I just finished reading a great book, "Samuel Adams, a Life", by Ira Stoll. It is the biography of a man, who was a fiery advocate of Liberty, and by his actions he became known as the "Father of the American Revolution". He is usually overlooked when the "Founding Fathers" are mentioned, but as one of the Founding Fathers and signers of the "Declaration of Independence", his teachings are embedded in our early history, and are a part of the soul of people today who fight the intrusion of government into our lives, and resulting loss of freedoms. For anyone interested in freedom, American History, and the "American Dream", this book is a must read.
"Rules for Radical Conservatives", by David Kahane is another book which I am about half way through, it is a tongue-in-cheek description of how the Progressives have insidiously taken over the Democrat party, the government bureaucracy, and Academia. It then describes how the Progressive's methods can be turned against them and used to turn back their agenda.
Most people have probably read the next book I am going to recommend, but now that the Obama agenda is probably dead legislatively, he will make every effort to bypass Congress, and force his agenda on us through bureaucratic regulations. This is a scary book that should be reread, because it is coming at us like an F5 tornado. For those of you who don't pay attention or "pooh-pooh" it, in the not too distant future, you'll look around, and say "What the hell happened?". The book is "1984", by George Orwell.
Jon, I've also got a book suggestion for you: "Griftopia" by Matt Taibbi. The first chapter in particular explains why Tea Party people are not interested government regulation of the financial industry. Makes sense to me - finally!
ReplyDeleteRelated: I'm now looking at the quote under R.Reagan photo. "Government is the problem." Yes, I'd agree it is in some situations. Like they replaced "Glass-Steagall" with FSMA and CFMA. Doesn't that bother you?
Dick Jones
Jon! Have you read "Animal Farm", by the same author, George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)? It runs in line with "Nineteen Eighty-Four". "Anumal Farm" was published in 1945, "Nineteen Eighty-FOur" in 1949. Also, by Orwell, "Down and Out in Paris and London" (1933), before he was politically aligned. He began to lean toward Marxism, and was sometimes called a Facist. While fighthing in the Spanish Cival War, he was shot in the throat, had to recuperate. He eventually got "Animal Farm" published in '45, it was controversial in that many thought it was an attack on the degenerating Soviet Regime after the Russian Revolution, but it brought him worldwide success, and a sought after figure. He spent the next four years working on "Nineteen Eighty-Four", his most successful novel.
ReplyDeleteOrwell wrote , in 1940 about Charles Dickens: ..."He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is genuinely angry--in other words, of a nineteenth=century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls."
It was "suggestted that the last two sentences characterized Orwell as much as his subject."
2 + 2 = 5 ?
Dick,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure exactly what you are saying, but I firmly believe in the Constitution, which is supposed to provide for a very limited Federal Government, a representative Republic. If you are saying that the government should be regulating the Financial industry, then I totally disagree. It's not a question of whether it should be or not. Basically, if it isn't in the Constitution the Federal Government has no right legislating it. See the 10th Amendment which has lost all it's meaning, since the Government has totally bastardized the "Commerce Clause". They now feel they can do anything (see Obamacare). If you want the Government regulating all that "stuff", then amend the Constitution to provide for it. The Founding Fathers made it possible to do that. Don't just ignore it!
Austin,
ReplyDeleteI have read "Animal Farm" and I would say that while it was a "take off" on the Russian revolution, the "rules" eventually are changed to say - "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" (See Washington, D.C. circa, 2010.