Daily Archives: March 29, 2017

The writer Raj Patel once suggested that there are two novels that can transform a bookish 14-year-old kids life The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged and that one would produce an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, while the other is a book about orcs.

If thatquote is to be believed, then the ranks of the emotionally stunted and socially crippled must include such Rand devotees as Senator Ted Cruz, who quoted extensively from Rands novel Atlas Shrugged during a filibuster.

This is the same Ted Cruz, by the way, who very consciously announced his 2016 presidential campaign at Jerry Falwells Liberty University and constantly endorsed a return to Judeo-Christian values.

President Donald Trump, whose blatantly insincere lip service to Christianity ultimately triumphed over Cruzs initial popularity with evangelicals, is also a fan of Rands and, according to one interview, identifies strongly with Howard Roarke, the protagonist of The Fountainhead. Rand would likely have condemned Trump as a heinous pull-peddler, but I digress.

Unfortunately for Cruz and Trump (and all the tea partiers who claim to serve both Christ and Rand), the two philosophies are simply incompatible.

RELATED:Ayn Rands new lost novel should have stayed lost

In a nutshell, Rands philosophy, which she dubbed Objectivism, goes something like this: There is no God. Human beings are differentiated from animals only by their reason. By freely applying that reason, men can triumph over nature and create wealth. The way to be a good person is to use your reason well, and those who use their reason well become rich. So the ability to make money is the only system of morality thats on the gold standard.

Her characters swear never to live for another man or ask another man to live for them. Altruism is a wicked system of morality and charity that, while permissible, should only be practiced when the recipient is deserving and the giver is serving his own self-interest.

Rands novels also dehumanize the disabled and glorify adultery. Oh, and she was a champion of abortion rights and had a long extramarital affair.

Obviously the entire Christian worldviewfrom the metaphysical belief in the existence of God to the ethical emphasis on humility and charitystands opposed to these beliefs, and it is not necessary to go into detail on this point. That article has already been written dozens of times.

Despite these seemingly obvious contradictions, I have friends who consider themselves committed Christians while also claiming to find truth and inspiration in Rands works.

Certainly there is common ground to be found. A byproduct of Rands insistence on the primacy of human reason is her insistence on the freedom to exercise it. In her system, no man may use violence (whether directly or implicitly) to compel another to do anything.

RELATED:If we want a smaller government, we need to learn to take care of our communities

There is certainly a strong Christian tradition of defending individual liberty, from John Paul IIs work in liberating Eastern Europe from Soviet control to Whittaker Chambers defection from communism. But it is one thing to claim that our moral obligation to the disadvantaged is best fulfilled by the free market and quite another to claim that we have no moral obligation to the disadvantaged.

The latter argument, by the way, is a far more compassionate and voter-friendly way to frame a free-market, libertarian-leaning policy agenda.

I see no problem in agreeing with isolated ideas from the works of Ayn Rand while disagreeing with major parts of her philosophy as a whole. I do the same thing with Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Ursula K. LeGuin. And, I might add, House Speaker Paul Ryan does a decent job of pulling off that balance, saying in an interview with the National Catholic Register that her novels sparked his interest in capitalism and free markets, but that he later came to reject Objectivism because it reduces human interactions to mere contracts.

Those wishing to run for office as practitioners of a religion that emphasizes the dignity of all human life would do well to minimize their connection with Rand to a few key issues of individual freedom and loose regulationor, perhaps better yet, completely avoid quoting the manifestos/sexual fantasies of a woman devoid of pity.

Read more:

Sorry Ted Cruz, Christianity and Ayn Rand are incompatible - Rare.us

The greatest thinking and inquiries into human nature and society can come from the pages of a book. In between two covers, writers can present truths not always seen by the naked eye and challenge the status quo of society and power structures.

Some of the most powerful conservative thinking has come from the written word.

Through novels, artists have helped to define the meaning of individualism and to give power to the ideas of conservatism and free-thought philosophies.

Related: 10 Movies Every Conservative Needs to See

Here is a list of five novels every conservative should read, whether to deepen ones understanding of liberty principles, to challenge societal views of power or to just have a fine read.

