It describes the totalitarian state that Obama's advisor William Ayers admires
and wants to replicate here in the U.S.
Your leftist professors will not want to discuss this book with you.
Posted on 03/03/2009 9:29:57 AM PST by AmericanDude
ping to #80
In the “know your enemy” area, I’d also suggest googling up the “Frankfurt school” also known as the school of marxism at Frankfurt.
Research the writers belonging to that “school”. Learn their terms, phrases and definitions. Read their works. Learn it so you know to recognize it when you hear it. You will hear it a lot. Often, you will hear it from folk who have no clue where it came from or what it means or what it’s intentions were/are.
Learn to identify the useful idiots, especially those who do not know themselves to be such.
This is all wonderful advice. At 17 you have a great opportunity and the gift of time to arm yourself with knowledge by following the recommendations mentioned by so many here.
If you are seriously planning on going into politics someday, I would suggest that you keep up with local politics in and around your school as well as your hometown. Read through the local and school papers to learn about the local issues and candidates. Begin a record of voting, but don’t vote unless you have thoroughly studied the candidates and issues so that you will make a wise choice.
Take classes in history, government, philosophy, public speaking and debating and take it seriously.
Find a political mentor with political leanings that you agree with. Run for office, such as president or secretary of your college fraternity or club. Run for class president. If you don’t win, it is still a great experience, and an opportunity to voice your opinions and views.
Good luck!
It describes the totalitarian state that Obama's advisor William Ayers admires
and wants to replicate here in the U.S.
Your leftist professors will not want to discuss this book with you.
Read the US Constitution. All of it. It's short and it's amazing how clueless people are about what it actually says. For extra credit, review the early documents and drafts of what was to become the Bill of Rights and the Federalist Papers to gain some insight into how liberals twist the Founders intent. Learning about the French Revolution, a leftist revolution that went wrong, is also a big plus.
Listen to Rush Limbaugh. While some of his shows can be a waste of time, he's got his finger on what's current and some of his shows are simply gems of condensed conservative wisdom. Despite his claims of high accuracy, you should always fact check his details before using them in an argument with a liberal. He's often speaking off the top of his head and sometimes gets the details wrong or mixed up, but the overall message is almost always correct.
I'll second the recommendation for everything by Thomas Sowell but specifically Race and Culture, A Conflict of Visions, and The Quest for Cosmic Justice. Those last two will give you some insight into why liberals are liberal, why they think you are evil, and what's wrong with their position. I also agree with Robert Bork's Slouching Toward Gomorrah, which will explain what's wrong with judicial activism and what's good about Federalism. Many liberals talk out of both sides of their mouth, praising democracy and then enacting policy through courts and bureaucrats without any democratic input, and that book talks about what's wrong with that.
If you can afford it, get a subscription to (in this order, in my opinion) The National Review, The American, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard (I subscribe to all of these but the last one, which I have subscribed to but just couldn't keep up with because it's weekly and most of the better articles wind up posted here). I would also read The Wall Street Journal editorial page whenever you can.
Some online reading, in no particular order:
Some leading conservative think tanks have plenty of policy and research papers on their sites including The Heritage Foundation, The American Enterprise Institute, the National Center for Policy Analysis, and The Cato Institute.
Thomas Sowell's speeches Race, Culture, and Equality and The Quest for Cosmic Justice are good introductions of some of his more important points. You can also find an archive of some of his columns here. Thomas Sowell's friend Walter Williams, who sometimes subs for Rush Limbaugh, is also good.
An article about the Bellesiles affair, a high-profile case of academic dishonesty linked to left-wing politics. You might also want to take a look at the book War Before Civilization, which also talks about how academics shape history and evidence to their own biases, in that case archaeology.
Michael Crichton made some great speeches on environmentalism and global warming. For very detailed information on global warming, check out Climate Audit, Watts Up With That, and the National Post series The Deniers.
A good article on what really happened after Vietnam and another on Cambodia that are relevant to the left's attitudes about Iraq and the Middle East and will be relevant in Afghanistan.
A article on the wage gap between men and women.
Familiarize yourself with the leftist ideas (these are not conservative links) of Post-Modernism and "privilege" because you are going to hear this garbage all over academia and people are going to throw words and ideas at you that are purposely misleading and twisted.
Power Kills, a wonderful site detailing the people killed by their own governments around the world through history, including lots of leftist favorites. Great for comparing the harm the US has done to the world against what other countries have done to themselves.
The Reader's Digest version of The Road to Serfdom.
Paul Fussell's essay Thank God for the Atomic Bomb.
You'll notice that some of those links are to the NY Times or to the opinions of a liberal. Whenever possible, use a mainstream or left-wing source for your facts (they are often buried in there somewhere) because leftists will reject out of hand anything you tell them from a conservative source. They've been trained that Fox News, the Washington Times, the conservative think tanks, conservative talk radio, and so on are all automatically lies and have all of the credibility of the Weekly World News. So do yourself a favor and do your own research and fact gathering and don't simply parrot conservative sources because they'll jump all over you for your sources and sometimes conservative sources do make mistakes. If you make a mistake or say something inaccurate, apologize and find the truth. Liberals never apologize but you should try to be better than they are. They won't notice but the fence sitters and spectators will.
One more bit of advice. I chose my screen name, “Question Assumptions” for a reason. A lot of leftist ideas are built on a foundation of false assumptions. The arguments sound wonderful so long as you accept their assumptions and buy in to the fantasy but if you undermine the assumptions, the whole thing falls down like a house of cards. Liberals make assumptions about human nature (people are basically good and it’s Western Civilization that turns them bad), disagreements (if two parties can only really understand each other, then they’ll agree with each other), success (that successful and wealthy people are only successful and wealthy from taking advantage of others — the cargo cult mentality), post-modernism (which tends to argue that everything is the same and distinctions are meaningless), all cultures are equally valid and good (see Sowell), and so on. Spot those assumptions and knock them down and it all comes tumbling down after that. That’s why the left wants to control the playing field and why post
keep at the core of your beliefs that "moral" is that man is free to pursue his own happiness. that governmental compulsion and wealth confiscation to support those that you have never met is an immoral act.
Know thine enemy.
Essential Vocabulary:
Sophism
Psychological Projection
Deconstruction
Post Modernism
Marxist Dialectic
From this list you will be lead to many other crucial concepts of the left.
And although it is a difficult read, I strongly suggest The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. That book, plus Atlas Shrugged, are the two most important books (IMO) required to understand the WORKING philosophies of the left.
There are numerous theoretical books, but these two really get down to basics. You don’t even have to agree with the conclusions of these books, just studying the descriptive parts is extraordinarily educational and useful in everyday thinking and debate.
In other words, they’ll prime your gun so you can shoot effectively.
I wish I could emphasize this in ways that are stronger than my words - but read it.
Learn it. Love it. Live it.
Anything that is true and truth is built on the bedrock foundation of God's Word.
I'd also point you to the www.Sermonaudio.com website where you can listen to sermons/talks on various topics. I recommend Alan Cairns as one of the excellent speakers they have posted. Download them on your mp3 player, and listen.
You forgot “privilege” (see my link earlier in the thread). That’s now the go-to concept for all of the race and gender based ideas of the left. It encapsulates everything that’s wrong with the left in one nice neat ideology.
read books by Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn, and Ann Coulter.
they will provide you with lots of conservative ideas and tenets wrapped up in humor and intelligible to read and understand without going to hard core philosophers or economists.
Johm Fund, basically a libertarian, has some good stuff too.
After reading these folks you will have plenty of zingers for your liberal foes in the dorms.
Thanks for the additional information. I’m familiar with much of what you say. The principle of fairness must play some role in this debate, no matter how important tradition and history are.
consider this another vote for atlas shrugged
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.