"Radical Son" is a great book and one of the leaders into the what was a new genre at the time, "conservative books". It was widely understood by the New York publishing industry that Republicans were all stoopid and did not reed books.
Excellent article. "Radical Son" should be required reading in every college US History class. I don't think anyone really understands the US in the 60's without that perspective.
I was just having a discussion with a leftist this week... they don't just deny reality in things politics, they truly do live in their own little entitlement world.
Brief story, They are tryign to sell their house, its an ok house, fixed up really nice, but its the only single family house on the street and its oddly shaped/looking, surrounded by businesses and apartment buildings... the house is priced as the 2nd highest priced house in the neighborhood, and of course its not selling.
They are adamant they aren't going to take one dime less than their new reduced price (they decided to come down 10k.. still leaving it the 2nd most pricey house in the neighborhood, and its the agents fault its not selling.
Now please keep in mind, at the price they are asking you can buy houses in the neighborhoods old millionaires row, not the only single family amoung apartment and commercial buildings. But they are going to sell it for that, period.
(as though they can force a buyer to show up willing to pay it).... Fact is simple, its not going to sell for anything near their asking price...unless they get extremely lucky.. but its not their fault for overpricing their house.. its the agents fault for not getting people into it and the markets fault for not recognizing their house is a great house.
They need that for the house, and they aren't coming down, and its not overpriced, just that the agent isn't working it. (Sorry guys, anyone lookoing for a house in that price range is going to turn onto that street and say NO... I don't care if it has italian marble and gold faucets, thats reality... they'll go over to millionaires row and buy a house thats in a residential street with other high end homes.)
Lefties... gotta love em.
It is so nice to know that one is not alone. My family didn't condone communism but they are socialist. As a child I was taught that the world should be run by Unions. My brother is a shop steward for the railroad where he works.
My father is getting way up there in years and it is doubtful that he will ever change his political beliefs. I do give my Dad credit for the fact that he says while he doesn't agree with my political beliefs he is proud of me for speaking out.
Hi, Spiff...
I was a leftist. In my late teens and early twenties I was a registered Democrat, I voted for Michael Dukakis, I supported socialized medicine, I thought former California Governor Jerry Brown would have made a great President, I hated America for dropping the A-Bombs on Japan, I liked Ted Kennedy, I was a member of Nuclear Freeze USA, I donated money to Greenpeace and Amnesty International, I thought that "choice" was a good thing, I kept a copy of the Communist Manifesto on my desk (I was a federal employee during the last years of the Cold War) just to enrage people, I thought that communism was OK but that it hadn't been done correctly yet, I liked organic foods, I hated Ronald Reagan for putting missiles in Europe and for invading Grenada, I thought the "Sanctuary" movement which smuggled illegal aliens across the border was nifty, I liked to browbeat people who were "bigoted" against gays, I railed against the prudishness of America, I wanted drugs to be legalized, and my thought process on any chosen political issue was no deeper than the last bumper sticker I had read.
Thank you Rush Limbaugh, Ezra Taft Benson, Cleon Skousen, William Norman Grigg, William Jasper, National Right to Life, Phyllis Schlafly and especially Jim Robinson and Free Republic for helping me through the painful process of awakening to the lies I had been told and for helping to set my mind straight.
If you work real hard with much effort, and somebody else is lazier than you.. Who do you think will make more money.?.
I said, me of course, get serious and answer my question...
He said, under communism you would be paid the same.. or close to the same..
I said, no way, nobody would stand for that for very long...
He said, lazy people would...
At that I became Anti-Communist.. at thirteen not knowing left from right, socialism from democracy, patriot from traitor..
It was much later that I learned democracy CAUSES socialism, and communism "IS" socialism.. and that socialism is merely a symptom of democracy but democracy is the social disease and that the United States is a republic, a unique republic, and whats posted above is WHY it is...
"I now regard the politicizing of young children as a form of child abuse."
I taught my kids about Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, John Kennedy, and FDR from an early age. Two grown conservatives and one liberal was the result, still 66 percent.
Communist indoctrination is indeed child abuse, but if parents can't teach politics to their kids who can?
BTTT
Your article resonated with me quite painfully.
My parents, though not Socialist or Communist members, were typical Jewish liberals & children of immigrants. Their friends & relatives were very much left-wingers. All of them watched their children descend into drugs or, ahem, "alternate" lifestyles.
Both my parents died with a certain bitterness, watching their dreams go up in smoke. Mind you, I did not turn right out of rebellion. Rather, on my own cognizance, I saw through the liberal rhetoric and realized how much of it was based on emotional, or wishful thinking.
It is no accident that the left-wing movements of the nineteenth-century coincided with romanticism. Liberalism is a youthful folly. Thank G-d I grew up a little bit. Sadly, so many haven't.