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (1957) This novel of 60 years ago seems to ring truer every year. The story is both a celebration of individual accomplishment and an indictment of groupthink and the thuggery of bureaucracies.

A fast-paced novel that is also a capitalist manifesto; it celebrates the entrepreneurs who build and make new things, wrote conservative filmmaker Dinesh DSouza (Hillarys America) on his official website.

The story turned capitalists and entrepreneurs into its heroes. Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden fight an increasingly powerful government that is shaming individualism and accomplishment and holding back societys thinkers and innovators. When the worlds leading influencers and successes begin to disappear, the characters begin a search for a mysterious figure named John Galt who may be behind the mystery.

President Reagan called himself an admirer of Ayn Rand in a published letter he once wrote. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky also cited Rand as an influence of his at a speech at Dartmouth College in 2007.

Reportedly the second highest-selling book behind The Bible, Atlas Shrugged has influenced conservatives, libertarians, Republicans, and individualists everywhere. Rand managed to create an exciting novel with larger-than-life characters that used a love of capitalism as its driving force, and it was brilliant.

"It's much more than a story," said former Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) in a video for the "Atlas Shrugged" movie trilogy YouTube page. "It's influenced millions of people already and because of its greatness, it's going to continue to influence a lot of people." Paul added that the novel challenged the "conventional wisdom" of government and made him a stronger person and conservative.

"Hidden Order" by Brad Thor (2013) Thor once received death threats from Islamist extremists for his novel, "The Last Patriot." Never afraid to take on a controversial subject deemed politically incorrect, this writer brought attention to an issue libertarians and conservatives have been leading the charge on for years with "Hidden Order" the Federal Reserve.

Following Thor's fan-favorite character, Scot Harvath, as he investigates the murders of thecandidates who were in line totake over the Federal Reserve, the novel brought a lot about the secretive and inflation-loving government organization to light through sharp, intelligent, and thrilling writing.

While Thor always enjoyed a healthy audience of conservatives, 2013's "Hidden Order" won him new and bigger praise. "A great, great thriller," radio host Rush Limbaugh said of "Order." Fox News host Bill O'Reilly also recommended the novel on his show.

"I'm a big believer in less government is better government and we don't have less government now, and so my big push is transparency. I would talk to friends who had no idea what the Fed was," said Brad Thor to Reason TV last year of his novel also saying his goal was to inform readers while giving them an entertaining "beach read."

"Empire of Lies" by Andrew Klavan (2008) If readers didn't know novelist Klavan was a conservative before "Empire of Lies," they certainly knew afterward. Klavan's novel follows a conservative Christian named Jason Harrow who discovers the media and left-wing groups may be concealing the details to an Islamist terrorist plot.

The novel certainly didn't earn Klavan many friends in the mainstream media. "Klavan occupies the portion of the political spectrum commonly known as right-wing crackpot," said the Associated Press of Klavan's novel. "Through Harrow he tells us, among other things, that the entire media is a left-wing conspiracy, that taxes steal from the rich to give to the poor, that America is in a holy war with Islam, that the truth about darned near everything in the United States is obscured by a blizzard of politically correct lies and that anyone who disagrees with him is deluded."

Klavan's thriller was peppered with conservative messages and clicked with readers it became a best-seller. It's a wonderful read and the type of thriller every conservative should own, as it hits on truths about the media, the government, and political correctness that unfortunately still ring true today.

"Point of Impact" by Stephen Hunter(1993) The Washington Post is not exactly known as a conservative-friendly newspaper, but it did once employ Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Stephen Hunter.

Hunter not only reviewed movies for the publication, he also often wrote pro-Second Amendment stories, the type of well-constructed, intelligent pieces from someone who'd actually held a gun the type of pieces that are typically nowhere to be found in the mainstream media.

Hunter's respect for the right to bear arms and the inner workings of weapons fed into his successful novel career. His breakout hit, 1993's "Impact," was turned into a movie and a television series both called "Shooter."

The novel is a thriller about an assassination conspiracy, with Vietnam veteran Bob Lee Swagger as the government's scapegoat. Through Swagger, Hunter helped to culturally redefine people who own and use guns and Vietnam veterans two crowds that often co-mingle and are too often given not-so-nice or inaccurate treatment in the media and in film and storytelling.

It's an exciting read about how one individual goes up against a corrupt government that conservatives will love. Its open embrace of gun culture and Vietnam vets are two major bonuses. Readers have embraced Hunter's Swagger: The character has been in a total of nine books, with a 10th on the way this summer called "G-Man."

Related: Police Officers As You've Never Seen Them Before

"Animal Farm" by George Orwell (1945) "A parable about the totalitarian temptation embodied in socialism," wrote D'Souza on his website about "Animal Farm."

"Farm" was Orwell's direct criticism of the authoritarianism of Joseph Stalin and the rise of Stalinism in Moscow.

Brilliantly and simply told through farm animals, "Farm" examines the philosophies of aggression, individualism, and groupthink as animals on a farm plot a rebellion to be free of their farming masters.

It's not just a novel conservatives should read and re-read it's also one they should passing along to their children.

Excerpt from:

Five Novels Every Conservative Needs to Read | LifeZette - LifeZette

In early DecemberI wrote a piecerecountingall of President Barack Obamas attempts to woo Republicans and wondered whether members of the Tea Party represented by the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus would save Obamacare by once again refusing to go along with the GOPs leadership. And by gosh, they went and did it again. By all accounts, the Freedom Caucuswouldnt accept Paul Ryans draconian replacement for Obamacare because its members didnt merely wish to return to the time before theAffordable Care Act was enacted; they wanted to take the health care system back to the time of Dickensian England.

Mainstream conservatives, on the other hand, were willing to deny millions of people health care but figured that their seats might be in jeopardy if they went as far as the Freedom Caucus demanded. This bill died the way that everything dies in the Republican Congress at the hands of fanatics who will not take yes for an answer.

The best meme circulating on Twitter during the negotiations was this one:

Speaker Paul Ryan deserves the lions share of the blame for this debacle. Hes the allegedly serious wonk who was supposed to be able to whip up a quick replacement in a matter of days that House Republicanscould get through on reconciliation in the Senate with 50 votes, Trump would sign it and victory would be at hand in no time. That didnt work out. Ryans alleged grasp of policy was always a Beltway delusion, largely based on his love of Atlas Shrugged and those blue, blue eyes. The health care bill he slapped together was a monstrosity that failed on every level, from cost savings to coverage, and it pleased absolutely no one. The train wreck of a negotiationprocess shows that Ryan is just as bad at political leadership as he is at policy.

Inan insightful piece in The Atlantic about the GOPsinability to pass such an important piece of legislation,McCay Coppins observed that the party has been avoiding governance for nearly a decade and simply no longer knows how to do it. He wrote:

Indeed, without any real expectation of their bills actually being enacted, the legislative process mutated into a platform for point-scoring, attention-getting, and brand-building. At its most benign, this dynamic manifested itself in performative filibusters and symbolic votes that had no meaningful effect beyond raising a senators profile or appeasing the cable news-watching constituents back home.

That certainly explains why GOP voters were so ready to cast their ballotsfor Donald Trump as president. He is obviously the leader the party was waiting for.

I mentioned the other day that when Obama ran on fixing Washington and bringing people together, the Republicans came up with aclever plan to obstruct him at every turn and then crow that he failed to fulfill his promise. It worked pretty well. Obama spent his entire first term trying to reach out to Republicans to no avail, but even today its an article of faith on the right that Obama was divisive.

After the repeal and replace debacle, we can see there is a corollary with Trump. He didnt promise to bring people together but rather ran on a simple platform of winning. He was supposed to be the guy who could just walk into any room and hammer out a deal so fast it would make our heads spin.He claimedhe had a method of defeating ISIS quickly and effectively and having total victory. Hewould build that wall and make Mexico pay for it. He would immediately tear up all the existing trade deals and negotiate new ones on Americas terms. In fact, he was going to win so much in every way that wed get sick of all the winning and beg him to stop.

