Teach Your Children

God gave us dominion.  Teach you kids to hunt tasty creatures

Blind Ideology is killing the Democrats.  It would have killed the GOP, if libertarian and free-thinking tea partiers had not infiltrated the ranks.

I decided long ago that my kids would not fall prey to the progressive indoctrination that infests every corner of society.  Teaching kids how to think, instilling in them a moral code, and giving them some historical context for evaluating events goes a long way towards raising an ideologically-bullet-proof person. 


Know how to think
Logical, critical thinking is the most important skill. An easy way to introduce yourself to logic is to do a sudoku. A simple explanation of the syllogism is also a good start. Add to that some examples of logical fallacies and you now at least have a logical framework to analyze what someone is telling you. There are on-line resources that can get you started.

Know what you believe
A person with no moral code is a fire. Could do good, could do bad, depending on which way the wind blows. Any religious person should start with their religious texts.  For Christians, that's The Holy Bible, Old Testament and New Testament. The Bible contains every note in the key of life. It starts with God creating mankind and quickly goes downhill from there. The story of God leading the ungrateful Hebrews out of bondage is a story of each ungrateful person's struggle with obeying Our Creator.

For those agnostics and atheists, there are many non-religious moral codes out there. Pick one.

The 'bible" of American government is The US Constitution.  You can't call yourself a good, patriotic American if you've never read it.  Go here to visit Silverfiddle's Constitutional Resource page.  Proposed legislation and government action should be evaluated against this document.

Read history and the classics
I think history is the best teacher. Read enough and you will learn that there is indeed nothing new under the sun. You will also see that whatever you are going through is not the superlative event of its kind in the history of man. Things have been better, and things have been worse. We're living in higher luxury now, but the basic human condition has not changed.

Churchill's The History of English Speaking Peoples, The Story of English, Gibbons' The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and Bill Bennett's America, the Last Best Hope are good starters. Be sure to read things you think you will disagree with; it will stretch your brain and maybe change your mind.

Finally, a healthy dose of skepticism never hurt anyone.

See my List of Great Books Here

Read These Books Now!

It's a left-right battle, and information is the ammo!

If you want to arm yourself up for liberal-conservative battle (or just make a small-government argument), there are literally hundreds of books you could read. If you're like me, you just don't have that kind of time.

Herewith I humbly commend to you four books that will get you up to speed in the minimum amount of time while giving you the maximum amount of essential history and critical information.


1. The 5000 Year Leap, Cleon Skousen
Absolutely essential, unless you are already a constitutional expert. He breaks down the founders' ideas into 28 easy to understand principles. If you want to understand the constitution and the thinking that went into it, you must read this book. It also has many useful quotes from the founders.

2. Liberty and Tyranny, Mark Levin
If you are a political neophyte, this is a must-read for you. He clearly and concisely explains the great issues facing us today, and applies the timeless principles of our founding fathers to each of them. Levin's gift is to make complex issues understandable and accessible to ordinary people.

If you're already politically well-versed, you may find this book a little pedantic. This is in no way a criticism. He writes like he speaks, and he thoroughly covers all the important issues without going too deep, which is a plus for beginners. If you could only read one book, this should be the one.

3. Hoodwinked, Jack Cashill
A veritable catalog of liberal lies. You will be stunned at what progressives have gotten by with these past 150 years. This is a treasure trove of material to lob back at the smug liberals who think they know it all. It is also useful for disabusing the ignorant who have innocently believed everything professors and news magazines have told them.

It's all there: The scientific frauds in pursuit of proving we all came from Darwin's primordial soup, Planned Parenthood's racist founding, Criminals the left hold up as heroes. As a bonus, Cashill's storytelling style makes this a breezy read that is never dull.

4. Liberal Fascism, Johah Goldberg
This is the mother lode of progressive history in America. It took me some time to read this book because it was so dense with information. I often found myself stopping to ponder some point or flip back to the footnotes because I could not believe what Goldberg was saying. He lays his case out carefully and with copious authoritative references.

This is an immensely interesting book for those who like history, and it is a slow read only because it is so packed with good information. It is well worth the read. You will understand just what fascism is and why the American left can be accused of it when you're done. You will also be able to explain why Mussolini and Hitler were not "right wingers," but rather hard-core socialist demagogues who harnessed commerce and society to the wagon of state.

Extra Credit:

The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes

An economic history of the great depression. Her central thesis is that Roosevelt's Keynesian meddling prolonged the economic woes of the 1930's. This book also gives you a good sense of the roots of progressivism and the urge to believe big government can solve everything.
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President Obama didn't invent progressivism; it's been around for over 100 years. He is merely using current crises to advance progressivism's Long March. Read these books and you will see the big picture. Never again will you believe, as I once did, that the liberal movers and shakers are merely misguided.  They have an agenda!

Progressivism/liberalism has a rich ideological history and a mature doctrine. It is the left's game plan. Time to arm up with knowledge and fight back in the arena of ideas.

Intellectual Morons

I just finished reading Intellectual Morons by Daniel J. Flynn and I highly recommend it. The title is unfortunate, suggesting a Coulteresque screed instead of the scholarly but breezy read that it is.

"ideology acts as a mental straitjacket. It blinds adherents to reality, breeds fanaticism, and rationalizes dishonesty. It makes smart people stupid."

Flynn covers much of the same ground Jack Cashill covers in Hoodwinked, but from a slightly different angle, making both books essential reading. What distinguishes this book is the treatment of ideology: Flynn leads off with a thought-provoking chapter on the subject, and it is a thread that runs through the book.

Do You Use Ideology as a Crutch?
Ideology can be a mental framework to make sense of what's going on around you, but Flynn sees it is more as a crutch for those too lazy to think for themselves.  Reading the opening chapter slowly and thoughtfully can provide a good intellectual self-examination.

The main idea behind Intellectual Morons is that ideology acts as a mental straitjacket. It blinds adherents to reality, breeds fanaticism, and rationalizes dishonesty. It makes smart people stupid.

It doesn’t matter how intelligent you are if you don’t use your brain. Intelligent people aren’t necessarily rigorous thinkers. In fact, many of them are mentally lazy. Ideology provides a way for lazy people to respond to issues, ideas, people, and events without thinking.

For the ideologue, ideology is the Rosetta Stone of everything. Why think when the system provides all the answers? Ideology is attractive to smart people because it flatters them by suggesting that a single idea from the mind of an intellectual has the power of explaining all of history or ordering the affairs of whole nations. No person is that smart; no idea that good. (Front Page - Interview)

My conservative friends are nodding their heads, thinking "oh yeah!"

But wait!  He goes after Ayn Rand, Objectivism, and those dreaded neocons as well, attacking not so much the adherents as the intellectual authors. It doesn't offend me because I am a fan of neither ideology, but even so, it is healthy to hear some reasoned criticism of one's sacred cows.

Neocons and Randites can still find much to love in the book.  He saves the vast majority of his firepower for the likes of Planned Parenthood, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, PETA, radical environmentalists and postmodernists.

Intellectual Morons is a storehouse of of ammo for those who enjoy arguing with liberals.  More importantly, it is a useful springboard to an intellectual self-examination.  

Are you an ideologue or an independent thinker?