now as it was over half a century ago
Written by professor former Vienna Chamber of Commerce economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Bureaucracy is a classic economic treatise, first published in 1944, about how the efficient aspects of private ownership and control of public good production ultimately produces superior results compared to the mishmash of publically administrated plans laced with codes of "officialdom", government incompetence, unforeseen legal wranglings, graft, and other ills. "Bureaucracy in itself is neither good nor bad," Mises states; rather, bureaucracy is a valuable resource for managing certain spheres of human activity, such as policing and courts of law, yet ultimately a failure or even harmful when applied to private enterprise, simply because forced obedience to strict rules hobbles entrepreneurial managers' room to maneuver amid fluctuating market situations, and stifles their innovation in response to evolving consumer wants. "Under socialism... the beginner must please the already settled. They do not like too efficient newcomers. (Neither do old-established entrepreneurs like such men; but, under the supremacy of the consumers, they cannot prevent their competition.) In the bureaucratic machine of socialism the way toward promotion is not achievement but the favor of the superiors... The rising generation is at the mercy of the aged." As timely and insightful now as it was over half a century ago, Bureaucracy is highly recommended especially for college library and economic studies shelves. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (11)

Blah Blah Blah
More liberal whine.What are you people bitching about?You got the progressive income tax, socialized and monopolized public education, centralized banking, affirmative action, equal housing laws, abortion rights, one man, one vote, welfare programs up the wazoo, the United Nations, foreign aid, and unionized bureaucrats.You have won!
Now shut up, and sit down, but don't you dare expect me to join you in singing kumbaya around your little coffee klatch.
For a bunch of people that consider themselves, so smug and morally superior.You sure are sensitive.Probably because you know that no matter what you do, that the people that you're trying to help, but fail to do so miserably.Don't really give a rat's azz about your agenda, since it's all about you, your access to power, and your guilt. What a bunch of sore winners! Complaining about the little old, blue-haired, ladies. Running about in tennis shoes.Grow up, be productive, and get a life.
And before you aholes, call me a conservative.I don't even want us to have an Air Force, believe muslims should be left alone.And think George W. Bush was a rotten, terrible president, who came into office at the worst possible time in American history, and made things 10X worse. So there.

Lesser Known Conservatism
Leonard Read, Lemuel Ricketts Boulware, Justin Dart, and the du Pont family are figures rarely mentioned in the conservative movement in 20th century America. Despite this, Kim Phillips-Fein in "Invisible Hands: The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal" makes the argument that these unlikely men were at the forefront, alongside the recognizable names of Hayek, Friedman, Goldwater, Buckley, and Reagan, in the fight against liberalism.

Despite the title, "The Businessmen's Crusade Against the New Deal," the book is not devoted to the specific topic of businesses' fight against FDR's New Deal. Instead, Phillips-Fein first discusses how businesses' battled with the New Deal and then this battle transitioned into an overall assault on liberalism. Therefore the reader will learn of not only the early organizations that confronted the New Deal such as the American Liberty League, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Foundation for Economic Education, but also the later conservative institutions and think-tanks like the secretive Mont Pelerin Society, the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Association (later the American Enterprise Institute), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and many others.

In "Invisible Hands," Phillips-Fein writes of men that took unorthodox routes to get the conservative message across. This includes "The Manion Forum of Opinion," which was a radio program run by Clarence Manion; a simple memo written by Lewis Powell; Justin Dart's attempt to persuade businessmen that Political Action Committees would force politicians to start listening to the demands of business; and Lemuel Boulware's "Boulwarism," which was a technique to break up striking unions.

There is much more interesting material in this book than I mentioned in the review. Phillips-Fein is a savvy writer and historian who has provided a thoughtful book on lesser known topics in the conservative movement.

Where Fundamentalist Religion Meets Fundamentalist Economics
INVISIBLE HANDS:
Where Fundamentalist Religion Meets Fundamentalist Economics

No deep appreciation of the dynamics of the American political economy in 2009-2010 is possible without understanding the importance of economists Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, as well as religious fundamentalists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.Throw in some fascinating background on George Gilder, and the politics of the past two years begin to make much more sense, and we have Kim Phillips-Fein to thank for that.And for pointing out what American Progressives probably don't want to hear, but need to: that "the most striking and lasting victories of the right have come in the realm of political economy rather than that of culture."

Phillips-Fein also makes two fascinating observations about these Austrian economists in Invisible Hands, important for the major concerns of this essay: how The Market has assumed religious dimensions and attributes, especially herein the United States, and how it "assumes"different "moods" or attributes - projectionsif you would prefer - of its human inventors, recalling our wonderment at the anthropomorphic projections upon the Greek or Roman deities, or the Calvinist constructions of the 16th century. The first is Hayek's admission, in his famous Road To Serfdom, that "at times modern man would feel subordinated to the market and would chafe against economic forces that he could not control. But he argued that submission to the marketplace was infinitely preferable to deference to a ruler. `Unless this complex society is to be destroyed, the only alternative to submission to the impersonal and seemingly irrational forces of the market is submission to an equally uncontrollable and therefore arbitrary power of other men.'"(Page 37.)Now that's what I call "market fundamentalism," with not much room left for the politics of democracy (freedom in his view, comes from The Market), much less Social Democracy with its mixed economy and deep and open involvement in a fully recognized "political economy."The other stunning comment here, on what I will call the "brittle Prometheanism" of The Market, is the attribute that insists upon "hands off!" from government interventions.It has two features: that the market is spontaneous, "a complex system that came into existence without forethought or planning...the robust force that generated all of life and human production and a terribly fragile entity, threatened on all sides...in desperate need of protection..."(Ibid.)

Although there is a great deal else that happens to build conservative momentum inside the economics profession, especially the development of the rational expectations school and the efficient market hypothesis, readers wondering about our nation's strange 40 years' wanderings towards the edge of the economic cliff won't stray far from the path if they will remember these key features bequeathed by the Austrians. Yet as important as they for our understanding, they nonetheless don't tell the full story.For that, we must turn to the nature of the response from the religious fundamentalists to what is going on in the turbulent world of the 1970's - economic events, certainly, but also cultural ones as well.

Building the Conservative Coalition
As Kim Phillips-Fein lays out for us in Invisible Hands, political conservatives, especially business conservatives, were lamenting their lack of a grass-roots movement to counteract the power of labor which grew out of the organizing successes of the 1930's and the legal sanction bestowed by the New Deal. Protestant churches were the logical place to turn, but the climate in their pulpits, in the wake of the New Deal, and indeed, ever since the rise of the Social Gospel in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Progressive Era, was not very receptive. "The basic argument was that Christianity had too long been associated with altruism, selflessness, and a devotion to helping the poor - principles that might lead good Christians to advocate government intervention in the economy. To counter this idea, Spiritual Mobilization insisted that Christianity was rightly associated with shrinking the welfare state." (Page 74).Spiritual Mobilization was, among other things, an attempted collaboration between J.Howard Pew's Sun Oil-generated money and the religious organizing genius of James Fifield, a dynamic Congregational minister with a huge parish in Los Angles, who had originally founded Mobilization in the 1930's.And one of the first outreach efforts is to mail out free copies of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom in an attempt to gauge the mood amongst the ministers. Although it faltered in the 1950's, Spiritual Mobilization foreshadowed the framework for the conservative alliance in the 1980's.

Although most of my readers will be familiar with religious fundamentalism's focus on personal morality - crime, sexual transgressions, gender roles and abortion - much less attention has been paid to its attitudes towards economic questions and the role of the federal government.Because they have been part of powerful national political coalition, the Republican Right, since the late 1970's, and one where it is not clear that the leadership positions on economic questions fit comfortably with the economic needs of many in their congregations, nor where the steady green light given to rapid economic changes fits logically with the biblical and theological inflexibility, it behooves Progressives to take a closer look at how this coalition handles these tensions.All the more so during times when core portions of the national identity - the American Way of Life - Economic Abundance and Leadership, Moral Leadership, Success in War - seemed to be in decline.Indeed, as we will see, the relation of alleged moral decline linked to various forms of real or perceived national decline, is a theme that runs right back to the nation's Puritan roots in 17th century New England, and is in turn, closely linked to the Protestant Ethic and the earliest capitalist traditions of the nation.

We have stressed the importance of the various national shocks of the 1970's; so how did two of the most important fundamentalist religious leaders react to them, since both Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell would play key roles in putting together the Republican Right coalition?First, we have to note, in partial answer to the seeming incongruity of fixed-theology fundamentalists advocating a permanent green light for the creative destruction of restless capitalism, that these religious leaders were businessmen as well as evangelists, familiar with the cutting edge technologies they utilized to spread their message by print, radio, and especially, television.It may have been for Falwell the nostalgia dripping title of the "Old-Time Gospel Hour," but it was also an example of electronic savvy and a cash-cow. In 1978, he began publishing a newspaper called the Journal-Champion which went heavily political, with a surprising dose of economic issues.Of course it had the standard pleas to "cleanse America of sexual sin," but it also took positions against federal bureaucratic interventions (OSHA), in favor of the California property tax revolt (Proposition 13), and against a federal bail-out of NY City.On the alarming national inflation of the 1970's, Falwell wrote that "God is bringing the entire nation to its financial knees. If we want to control inflation, we should set our spiritual house in order." (Phillips-Klein, Pages 228-230.)(Contrast that to Galbraith's remedy, never applied, of complex wage and prices controls, structured to account for the large firm/small business dichotomies in the US economy, and biographer Parker's call for - and the implied military threat - to force a roll-back of the OPEC oil price shocks - something he said Kissinger and Nixon wouldn't countenance for fear of roiling the tinderbox of the Middle-East).

