If, as some have said, conservatives are ruled by facts and liberals by emotions, one would be hard-put to find a better illustration of the aphorism than popular radio talk-show host Phil Valentine's The Conservative's Handbook: Defining the Right Positions on Issues from A to Z. Initially his A-to-Z issues were developed as a primer to be posted on his Web site to bring his audience up to speed with today's events. When they proved so popular and informative with his audience, he realized he had struck a responsive chord, that the realities he had outlined spoke to a great number of people.
The Conservative's Handbook provides a conservative viewpoint on a wide range of ideas. Among them are guns, global warming, drugs, partial birth abortion, education, political correctness, entrepreneurs, and the wisdom of Ronald Reagan. In doing so, it covers the hot issues of today as well as perennial topics of interest. The knowledge he imparts is more than just information. It's ammunition for conservatives when they are caught up in discussions with friends and arguments with those on the Left.
Many arguments between liberals and conservatives degenerate into name-calling and unsubstantiated claims. The Conservative's Handbook distills those raw emotions and extraneous thoughts into a cohesive argument for conservative principles and values, covering the full array of today's fiscal and social issues in a manner that is comprehensive without being overwhelming.
This book may inform you, humor you, or enrage you. But if you approach it with an open mind, it will make you think and may cause you to change some of your opinions.
About this product: THE CONSERVATIVE S POLITICAL BIBLE. Let s say you re listening to a loony liberal, debating some dopey Democrat, or arguing with a gaggle of goofy lefties. Wouldn t it be great to have the facts to combat all those liberals lies? Well, here it is: finally, the book that sets the record straight! Radio host and author Gregg Jackson has written THE authoritative answer book for conservatives concerning our nations key concerns: Abortions, terrorism, the Patriot Act, separation of church and state, immigration, the environment, homosexual marriage, taxes, deficits, school vouchers, gun control, health care, social security, education, media bias, and President Bush s real record of achievements. What makes Conservative Comebacks to Liberal Lies so important is that it gives conservatives, right-leaning independents, and even disaffected Democrats the truth they need to counter common liberal claims. Issue by issue, the book offers clear and concise conservative responses and comebacks. Here is a brilliant, A-to-Z reference book that gives readers clear-cut answers on today s most pressing political and social issues. Conservative Comeback to Liberal Lies should be in the hands of every red-blooded conservative in America!
About this product: The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk is arguably one of the greatest contributions to twentieth-century American Conservatism. Brilliant in every respect, from its conception to its choice of significant figures representing the history of intellectual conservatism, The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk launched the modern American Conservative Movement. A must-read.
Today's conservatives support the idea of limited government, but they have increased government's size and power to new heights. They believe in balanced budgets, but they have boosted government spending, debt, and pork to record levels. They believe in national security but launched a reckless, ideological occupation in Iraq that has made us tangibly less safe. They have substituted religion for politics and damaged both.
In The Conservative Soul, one of the nation's leading political commentators makes an impassioned call to rescue conservatism from the excesses of the Republican far right, which has tried to make the GOP the first fundamentally religious party in American history. In this bold and powerful book, Andrew Sullivan makes a provocative, prescient, and heartfelt case for a revived conservatism at peace with the modern world, and dedicated to restraining government and empowering individuals to live rich and fulfilling lives.
About this product: In Conservatives Without Conscience, John Dean, who served as White House counsel under Richard Nixon and then helped to break the Watergate scandal with his testimony before the Senate, takes a vivid and analytical look at a Republican Party that has changed drastically from the conservative movement that he joined in the mid-1960s as an admirer of Senator Barry Goldwater. Listen to our interview with Dean as part of our July 13 Amazon Wire podcast (along with interviews with Garrison Keillor and Henry Rollins) to hear how he originally conceived of the book with the late Senator Goldwater, and the social science research he drew on to put together his portrait of the "conservative authoritarian." (You can subscribe to regular Wire podcasts here.) And take a look at Dean's choices for the best books to read on the American presidency in our Grownup School feature.
How to Win a Fight With a Conservative is the ultimate survival guide to arguing politics, filled with all the cunning strategies, damning facts, and merciless ridicule liberals need to give their conservative "friends, neighbors and countrymen" the verbal smackdown of a lifetime.
With the presidential election approaching, this irreverent yet practical guide is essential reading for unpracticed neophytes and seasoned politicos alike—the perfect primer for anyone who's ever fantasized about smacking sense into a misguided right-wing adversary.
Includes:
The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Partisans
The Conservative Hall of Shame
How to Detect Lies, Propaganda, and General BS
Kick-Ass Arguments: A Step-by-Step Guide
...and much, much more!
This roadmap to success will help you size up, knock down, and win over your conservative rivals—without making yourself the target of the local militia.
PRAISE FOR DANIEL KURTZMAN
"You should pick up this book before your next dinner party." Gayle King, editor-at-large of O, The Oprah Magazine and host of "The Gayle King Show" on Oprah and Friends
"Daniel Kurtzman doesn't have a political axe to grind. He has two axes to grind. And he does it with the sharpest wit seen in these bipartisan parts for quite some time. Crisscrossing the aisle with wicked glee; no matter which book you finish first, you'll immediately want to run out and get the other one to discover what he said about your side. Just remember to wear a disguise." Will Durst, political satirist and author of The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing
"No one knows political satire like Daniel Kurtzman." Andy Borowitz, creator of The Borowitz Report and author of The Republican Playbook
"When the folks over at JibJab are looking for a fair and balanced laugh, Daniel Kurtzman's our guy. His How to Win a Fight with a Liberal / Conservative will have you in stitches regardless of your political affiliation!" Gregg Spiridellis, co-founder of JibJab.com
About this product: The cult of the free market has dominated economic policy-talk since the Reagan revolution of nearly thirty years ago. Tax cuts and small government, monetarism, balanced budgets, deregulation, and free trade are the core elements of this dogma, a dogma so successful that even many liberals accept it. But a funny thing happened on the bridge to the twenty-first century. While liberals continue to bow before the free-market altar, conservatives in the style of George W. Bush have abandoned it altogether. That is why principled conservatives -- the Reagan true believers -- long ago abandoned Bush.
