Tag: politics

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#BookReview: How To Be A Citizen by C.L. Skach

Making The Case For Practical Anarchy While Proclaiming Non-State Democracy. As an avowed and open Anarchist, any time I find a book proclaiming in its title to be about how to live effectively in community without the State… I tend to pick it up.

Here, Skach makes quite clear that she is terrified of a particular “A” word (that I’ve already used twice in the preceding paragraph) and instead proclaims her arguments to be in favor of State-less democracy… while failing to realize that Anarchy literally means only “no government” – ie, “no State”, ie, “Without the State” (to use the exact phrasing from the subtitle). As Lysander Spooner and other thinkers over the Millenia have espoused, there can be numerous forms of order under Anarchy – Anarchy has never meant “without order”, only “without government”. Thus, Skach’s preference for community-based democracy falls right in line with the very idea.

But regardless of Skach’s fear of the “A” word or your own (the reader of my review) preference for any other form of community organization, Skach actually does a truly remarkable job of showing just how a Stateless – ie, Anarchic – society could practically work *even in the current environment*. Yes, there are numerous issues she doesn’t touch, and yes, there is plenty of room for the usual “what if” game that proponents of State and its slaughter of literally hundreds of millions of people in the last 150 yrs alone routinely bring up.

But for those who don’t think it can work even at a very basic level, that survival would be impossible because the world would be “without order”, Skach makes clear that both spontaneous and coordinated order can be had – and can be had in a far better manner than at present – *without* the State.

There will be many who won’t read this book at all or won’t truly consider its ideas, but for those who are willing to at least consider the possibility that perhaps the West (and East, insofar as their systems of government go) could do better, that perhaps the US in particular *has* to have some better way of doing things… maybe pick this book up. Read it slowly. Truly ponder its ideas and trul ruminate over them, asking yourself the hard questions about why you may think the State is the best answer, even in the face of so much evidence to the contrary.

Oh, and the fact that this book is releasing in the US going into its biggest State holiday weekend, when the entire country – and, due to the US’s prominence since 1944 or so, even large parts of the entire world – will be celebrating a few hundred thousand people declaring their independence from the *then* global superpower… well, that’s just icing on this particular cake.

I will note, as really more of an aside, that the bibliography clocks in at just 17% of the Advance Review Copy edition of the book I read, which is perhaps a touch low – but I’ve also been openly stating for a bit now that perhaps my 20-30% standard should be lowered a touch given so many more recent books have been a touch lower than this, and 17% seems like it would fit within the true current average, if maybe still a touch on the lower end of the range.

Overall a truly excellent book so far as it goes, I personally just really wish it had more openly embraced the very concepts even its title openly yet not brazenly proclaims. Very much recommended.

This review of How To Be A Citizen by C.L. Skach was originally written on April 11, 2024.

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#BookReview: Faithful Politics by Miranda Zapor Cruz

Comprehensive Look At Different Ways Different Christian Communities Have Viewed Politics Over The Millenia. This book is truly one of the most comprehensive looks at the subject that I’ve yet run across, and for that alone is to be commended. It is also immensely readable, which is always a nice bonus in an academic-oriented book.

Perhaps the only “negative” thing to be said here (and certainly some will view this as quite the positive, or even argue she doesn’t go far *enough*), is that Cruz at times can be a bit *too* tough on the Christian Nationalism crowd, while openly claiming a high degree of tolerance for every other perspective she discusses. Even as I oppose the Christian Nationalists myself (finding more cause for Anarchism in the text of the Bible than any support for any modern nation, *including* the modern State of Israel), I would have liked to have seen their positions presented with the same detached rational approach as all of the other perspectives presented – mostly because I truly believe that when presented in those same terms, the Christian Nationalists *still* lose, and lose bigger because they *were* given a rational chance.

Even this, though, is not the actual cause of the star deduction. The cause of the star deduction is instead the complete non-existence of any hint of a bibliography, which are generally present even in these Advance Reviewer Copy forms of texts, as I have quite a bit of experience reading and reviewing over the last several years (where 20-30% is considered my norm, though I’ve also openly discussed perhaps lowering that a touch more recently).