And 30 years ago, in 1979, Pat Robertson issued his "Christian Action Plan to Heal Our Land in the 1980's."In one respect, it seems like it was a reversal of Falwell's diagnosis of cause-and-effect: "Robertson indicated that the moral illness threatening the United States in the late 1970's had its roots in the nation's political economy."It's timing was 50 years after the onset of the Great Depression, and it's pretty clear that Robertson blamed the liberal tools set in motion by the New Deal for the ills of the 1970's: "`a powerful central government...an anti-business bias in the country...powerful unions' and most important of all, `the belief in the economic policy of British scholar John Maynard Keynes...'" He conceded some positive good to them in curing the Great Depression, but "fifty years later they were responsible for the `sickness of the `70's - the devaluation of the dollar, inflation, the decline in productivity."The remedy?A "`profound moral revival'" and the election of those who would "`reduce the size of government, eliminate federal deficits, free our productive capacity, ensure sound currency.'" (Phillips-Fein, Page 225).

As noted, the cause and effect between economic decline and moral failings may get switched with less than airtight rigor within the worldview of even these two major fundamentalist leaders, but if we recall that in the 1970's and 1980's the charge was often made by conservatives that the liberal welfare state, especially its Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program (AFDC), aka as "welfare," was undermining both morals and marriage, then the seeming inconsistency here can be clarified.And who better to further shine a light on these matters of the moral economy, than the fascinating figure of George Gilder.

George Gilder and a Morality Enforced by The Market
This writer didn't know, until reading Invisible Hands, that Mr. Gilder was raised, after the death of his father, with the help of the Rockefeller family, especially David, who was a roommate of his father's at Harvard, nor was I aware of his two books published before the famous Wealth and Poverty of 1981. Wikipedia also notes that he attended a private school in NY City, Hamilton, then Phillips Exeter Academy and finally Harvard. I note these biographical features with interest because, as Thomas Frank tells us in One Market Under God (2000), Gilder was a proponent, among many notions, of the idea of class warfare "between righteous new money, the entrepreneurs who created wealth, and bitter frustrated old money..." The new entrepreneurs "were both society's `greatest benefactors' and yet also the `victims of some of society's greatest brutalities'" at the hands of "`the mob'" which turns out to be incited by... "...the very rich, the people of inherited but declining wealth whom, Gilder imagined, controlled `the media and the foundations, the universities and the government.'" (Page 35).Gilder's background is also ironic in light of his high flights into the realm of market populism, especially with the rise of the Internet and its entrepreneurs.But that's a digression from Invisible Hand's reminder of his earlier works.

The language Phillips-Fein uses to describe the early Gilder is revealing for the purposes of this essay. Gilder "wrote passionate jeremiads against modern liberalism's effect not only on the economy but on culture, sexual relationships, and morality...His first book, Sexual Suicide (1973), was a harsh critique of the women's movement; his second, Naked Nomads (1974), catalogued the hazard that single, unattached men posed to social order."(Page 177, My Emphasis.) In Wealth and Poverty, however, Gilder was trying "to demonstrate that capitalism was an inherently moral economic order." These were not entrepreneurs driven by greed; "they wanted merely to have the `freedom to consummate their entrepreneurial ideas,'" driven by "a spirit closely akin to altruism...'" (Ibid.)But then, like a turn inZeus's mood, the market shows us another face, and becomes"a measuring stick for morality that meted out rewards to people who lived virtuous lives while punishing those who violated codes of decency. `Work, family, and faith' were the only solutions to poverty."And now for Gilder's main thrust:
that "the real danger of the welfare state was that it created a mode of subsistence and survival free of the morality enforced by the market." (Page 178. My Emphasis.)

Readers who would like to read more about the importance of Invisible Hands can find it as part of a longer essay, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Market" [...]

William Neil
Rockville, MD

History of the Highest Order
An extraordinary work of scholarship, INVISIBLE HANDS shows us how a small group of reactionaries who so resented FDR's mildly socialist policies, managed, over a 40 year period, to build a mendacious machine which with the election of Ronald Reagan, succeeded in turning back the smallish tide of pro-human policies that were enacted under the FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, Johnson and Nixon administrations.

Deeply and impeccably researched, INVISIBLE HANDS shows how this small cadre of businessmen were able to promote a noxious mix of free market fables and anti-human libertarianism by funding an assortment of bought-and-paid-for "think-tanks," anti-union consultancies and, of course, vicious skullduggery of every conceivable stripe.

A must-read for every responsible citizen who wants to know how the right, though representing only a small sliver of the American public, gained power and held sway over the American republic for thirty terrifying years.A right wing which even now, though defeated soundly over the last two elections arehoping to arrest the wishes of the majority of the American people for affordable health care.

How are they attempting to do so?As shown by INVISIBLE HANDS, they are doing so as they have done for the last seventy years: by funding a congeries of front groups who, in the present case, through the fallacious assertions of paid shills at town hall meetings and the too-willing mouths of the right-wing media, derail reasonable discussion and subvert the democratic process in the interest of the Almighty Dollar.

read with invisible hands
This book should be read with invisible hands, i.e., don't buy it.It is a liberal rant against the system of economy and government that made America great.Since the cause of this recession lies largely in the greed of politicians and government control of the housing and lending markets, the premise of this book is flawed from the very beginning.There are too many books out there that you should buy.Save your money and get this out of the library if you absolutely have to read it. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (22)

Brilliant.
My only complaint with this book is the misleading title.Indeed, I doubt Tanenhaus chose it, since he contradicts it in the text itself.Conservatism isn't dead, because we are almost all of us mixtures of liberal and conservative.Only ideologues are wholly one or the other.

Tanenhaus's argument is far more subtle than the triumph of liberalism (which, as a liberal, I vigorously deny).American politics - to the extent that it follows any ideology at all other than political pragmatism - is a constant dialogue between conservative and liberal, with a 5% dash of pure crazy thrown in.Tanenhaus is saying that one strain of conservatism is indeed dead - the neocon/Fox News kind.It's not dead in the sense that it hasn't followers, but it has no constructive ideas relevant to the problems at hand.

For example, the fiscal crisis of 2008-2009 was not ameliorated by the Friedman free market, but by massive (in my opinion, not nearly massive enough) bi-partisan government intervention to shore up the financial wreck.It was a such a great success, that neocons now argue that it wasn't necessary in the first place.Bull pockey.The effects still linger in the crushingly high unemployment rates and the weakness of both government and private sectors to do much to create jobs.The current crop of Congressional Republicans (and there really are no liberal Congressional Republicans) propose a solution of more tax cuts for the wealthy.Why on earth would this necessarily create jobs?We had the Bush Tax Cuts and we got ourselves in this mess precisely because the beneficiaries of those cuts didn't invest in their own businesses with an eye toward expansion.Instead, they downsized, even with the cuts.I don't fault the wealthy for wanting the cuts.We'd all like to pay less tax.However, I don't see how one can argue that it will inevitably spur growth.On the other hand, I don't hear much constructive coming from Conservative and Moderate Dems, either (liberal Democrats, I hate to break it to anybody, are extremely rare in Congress) - that is, something that will create market conditions that will tempt the private sector to reinvest in this country.

God knows there are opportunities out there - developing non-fossil-fuel energy technologies adequate to our consumption is certainly one of them.Yet no large manufacturing or engineering corporation have committed to this in a big way.No large US bank is investing in it.Instead, they're playing little games with pieces of paper and stripping their operations to maximize profit, rather than creating real wealth.This has been going on for 40 years, at least.

Tanenhaus talks about the roots of American Conservatism.He may be one of the few present-day writers on the topic (including, sadly, conservative ones) who's actually read Edmund Burke.He gives a lucid history of conservative thought in this country from pre-federal times.This is not a thick book.It's lean and brims with real scholarship and hard analysis, while reading as well as a New Yorker profile.The book flies straight to its targets.Above all, it doesn't bluster, and it doesn't content itself with a mere recitation of political catechisms.He points out great reasons to be conservative, which is one reason he wrote the book.He wants a strong argument from the conservative side, if only to make liberalism more rigorous and robust.

I remember 40 years ago, in the aftermath of Goldwater's defeat, when conservatives were the object of scorn and ridicule.There was a lot of reflexive and unthinking liberalism about, because the politically powerful conservative voices (as opposed to the intellectuals like William F. Buckley, George Will, and a lot of others) put up slogans, rather than arguments.This made liberalism rather mushy, because liberal truths seemed self-evident and certainly fuller of intellectual content.It ruined liberalism, in my opinion, for many decades until it finally became something other than common wisdom - rather, principles that needed justification.To a great extent, it's still pretty weak and vague as to principles.I, a liberal, can't define one.I do a little better with conservatives - that is, those conservatives who actually have a set of principles to defend, as opposed to the dumbo "conservatives" who wear funny hats and believe that mice have human brains or that a DNR document means fascist death panels and Muslims are the Anti-Christ.I suppose it's only fair.In the 60s we had a lot of dumbo liberals who believed that all government was evil and imperial and that everybody on the other side was a wingnut or a Nazi.Indeed, to me these times mirror the 60s - but it's a fun-house mirror.This doesn't mean the problems we face aren't grave.They are indeed, but we have a better chance of digging ourselves out of our current mess if we give up sloganeering and turn our best thinking, left and right, to solutions.

Disappointing
As I completed the reading of this little volume, I couldn't help but remember the words of Mark Twain:"The rumor of my demise has been greatly exaggerated."As a card-carrying libertarian, I have my problems with the conservative movement.I say that because I'm open to legitimate criticism of conservatism in the US since I have my own critique of the movement as well.This book, however, is off the mark as far as I'm concerned.Its primary message appears to be that conservatism will only be successful when it is a middle-of-the-road ideology that has more in common with liberalism.In essence, conservatism is great when it's the "John McCain" version of conservatism.My question, then, is this:why do we need it?Why is Sam Tenenhaus dictating to the conservatives how they should be changed into "Democrat Light" in order to succeed?

He is correct in much of his criticism of the conservative movement, but he advocates a move left in order to save the movement.And he points to the success of Barack Obama as evidence for his view.I would argue that he has entirely misunderstood the predicament in which the nation currently finds itself.Mr. Obama took the White House because conservatives had no dog in the race.There was no one about whom they could be excited.Far from moving left, I argue that conservatives need to stake a true claim on their conservatism and offer true conservative candidates in the upcoming national elections.Time will tell whether I am right or whether Mr. Tenenhaus is right.We won't have to wait long.The Tea Party protests suggest that change is brewing, and it's not calling for a move left, but a true move rightward and even perhaps into the camp of libertarianism.

It needed to be written
Great book, lousy index - as in non-existent. That is sort of like writing a travel book without a map.

Please include, in its next printing.

Party Magic for Progressive Children
Tanenhaus provides entertainment for complacent liberals by announcing that their critics are brain-dead.He does this by defining "conservatism" simply as desire to conserve institutions that already exist.Since US institutions have been shaped by liberalism for decades, liberals are now actually conservatives, and "movement conservatives" simply don't know what they're doing, either intellectually or politically:the 2008 election proved that they have no constituency.According to Tanenhaus, Barack Obama is actually a conservative (p. 117). Wow.

According to Tanenhaus, "on the great issues of the day [conservatives] are virtually silent".Tanenhaus himself is completely silent about e.g. Thomas Sowell and Theodore Dalrymple: no mention of them anywhere in the book.

This is a very flimsy book.Published in early 2009, it amounts to a "Mission Accomplished" banner for the victory of November 2008.The brains it must take to edit two sections of the NYT, as Tanenhaus does.

Seriously Flawed Book is Mis-titled for Publication
This book is seriously flawed and I recommend against it.I believe that the author was working on a much longer book and he was rushed into publishing a short, half-finished book because Obama was swept into office.Even if I were sympathetic to his point of view (which I'm not), I would feel ripped off buying this book because it is not a whole work in my opinion.The only reason that I have it is because I received it as a gift.The book starts taking the reader on a slowly-moving look at the modern history of conservatism, gets to the '70s, touches briefly on Reagan and suddenly jumps to George W Bush.Then it's finished.Da-Da-da-dum, it's over.Feels very clipped.That is the genesis of my suspicion that he was rushed into publishing a half-finished work.

When I have more time I'll go into a more in-depth criticism of the arguments in the book, but I also feel that the author is so biased in his liberal view of the world, that he seriously mis-interprets facts and cannot always be trusted to give the truth.For example, he argues that Obama is a centrist, which we can see now is totally ridiculous.(We now know that Obama is a leftist who tries to portray himself as centrist in order to achieve his leftist agenda).

The author also likes to sprinkle a lot of intellectual-sounding words in his writing that 99.9% of the public probably never heard of.So I, who am certainly not illiterate, read it with a dictionary by my side, to learn some nice words that I'll never hear, read or use again.Once I get through his pompous writing style (contrasted, say, with Mark Levin's Tyranny and Liberty, a more readable and vastly superior book), I have to say that some things he writes are reasonable, and other things totally off-the-wall.As for his title "Death of Conservatism," the author makes almost no case for this drastic assertion.So I get the feeling that his publicist TOLD him to use that title, in order to capitalize on the panicked emotion of the time (Obama swept into office, Democrats own House/Senate, large recession caused by financial bubble bursting etc).

But by far the biggest criticism is that it feels like half of a book.The author should have maintained his integrity and finished it before rushing into publication.
... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Compromised by printing defects
This terrific work is compromised by the lack of maps ... the lack of maps in sufficient size to be readable ... and the lack of maps in color.Contrary to the book jacket, the internal county-by-county maps are reduced in size and printed in varying shades of black-and-white, making them almost illegible to the reader.Trying to depict data graphically on 5,000+ counties is a challenge anyway; reducing maps to half-page size in various gray halftones is frustrating to the reader.The cheap paper stock used in the production of this book further compromises the already-muddy look of the various maps, charts, and graphs.This is an example of a fine work compromised by poor design.

Unique and Interesting Perspective
Our Patchwork Nation takes a refreshing look at our country through a unique and interesting lense.The authors identify 12 community types that make up America.The book goes on to provide an in-depth sample of each community type.The book is well written, easy to read and filled with interesting interviews from influential people in each of the community types.The book then offers an in-depth and fascinating look at how, armed with information about these community types, people are likely to respond to various issues and concerns going forward.While the book is filled with lots of empirical data to support its findings, it is the accessible and interesting writing style that makes it a book well worth reading.

Beyond red and blue...finally.
Given the current political climate - where pundits and cultural forecasters are spending much of their time attempting to read the unreadable tea leaves - Our Patchwork Nation is a welcome and wholly inventive piece of work. Chinni's opening concept is simple. The U.S. is far too complicated to be reduced to red states and blue states (with apologies to all those cable news stations who have already invested in their markers for the next election round).

But don't confuse Our Patchwork Nation with a dull treatise or dry bit of academic analysis - Chinni is a fantastic writer with a gift for narrative. The 12 community types developed by the project are introduced with the kind of illustrative, long-form journalism we don't see enough of anymore. More than that, there are no heroes or villains offered in the book, no easy answers or clean solutions. Our Patchwork Nation isn't out to tell us what to think...it just asks that we do.

It's found a welcome place on my bookshelf. ... Read more

Product Description
Fed up with our arrogant federal government? Don't want massive programs we don't need and can't afford? Then join the Red State Uprising! In his new book, RedState.com founder Erick Erickson clearly outlines what needs to change in Washington and what we can do locally to make it happen. Red State Uprising is not about anarchy or a revolution -- it's about reshaping government to maximize economic growth, individual liberty and private property rights. Barack Obama has shown his determination to move the country towards a socialist ''nanny'' state, culminating in the government takeover of health care. The vast majority of Americans reject this vision and Red State Uprising calls upon this majority to stand up and take action. There is a right size for government, Erikson argues, but it is much smaller, much cheaper, and much less intrusive than what we've got now. Red State Uprising offers conservatives a plan to take back the people's government. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Nothing new, but good for those who don't know this material
I agree with most everything in Red State Uprising and I wanted to like it. However, there is nothing new in here. It is a quick concise summary of what has gone wrong with American politics, a glimpse at how things should be, and a few thoughts about how to get there. Nothing wrong with that! However if you have ever listened to conservative talk radio, ever gone to a Tea Party rally, or read conservative blogs on the Internet, then you have heard all this before and could have written a similar book.

I would recommend this to people who have had no exposure to the material. Consider it a cursory introduction. If you have already been introduced, look for something with more substance.

The Case for Abandoning Obama
Erick Erickson and Lewis Uhler have written a comprehensive book on what has gone wrong with the United States over the last decade and how to repair it.They correctly note the problems with Obama's policies and explain how these policies have mired us in an extended recession.But, by far the strongest part of the book is the introduction where they acknowledge that the Democratic takeover of the country was due in large measure to failed Republican policies most of which undermined free markets.Fiscal conservatives, they argue, need to read find a gameplan for defeating the disasterous Obama policies. But they also must prevent the coming Republican majority from acting like the last one.While I find their evidence convincing, I do not think it supports their conclusions.

Our current economic crisis is a result of failed statist policies.From federal control of interest rates, to manipulating the policies of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government sent false signals to the economy resulting in a massive misallocation of resources.In addition to that, the Federal Government seized control of the pharmeceutical market, regulated traditional education out of existance, and increased regulation over all aspects economic affairs.If this sounds like what you would expect from the policies of liberal politicians, you would be correct.Liberal politicians did promote these policies.But the liberals, in this case, were all Republicans.

Erickson and Uhler begin their story by noting how Republicans, beginning with the election of George Bush, gradually abandoned their committment to free markets and small government.Bush, in fact, was a "big government" conservative, and with the help of Karl Rove, he was able to bring most of the establishment Republicans in Washington with him.While continuing to voice "socially conservative" themes in public (abortion, gay marriage, etc) these politicans rejected small government in favor of a government that promoted their social ideals.Instead of demanding the government leave education to local communities, they sought to control it from the top.Rather than let housing markets manage themselves, they sought to establish their own permanent power base by creating an "ownership" society by manipulating the credit market from Washington.Finally, they sought to preserve their own election success by wasting tax payer money on stupid and wasteful earmarks.The results were disasterous.The economy collapsed as the misallocation of resources became apparrent, and the Republican base simply rejected the establishment which came to be represented by John McCain.Into this arena came Obama promising no new taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 and promising a social agenda that would be paid for by spending cuts elsewhere.Of course Obama lied.But enough voters were disgusted with the Republicans that they stayed home, while others, cautiously hoping for a rational Democrat leader, voted for Obama.

