Principles Of Government

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Book Summaries

The book summaries are a mix of interpretations, paraphrases of the author’s language, and direct quotes from the book (without quotation marks). One purpose of the summaries is to summarize the author’s main ideas so that if interested you can order the book. Another purpose of the summaries is to survey some of the most important and soundest ideas in government structure, political philosophy, history, and economics to give a rough idea of how they all fit together. These may not be the best books in each category but all are excellent and deal with extremely important subjects in a very thoughtful manner. A few of the best, and best known, books on many of these subjects are listed in a separate section.

All material on this site is for educational purposes only

Suicide of the West

How The Rebirth Of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, And Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy

By Jonah Goldberg

Copyright 2018 by Jonah Goldberg - Crown Forum

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Humans have an innate moral sense. How we use it depends on the environment we grow up in and how we define morality. The desire for unity and distrust of strangers are universal human tendencies. Of all systems ever created that actually increases trust and cooperation among strangers none has been as successful as the market. The market lowers the level of distrust by letting very different peoples and cultures find common interest. Him… Ideology flows from human nature… and refining the definition of evil is the very essence of what civilizations do Read More

The purpose of including this work is to alert readers to the nature and magnitude of the cultural problem our civilization faces and encourage them to read the book by outlining the author’s main themes. It is one of the most important books written in recent decades.

The Breakdown of Higher Education

By John C Ellis

Copyright – Encounter Books – 2020

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The preface cites Bloom’s, The Closing Of The American Mind, Kimball’s, Tenured Radicals, D’Souza’s, Illiberal Education, and Ellis’s, Against Deconstruction, all warning about the dangers of a radicalized campus being created by increasingly radical professors. “This book is of a different kind, since now the campus is already radicalized. …its purpose is to explain exactly what happened and what made it possible; to describe the damage done to all levels of education, ..and to our society; …and to suggest what can be done about this educational and societal catastrophe.” Read More

Evidence that college graduates are now poorly educated generally, and especially in American history and all subjects key to education for citizenship, is revealed by multiple surveys, and evidence that the Academy is largely responsible for the dysfunctional and hostile political climate can be seen today in the calls to defund the police and the protests and riots that are occurring across the country where Democrats control local government. The majority of professors are not radical by temperament but are so marinated in the left wing atmosphere surrounding them that they accept many of the radicals’ beliefs and objectives without giving much thought to whether or not they are valid and/or dangerous. Since normal professors are not activist by nature, it is the radical professors who set the agenda as they are the most determined activists. The book is available in Kindle on Amazon but you may need to order the hard copy from Encounter Books, the publisher.

Balance

The Economics of Great Powers From Ancient Rome To Modern America

By Glenn Hubbard & Tim Kane

Copyright 2013 by Glenn Hubbard and Tim Kane Simon & Schuster

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Notes on BALANCE by Glenn Hubbard & Tim Kane The book is a review of the experience of great powers in world history and the political and economic lessons to be learned from studying them.  Two thousand years ago, Rome was a stable and prosperous civilization. After 3 centuries of decline from the relentless stagnation… Read More

This summary is included because the book so cogently outlines the characteristics that led to the success of the most powerful governments in history and the circumstances, causes and processes that led to their decline, and the rough similarity of these characteristics in both their rise and their decline.

The Plot To Change America

By Mike Gonzalez

Copyright 2020 by Mike Gonzalez – Encounter Books

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Introduction The political purpose of identity politics is to divide the country into groups as a strategy to change America completely. Identity politics sees people’s beliefs and interests as determined by their membership in specific groups, particularly sex, race, sexual orientation, and disability status. It is an enemy of reason and Enlightenment values. Identity politics… Read More

American Marxism

By Mark Levin

copyright @2021 by Mark Levin - Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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American Marxists call themselves progressives, democratic socialists, social activists, community activists, etc….They claim to promote economic justice, environmental justice, racial equity, gender equity…They claim the dominant culture and capitalist system are unjust, inequitable, racist and sexist…The aim is to undermine the citizenry’s confidence in the nation’s institutions and traditions, weakening the nation from within, and destroying American republicanism and capitalism.

