Monday, October 19, 2015

Not Exactly A Book Review: Take No Prisoners: The Battle Plan for Defeating the Left by David Horowitz

I feel like I am preaching to the choir by recommending this book. Readers of this blog are not as docile as Mitt Romney or John McCain or even George Bush who would not fight in the public square to defend his war or terrorism. If we could get Reince Priebus and all the presidential candidates not named Donald Trump to read this book, we would all be better off.

Let's not leave Trump behind just yet. Horowitz's premise is that the Left is vulnerable and the only way to exploit their vulnerabilities is to expose the human victims of Leftist ideology. Think Detroit. Yes it's a hellhole and a national joke but what might get forgotten is that a half century of Democratic rule has left a toll of human disaster that makes things like hurricanes trivial by comparison.

There are dozens of other US cities under long-term Dem rule following Detroit's trajectory. Think of the disaster that is public education. It's gotten worse just about everywhere but it is especially bad in cities ruled by Democrats. Urban blight and the farce of public education are two examples that Horowitz suggests we throw back in their faces.

Trump threw sanctuary cities back in the faces of the Dems and he was launched directly to the top of the polls. Horowitz would probably approve.

I have not been posting a lot at this blog in part because I can't get excited about the GOP candidates. I like Trump's spirit but I don't think he is the answer. Many of us were hoping someone else might pick up the fight.

Returning to Hororwitz's book, I have a a couple of criticisms. Horowitz is of the opinion that we should parrot the same slogans the way the Dems do. To that I say, we are cats and they are cattle. We fancy ourselves free thinkers and they are obsessed with pruning their thoughts to conform to a rigid orthodoxy called correctness. We concern ourselves with truth and they concern themselves with sentiment. Being largely uninformed, the Democratic base is dependent on slogans. They want to be told exactly what to think and what to say.

But should we want to echo the same verbiage, we would be hard-pressed to beat the Dems. What Horowitz seems to miss is that 90+% of the news media repeat Dem slogans for them. They legitimatize their every viewpoint. War on women, health care reform, Wall Street reform, gun violence, living wage, the gap between rich and poor, global warming/climate change/climate disruption...We cannot compete against the Dems and the media when it comes to cliches.

With the nitpicking out of the way, I will sing my praises to Horowitz. He is one of the richest minds of our era. Given his Leftist background, Horowitz brings more to the table than say, Ann Coulter or anyone at Fox News.

Horowitz scores points with me for admonishing those on our side who call the opposition liberals. Horowitz prefers leftist or radical. Sometimes those labels are apropos but the opposition is dominated by people who are about as ideological as Al Capone or Charles Ponzi or Attila the Hun. Jonathan Gruber is not a liberal, he is a con artist. Lois Lerner is not a liberal, she is a criminal. Eric Holder is not a liberal, he is a thug. Barack Obama is all of the above (except liberal.)

Horowitz lays out a viable strategy. What is so overwhelmingly frustrating is that the truth is on our side. We can show victims of ISIS, victims of body part brokers, victims of Obamanomics, victims of Obamacare, victims of jihad, victims of Fast and Furious, victims of the war on coal, victims of IRS abuse, victims of voter fraud, victims of sanctuary cities, victims of John Corzine...we have a lot to choose from.

This book is well worth reading but I am probably preaching to the choir.

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