Comments on: Food for a stiff upper lip

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 19:43:27 +0000

Btw, Oz, the people who disagree with you have defended you more against the charges of “concern troll” than you yourself have. It may look like you don’t care, but obviously you do. You care but you can’t bring yourself to defend yourself. You only mention it as a fact. Not so very entertaining when the pull of entropy can’t be resisted when it is acting against you, now is it.

By: babbie

babbie — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:24:23 +0000

I was just barely old enough to vote for Goldwater in 1964 (yes, I know I’m ancient), but you must be feeling about as I did after working so hard for his election. Pundits tolled the death knell of both the Republican Party and conservatism. We vowed that we’d come back, no matter how long it took. It took exactly 16 years, when we elected Reagan. It can be done.

By: Zhombre

Zhombre — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:19:38 +0000

Thanks to all for the response and the suggestions. Thomas Sowell and British historian Paul Johnson were already on my mental list. I actually gave her a copy of Sowell’s Economic Facts & Fallacies.

By: Charles Martel

Charles Martel — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:05:25 +0000

Some good books include “The Quest for Cosmic Justice” by Thomas Sowell, which gives great insights into the leftist dream of achieving utopia through purely human means.

Also, “The Long March” by Roger Kimball, written in the 1990s but absolutely applicable today, describes how folks like Bill Ayers and his clones decided to take over academia and other fundamental western institutions then subvert them from within.

“The Road to Serfdom,” written in the 1940s by Friedrich Hayek, is considered a classical analysis of how free people can allow themselves to slowly become wards of the state.

“Witness,” by Whittaker Chambers, the man who exposed Alger Hiss as a communist, is a brilliant confessional/memoir/philosophical treatise that tracks a man’s progress from credulousness to consciousness. A good read for a college kid who wants to see a brilliant mind at work.

By: benning

benning — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:33:37 +0000

Book, I went with a bag of M&Ms.

By: suek

suek — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:09:52 +0000

>>I think there’s a difference between repressed and reserved, the latter is frequently mistaken for the former.>>

You’re right. That’s a better choice of words. “Reserved” is voluntary, “Repressed” is not. There _is_ a certain amount of coercion in some parts of the country, though, and in that case, repressed would be the better choice. I think it probably depends on just how strong societal disapproval in an area is. It’s one thing to “disapprove” of certain behavior, another thing entirely to “shun” someone as a result of their behavior. We’re social animals. Shunning is a form of outcasting, and just as those in Marin county didn’t want to come out and proclaim their support for McCain, we all don’t want to be outcasts in our community. It isn’t physical, but can be just about as powerful.

By: Quisp

Quisp — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:56:24 +0000

“If you look at the birth rates in the US, where are they higher? in the sexually exuberant areas, or in the relatively sexually repressed areas?”

I think there’s a difference between repressed and reserved, the latter is frequently mistaken for the former.

By: suek

suek — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:18:51 +0000

“America Alone” was not what I expected…somehow I anticipated it as being the American goddess of liberty armed with a sword and shield and standing against the hordes of islam. Instead, it’s more of a homesteading pioneer with her multiple children surrounding her and clinging to her skirts.
His book is dull in concept – discussing population statistics, and reproduction trends. It’s definitely not dull in the prosecution, though…as Mark says, it’s often laugh out loud funny.
As I started to write this, my second comparison was going to be that it was more of a prone American goddess…but that sounded rather risque. True, perhaps, but then my thoughts ran on to Europe, tv, pornography, sex etc. In the early 60s, we spent 4 years in Germany. Sex was very open there at that time…the red light district was well known and legal. TV was non-existent. By our second tour in the late 60s- early 70s, everyone had a TV, and the hours of 6-9PM were known as children’s programming hours where the material was very conservative. Outside of those hours, the material – including and maybe even especially the ads – was R rated. In fact, often X rated. I’d compare it to TV in the US today, except our ads are still fairly free of sexual content. Sex was an open topic and there was snickering about the US prudishness about sexual material. And then you read AA and discover that with all that sex going on, the birth rate is dropping like a lead sash weight.
The muslims of Europe, of course, who repress women to the point of insanity, are multiplying at a rate that would put rabbits to shame.

If you look at the birth rates in the US, where are they higher? in the sexually exuberant areas, or in the relatively sexually repressed areas?

There’s a connection here. I’m not sure what it is, but there is a connection. Maybe “sex is for fun” vs “sex is for reproduction” mentality? I don’t know.

By: Mike Devx

Mike Devx — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:11:52 +0000

I can second Book’s “America Alone” by Mark Steyn. Very well done! It has the additional benefit of containing lots of biting, hilariously satirical prose. Often laugh-out-loud.

By: Bookworm

Bookworm — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:21:32 +0000

I'd also recommend Melanie Phillips' Londonistan, Bruce Bawer's While Europe Slept, and Mark Steyn's America Alone. Although each is ostensibly about Islam ascendant, all are really about the way in which Islam became so powerful in Europe because of an unholy alliance of political progressivism and social multiculturalism, two Leftist tools that, when working together, destroyed Europe's and England's sense of of self.