WHAT TO READ - 2015
Dr. Jack Wheeler - Dec. 18, 2015 -To The Point (TTP)
Merry Christmas! And welcome to the fourth annual TTP What to Read.
We initiated this tradition with a list of the books I read and recommended in 2012.
It’s a week before Christmas to give you a chance to provide a Christmas present from the list. The links are to the Kindle edition on Amazon, each with multiple comments and quotes.
You can inexpensively gift someone instantly with the Kindle edition – I read all of these on my iPad – while there’s still time for Amazon to deliver a hard copy, or there’s your local bookstore.
I kept the list not to all the books I read this year, but to just those I thought would be of real interest to TTPers. There are several I think it quite important for you to consider.
I’m sure you’ll find at least one or two fascinating either for yourself or someone you care for. Or a regressive libtard you want to educate and/or infuriate.
And, please let us know on the Forum what books rang your bell this year. Here we go.
The Cave and the Light:
Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization
Arthur Herman
A fascinating study of Western Civilization for the last 2,500 years as a dynamic struggle between the thought of Aristotle versus Plato – making as one reviewer puts it, “history and philosophy as an adventure story!”
The bottom line: Plato is the source for The French Revolution and control of the individual by the State; Aristotle is the source for the American Revolution and individual liberty. Democrats are Platonists while Conservatives are Aristotelians.
The New Class Conflict
Joel Kotkin
One of the most important books of the year, and it’s written by an old-time liberal Democrat who can’t stand what’s happened to his party.
The class conflict he condemns is that of the Silicon Valley Oligarchy combined with the Washington-media-academia Clerisy waging war on America’s Middle Class and hard-working Yeomanry.
The Revolt Against the Masses:
How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class
Fred Siegel
The must-read companion piece to Kotkin.
“The roots of American liberalism are not compassion but snobbery… (its) common thread is scorn for middle-class Americans and for America itself… required reading for those who wonder how liberal elites came to dominate our culture, overriding the will of the people.”
End of Discussion:
How the Left’s Outrage Industry Shuts Down Debate,
Manipulates Voters, and Makes America Less Free (and Fun)
Mary Katharine Ham and Guy Benson
A marvelously funny exposé of the grievance industry’s manufactured outrage, and the media cancer promoting it.
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police
Vox Day
Although based on inside baseball talk of “Gamergate,” very useful in explaining the vulnerabilities of the Social Justice Warriors of the Left.
If we want our culture to flourish again, SJWs must be opposed, ridiculed, defied and defeated everywhere at every opportunity. Vox tells you how. “Sun Tzu’s The Art of War for the Digital Media Generation.”
By The People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission
Charles Murray
This is in effect a scholar’s response to my The Double-D Strategy for Rescuing America from December 2009.
Murray focuses on the second D, Disobey. My article called for “a Revolution of Disobedience… Disobey the Gandhi Way. Peaceful civil disobedience. No violence. Just the refusal to obey fascist and unconstitutional laws.”
Murray has worked out a specific strategy on how best to do this. He proposes a test for selecting which laws and regulations to disobey: the “That’s ridiculous!” test.
If that’s the reaction of the public at large regarding the law/rule, you have a good chance of mass disobedience and winning in court. It’s the way to regain our freedom “without permission,” via civil disobedience and ridicule regarding a federalie edict any normal person would say, that’s ridiculous.
Every conservative needs to act on Murray’s advice.
Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign
Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich
Peter Schweizer
We all know the Clintons are crooked corrupt scum who belong in jail. Schweizer provides the gory details.
Climate Change: The Facts
Alan Moran (editor)
This anthology of the best scientific refutations of global warming pseudo-science – of scientists being bribed to prostitute themselves for a fascist political agenda – is the best education you could ask for on the subject.
“Global Warning, models and language” by Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology at MIT, is but one excellent example. Mark Steyn’s “Global warming’s ship of fools” is the funniest.
Heaven + Hell: The Pope Condemns the Poor to Eternal Poverty
Ian Plimer
Dr. Plimer, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne, is a contributor to Climate Change: The Facts. This is his latest book. As he comments:
“The Encyclical Letter of Pope Francis (Laudato Si “On care for our common home” issued May 24, 2015) was influenced by atheists, communists and green activists. The Pope advocates burdening the Third World with inefficient unreliable high cost renewable energy and agriculture thereby keeping the poor in eternal poverty.”
The Hundred-Year Marathon:
China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower
Michael Pillsbury
Pillsbury’s marathon is the 100 years between the founding of Chicom China by Mao in 1949 and 2049, by which time they plan to have replaced America. The evidence he amasses for the Chicoms’ fanatically pursuing this strategy is impressive.
I knew Mike back in the Reagan days; he’s now head of the Hudson Institute’s Center on Chinese Strategy. See my The Chinese Marathon from March 2015.
Life Unfolding: How The Human Body Creates Itself
Jamie A. Davies
This is the one science book I’m listing of all I read this year. Dr. Davies, Professor of Experimental Anatomy at the University of Edinburgh, describes the completely mind-boggling complexity of how an egg fertilized by a sperm grows into a fully formed baby inside a woman’s womb.
It would be simply inhuman to read this book and then even contemplate aborting this miracle.
John Wayne: The Life and Legend
Scott Eyman
Simply wonderful. The definitive biography of Hollywood’s greatest movie star, a great American, and a truly great human being.
I can’t resist showing the cover, as it’s a picture of the Duke I’ve never seen – and a clip of my favorite scene of his, from Red River.
And lastly but foremost:
The Jade Steps
The one book on this list I most encourage you to read – and buy a copy of for every friend you have in the world! And feel completely free to add your Customer Review!
Merry Christmas reading!
TOP CROSS-THREADED POLITICS HOME