The rest of the book details the outcome of this bargin with one of the New Party founders and ACORN supporters.The results have been unemployment over 10%, a lingering recession, and a future of no more than single digit economic growth.It will take years to unraval the damages done by this administration, if ever.But what is the alternative?The authors suggest returning control to the Republicans, who at their worst are never quite this bad.But they correctly note that we cannot just elect any old Republicans to office.It is easy to talk tough about "abortion" and other issues that really have no impact on actual legislative issues.Instead, the authors suggest fiscally conservative voters focus on a committment to small government and on ending earmarks.

I think, for the most part, that the author's suggestions are reasonable.Voters should reject any candidate who is unwilling to oppose both taxes and spending.And to a great degree, "tea party candidates" are doing just that and winning, though the Republican party, as a body, would rather not fund them and remain a minority, than fund their campaigns and face the internal reform these candidates might bring.But I want to suggest an alternative to the uprising strategy the authors propose.Even if tea party candidates are successful, and some of them surely will be, one has to ask, is it likely that the Republicans will bring long term reform?After all, the Republicans swept Congress in 1994 using a "Contract with America" that shared similar themes to the tea party uprising.And that contract, while promoted in 1995, was abandoned as soon as the party realized it could seize control of both the legislative and presidential branches of government.The Democrats may support the wrong principles, but they at least have some.It is not at all clear Republicans do.And if the Democrats lose power before they can enact the rest of their agenda (Cap and Trade, etc) they can easily wait until the next economic disaster follows the statist policies of the Republicans.

So what is to be done?I am unconvinced that the tea party candidates will lead to any long term reform.The best alternative then may simply be to give up on America and move elsewhere.This country was a great idea, but the ideas of freedom, equal rights and treatment under the law, free markets, and a true separation of church and state have all been co-opted by a party that believes in unlimited government.The Republicans, far from being an alternative, are simply accessories.What is wonderful about this book is it reveals, without intending to, just how hopeless the situation really is.

A fantastic read
I got an early copy of this book and already devoured it.A friend of mine is now reading it and I am hoping he passes it on as well.
If you are a fan, or even an occasional visitor of[...], you owe it to yourself to pick up Erick's book.Small government fans, rejoice!

Use this book to persuade friends who are on the fence.Make a difference this November!
If, like me and so many others, you love the blog RedState you will love this book.You may think that since you are already going to vote for Conservative candidates this November you are set and don't need this book, I would suggest that you know people who are on the fence.You need to persuade them.So, read this book and get the information you need to be more convincing in your conversations with people who aren't quite sure.You can also buy extra copies and hand them out and help open some eyes and minds.We need EVERY vote in November.Every vote!

Erickson and Uhler present their information and arguments in 15 short chapters.They spend the early chapters blasting big government Republicans and making the argument for swapping out the status quo GOP for a more Conservative version.Yeah, the media keeps telling you it won't work, but we should give it a try because where we are is so bad that we have to do the right thing for America and our children and their children.What we have been doing for 50 years is a losing game.Democrats: "We want this program funding at X level!"GOP : "Oh, too big, too expensive!How about program X funded at 75% of X?" And so over time we get entitlements we can't afford and a monster government that benefits only the politicians, the bureaucrats they employ, and those who have heavy connections and can feed at the government trough with a shovel.The rest of us have to fund the government with dollars and be happy when they give us back nickels.

The authors then take us through why this approach to government is not a fulfillment of the American ideal and why it is bad for us.They give us specifics and numbers about how our nation is running off the rails, is being crushed by debt, and is being plundered by those in power and their cronies.

Finally, they show us why we need to reform entitlements, downsize government, and get back to the Constitution and bind our public servants (not political leaders) with the chains provided in that precious document.Are you, like me, offended every time these hypocrites in Washington take an oath to uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution knowing they don't believe in the document and intend to ignore it everything they do?

The last three chapters show us a way forward, discuss the option to start a third party if the GOP won't be reformed, and how conservatives can take back America.

I hope you use this terrific book to make an even bigger difference this November.We need to send a Krakatoa sized explosion this election because only something that big will frighten the incumbents enough to change their ways.They only adapt when they face extinction.So, let's help them realize that the old ways no longer work and they must change or find a different form of employment.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI
... Read more

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Customer Reviews (565)

The only major flaw lies in its hook
Expertly researched, conveyed in an accessible tone, and witty throughout, this diatribe is an excellent resource for those on the Right and Left. Providing a sound survey of what he believes to be fascist movements throughout the 20th century (by leader's name, the Mussolini, Hitler, Wilson, FDR, Kennedy, and Clinton movements), Goldberg successfully proves his case that the ones who are most vehemently opposed to fascism (modern liberals) have their very foundations in that political ideology and continue to espouse fascist thinking to this day. The only problem is that Goldberg forgets to mention that modern liberals aren't the only ones who perpetrate fascism--everyone does these days, including those who consider themselves to be on the Right.

Goldberg does preempt this criticism in the afterword by pointing the finger at the likes of Pat Buchanan and George W. Bush, saying that, yes, fascist thinking does occur on the other side of the spectrum as well. But even still, Goldberg misses his opportunity to point out how severely fascist pretty much all politicians are these days, no matter what side they're on.

Upon reflection, one might believe that all successful politics are based in fascist thinking--that's just what politics is all about these days. A glance at Goldberg's definition of fascism makes this clear. In an indistinct way, he describes fascism as having the following characteristics: creation of crises, calls to unity, celebration of martial values, blurring of lines between public and private, utilization of mass media to glamorize the state and its programs, invocations of post-partisanism, and a cult of personality. Noting that various modern liberal administrations have all mastered these techniques, Goldberg says that they're fascist. But Goldberg fails to note that all political administrations, whether they are modern liberal or self-proclaimed conservative, must have these characteristics to be successful these days; it's just a byproduct of a decadent culture--the voters are to blame--not any single given political party.

One other contention I would make is with Goldberg's summary of William James' Pragmatism, which likens the theory to the notion that if you believe something, it's right. James was far too astute a thinker to make such a false claim that his followers (Mussolini) may have made. And though Goldberg never really pinpointed where in James' arguments he made this claim, he never really exonerated him either.

This, to me, is no less deceptive and coercive than the politicians Goldberg rails against were and still are. Indeed, exaggeration and propagandistic tactics like this could be considered fascist in themselves. Pointing the finger is one fascistic tactic that Goldberg touched on as well. This is not to say that Goldberg is a fascist, but only that it goes to show that fascism is more prevalent than one might think these days--it thrives in those who denounce it, and even in those who denounce the denouncers of it.

The intellectual gymnastics can be challenging when trying to sort out the claims in this book. But given the needed diligence, one will find this work full of insight, and will ultimately agree that `Liberal Fascism' must be included in any well-rounded study of modern political thought.

A readable volume of forgotten history
Goldberg does us all a service by reminding us all of the failure of the libertarian / conservative factions to force the Left to own their history. I don't blame them for this, but the acknowledgment of the failure is important: as a reminder of where we are and how far we have to go to offer a true, powerful defense of freedom.

BTW, the Kindle edition does not have the Hitler-stached happy face on it. GYP!

Illogical and factually incorrect
Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism, is built on the common logical fallacy called Affirming the Consequent.

If P, then Q.
Q.
Therefore, P.

We are told, for example:

During the 1920's and 30's, German fascists believed in eugenics.
During the 1920's and 30's, American liberals believed in eugenics.

Therefore, liberals are fascists.

That is,

If X is a fascist then X believes in eugenics
L believes in eugenics

Therefore L is a fascist.

We can all deplore the fact that so many prominent liberals and socialists believed in eugenics and we can easily be convinced that being a political progressive, liberal or socialist does not exempt one from being disastrously wrong about many things, but we are not obliged to believe that liberals, progressives and socialists were fascists BECAUSE they believed many things that fascists believed.

One more observation: Goldberg quotes Nietzsche, and possibly adds a footnote (I listened to the audio version of the book so I can't verify the source) as saying,

"Nietzsche himself had pointed the way.In 1880 he wrote, "the tendency must be toward the rendering extinct of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate."Reproduction Nietzsche argued needed to be taken out of the hands of the masses so that race as a whole no longer suffers.The extinction of many types of people is just as desirable as any form of reproduction.
Marriage itself, Nietzsche argued, must be more scrupulously regulated by the state. "Go through the towns and ask yourselves whether these people should reproduce.Let them go to their whores."

This is clearly an apocryphal quotation.

Nietzsche published Human All-Too-Human in 1878 and The Dawn in 1881 and nothing in 1880.

Nietzsche distrusted the state, in all his writings.He was what we might call a libertarian or anarchist politically, and was an enemy of socialism and of the subordination of the individual to the state.

Second, Nietzsche was a Lamarckian (unfortunately) and believed in the heritability of acquired characteristics.That is, he thought that it took several generations to produce a well-turned out human being, not as a consequence of eugenics but of acquired (learned) characteristics that were passed on to the child through genes that were altered by training and education. Modern science has, for the most part, rejected the Lamarkian view of genetics.

In all his writings, as far as I know, and certainly not in his mature writings, is there any mention by Nietzsche of an attempt to produce the Overman or Superman through eugenics.

Absurd on its face
Only an ignorant dimwit hickified freakish coward would buy and read this type of book. First of all, he takes a comment by Wells totally out of context and on top of that characterizes him as some sort of a "leader of the left." It's so ridiculous on its face it's laughable--to anyone with a brain. No--as in ZERO--historical scholars give this type of trash even the slightest glance or cred. This guy is a pig. How do I know he's a pig without reading his craptastic book? The same exact way I didn't have to read "Mein Kampf" or "A Torchlight for America," in order to know Hitler and Farrakhan are pigs. 'nuff said.

Read a REAL scholar's book instead of this trash:

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

Political Reality Check
First buy yourself a BIG dictionary if you want to experience the subtlenuances of this worth while book. The book is never the less very readable by the average person and I classify it as literature. You want to understand why you are baffled by current political "achievements"? You will understand "Whatis blowing in the wind" after you get it laid out for you by this masterful Author. ... Read more

Product Description

From conservative talk radio's fastest-growing superstar...

New York Times bestselling phenomenon and author of the groundbreaking critique of the Supreme Court, Men in Black, and the deeply personal dog lover's memoir Rescuing Sprite, Mark R. Levin now delivers the work that characterizes both his devotion to his more than 5 million listeners and his love of our country and the legacy of our Founding Fathers: Liberty and Tyranny is Mark R. Levin's clarion call to conservative America, a new manifesto for the conservative movement for the 21st century.

In the face of the modern liberal assault on Constitution-based values, an attack that has steadily snowballed since President Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s and resulted in a federal government that is a massive, unaccountable conglomerate, the time for re-enforcing the intellectual and practical case for conservatism is now. Conservative beliefs in individual freedoms do in the end stand for liberty for all Americans, while liberal dictates lead to the breakdown of civilized society -- in short, tyranny. Looking back to look to the future, Levin writes "conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are our founding principles." And in a series of powerful essays, Levin lays out how conservatives can counter the liberal corrosion that has filtered into every timely issue affecting our daily lives, from the economy to healthcare, global warming, immigration, and more -- and illustrates how change, as seen through the conservative lens, is always prudent, and always an enhancement to individual freedom.

As provocative, well-reasoned, robust, and informed as his on-air commentary, Levin's narrative will galvanize listeners to begin a new era in conservative thinking and action. Liberty and Tyranny provides a philosophical, historical, and practical framework for revitalizing the conservative vision and ensuring the preservation of American society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2189)

Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
A good read.Mark Levin provides a good arguement and reference to logically best a liberal progressive.

Mark Levin is a Neoconservative
First off, I am a Conservative.

Conservatives wake up and wonder why our government has become so big, so intrusive and the debt so large. It really should not be that big of a surprise. The Republican party establishment, along with the Republican/Neoconservative media establishment, has allowed this to happen without holding the party accountable. (Because they are part of the problem, not the solution)

The Tyranny in Levin's book is that he along with the rest of the Neocon establishment gave George Bush a complete pass during his 8 years. I do not like Obama whatsoever, but under Bush you have the following tyranny: 1.) Wars that were fought under resolutions instead of declarations as stated in the Constitution. 2.) The unconstitutional (in so many ways) Patriot Act. 3.) Torturing (Yes waterboarding is torture...ask Jesse Ventura or Mancow)....4.) Throwing people in jail in our own country without due process. 5.) All the lies related to 9/11-Iraq-WMDs. (6.) Paulson lying under oath and securing TARP under false pretenses and then passed the money out to his banking buddies, and last but not least the administration threatened CEO's of banks that did not want to take the TARP money. That is just what I can think of off the top of my head!

Where was Levin and the other "Conservatives" when all these things were going on? I don't remember them shouting and screaming like they are under Obama. If you are going to call Obama out for unconstitutional things and out of control spending that is fine by me, I think he well deserves it. But you can't turn a blind eye to the Constitution just because your party is in power.

If you are truly a "Constitutional" lawyer like he claims to be, you follow the Constitution 100 percent of the time regardless of which party is in control and hold government accountable.

An entertaining, interesting and thoughtful introduction to Conservatism.
"Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto" is mindful of an expanded, modern version of Thomas Paine's Common Senseor Frederic Bastiat's The Law. It's nearest direct competitor is Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine, but Levin's work is superior.

Levin has a nice touch with a pen. He is, for the most part, a careful author that explains his points of view in everyday language, sometimes in a quite stirring way. This is ironic because Mark Levin is perhaps most famous for his radio show (The Mark Levin Show) where he is given to bombastic rants and over the top comments that make me cringe from time to time.

The audiobook is read by Adam Grupper who does a solid job, but, surprisingly not as good as Levin who reads the introduction himself. The introduction is a particulary strong - I think it is the best part of the book -and if you have an Amazon Kindle you can download the introduction as a free sample and read it for yourself.

Levin defines conservatism in its most basic of terms and does not split the movement into its seperate parts, such as social conservatives, fiscal conservatives but he does have comments towards some of the Neo-Conservative ideas concerning foreign policy.

Areas of discussion include:

-Social Security. This area was very well discussed, including such alarming statistics as the fact that we now have 54 million people drawing Social Security/SSI checks;

-Socialized medicine. It works so well in the UK that dentists do not work once their yearly quotas have been reached (why would they - they don't get paid to do anything beyond their quota?). The creepy story of Barbara Wagner of Oregon who was not offered life-extending (but not curing) cancer treatments due to cost but was offered a free doctor-assisted suicide instead may be a harbinger of things to come;

-The section of Global Cooling/Warming/Climate Change (depending on the year) is strong;

-The Immigration Reform chapter is strong, but stat-laden. It is interesting to note that Cesar Chavez was against illegal immigration because competition from illegal immigrants lowered wages for the United Farm Workers. It is ironic because Chavez is touted as a hero in nearly every English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom I have seen. Other interesting facts that Levine cites (Note: I have no idea as to his sources since I heard it as an audiobook) are that 9% of Mexico's population is living in the United States (if you figured in the American-born children of illegal immigrants you could probably come up with this number) and 27% of Mexico's labor forces works in the United States for 1/3 of their formal wage earnings. The comments from Mexico about how it considers the American Southwest to still be part of Mexico are alarming;

-Levin waffles on the topic of the Iraq War and the anti-terrorism laws passed after 9/11;

-Levin also, in my mind.unfairly attacks a vacuous foreign policy speech given in 2007 by then-Senator Obama. I have little patience for most politician's blathering niceties, but it is unfair to interpret the text of one speech given in 2007 as Obama's literal foreign policy stances as president;

-Levin ends with a flourish with a section about international treaties and conventions that emphasize "global citizenship" vs. the true purpose of government (to protect our rights, as noted by Locke, Jefferson and Bastiat).

An entertaining, interesting and thoughtful introduction to Conservatism.

A Must-Read Manifesto
If the idea of a detailed, historically-based, conservative analysis of where our great country is and where it is headed either excites, intrigues, or frightens you, then you need to read this book. Amazingly researched and thoroughly documented, this book was a very sobering, yet optimistic, look at our America. Levin's incomparable knowledge of and experience with our country's Founding Fathers' writings, especially the Constitution, combined with his logical, common-sense study of our historical and current American way of life, produced a thought-provoking, not-to-be-missed book.

In a series of essays, Levin applied the spirit and tenets of our Constitution and Conservatism to some of today's most challenging issues - the environment, welfare entitlements, illegal immigration, national security, free-market capitalism - to repeatedly show how too many of our elected and appointed officials have been expanding our governments and encroaching on individuals' liberties for way too long.

Levin described, and created a moniker for, these big government and power-addicted officials: "The Modern Liberal believes in the supremacy of the state, thereby rejecting the principles of the Declaration and the order of the civil society, in whole or part. For the Modern liberal, the individual's imperfection and personal pursuits impede the objective of a utopian state. In this, Modern Liberalism promotes what French historian Alexis de Tocqueville described as a `soft tyranny,' which becomes increasingly more oppressive, potentially leading to a hard tyranny (some form of totalitarianism). As the word "liberal" is, in its classical meaning, the opposite of authoritarian, it is more accurate, therefore, to characterize the Modern Liberal as a `Statist.'"

Despite the many included examples of Statists creating and exacerbating these challenges, Levin passionately showed that we, the people, have the power to overcome these challenges, and prevent the Statists from leading us further down the road to tyranny.

This book has sharpened my perspectives on liberty and tyranny, deepened my historical appreciation for our Founding Fathers' intent and wisdom, and improved my awareness of the current political landscape. I believe this manifesto can put our country back on the path to greatness and prosperity, a path that has been blurred in my lifetime of almost fifty years.

