Politics

Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds  by Michael Knowles, Regnery Publishing, 2021. The political Left issuing three methods for attaining power by subverting the will of the voters: The Judiciary The  Administrative State Language For example, the judiciary legalized same-sex marriage. It was never put to a vote. Replacing the e=term “sodomy” by “same-sex marriage” made it easier to legalize it.  When leftists stage violent protests, leftists call it speech. When

Social Justice Fallacies  by Thomas Sowell, Basic Books (2023)

Discrimination and Disparities  by Thomas Sowell, Basic Books; Revised and Enlarged Edition (2019)  Sowell objects to attributing all of the cause of disparities between the prosperity of various ethnic groups to discrimination. He lists several other causes of disparities:  Birth order Median age Marriage Cultural values Homicide rates Minimum wage laws

The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America  by Victor Davis Hanson, Basic Books (2021)

Targeting in Social Programs: Avoiding Bad Bets, Removing Bad Apples  by Peter H. Schuck and Richard J. Zeckhauser, Brookings Institution Press, 2006.  The authors argue that the government is wasting money on two kinds of recipients of aid: bad bets, and bad apples. Examples of bad bets: Very sick old patients who will die soon Vegetative patients Liver transplants for chronic alcoholics Stupid people attending college Giving cancer screening tests to people who are young an

The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties by Christopher Caldwell, Simon and Schuster, 2021

Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School  by Stuart Jeffries, Verso, 2016. 1923 Symposium The idea for the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany (informally called the Frankfurt School) originated in a Symposium in 1923 of Marxist intellectuals in Ilmenao in Thuringia. It was organized by Félix José Weil, whose father, German-Argentine businessman Hermann Weil, provided much of the endowment for the Frankfurt School. Attendees for the symposium inclu

Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From  by Daniel Pipes, Free Press, 1997.  Summary This book describes the history of political conspiracies and conspiratorial thinking. Ironically, imaginary political conspiracies preceded actual political conspiracies, and, in fact, helped create them.  Christian Military Orders There were several Christian Military Orders during the Middle Ages, including: (a) Knights Hospitallers of St. John, (b) Teutonic K

The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity  by Douglas Murray. Bloomsbury Continuum; (2020)

The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time   by Yascha Mounk, Penguin Press, 2023.

Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America  by John McWhorter, Portfolio/Penguin, 2021.  The people who believe in Woke he calls “The Elect”. Woke Racism is a religion, because: Superstition Clergy Original Sin Evangelical Apocalyptic Bans the heretic Supplants older religions Canceled people: Nurse Leslie Neal-Boylan David Shor Daniel Patrick Moloney (Roman Catholic) Todd EEklot (UU) Gary Garrels, curator 3 planks author advocates: End the war on drugs Use ph

When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives  by Heather Mac Donald, DW Books, 2023.  In medicine, the political Left is trying to water down objective measures of medical excellence such as:   Medical College Admission Test (MCAT)  United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE) Several chapters of this book are about the damage that has been done to the performance of

The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture  by Heather Mac Donald, St. Martin’s Press, 2018.  At the UCLA Graduate School of Education, Professor Val Rust was surrounded by students who read a Day of Action statement. This statement accused Professor Rust of racial micro-aggressions in his classroom. One of the micro aggressions the students complained about was his habit of correcting their bad grammar. The educatio

The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America  by Coleman Hughes, Penguin Random House (2024)  Color Blind The author believes that the color blindness principle, also known as race neutrality, is valid for all times, not just for when full equality is achieved.  He writes: “Colorblindness embraces our common humanity.” Racial Preferences He states that the euphemism “affirmative action” has come to mean racial preferences. He believes that we should return to

America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything  by Christopher F. Rufo, Broadside Books, 2023.  America Becomes Infected with the German Disease This book describes how German philosophers corrupted the culture of the United States. Herbert Marcuse studied the ideas of Kant, Hegel, Marx and Martin Heidegger. When Hitler came to power, Marcuse, being a Jew, had to flee. After he came to America, he became a professor at the University of California at

Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed  by Jason L. Riley. Encounter Books, 2015.  In Chapter 6: Affirmative Discrimination , the author writes: “. . . the more accurately you describe affirmative action, the worse it polls.”

Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society, 4 th  Edition  by Paul Hollander, Transaction Publishers, 1997.  Summary In the West, due to ignorance to what was actually going on under the Bolsheviks, many intellectuals had an idealized view of life in the Soviet Union. When Western intellectuals visited the Soviet Union to see for themselves the achievements of Communism, they were duped by their hosts. They were amenable to being duped, because th

The UN Gang: A Memoir of Incompetence, Corruption, Espionage, Anti-Semitism and Islamic Extremism at the UN Secretariat  by Pedro A. Sanjuan, Doubleday, 2005.  Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s Spy Pedro Arroyo Sanjuan was born in Havana, Cuba in 1930. He became a citizen of the United States in 1947. Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, chose him to be her spy inside the United Nations. He has written an amusing memoir of his time there. Many United Natio

White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era  by Shelby Steele, Harper Perennial, 2007.  Moral Authority Mainstream America lost moral authority during the 1960s. The cause of its loss was of its history of abuse against black Americans. The consequence of its lolls of moral authority was an inability to enforce personal responsibility on Americans in general, but especially on black Americans. If any one criticized black Americans

Galileo's Middle Finger  by Alice Domurat Dreger, Penguin Press, 2015.  Intersex The author is a sociologist involved in the movement to protect intersex children, that is, children born with ambiguous genitalia, from being surgically transformed, without their consent, into either male or female. Transexuals The author became involved in a related issue, namely transsexuals. Transsexuals are adults who want to change their bodies to the other sex.  Gender Dysphoria The trans