Still, even that is a flaw that will hopefully be corrected in the final form of the book.

Overall an interesting and comprehensive examination of the topic, one anyone interested in Christianity and Politics in America – for any reason – should make it a point to read. Particularly before any Presidential Election. Yes, including the one being conducted less than 90 days after the publication of this very book. Very much recommended.

This review of Faithful Politics by Miranda Zapor Cruz was originally written on April 5, 2024.

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#BookReview: For Love Of Country by Norman W. Holden

Reads Like General Francis Hummel or Frank Castle Monologue Yet Also Contains Points Far Right/ GOP Won’t Like. This is designed to be a new version of the pamphlet Common Sense by Thomas Paine that was so influential in Revolutionary America and which clocks in at around 70 pages, depending on exact modern edition. Yet Holden repeatedly claims that he is actively not seeking to incite violence – perhaps in an attempt to stave off any legal claims – even as the book maintains a revolutionary fervor throughout its short 91 pages. While admittedly this is written from a solidly right-side-of-the-aisle perspective, there are in fact several points throughout where Holden goes “off script” for that side and genuinely advocates what are at minimum more centrist positions. Ultimately, this is an intriguing treatise that will at minimum help its opponents better understand the actual mentality of the “other side”, and the only objective fault here is the absolute lack of any actual bibliography. Recommended.

This review of For Love Of Country by Norman W. Holden was originally written on February 7, 2024.

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#BookReview: The War Below by Ernest Scheyder

Do The Needs Of The Many Outweigh The Desires Of The Few? 20 years ago as I was wrapping up my Computer Science degree requirements at Kennesaw State University just outside of Atlanta, GA, there was a massive debate raging around campus. At the time, the school – new to the “University” title, having had it for less than a decade at this point – was trying to grow from the commuter college it had been since its inception 40 yrs prior into a full fledged research level University… complete with student housing. The problem was that where the University wanted to place some of its first dorms was on the hill directly behind the Science building… where an endangered plant of some form was found, which kicked off rounds and rounds of going back and forth with various Environmental Protection Agency types. To be quite honest, I was never directly involved in any of this, but being on the school’s Student Media Advisory Board for a couple of years, I was connected enough to at least the reporting that I heard about at least the high points.

In The War Below, Scheyder looks at just these types of examples, where larger, grander ideas butt up against some much more local concern. Where the larger, grander idea is always “The only way we can see to fight climate change and stop carbon emissions while maintaining the global economy as we currently know it is to produce advanced electronic machines that require certain minerals to function, therefore we must obtain these minerals wherever they may be found.” Which admittedly means that for those that are more adamant that human-caused climate change isn’t a real thing or is some level of alarmist bullshit… well, you’ve been warned about a central tenet of this book in this review now.

However, Scheyder doesn’t really stay on the climate change debate itself, instead focusing on the more micro battles. “We found a supply of this particular mineral – but as it turns out, this particular plant that only exists in this exact spot also is dependent on this mineral, and therefore some are acting on behalf of the plant to stop us from getting to the mineral.” Or “We found a supply of a different mineral – but it happens to be under a location that some Native Americans consider sacred, and they’re trying to stop us from destroying their sacred spot.” Or “We found a supply of another mineral – but it happens to be in the middle of a town, and nearby residents don’t want to sell their land to us.” Every chapter is built around these and other variations of the same types of battles, pitting humanity’s need for these particular minerals against some more local, more intimate desire.

Scheyder does a remarkably balanced job of talking to both sides and presenting both sides in a way that they will likely consider the reporting on themselves to be pretty close to fair – as he notes within the text a few times, his job isn’t really to make a decision for humanity so much as to present the competing interests and allow humanity the chance to choose for itself.

Is our survival – as we currently see it – worth forcing ourselves on someone who is more intimately connected to that spot on Earth than most of us will ever directly be?

This book isn’t the call to arms that Siddarth Kara’s Cobalt Red, released almost exactly one year earlier and describing the outright horrors and abuses rampant throughout much of the cobalt industry specifically, was. Instead, as noted, it is more of a balanced and even nuanced look at the competing interests surrounding how and even if certain materials can be obtained in certain locations, and how these small, individual battles can impact us all at a global level.