Enter James K. Galbraith, the iconoclastic economist. In this riveting book, Galbraith first dissects the stale remains of Reaganism and shows how Bush and company had no choice except to dump them into the trash. He then explores the true nature of the Bush regime: a "corporate republic," bringing the methods and mentality of big business to public life; a coalition of lobbies, doing the bidding of clients in the oil, mining, military, pharmaceutical, agribusiness, insurance, and media industries; and a predator state, intent not on reducing government but rather on diverting public cash into private hands. In plain English, the Republican Party has been hijacked by political leaders who long since stopped caring if reality conformed to their message.
Galbraith follows with an impertinent question: if conservatives no longer take free markets seriously, why should liberals? Why keep liberal thought in the straitjacket of pay-as-you-go, of assigning inflation control to the Federal Reserve, of attempting to "make markets work"? Why not build a new economic policy based on what is really happening in this country?
The real economy is not a free-market economy. It is a complex combination of private and public institutions, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, higher education, the housing finance system, and a vast federal research establishment. The real problems and challenges -- inequality, climate change, the infrastructure deficit, the subprime crisis, and the future of the dollar -- are problems that cannot be solved by incantations about the market. They will be solved only with planning, with standards and other policies that transcend and even transform markets.
A timely, provocative work whose message will endure beyond this election season, The Predator State will appeal to the broad audience of thoughtful Americans who wish to understand the forces at work in our economy and culture and who seek to live in a nation that is both prosperous and progressive.
Why does Hillary Clinton crusade for government-provided health care for every American, for the redistribution of wealth, and for child rearing to become a collective obligation? Why does Al Gore say that it’s okay to “over-represent” the dangers of global warming in order to sell Americans on his draconian solutions? Why does Michael Moore call religion a device to manipulate “gullible” Americans?
Where did these radical ideas come from? And how did they enter the mainstream discourse?
In this groundbreaking and compelling new book, Daniel J. Flynn uncovers the surprising origins of today’s Left. The first work of its kind, A Conservative History of the American Left tells the story of this remarkably resilient extreme movement–one that came to America’s shores with the earliest settlers.
Flynn reveals a history that leftists themselves ignore, whitewash, or obscure. Partly the Left’s amnesia is convenient: Who wouldn’t want to forget an ugly history that includes eugenics, racism, violence, and sheer quackery? Partly it is self-aggrandizing: Bold schemes sound much more innovative when you refuse to acknowledge that they have been tried–and have failed–many times before. And partly it is unavoidable: The Left is so preoccupied with its triumphal future that it doesn’t pause to learn from its past mistakes. So it goes that would-be revolutionaries have repeatedly failed to recognize the one troubling obstacle to their grandiose visions: reality.
In unfolding this history, Flynn presents a page-turning narrative filled with colorful, fascinating characters–progressives and populists, radicals and reformers, socialists and SDSers, and leftists of every other stripe. There is the rags-to-riches Welsh industrialist who brought his utopian vision to America–one in which private property, religion, and marriage represented “the most monstrous evils”–and gained audiences with the likes of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison. There is the wife-swapping Bible thumper who nominated Jesus Christ for president. There is the playboy adventurer whose worshipful accounts of Soviet Russia lured many American liberals to Communism. There is the daughter of privilege turned violent antiwar activist who lost her life to a bomb she had intended to use against American soldiers. There are fanatics and free spirits, perverts and puritans, entrepreneurs and altruists, and many more beyond.
A Conservative History of the American Left is a gripping chronicle of the radical visionaries who have relentlessly pursued their lofty ambitions to remake society. Ultimately, Flynn shows the destructiveness that comes from this undying pursuit of dreams that are utterly unattainable.
About this product: The best-selling enfant terrible of the Reagan revolution offers advice to today's budding conservatives--the very people he sees as the true "radicals" of tomorrow
Dinesh D'Souza rose to national prominence as one of the founders of the Dartmouth Review, a leading voice in the rebirth of conservative politics on college campuses in the 1980s.
He fired the first popular shot against political correctness with his best-selling exposŽ Illiberal Education. Now, after serving as a Reagan White House staffer, the managing editor of Policy Review, and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution, he addresses the next generation in Letters to a Young Conservative. Drawing on his own colorful experiences, both within the conservative world and while skirmishing with the left, D'Souza aims to enlighten and inspire young conservatives and give them weapons for the intellectual battles that they face in high school, college, and everyday life. Letters to a Young Conservative also illuminates the enduring themes that for D'Souza anchor the conservative position: not "family values" or patriotism, but a philosophy based on natural rights and a belief in universal moral truths.
With a light touch, D'Souza shows that conservatism needn't be stodgy or defensive, even though it is based on preserving the status quo. To the contrary, when a conservative has to expose basic liberal assumptions to scrutiny, he or she must become a kind of imaginative, fun-loving, forward-looking guerrilla--philosophically conservative but temperamentally radical.
Among the topics Dinesh D'Souza covers in Letters to a Young Conservative: