Free Republic

John Maynard Keynes was twitted with changing his mind. He replied, "When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?" . . . And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace. . . . Aha," you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher) but Milton Friedman, Paul Johnson, and Shelby Steele, and a host of...

To speak very generally, there are two kinds of left apostate: there are those who break with the left in order to move elsewhere (usually to the right, though not always) and there are those who repudiate certain beliefs or modes of thinking within the left in order to strengthen other competing traditions within the left, which they see as more authentic and valuable. Among the former, one can instance Norman Podhoretz, David Horowitz, Paul Johnson and, more recently, Christopher Hitchens. Among the latter, Rosa Luxemburg, Victor Serge, Arthur Koestler, C.L.R. James, and George Orwell are prominent. Since the terror...

If I were to scribe a pithy letter to all the closed-minded liberals who deem me and my ilk closed-minded, it would read: Dear Friends, Oftentimes in recent years, and especially since I renounced my Democratic Party membership, then my Independent label, and finally announced my membership in the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan, I have been chastised by you for various beliefs. Contrary to your assertions that people like me are traitorous, talking point parrots and apologists, facts, history and examples have proven those of my mindset correct, and will undoubtedly continue to do so; this most assuredly occurring upon...

City halls where gay marriage vows are uttered, the Superbowl half-time show and movie theaters showing "The Passion of the Christ" would seem to be prime battlegrounds in the latest culture wars. But to conservative crusaders like David Horowitz, the main action is still on college campuses, which he insists have been colonized by "tenured leftists" and turned into "their political base." So Mr. Horowitz, author of "Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey" (Spence Publishing, 2003) and the president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, is spearheading a campaign to end what he calls discrimination against conservative faculty...

Does John Kerry have blood on his hands? Perhaps the following, extracted from the Introduction (written by Jamie Glazov) of David Horowitz’s book Left Illusions An Intellectual Odyssey, will help you assess this question. "After the communist victory in Vietnam in 1975, the North Vietnamese began executing tens of thousands of South Vietnamese and setting up “re-education camps.” The general repression prompted an exodus of two million refugees, unprecedented in the history of Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese boat people perished in the Gulf of Thailand and in the South China Sea in their attempt to escape the...

C-SPAN Mr. Horowitz talked about his book, Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey, published by Spence Publishing. The book, a compilation of forty-three essays, traces the author’s evolution from “red-diaper baby” to conservative. Beginning with articles composed during his leftist period in the 1960s, Mr. Horowitz includes explanations of his political conversion and his opinions on race, multiculturalism, AIDS, and the war on terrorism.

David Horowitz is without question one of the great thinkers on the American scene today. His views and his political journey are of unique interest to conservatives because Horowitz, once a renowned figure in the political left, defected to the political right. In his new book, "Left Illusions," Horowitz unmasks the left’s agenda while revealing his own intellectual flight. From his boyhood experience in a Communist Party-run Workers’ Children’s Camp to his initiation of America’s first anti-war protest, the events of David Horowitz’s young life shaped the Marxist radical into a key figure in the launching of the New Left...

Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odysseyby David Horowitz500 pages; hardcoverSpence Publishing, 2003$20.97 from Amazon.ComClick here to order For many years, my policy on accepting review copies of books has remained simple and reliable: If I don't have something nice to say, I'll say nothing at all. I won't accept a review copy of something I expect to dislike -- I'd rather pay for the book than feel bound to "pay" for it with a review that doesn't reflect my true opinion. For obvious reasons, I was surprised to receive an email from Bill Tierney of Spence Publishing, asking if I'd be...