In the case of KSU’s Student Housing vs the plant, fwiw, apparently it was resolved in favor of KSU’s Student Housing at some point in the last 20 yrs, as now the entire hill that was once a battleground is now a few different student housing complexes. In the cases Scheyder details… well, read the book. Some of them were still ongoing at the time Scheyder had to hand his book off for final editing, but he gives up to that moment details on where they are in such instances.

Very much recommended.

This review of The War Below by Ernest Scheyder was originally written on January 9, 2024.

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#BookReview: The Party Crasher by Joshua Ryan Butler

Transformative Yet Still A Touch Myopic. In centering this book around a grid that combines the traditional left/ right spectrum with “Modernity” and “Post-Modernity” as its up and down, Butler does an interesting and even transformative job of showing Americans that no matter what they think about politics and the church… they likely have some form of idolatry at play. The weakness here is the exact framing – in limiting himself to just the traditional left vs right and modern vs post-modern, Butler does in fact speak to a large swath of the majority. However, as Jason Blakley’s Lost In Ideology – which will release almost a full month *after* this particular book hits bookshelves – shows, there is actually quite a bit more nuance and flux within the “traditional” ideologies than many – including, clearly, Butler here – think. So one can’t really fault Butler for not having read a book at the time of writing this one that won’t even be published until *after* this book itself is. 😉 But the point remains, for those of us able to read both books close together, as I have been even months before either releases to the public. (Yes, making these Advance Reader Copies.) Furthermore, this framing also largely excludes more minority political views that don’t abide by the usual L/R spectrum nor the up/ down system Butler uses here.

Overall though, this is yet another of those books that, particularly going into a Presidential election year with all of the hand-wringing, arguments, and outright vitriol that includes in the modern era of American politics (and every era, according to other works I reviewed a few years ago such as James Morone’s Republic Of Wrath), every single member of every single American Church – no matter the individual’s politics or the church’s faith traditions – *needs* to read. Short at just 220 or so pages – over 22% of that being bibliography and discussion questions – this is written in a fairly conversational style such that one could easily envision Butler speaking this entire book into existence over the course of probably a couple of months or so of sermons. The included discussion questions, both at the end of each chapter and at the end of the book, foster a great deal of introspection and, in the case of groups, discussion, and could genuinely go quite a way to at least moderating the vitriol of this and hopefully future campaigns.

Ultimately truly a remarkable work, one that sadly will likely be review bombed by haters of Butler’s (also excellent, fwiw) prior work (and indeed already has a one star on Goodreads from a known review bomber who could not possibly have read this book, yet which Goodreads refuses to remove for several weeks now prior to the writing of this review). But read it for yourself, and make your own conclusions. Very much recommended.

This review of The Party Crasher by Joshua Ryan Butler was originally written on December 26, 2023.

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#BookReview: The Kingdom, The Power, And The Glory by Tim Alberta

Deep Look At American Evangelicalism Falls Just Short In Being All That It Could Have Been. Up front: I too am a former Southern Baptist Convention evangelical. My own sojourn of the last 20+ yrs has taken me from a child raised by a Deacon under the pastorage of a man through my teens who would later become a President of the Georgia Baptist Convention to a wanderer searching for a truly Christian (as the First Church would have truly understood it) community. As politics fails the Church – as Alberta documents well here – I have become ever more solid in my belief that the Church should have absolutely nothing at all to do with politics – which Alberta is less solid on here.

Structured in the wake of Alberta’s father’s death – a prominent megachurch pastor in Michigan – and some rather nasty political comments some Alberta had known for many years made to him in those darkest of moments, this book travels the United States – and even goes briefly abroad – examining the ways American Evangelicals have allowed the lure of politics to sway them, how some are fighting back, and what others are doing in response. It is a darkly hopeful tale of somehow, someway, potentially maybe clawing back to some semblance of historical Christianity that the American Church has long lost, and the overall narrative here is actually rather solid.

With a *few* holes. One is the complete lack of any documentation whatsoever in the ARC copy I read. Indeed, the ARC copy was so incomplete as to not even have the epilogue to the tale – which alone was an error that I nearly “will not reviewed” the book over, but I was able to obtain an Audible copy instead to at least be able to complete this review. However, the lack of documentation in the ARC was a single star deduction, as I normally expect to see around 20-30% documentation in nonfiction books in my vast experience reading nonfiction ARCs over the years. The other star deduction is the book’s intense focus on Jerry Falwell Sr and his progeny – both biologically (Jerry Falwell Jr and his siblings) and ideologically (Liberty University), a focus that nearly derails the book in taking up such a seemingly large chunk of it.

The final hole, which didn’t rise to the level of necessitating a star deduction but *did* rise to the level of necessitating commentary within the review, were the several times Albert used common mythologies – such as guns being the “leading cause of death of children” – without supporting documentation. (Indeed, when one checks the CDC’s own data, guns are not the leading cause of death for *any* single age grouping of legal children. It is only when legal adults aged 18-19 are included – legal adults who *can and do serve in the US military* – when guns become a leading cause of death according to CDC data.) The presence of such known and easily disproven myths detracts from the reliability of the overall narrative, which is a shame, since for the most part Alberta’s reporting seems to be pretty damn solid, at least from my own part of the world.

Overall, this is a truly strong and truly sobering look at the state of American Evangelicalism circa the late 2010s/ early 2020s, and a clarion call for needed change within the American Church overall. Will anything actually change? Alberta seems hopeful. I too am *hopeful*… if slightly more pessimistic on the actual realities. Filled with case study after case study after case study and interview after interview after interview, Alberta truly does a mostly strong job making his case, with the caveats noted above.

Finally, to be clear, the Audible version (and presumably the fully released text version) does include the epilogue and *hopefully* the also-missing bibliography.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Kingdom, The Power, And The Glory by Tim Alberta was originally written on December 26, 2023.

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#BookReview: Lost In Ideology by Jason Blakely

‘Comparative Religions’ For US Politics Should Be Required Reading For Every Voter In An Election Year. The title of this review basically sums up the entire review. This truly is a well written “comparative religions” type text, except for US political thought rather than the various global religions traditions. Showing the history and development of each “map”, as Blakely calls them, (but without much documentation – more on that momentarily), Blakely does a remarkably balanced job of showing each school of thought in as close to a neutral fashion as may be possible – extremists within any given school may think he didn’t present “their” side good enough, or perhaps shows “their” enemies in too good of a light, but from an objective-ish position, I stand by my statement of just how neutral he really is here. And yes, I really do think this should be required reading for every US voter before really even deciding who ultimately to vote for in any given election, as this book is truly a solid primer on the various ideologies used throughout the US and their various offshoots and intersections. Truly, it will allow each individual to better understand even those they disagree vehemently with, and ultimately a voter that better understands everyone is a better informed voter, period, who ultimately would at least have the ability to make a more fully informed decision.

Indeed, the *only* problem with this book – and thus the star deduction, as it *is* something I deduct for in all instances – is the lack of documentation. Even if I were willing to slide from my 20-30% standard (and as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, I am openly considering this with every new book), this book clocking in at just 12% documentation still feels a bit light for all of its claims, no matter how well balanced.

Still, again, every voter should absolutely read this book before making any electoral decisions going forward, whether that be in 2024 or for the next several years – until this book is invalidated by future changes, whenever that may be. Very much recommended.

This review of Lost In Ideology by Jason Blakely was originally written on December 22, 2023.

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#BookReview: Manipulating The Message by Cecil Rosner

This Review Is *NOT* A Paid Ad. Up front, because one of the large points Rosner makes is about just how much “influencer” peddling actually happens, let me be 100% perfectly clear: I had never heard of Rosner nor his publisher before picking up this book from NetGalley (yes, it is an advance reader copy). The title and description sounded like something that was interesting to me, so I picked it up. Period.

But that actually *does* get to the very points Rosner makes throughout this text, and he repeatedly uses real world examples both well known and very obscure to show his points. Basically, *everyone* is suspect – and you *should* do your own research. Yes, there are experts. Yes, objective truth exists. But are you actually hearing from them? Are you actually getting anything remotely close to the objective truth on the topic at hand? Rosner spends about 86% of his nearly 300 pages showing that… eh, you may not be, on either question. No matter where your “news” is coming from. At any level.

Truly a phenomenal expose on the topic, very well written and extremely informative. While Rosner is based in Canada and thus several of his examples are also based there, he also covers the situation in the US in particular quite well – and because of this, his points likely hold reasonably well at least through Western nations and *possibly* in every location on the globe (and beyond).

The star deduction is really two half stars – one half because at 14%, his bibliography is just shy of the range I normally expect to see in a book such as this based on my extensive experience reading these types of nonfiction ARCs, that range being closer to 20-30%. The other half star is due to the elitism that is so pervasive throughout the text. While actually decently balanced – while he spends an entire chapter *mostly* railing against Libertarian think tanks in Canada, he *does* also point out others of other political persuasions that are just as bad, and spends at least some actual time covering them and their faults as well, for example – even in the balance, the overall elitist disdain for so many of us just pours through his writing. And to be clear, I myself am a former political blogger – well before my book blogging days – that actually broke several local and even Statewide news items. And had more journalistic integrity than at least some of the “professionals” on those beats. (But those are ultimately stories for another time and place. 😉 ) My point here being that at least this reader is not simply some fly by night *very* minor “book influencer” (as some authors have called me *with pride* – rather than disdain), and Rosner realistically should have expected that many, perhaps even most, eventual readers of this book would have some level of journalistic experience. Which makes the elitism that much harder to swallow.

Still, ultimately this truly was a very good, well written expose on just how much media manipulation is in our every day lives, from the local to the national and throughout even social media as well.

Very much recommended.

This review of Manipulating The Message by Cecil Rosner was originally written on November 22, 2023.

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#BookReview: For Roger by Laura Drake

If You Only Read One 2023 Release, Make It This One. Wow. Phenomenal. I’m writing this review roughly 12 hrs after finishing the book, and I am still in awe of what Drake was able to do here. When I first encountered her books, Drake was writing cowboy romances. She’s extended into women’s fiction more recently and done a great job with it, and this one I would assume would mostly classify within that space as well.

But let me be clear: This book has a LOT going on, a lot that places Drake writing about very serious issues and very different spaces. We get medical discussions and specifically discussions around terminal illness, suicide, assisted suicide, and related issues. We get a legal courtroom thriller that dives deep into questions of justice vs mercy vs the letter of the law and even into what are laws and why do we have them. We get open discussions of how to make different spaces better and more responsive, and in these areas Drake shows several practical ideas that could genuinely work – even though this is a fictional tale. Throughout all of this. Drake proves herself capable of at minimum holding her own with even the masters of these spaces who only write explicitly within them, such as John Grisham’s legal thrillers.

And then there are the more traditional women’s fiction aspects, the relationships that make this book truly sing throughout all the heaviness of the above discussions. The loving wife who is barely older than her stepdaughter, despite being in absolute love with her husband. The stepdaughter who resents the stepmother being so very close to her own age. The brilliant husband who dearly loves his wife *and* daughter. The best friend who happens to be the Governor of Texas, with all the behind the scenes politicking that entails. The mother who loves her daughter no matter what. The misunderstood older sister. And yes, in a nod to Drake’s real life (as anyone who follows her socials will know), a mischievous and nearly scene-stealing cat named Boomer.

In telling such a moving story, Drake truly masters bringing in such difficult discussions that *need* to be held at every level and in every corner of this great land.

Issues of how to handle terminal illness within a marriage – how far is each willing to go? What is the loving thing to do? Do the local statutes matter when it comes to trying to make the right decision? What *is* the right decision?

Issues of criminal justice as it relates to terminal illness, echoing at a societal level the same types of questions every relationship needs to answer within itself.

Issues of what we expect from our penal system – can people be rehabilitated, or should they be exclusively punished? Is there a difference between someone committing suicide, their spouse helping them, their doctor helping them, another person outside of a legally protected relationship helping them? Does the situation itself matter, and if it does, what do we condemn and what do we excuse?

All of this and so much more, Drake crafts into a moving and poignant tale of one particular family struggling to navigate these very complicated and delicate issues.