They occupy our colleges and universities, newsrooms and social media, entertainment and boardrooms, and their ideas are increasingly influential within the Democratic Party. Their influence pervades teacher training and classroom curriculum throughout America’s public school system. They use propaganda and indoctrination, and demand conformity through cancel culture, etc. to destroy reputations and careers. They censor and ban patriotic and contrary viewpoints on social media. They attack academic freedom and intellectual diversity in higher education. Read More

Unintended Consequences

Why Everything You’ve Been Told About The Economy Is Wrong

By Edward Conrad

Copyright 2012 by Edward Conard - Penguin Group

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The world of economics is deeply divided and inherently political. Advocates for stronger incentives for risk taking and those for income redistribution each work backward from their conclusions to find a set of indisputable beliefs on which to build their arguments. The economy is so complex that it is impossible to definitively isolate the effect of any one factor. This book attempts to explain how the economy works, why the U.S. has outperformed its high wage rivals, what caused the financial crisis, and what improvements might better protect our economy without damaging its growth Read More

This work is included because the book does a beautiful job of very clearly and simply explaining macroeconomics and especially how the Federal Reserve and the banking system should respond in times of financial crises. It is particularly important because democratic governments are at their gravest danger of collapse during the most serious financial crises and they are so prone to cripple their future by overspending leading to ruinous inflation.

The Smart Society

Strengthening America’s Greatest Resource, Its People

By Peter D. Salins

copyright 2014 by Peter D Salins - Encounter Books

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America’s success is heavily dependent on its bedrock of political, social, and economic institutions – a free market democracy with secure personal freedoms and property rights. The real secret to its extraordinary success is human capital. …Given the indispensable role of government in generating human capital it matters a great deal how, specifically, government executes that role. Education, productivity, and immigration are a country’s human capital tripod and government has a key role to play in each. Government support of education and basic research generates enormous benefits Read More

This work is included because education is such a terribly important part of our society and sound education is so critical for our type of government. This book explains in simple terms what’s wrong with American education with sound advice on what changes need to be made. It also outlines the type of immigration policy we need and explains the critical importance of getting the right sort of immigrants.

Why Government Fails So Often

And How It Can Do Better

By Peter Schuck

Copyright 2014 Princeton University Press

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Among liberal democracies, Americans are by far the most patriotic people and America has the most robust and creative civil society. …A majority now believes that big government is the biggest future threat to the country. In the 1950’s, the vast majority of Americans trusted the federal government to do the right thing in most instances, today only a tiny minority do. Today the public views the federal government as a chronically clumsy, ineffectual and bloated giant that can’t be counted on to the do the right thing much less do it well Read More

This book does an outstanding job of explaining why it is so difficult for government to operate efficiently in so many of the areas where it tries to play the leading role, many of which would best be left to the private sector –for-profit and philanthropic enterprises and voluntary associations.

Restore the Future

The Second American Revolution

By Donald H Young

Copyright – Donald H Young – 2012

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Laws are fundamental to the concept of society, and the principal differences among all societies are in the laws by which they function. By the 18th century, concepts of individual rights and laws to protect them were being developed. David Hume wrote A Treatise Of Human Nature in 1739, and John Locke in his Second Treatise On Government said that all men are endowed by a supreme being with natural rights which include life, liberty, and property and that governments are instituted for the purpose of protecting and advancing those rights Read More

This book does an excellent job of explaining the most important principles responsible for our country’s greatness, why they are so valuable, which of those principles are now being violated, and why, and how to make the needed corrections. The author lists objectives of the book as restoring the Constitution to its critical role as our key founding document and reversing the changes in our government that have been justified by the interpretation of the Constitution as a “living document”.

I Citizen

By Tony Woodlief – December 7, 2021

Copywrite @ 2021 by Tony Woodlief - Encounter Books

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Two phenomena corroding self-governance and liberty are the unchecked and metastasizing agencies of the executive branch, and the shameful abdication of responsibility by our elected representatives.

The only alternative to Imperial rule from DC is self-governance within the Federalist system. Read More

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