And Rightly So

March 16, 2009

Usually I pick just one book or issue for this column. But there are so many interesting new books this month that I'm going to do my best to run through every one of them quickly.

First, our Main Selections. In Liberty and Tyranny, conservative favorite Mark Levin (Men in Black, Rescuing Sprite) gives us a rousing defense of liberty and responsibility at a time when they most definitely need defending (I won't even start, here, on the latest round of "stimulus," "bailout" and "rescue" bills that are fast turning this country into the Nanny State of America; if I do, I won’t be able to stop). And in Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Ruin Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them, we're offering a book on a topic of perennial interest to our members: the environmentalists' campaign to end "global warming" -- now rebranded as "climate change" by environmentalists who got tired of the horse laughs that greeted their fear-mongering whenever it coincided with unusually cold weather (and besides, they wanted to make people think that hurricanes and other natural disasters were being caused by gas- guzzling SUVs).

We've offered a number of books about global warming. But Green Hell is something different. It looks not at the evidence for and against manmade climate -- the greens' justification for their power grab -- but at what exactly they plan to do with the power if and when they get it.

Many of us suspect that environmentalists would want to downsize the economy, stifle industry, make travel more onerous, and generally exercise an enormous amount of control over everyone (else)'s lives even if the "warming" threat had never been thought of. It's been argued that some of the greens are really "watermelons" -- green on the outside but red inside; when Marxism was discredited, a lot of the energy that used to go into planning a socialist utopia has been redirected into planning an environmentalist one. If you don't want a government bureaucrat remote-controlling the thermostat in your house, you may want to make yourself aware of these plans before it's too late to stop them.

In Blood & Rage, Michael Burleigh gives us the benefits of his erudition in a review of terrorism from the nineteenth-century anarchists and nihilists up to our present crisis. Inside the Revolution: How the Followers of Jihad, Jefferson, and Jesus Are Battling to Dominate the Middle East and Transform the World reports startling developments in the Middle East, including a wave of conversions to Christianity in Iran.

Joe the Plumber expatiates on the quintessentially American viewpoint whose initial public expression caused Obama to stumble briefly on the road to his late coronation. In One Party Classroom, David Horowitz documents the fraud leftist professors are perpetrating on their students, the parents who pay the tuition, and the public at large. In 30 Ways in 30 Days to Save Your Family , Rebecca Hagelin offers useful tips for raising children in an increasingly barbaric culture. The Great Books: A Journey Throuhg 2,500 Years of the West's Classic Literature is a useful introduction to what neither college professors nor popular culture offers any more: the genuine culture of the West. American Babylon: Notes of a Christian Exile is the Rev. John Neuhaus's valedictory meditation on being a Christian in this world where "we have no lasting city."

And Silent Cal's Almanack is a gem of a book, a collection of the remarkable sayings of our least talkative President. If stewing in the ever-leftier media leaves you half-convinced that the freedom-loving, God- fearing, free-market America that conservatives champion is figment of our unrealistic nostalgia -- or a world view invented by Bill Buckley or Ronald Reagan -- Calvin Coolidge's words will clear up the misunderstanding. In fact, there really was a time when the President of the United States was a lover of liberty and responsibility. If Obamaspeak is giving you a headache, this book is the right medicine for you.