Great read by one of the most entertaining talk show hosts of all time!
If you want an explanation of the differences between the Democrats (or all ruling-class politicians) and the Conservatives, there is not a better read.Mark Levin highlights what have been my own life experiences in this book that all political science students should be taught from.Thank you Mark for writing a book that lays out the belief system of Conservatives.Read this book, or better yet, listen to the audio version in Mark's own voice, and the proverbial "light" might just come on for you.It might help you understand that it is our freedom, not our government, that made this the greatest country in the history of planet Earth. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (68)

Sad but true, depressing yet engrossing
Ok, I'm going to oversimplify here, but bear with me:

A party's whole guiding premise is that government is broken, evil, useless, and creates unnecessary externalities that subvert the market thus government must be destroyed. They campaign on these foundations (and some others to siphon off votes from chumps) and once in power do everything in power to hollow out government and create a shell of a state so that business can prosper.

As broad-stroke oversimplification, that is the heart of Frank's book.

The depressing aspect for a liberal reader is that this foundation is backed up by copious evidence for the prosecution that this is what has happened in fact.Further depressing is that in two years of governance in the executive and four in the legislative, our center-left party has yet to clean up the messes shown by Frank to exist.It is far harder to build the superstructure than to destroy it, as Frank acknowledges that `liberalism' contains the seeds for its own construction.

Overall sad but true, depressing yet engrossing.

THE WRECKING CREW
Author with credentials. Written not from a partisan view but with a view of great concern for America.A must read to understand the past40 years and why in 2010 we have a disfunctional government and polorized population.

this book will boil your blood.
first of all, thomas frank is a very talented writer.he has a knack for answering your next thought or question.

i always suspected conservatives were trying to privatize stuff but i never realized how deep their hatred of a government "for the people" was.it all makes sense now, the blocks on unemployment extensions, end of the world lamenting if the minimum wage is increased, fighting regulation on wall street and banking, defending the worst health care system in the industrialized world, protecting murderers and mass polluters like massey industries and bp. privatizing war so it may never end.filling the epa, labor, dept. of interior, etc., etc., with business lobbyists and lawyers...

i like most didn't know their whole purpose was to literally gut the federal government of any power.

i'm on a new mission.the people must know.conservatives are gutting our government while blaming liberals for their wreckage.

This book nails it
A very important book for understanding the right wing movement that has gained so much momentum since the '80s.He personalizes the story, and makes it a very easy read.One part that I enjoyed was his description of the blandness of the suburbs of DC, like Loudon county.I think part of the reason why the glass and metal buildings are so generic and anonymous is that the entities in the buildings don't want people to know they are there!They want their evil activites to go quietly unnoticed.Another intersting fact I found was that a very large majority of the radical right (like Jack Abramoff) really like the Godfather movies.I think this helps explain their lawlessness and contempt for government, and also why so many of the radical right have ended up in jail.

Extensive right-wing sources keep it from being just another biased work
I definitely enjoyed reading this book. Thomas Frank goes into extensive detail on the history behind the conservative movement. His use of extensive references from conservatives sources, like the Washington Times, makes it more than just a biased opinion piece as some on the right would claim. His interviews with key conservative figures like Grover Norquist are also interesting to read about. ... Read more

Product Description
A wingnut is someone on the far-right or far-left wing of the political spectrum – professional partisans, unhinged activists and paranoid conspiracy theorists. Campaigning as the antidote to polarized politics, Barack Obama promised to transcend the old divides of left and right, black and white, red states and blue states. But during his first year in office, he presided over an eruption of hate and hyper-partisanship that mocks the pledge upon which millions ushered him into office.
From Revolutionary War-inspired “Tea Party” protests to the health-care town hall hijackings, principled policy opposition to government spending has taken a sharp right turn into Crazytown. Not to mention death threats to elected leaders and Sarah Palin’s ranting about administration “death panels.” For those with a vested interest in stirring the crazypot, all of this has been good for business – hate is a cheap and easy recruiting tool. But it can be murder on a democracy…
As creator of CNN’s hit segment, “Wingnuts of the Week,” Daily Beast senior political columnist John Avlon has unique insight into how far-left and far-right political extremists came to dominate the country’s political dialogue and, with this audiobook, he shows the way back to a saner, smarter national conversation.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (47)

Theater--Follow the Money to Understand
Unquestionable a great book, with one big missing piece: it does not follow the money back to Wall Street.Buckminster Fuller understood in the 1960's that the White House had become theater, I did not understand his meaning until the economic meltdown and my noticing that Goldman Sachs has provided the Secretary of the Treasury for the last six or so Administrations.

The Tea Party, a grand mix of idealistic individuals who really think they have a shot at making a difference, is funded by the Koch Brothers, and all the other wing-nuts this book discusses all have financial underpinning that serve a purpose: to create theater.They are the American version of a political circus that keeps people's eyes off the raw fact that the US is a two-party tyranny with election manipulation so embedded that we no longer qualify as a democracy according to international standards.

NOTE:To investigate funding yourself, just search, my preferred search portal is Duck Duck Go, for

Wing-nuts is an "order of battle" for the extremist fringe, but it does NOT explain why the US government and US economy are in the toilet.For that we need just one word:INTEGRITY (lost).

The wing-nuts are getting their time in the sun because the extreme wealthy that have hollowed out America, exported all the skilled jobs, allowed illegal immigration so they could pay even less for unskilled labor, are now nervous.Bush Junior did his eight, Obama gave Wall Street four more years, right now the best that Wall Street can think of is making the next four years a complete circus.

`All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing' (or words to that effect).Edmund Burke and Justice Brandeis are both cited on this one.It says a lot when two comedians make more sense and demonstrate more integrity than all of our Senators, Representatives, and Executive Branch officials.Perhaps it really does take a comic (or two) to save a Nation.

Just one of many books supporting my suggestion that this is all theater:

Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

My own book, Election 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Substance of Governance; Legitimate Grievances; Candidates on the Issues; Balanced Budget 101; Call to Arms: Fund We Not Them; Annotated Bibliography) is also free online and provides a sane intelligent alternative to wing-nut theater and the two-party tyranny funded by Wall Street, led by Goldman Sachs.

You can find all of my non-fiction reviews sorted into 98 categories at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog.I have also created lists of reviews (e.g. corruption, education) and two master lists.The negative list is everything that is wrong with America and the world, the positive one everything that is right or could be right.Both those lists are also at the Huffington Post.It's time to restore the integrity of our Republic, that must of necessity begin with Electoral Reform.

Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America
This book was not the balanced view from the center that I expected.Although I agree with his premise regarding the dangers of the political fringes, Mr. Avlon goes too far in his generalizations about the Right, broadly equating conservatism with racism.That was a cop out.I expected more.

Everybody should read this book
If I could, I'd make everyone read this book.I don't know that everyone would get a lot out of it, but it'd be worth a try.

I think the book is pretty fair in its assessment of the right and left, meaning that extremists on both ends of the spectrum are criticized.

For me personally, it's given me a better perspective.I'm less likely to get so wrapped up in issues that I can't see the others' side of things.

Good overall primer on fringe politics
I was looking forward to reading this book, because I have seen John Avlon on CNN and, while not always agreeing with him, his opinions were always common-sense based and I respect what he has to say.

I think that in this book he sets out to give a general overview of the extreme fringe politics that is driving our society and culture today.This book is easy to read and doesn't delve too far into the weeds of some of these wingnut theories.Instead, we get a good basis of knowledge for how the current polarization has occurred.

For anyone who is a political junkie, a lot of the information in the book will be old hat.I think this is a good book for someone who is not so familiar with wingnut theories or how they came about.The book is a good starter to familiarize oneself with these theories, so that one may know a wingnut when they hear or see one, or at the very least be able to critically analyze what one is hearing.

I am a white conservative wingnut, and proud of it!Even after this book.
To me, books are a vehicle to make you think or challenge how you view the world.Especially political books.

This book however was like Avlon's diary of his personal thoughts on people he does not like.Throughout the book he explains how wacky these wingnuts are, but never explains why they are lunatics. He never uses any logic or facts or reasoning to explain in an objective way that these "wingnuts" are off their rockers.

Unfortunately for Avlon, a line in the forward by Tina Brown punches a huge hole in the book."To discount the Wingnuts as entirely delusional is too easy.And it's a mistake.When we are so repelled by the language that we deny a genuine point, we merely aggravate the paranoia that agitates many of the wingnuts."
Then Avlon goes on for the entire book and just discounts the wingnuts without discussing any of the genuine points.Consider me agitated.

Some examples:
1) In the 9/11 Truthers section, he mentions that the Truthers don't believe the tape of Bin Laden taking credit for the attack.The Truthers say the man in the tape is heavier than Bin Laden and is using his right hand when OBL was known to be left handed.But he never discusses that or gives any contrary evidence.

2) Quote from the book "Most of the great Americans who have led our country to better times in peace and war have not been polarizers, pitting left against right.They have been centrists..."Where is he getting that idea from?Lincoln pitted the North and the South, and was both fiercely hated and absolutely loved by many people in his time.Freeing slaves was a radical idea to many in Lincoln's time.
Read the book Miracle at Philadelphia or any other book about the writing of the Constitution, and you'll be amazed that they did not come to blows every day during the Constitutional Convention.
Many Americans at the time of the Revolution did not want to break away from England.Look at [...]."By 1779 there were more Americans fighting with the British than with Washington."
Was Patrick Henry a wingnut when he said "Give me liberty or give me death"?
It may not have always been right vs. left, but there is no way most of the great men and women in our history have been centrists.