Read this book. Think about how *you* would handle these things. Think about how *we* should handle these things…

Or not. Maybe you jus need to cry, or even bawl your eyes out. Maybe these issues aren’t theoretical for you – maybe they’re as real for you as they are for the characters in this book. Maybe you’re just trying to find answers yourself.

Read this book too. And may you find comfort within its words even in the midst of your own storm.

But read this book, regardless. Very much recommended.

This review of For Roger by Laura Drake was originally written on November 20, 2023.

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#BookReview: The Rural Voter by Daniel M. Shea and Nicholas F. Jacobs

Intriguing Investigation Marred by Academic Elitism. A disclosure up front: as I get into the meat of this review momentarily, know that I am literally a man with “R == R” tattooed on his arm, which reads “Real is Real” for those less familiar with mathematics and C-family programming, and -for those less familiar with the work in question- it is the actual subheading for Part III of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Now, as to the actual text at hand for this review: It really was quite remarkable. Don’t let the three star rating fool you: this is a book that you *need* to read if you hope to have any remotely accurate understanding of politics in the United States, as it is the singular best book I’ve found to date on just what makes its titular subject a truly distinct class. In likely north of 90% of the time, I can tell you straight up that no matter what you *think* the rural voter is or how you *think* they vote or what you *think* they value… you’re more than likely wrong. Read this book to set your facts straight, and proceed from there as you will.

Now, as to the star deductions: The first is fairly standard for me, though some readers may have less of a problem with it. Quite simply, I expect any nonfiction book to be well documented, and by that I mean at least approaching the 20-30% mark (which is the typical average in my experience, though as some other reviews this year have noted, I’m slowly getting less stringent on that as long as the book in question is at least close to that number). However, this book had barely half of the bottom edge of the range, clocking in at just around 11% of the text. So there’s the first star deduction, one I knew of before I ever read a word of this text.

The second star deduction is likely given away by the “Marred By Academic Elitism” part of the title of this review. Indeed, while the authors both note that they actively live in rural America and work at a small college, their active partisanship is rather blatant and even openly embraced – and of the typical sort most would expect from Academia. Indeed, one reason I didn’t deduct *two* stars here – yes, some would say the elitism and partisanship are *that* heavy handed, certainly at times – was because even as the authors wanted *Democrats* to become more active with rural voters (and yes, they specifically noted exactly that multiple times, particularly later in the text), they also openly noted that more people *generally* need to get more active with rural voters and allow those voters the active choice in candidates and policies to support or oppose, rather than simply allowing national politics to take the fore unopposed. As a two time rural/ suburban small town City Council candidate myself… that was actually *the* message I centered both of my campaigns around – that the People would have a direct choice. (For those who care, if any, I lost both races roughly 75%-25%, though the second race was a Special Election and yet had higher turnout than the first, a General Election. So I consider that fact alone a moral win. :D)

But truly, even if you don’t agree with the authors’ heavy handed elitist partisanship – read this book anyway. They really do show quite a bit of solid research that you need to understand if you expect to play well in rural America generally, and even if you grew up in the town/ region you’re hoping to win an election it… this research may show even you things about the rural voter more generally that likely apply to even your specific rural voters. It will certainly be worth your effort to read and decide for yourself.

Which brings me to another class of reader, as someone who was *also* a former Party Leader (having served as both the local affiliate Chair of my local Libertarian Party as well as on the Libertarian Party of Georgia’s State Executive Committee as both a member and an appointee): Party Leadership, and particularly those in *any* US Political Party (to be clear, any organization that considers itself such, regardless of State election laws) who are responsible for candidate training and education, or even overall Party outreach or strategy. In any of those cases and in any of those Parties, you need to read this book. (And for those unaware, there actually are literally upwards of 100 such organizations with ballot access in at least one State across the United States, though only the Green Party and Libertarian Party have threatened – or achieved – enough ballot access to *theoretically* win the Presidency this Millennium.)

Overall a solid, if flawed, text, and very much recommended.

This review of The Rural Voter by Daniel M. Shea and Nicholas F. Jacobs was originally written on November 14, 2023.