3 book recommendations

[tector]

Since I was just labeled a "redneck racist" (or was it a "racist redneck"?--both are laughable) in another thread, I am bringing you three book recommendations that might help some of you understand what is happening to your country, rapidly. Sorry to disappoint you, Taco, but these recommendations do not include The Turner Diaries, The Camp of the Saints or even Mein Kampf.

1. The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties (https://www.amazon.com/Age-Entitlement- ... 501106910/)

This is popular history of the U.S. since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, emphasizing its unintended consequences (and, to a lesser degree, the same for the Immigration Act of 1965). It is hard to question that the CRA was politically necessary given the stubbornness of racist structures in the US at the time (and not just in the South).But sometimes even the most necessary acts will bring unintended baggage that can be highly toxic. Example: in order to defeat Hitler, it was probably necessary to support the USSR (i.e. Stalin) in the short run. But of course that led to half of Europe being enslaved for almost half a century after the war. These things happen.

The gist of the book is not that the CRA was wrong. But rather how it undermined the Constitution by essentially rewriting it, destroying the right of free association, and serving as the basis for a "rights revolution" not in any way tied to a history of racial discrimination. When some mentally ill guy in a dress wants to go in the bathroom with your wife and daughter, you can thank the CRA. Almost all of the "slippery slope" arguments made against it at the time from non-racists such as Barry Goldwater have come true, and then some.

2. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody (https://www.amazon.com/Cynical-Theories ... 634312023/)

If you intuitively hate identity politics, and wonder why De Santis is opposing something called "Critical Race Theory" in our schools, this book is for you. Critical theory arises from some doctrines originated by obscure (to most Americans) French intellectuals in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, so there will be parts of the book that might be a little foreign to most of us, but this is not a textbook or a highly arcane work. It is a tremendous overview of how this lunacy arose (initially on university campuses, but now running amok everywhere) and where it hopes to go. Trust me, it will not be good for you and yours should it prevail. Seriously, for me, the Khmer Rouge came to mind.

Both of these books are probably in your library--there were in mine (commie Broward County). In fact, the first was also available as an audio book. It doesn't get any easier than that.

3. Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America (https://www.amazon.com/Facing-Reality-T ... 641771976/)

Confession, I have not read (or listened to) this book. But I have a good reason--it's not being released until June 15, 2021. So why I am recommending it? Because the author is Charles Murray who, as a co-author, caused a shitstorm in the 90s with The Bell Curve (use a fair search engine to check it out). I just listened to Murray on a 2 hour podcast, where he did not discuss this upcoming book at all, which was exceedingly odd. But he did make one point that seemed unmistakably forward-looking: he's now 78, and there is not much that can now be done to him. He is exceeding bright and well-spoken.

Here's the publicity blurb for the book on Amazon:

"The charges of white privilege and systemic racism that are tearing the country apart fIoat free of reality. Two known facts, long since documented beyond reasonable doubt, need to be brought into the open and incorporated into the way we think about public policy: American whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians have different violent crime rates and different means and distributions of cognitive ability. The allegations of racism in policing, college admissions, segregation in housing, and hiring and promotions in the workplace ignore the ways in which the problems that prompt the allegations of systemic racism are driven by these two realities.

What good can come of bringing them into the open? America’s most precious ideal is what used to be known as the American Creed: People are not to be judged by where they came from, what social class they come from, or by race, color, or creed. They must be judged as individuals. The prevailing Progressive ideology repudiates that ideal, demanding instead that the state should judge people by their race, social origins, religion, sex, and sexual orientation.

We on the center left and center right who are the American Creed’s natural defenders have painted ourselves into a corner. We have been unwilling to say openly that different groups have significant group differences. Since we have not been willing to say that, we have been left defenseless against the claims that racism is to blame. What else could it be? We have been afraid to answer. We must. Facing Reality is a step in that direction."

I am confident Murray will go out with his empirical guns blazing. At just 168 pages, this cannot be a hoary, dense book. It has to be a summary of points he was made in far more detail (including in The Bell Curve) over the decades. I expect all here will benefit from it.

[dammitgriff]

Very good reading list, Tector. Thanks.
Please allow me to recommend Thomas Sowell’s sizable written collection on the topic of race in the United States.

"Thomas Sowell has spent a lifetime challenging the orthodoxy on race, economics and more - and produced an impressive body of scholarship along the way."

R/Griff

[tector]

Sowell is of course a genius, I meant no slight to him. I picked three slim volumes for easy consumption.

[tector]

If you intuitively hate identity politics, and wonder why De Santis is opposing something called "Critical Race Theory" in our schools, this book is for you. Critical theory arises from some doctrines originated by obscure (to most Americans) French intellectuals in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, so there will be parts of the book that might be a little foreign to most of us, but this is not a textbook or a highly arcane work. It is a tremendous overview of how this lunacy arose (initially on university campuses, but now running amok everywhere) and where it hopes to go. Trust me, it will not be good for you and yours should it prevail. Seriously, for me, the Khmer Rouge came to mind.

If you think I am exaggerating on the Khmer Rouge analogy, here is a typical example that I just got in a newsletter 15 minutes ago:

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-ps ... -the-white

[tector]

Here's another fairly slim volume I HIGHLY recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/War-West-Douglas ... 063162024/

Nice volume pulling all the lunacy together.