3) Avlon continually laughs of the idea by the right that Obama wants to be a dictator, and the idea by the left that Bush wanted to be a dictator.Why is that idea laughable?The entire history of the world can be summed up as oppression of the majority by a few rich and powerful in government or religion.America is the lone exception to that (is it still?).We have been around just over 200 years, which is a pitifully short amount of time.And why is America the exception?I think both the left and the right would agree (although maybe for different reasons) that what makes us special is the Constitution and form of Government setup by the founders.Isn't it then reasonable that people may get a bit unhinged when they see the current Republican or Democrat government trying to tear down that Constitution or form of Government that was established?Avlon never once addresses the concerns that Obama is trying to change government and our freedoms, or that Bush changed government and our freedoms.

4) Avlon classifies people who believe Obama may be the antichrist as wingnuts.Can he prove Obama is not the antichrist?If Avlon believes Obama is not the antichrist because Christianity is a silly superstition and there is no antichrist, why doesn't he say so?Christians in general believe there will be an antichrist.I doubt anyone can currently say for sure that Obama IS the antichrist, but by the same token you cannot say FOR SURE that he is not.If you are a Christian, wouldn't it be better to be wary of the possibility?What better place for the antichrist to come from than the POTUS, arguably the most powerful position in the world?

5) Brown vs. Board of Education.Here he classifies Republicans who have spoken out about that decision as wingnuts and racists.But he never explains the valid reason why those people believe that way.Since I am white (and perhaps not qualified to speak about this point) I recommend looking up the many articles on the subject by either Thomas Sowell or Walter E. Williams who are both black, and both give good arguments about why Brown vs. Board of Education may not have been the best way to go about the civil rights movement.

Overall, I was hoping for something that made me question the ideas I already had.But instead I found he just made fun of many of the ideas that I have studied out and come to my own conclusions on. ... Read more

Product Description
C Street - where piety, politics, and corruption meet

Jeff Sharlet is the only journalist to have reported from inside the C Street House, the Fellowship residence known simply by its Washington, DC address. The house has lately been the scene of notorious political scandal, but more crucially it is home to efforts to transform the very fabric of American democracy. And now, after laying bare its tenants' past in The Family, Sharlet reports from deep within fundamentalism in today's world, revealing that the previous efforts of religious fundamentalists in America pale in comparison with their long-term ambitions.

When Barack Obama entered the White House, headlines declared the age of culture wars over. In C Street, Sharlet shows why these conflicts endure and why they matter now - from the sensationalism of Washington sex scandals to fundamentalism's long shadow in Africa, where Ugandan culture warriors determined to eradicate homosexuality have set genocide on simmer.

We've reached a point where piety and corruption are not at odds but one and the same. Reporting with exclusive sources and explosive documents from C Street, the war on gays in Uganda, and the battle for the soul of America's armed forces - waged by a 15,000-strong movement of officers intent on "reclaiming territory for Christ in the military" - Sharlet reveals not the last gasp of old-time religion but the new front lines of fundamentalism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Reviewing Mr. Sharlet
Before buying his books, while checking the reviews of this and his first book, The Family, I see that the author *argues* with any reviewer who rates his books less than 5 stars!How tacky!!Mr. Sharlet, himself, deserves one star!And, no, I've not yet completed the books.

The history and unmasking of using Jesus for political power
Jeff Sharlet is the best author covering -- or rather uncovering -- the facts behind the fundamentalist Christians in high places.This book is not about sexual indiscretions committed by Christians in office.It is about a distorted, self-serving and dangerous theology (of sorts) that is the antithesis of Jesus' teachings. This is not a book written to attack Christianity.It is about leaders not only seeking power, influence and money.Nothing new there.It is about the extent and blatant nature of what is going on either unnoticed or unquestioned.We as Americans are naive and defensive when it comes to examing the conduct of Christians in public life.

Every day 22,000 children die due to disease, hunger and other preventable causes while senators are engaged in supporting genocide and dictatorship in the name of Jesus.Jeff explains and documents.The sexual liaisons of C Street garnered media attention.Senator Inhofe's taxpayer funded activities in Africa are essentially not reported.

I highly recommend reading The Family first so you have a fuller picture of the history and reach of The Family.Mr. Sharlet is a clear, entertaining and gifted writer.His information is documented.He is not dealing in sensationalism but rather telling a sensationalistic story.He takes on the power structure who hide in plain sight behind the name of Jesus.

You will be left asking , "are these men deluded, ignorant, power-crazed or simply dangerously ambitious bordering on evil."

Of all the books written during the past several years attempting to document or explain why President Obama is feared and how American values have been hijacked, this is the best.Buy it, read it and share it.

A MUST- READ!
If only this were required reading for every citizen!I thought "The Family" was an inspirational work by Mr. Sharlet....and it is...but as it turns out, it was just the scratch on the surface of an almost unbelievable expose into the secret agenda of many of our...ahem..."Christian" politicians. "C Street" is remarkable in that it reads like a Stephen King novel...only much scarier!I have to admit, there were times when I would read several chapters and then put the book down for a couple of days because I was so frustrated and angry with the world that I had to catch my breath a bit.But the book always compelled me to come back...and I am so grateful for Mr. Sharlet's brave work, because the more people who know the mechanics of this group, and the depths to which they have polluted governments around the world, the better chance we have of somehow...there has to be a way, right?...to stop this.Anybody remember being fearful and self righteous about the rumored "Trilateral Commission" in the 1970's?Bah!Pebbles on a mountain compared to these folks! The most important and life-altering couple of books you will ever own. (And probably the most highlighted, page-folded, and talked about as well.)

No threat here
If this is the strongest argument for the "fundamentalist threat to American Democracy" then I am very relieved as there is not much here.Sharlet talks about some politicians with screwy christian theology being caught in adultery and some admittedly disturbing evidence of excessive christian evangelicalism in the military.There are a number of politicians with beliefs and visions of gov't different than mine but that does not indicate a threat to democracy.His last chapter trying to venture such an argument is incoherent except perhaps to a radical secularist/atheist who is scared of religion in general.I was hoping for a lot more.

Book is a Waste of Time
Im a liberal journalist who has covered politics for a long time! This book is nuts. Obviously, this is a political hit job during a very partisan and inflamed election cycle! And, I disagree with some of these reviews that are obviously written by Sharlet's friends. The book is not well-written. It is alarmingly dysfunctional reasoning by Sharlet, who conspiratorially connects the dots! More a blogger mentality than a serious investigation. As for whether the Fellowship is well known. Sharlet would be surprised if he knew how many journalists indeed know of the Fellowship! Sharlet has portrayed the Fellowship as a conservative group - right-wing nuts. Not true! I know women and liberals, Rabbis, Catholics and Jews and Muslims who are in prayer groups. Perhaps, Sharlet should examine why he is so afraid of prayer groups! Do some fall who pray? Sure. Does that mean that everyone in the prayer groups are bad and rotten people? Hell, no! Sharlet's obsesssion with the sex scandals is a wee bit over the top! As for his so-called investigative skills - weak! Sharlet is very naieve in understanding politics, and the accusations are just off the wall! At one of his book presentations, he mocked Jews who believe in the Teachings of Jesus! Mocks people who try to be more bipartisan and claims he wants a debate for democracy. The problem with partisan politics is that it does not work! What is wrong with people reaching across partisan and international lines. As for any of these people believing gays should be dead - that is offensive because it is just not true. Sharlet's presentation that these Americans are advocating this crazy law in Uganda is nuts! He keeps saying the law is going to cause genocide and the truth is that the law is not going anywhere! Sharlet's latest claim is that one of his sources is getting death threats, and that anyone who criticizes Sharlet's work is part of a PR hit job.Im not instructed to write anything here. Im doing it because I think Sharlet's book is defamation and completely off the wall! Surprised the publisher got sucked into this! Must have been a biased publisher hoping to produce a scandalous book. Would be interesting if true, but it is not! ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (51)

Outstanding Book
The States created the Federal Government.It was not the other way around and this book will get you back to the basic foundation of our great nation.Facts and Figures drive liberals crazy and this book is full of those facts and figures.

Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century
The most perfect handbook and plan for returning our Republic to our roots of freedom and liberty.Simple, straight forward, detailed, documented.

Well-reasoned but somewhat incomplete review ofone aspect of state's rights
Most reviews here discuss the reviewer's belief in the principles of nullification rather than the book, so I will try to stick to the book, the author and the greatest fault in this otherwise extraordinary book, the incomplete contrary arguments.

The author, Thomas Woods, is a respected historian who is also an excellent writer of several other best-selling books including The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History and other well-known books on American History.He is quite outspoken but does detailed research to support his opinions.You can count on any of his books being accurate, informative and well-reasoned.

This book concerns the idea of nullification of laws that are held to be unconstitutional.The heart of this debate is the age old question of "Who watches the Watchers"?(Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)Or as Lenin put it more elementally "Kto kvo?" - Who does what to whom?How do individuals granted rights by our Creator maintain these rights in Community or Government?Much of this book reviews the Americanist resolution of this question - a limited Government given limited and specified powers.

Woods is at his best tracing and explaining and supporting this concept.He uses so many impeccable sources that it would be hard to support the "living Constitution" school of thought where the Constitution means whatever those in power say it means.I highly recommend reading this short book for a discussion of these ideas.

The book itself is only 145 pages followed by 120 pages of documents to which the book refers.You can read the book in a few hours and then read the documents at leisure.Including many of the entire documents that are being discussed is a great idea and I wish more books would do this.You can see for yourself that Woods is not just picking a quote here or there to justify his views.

Woods argues that the States themselves are one of the major check and balances built into our system in addition to the 3 branches themselves.Woods traces the idea of nullification from the sovereign 13 states to the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution and it's ratifying to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.These acts made criticism of the President a crime.Multiple people were fined and imprisoned.The States of Kentucky and Virginia both objected and passed state laws nullifying these Acts because they were unconstitutional.The fact that James Madison, Father of the Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote these resolutions gives them solid standing.

Woods also does a good job of showing how over the years multiple states have advocated this up to and including California and other states who legalize medical marijuana regardless of what the Federal Government thinks.So this nullification debate is as current as the morning paper, in spite of what a few reviewers here who obviously didn't even read the book claim.

One criticism is that Woods is somewhat incomplete in the occasional contrary information from equally impeccable sources.For example, Patrick Henry made a rousing speech about being an American and not just a Virginian.Benjamin Franklin talked of Americans being a new race of people.The nationalist viewpoint that the states are subordinate units has more support than Woods admits.

The last chapter is about how to apply the idea of nullification to current tyrannical extensions of government power.Where in the Constitution does it say I must buy a "government approved" product (health insurance) or face criminal prosecution?When the government infringes on my right of self-defense in spite of the explicit wording of the Constitution itself in the second amendment that my rights "shall not be infringed", what can I do by myself?Woods says we can organize at the state level and nullify these laws.He spends a few pages explaining how this can be done and how to deal with the federal government that will certainly resist this.

Whether this is a practical solution to government tyranny or not is something you will have to decide for yourself, but this is an important and entertaining book and ought to be read by everyone on both sides of the political spectrum.Four stars.

A brilliant essay by Dr. Woods
Many reviews have been made on this book already which pretty much cover the scope, the strengths and the weaknesses of the book.I would start out with an analogy of whether one should use a speedboat or an aircraft carrier to repsond to the needs of the people in terms of manueverability.The point is that our government in Washington no longer responds to the local nuances of the needs of communities from such diverse places as Monterey, CA and Ville Platte, LA.It has grown to such garguantuan proportions that it is emeshed in a cauldron of special interests that for the most part cares little for the public at large and functions horribly.

Morever, most of our government is totally without constitutional merit; it relies on "experts" in the courts who "interpret" the law to gives these laws their "OK."It is high time that remedies need to be developed to check the unconstitutional growth of government and Dr. Woods gives us an excellent weapon to rein in goliath government with the idea of nullification.

The books gives an introduction of the "forbidden idea," a history of the nullification movement and examples of its use which included advocates from both North and South despite commonplace diatribes to the contrary.The second half of the book includes original documents covering controversies from the Alien and Sedition Acts to the Fugitive Slave Act which the State of Wisconsin refused to cooperate with the federal government on this score.

The book is relatively brief, but concise with good endnotes, index and an appendix that has the Constitution along with its amendments.A highly recommended book for uncertain times.

If the emperor's naked, SAY so-- don't just critique his robe in order to appear "sane!"
States can only nullify federal laws if they are each sovereign nations unto themselves. Woods's "compact theory" falls short of this, in that it suggests that it's *only* a theory, rather than an absolute FACT as fully understood by the people of each colony. As a result, the standard pledge of "one indivisible nation," is an absolute LIE.

The problem here, as always, is that it requires the COURAGE to take a stand, and proclaim that the current United States government is a DICTATORSHIP ever since the Lincoln Administration-- which is the technical fact, since the "national theory" of government was *dicated* to the people, rather than *chosen by them.*

But Woods, like all others who pull their punches against Goliath, is a professional coward and hypocrite, since he wants to claim fame as a "champion of truth, liberty and justice" as a libertarian; but he *also* wants to cover his political "bacon," by keeping it out of the fire of controversy by speaking the WHOLE unpopular truth-- again, that the United States government was DICTATED to the American People,. not chosen by them-- and likewise that this was enforced by imperial inavasion, conquests is a DICTATORSHIP-EMPIRE in conquest of sovereign states, but ismasquerading as a democratic republic of SUBORDINATE ones.
And so, Woods carefully engages in professional brinksmanship via ambiguous statements-- and then when challenged on them, he claims that he makes this point "if you READ it properly."
In other words, it depends on what your definition of "is" is, since he's too much a coward to come out and SAY the bald-faced truth: that the U.S. government is a dictatorian regime of imperial occupation of sovereign states!
And a half-truth, is a WHOLE LIE... or worse, since it deliberately mis-leads.

As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe writes. "None are more hopelessly enslaved, than those who falsely believe they are free;" and this precisely describes our current state of government: for the people believe that they are their own rulers, who chose their own government in 1776-- that that they can likewise choose a different one at will.But the reality is the *opposite* on all three counts: the people are the SERVANTS of the government, they did NOT choose it, and they CANNOT choose a different one at will. They aren't even the supreme rulers of their own states, as history REQUIRES. No, when the USA became a dictatorship in 1861-1865, it was ABSOLUTE AND PERMANENT-- except for the TRUTH regarding history, and their subordinate status as the governemnt's servants.


To recap:

1. It is an absolute, incontrovertible FACT that the colonies declared independent statehood as separate, sovereign nations. NO QUESTION. This recognition was both mutual among the states as well as unanimously recognized among other all oter nations as well under the Treaty of Paris.

2. It is likewise an absolute fact that the People of these states NEVER CHANGED THIS-- nor did the ever manifest any intention of doing so.

3. It was an absolute LIE, that the United States EVER was made into a single sovereign nation by official legal process, or sovereign intention. This lie was first fabricated and spread in the 1820's, and was subsequently repeated so often over the next 40 years that it became BELIEVED in 1861.

4. Since each state is a sovereign nation, then there could be no "civil war" between them; rather, the incident that took place between the states from 1861-1865, was simply a bloody invasion and conquest of sovereign nations, trumped up under this LIE-- just like when Saddam Hussein claimed that Kuwait was a part of Iraq. To call this 1861 incident a "civil war," would be to exonerate EVERY conquering dictator in history-- including Hitler and Hussein; for there would NEVER be a successful imperial conquest in history: just "civil wars!"

5. History does not work that way; however Dr. Woods is AFRAID to say that the Emperor's naked, so he's saying "his robe isn't THAT great," and calling himself "courageous" for doing so.Thus he's an impuldent hypocrite as well as a coward.
You can't have it both ways: i.e. to claim that the states have "SOME soveriegnty." Sorry, that's just a Tower of Babel; a state can't be "partially sovereing and partially subordinate," any more than a woman can be "partially pregnant." Unless the people of a state are their state's supreme rulers as a sovereign nation, then someone ELSE is the supreme ruler of that state-- and it's just a wild goose-chase, to say that some enchanted Constitution can make it BOTH ways... and then whine about how the big bad federal wolf is VIOLATING the Constitution! Any lawyer can come up with an argument to construe the Constitution any way they want-- and we have about 600 of them in Washtingon: 500in Congress, 9 on the Supreme Court, and 1 in the White House. THESE are the ruling sovereigns of the United States; regardless of how the people vote, the Federal government has the final word, NOT the people-- and DEFINITELY not the people of any one state regarding the laws that govern their lives, so we also have mob-rule.

Let's just get back to the facts: The states ARE sovereign nations, as a fact of HISTORY and original intent-- NOT some obscure theory;and therefore federal invasion in 1861-1865 was a HOLOCAUST, NOT a "civil war:" victors may write the history-books, they cannot dictate what *actually happened:" it's time to stop publishing LIES, and anyone who fails to tell the truth is HELPING the liars.

Likewise, Lincoln was a lying, conquering dictator-- like any other in history, who distorted law and fact alike in order to gain POWER; and England and France were JUDAS-NATIONS that sold out the sovereignty of the American nation-states for 30 pieces of silver, for refusing to recognize their same sovereignty which they had recognized to the states in 1783-- and which NO treaty ever rescinded or changed.

If you write a book on Nullification, and don't include with these facts, then you are a LIAR by act of omission-- or worse.
And I mean including them expressly and overtly: I DON'T mean burying them somewhere in the text, and then saying "it's in there" when someone challenges you on it.
Either put up, or shut up-- don't play politics with facts in order to appeaase the mob, it only enables the Leviathan-state juggernaut.
While it's true that one doesn't *stop* the juggernaut by laying down in front of it, it's not like you're going to be *hanged* fortelling the truth: rather, the American state today operates through *discrediting* the "bulldogs" who bite the federal hand that feeds them, while *accrediting* the shills and lapdogs who *validate* its power-base; for the state knows that the pen is mightier than the sword, and thus it simply buys ink by the barrel.

So FIGHT the power, with the pen: and if any of these statist-lapdogs contradict you, then *challenge* them publicly-- and they'll either have to expose their lack of argument, or else they'll forfeit the argument by refusing the challenge.
And if they defame you as "insane" etc, then SUE them in open court.

The truth ain't for sissies, Tom; so if you don't have the stomach for it, then step aside and let those handle it who DO. ... Read more