And against all odds through an anachronistic constitutional fluke, Trump won the Electoral College vote despite coming up millions of votes short in the popular count the real measure of his popularity. It was a win that wasnt really a win, and he clearly knows it. As president, Trump has suffered one defeat after another. From the disaster of his travel ban to the fiasco of the health care strategy and the Michael Flynn debacle (as well as the ongoing Russia scandal), his new administration is a catastrophic fail so far. The question now is when his voters are going to realize that Trump is not the winner he said he was.

Many people knew this before he was elected, including some Republicans:

After the House leadership pulled the halth care billfrom being votedon Friday, this quote from Trumps book The Art of the Deal made the rounds on social media:

You cant con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press and you can throw in a little hyperbole, But if you dont deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.

But that book wasnt written by Trump. It was written by his ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz. Trumps real belief is that when you dont deliver the goods, let them sue and get them agree to take pennies on the dollar. When you fail, always blame someone else.

Trump had signaled throughout the health care debatethat he didnt really want to deliver anything at all. He said he believed the best thing to do was lethealth care deteriorate so that people would blame the Democrats. On his terms then, he won.

And Trump actually loses a lot in life. He goes bankrupt and issued and exposed as a fake and fraud with alarming frequency. He constantly lives on the edge of self-destruction, and when he iscaught, he dances away by blaming others. Indeed, except for having been born wealthy, Trump isnt a winner at all. Hes asurvivor,which is not what hes been selling. And he might survive as president. The question is whether the country will survive as well. Its already obvious that the nationwont be winning.

See more here:

So much for all that winning: Will the health care debacle expose the fraudulent nature of Trump's presidency? - Salon

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There is no other feeling comparable to finishing a book that you have invested time into. You shut it, look around and realize that the world around you has not changed but the one in your head and in that book, has. Its hard to make time to read with busy schedules, events, and classes, but reading has many perks. It can prevent Alzheimers, teach you new things, be an act of therapy, and boost your analytical thinking. Some great ways to incorporate reading into your schedule is during your commute, before bed, while waiting for appointments and during travel.

Here are some top books to read in your 20s. Get to it!

1. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist offers several powerful life lessons. It follows the story of Santiago, a shepherd boy that is on a journey to discover his personal legend. Along the way, he meets several key people that help direct him on his journey, to within.

2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

This novel is tremendous in scope, consisting of many parts and the panorama of human life. Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical revolution that will allow you to discover the true moral roots of man.

3. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

In this heartbreaking and revolting story, a lifelong friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his fathers servant, it follows love, betrayal, sacrifice and redemption. The focal point lies within ethnic, religious, and political tensions of the dying years of the Afghan monarchy. For you a thousand times over, Hassan.

4. How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton M. Christensen

This book is full of inspiration and wisdom and serves as a guide for students, professionals, and parents for a path of fulfillment in life. Along the way, Christensen poses a series of questions, answering them using lessons from some of the worlds largest businesses and personal experiences

5. The Stranger by Albert Camus

Think human life may have no meaning? Then this book is for you. Originally published in French, this novel follows an ordinary man that is drawn to a senseless murder on an Algerian beach. Underlying is Camus philosophy of absurdity, humanitys futile attempt to find rational order where none exists.

6. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Boring self-help book, I think not. This book presents several principles for solving personal and professional problems, using insights and anecdotes. Putting these principles into practice will surely This book continues to stay relevant and answer some of lifes questions that continue to protrude over time.

7. Life of Pi by Yann Martel

If theres only one nation in the sky, shouldnt all passports be valid for it? In this novel, the protagonist, Pi, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. If youve seen the movie, I encourage you to go back and read the book. In three parts, this follows the story of a boy that is shipwrecked with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and an adult tiger.

8. #GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso At seventeen years old, Sophia Amoruso decided to forgo continuing higher education to pursue a life of hitchhiking, dumpster diving, and petty thievery. Now, she is the Founder, CEO, and Creative Director of Nasty Gal, an e-tailer of awesome and vintage clothing. She offers straight talk about being a strong woman, making your voice heard and doing meaningful work. She writes, I have three pieces of advice I want you to remember: Dont ever grow up. Dont become a bore. Dont let The Man get to you. OK? Cool. Then lets do this. This read is great for a train commute.

Read the original here:

The Impact : 8 Books To Read In Your 20's - The Impact