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Broad Sides: One Woman's Clash with a Corrupt Culture

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Medford Evans once said about Gone With The Wind that it "is not specifically Southern; it is a world book. And it is a world book mainly because Scarlett is Everywoman, in whom every woman recognizes herself, and every man recognizes something dangerous and marvelous."

In her new book, Broad Sides, Ilana Mercer is Scarlett O'Hara reincarnated with an intellect. She is dangerous and marvelous. She takes on today's corrupted establishment the way Scarlett took on the marauding Yankee soldier climbing the stairs at Tara to have his way with her. Scarlett impudently unloaded a pistol into the Yankee's face, and Ms. Mercer does the same to our collectivist establishment today. Her prose style is 44 Magnum force. Her insights are like silver bullets.

Here is just a taste of that style: "Our society revels in a drunken orgy of self-indulgence and self-abasement. We live in an era in which all rational standards are mocked and dismissed as irrelevant and impotent. The quest for moral reputation has been supplanted by an obsession for instant notoriety -- a ferocious competition in attention-seeking that elevates shameless degenerates. 'Reality' TV lifts from well-deserved obscurity a procession of vacuous narcissists who flaunt their neuroses and intimacies before millions of video voyeurs, themselves desperate to fill dull mornings and empty evenings with the solace of vicarious titillation."

The paramount need in modern America is to find our way back to that hierarchy of values that all great, free cultures must possess if they are to remain great and free. America once radiated such a hierarchy because we as a people understood what Jefferson meant by "a natural aristocracy among men composed of virtues and talents." In our national youth before liberalism dumbed us down to the mediocrity and mendacity of egalitarianism, we were not afraid to accept the obvious realities of the world. We did not flinch in face of the fact that cultures are not equal. We were not afraid to pass judgment on the moral vacuity of certain ways of life. In this wide-ranging series of essays, Ms. Mercer brings us back to Jefferson. She passes judgment, and it is marvelous.

Broad Sides cuts a vibrant swath across the tyrannical shams of modernity -- from creeping statism at home, to Pax Americana abroad, to the insanity of open borders, the myth of Rousseau's Noble Savage, and the "boundless ignorance" of the neo-conservatives masquerading as America's champions. Ms. Mercer enlightens us as to what is needed if we as a nation are to reverse our miasmic slide into the decadence that has, this past century, been consuming our lives like crack cocaine swallows up a ghetto.

Mercer shows us that freedom and virtue are companions, that a free people do not need to be a trashy people. America was meant to be a land of libertarian politics and traditional values. The Founders' legacy was about precisely such a combine. Mercer's scintillating mind offers us a vision of that legacy again and says to us that it is not dead, that if we in America wish to regain our high-minded form of freedom, all we need is to hearken back to the philosophy of Jefferson and Madison. Such a philosophy is not ephemeral; it is eternal. Today's computerized world needs a hierarchy of values taught to its young just as Jefferson's world did. That the liberals bamboozled three generations of intellectuals into the madness of relativism is our most nefarious crime. It is here at the level of basic values that the battle must be waged. Mercer comes armed with Excalibur to show us how and why.

Margaret Mitchell created one of the great literary heroines of all time in Scarlett O'Hara. There was a spirit about her that stood up to the bumptious idiocy and cruelty that life so often throws at us. Scarlett did not know how to back down. That, more than her beauty, was why men found her so appealing. That is the kind of spirit that permeates this book. Ilana Mercer's intellect, like Scarlett's spirit, does not back down from the unsettling truths of life and the debauchery that we have made of it today. Broad Sides is a dangerous and marvelous book. It will threaten the oleaginous elites of Washington and enthrall bedrock Americans in the heartland.

A number of very talented female conservative/libertarian columnists have burst onto the scene in recent years, but most of them seem to have turned into mere apologists for the Republican Party. Republicans Good, Democrats Bad is the preditable theme of nearly every column. This could never be said of Ilana Mercer whose brilliant new book, Broad Sides, is solidly based on "first principles," which she clearly explains in the first 46 pages, and then applies them rigorously to myriad social and economic issues, from deficits to war, criminal injustice, riots, Madonna, ADD, feminism, Israel, "neocon artists," and dozens of other contemporary issues.

Mercer's first principles are essentially the priciples of the Ameican Jeffersonian tradition, coupled with free-market economics. Reading Broad Sides, one immediately understands that this is a writer who is intellectually heads and sholders above most other columnists (her column appears each Friday on the web site WorldNetDaily). Every essay is based on a solid foundation of theory and evidence, and her writing style is unique and superb. Think of her as a combination of Ayn Rand, Camille Paglia and Florence King, with a little hard-nosed Milton Friedman-type thinking mixed in.

Broad Sides is a joy to read. You will finding yourself being educated, sometimes entertained, and wanting more once you have finished.

Ilana Mercer covers just about every relevant topic under the sun in Broadsides. Furthermore, she delivers her opinions with startling clarity and a literary flare of staggering proportions. One needn't agree with her opinions to appreciate her extraordinary style. On the other hand, one would be a fool to disagree with her. She is a voice for peace and liberty lovers everywhere. Pop culture, philosophy, economics, politics, pseudo science - everything is covered with a fresh and lively perspective. This is a must read for everyone.

Ilana Mercer is a woman whose intelligence, insight and incisive thinking make this book a wonderful read. Not only does she make her points in a clear, uncompromising way, her principles are in consonance with the Founders of our nation and she has a no-holds-barred manner of bringing those mouldy (but timelessly true) thoughts to life.

I would strongly recommend this book to everyone, whether they consider themselves open-minded to other ideas, or so sure of themselves that they could never conceive of changing their mind about our nation and how it should be led; she has a way of opening your eyes and mind to truth. When I started this book, I was reading another work of fiction by a best-selling author who has a reputation as a page-burner. However, when I read the first article in Ilana's book, I set aside the 'page-burner' and lost myself in this lady's incredible mind. It was amazing, how I found myself agreeing with her on almost every point she would make, or at least I would see the logic behind what she said, as she stayed right on message.

I am the father of four children, and I have purchased a book for each of them, and later this month at our family get-together, I will be presenting them each a new copy of "Broad Sides...". This is the kind of thinking and values that more of our young people need to be exposed to, so that they may have the benefit of powerful words that can make a difference in our nation.

Thank you, Ilana, for putting together your thoughts in such a clear, easy-to-read synthesis of pure brilliance and well-researched topics.

Ilana Mercer's intelligent and courageous book BROADSIDES gracefully demonstrates to readers how important are the principles of the right to one's life, liberty, and property -- and how the violation of these principles causes suffering to the innocent, while benefiting the guilty. Most people agree that they must earn their living, that they should not rob or steal another's living - but far less people agree that the government is committing acts of theft, fraud, robbery, and extortion -- committed in the name of "the majority", "the good of society", or "the needs of the unfortunate". BROADSIDES, through a myriad of examples, reminds us to look at the dishonesty and injustice prevalent in our mixed-up scio-political system and do something about it. An informative and enjoyable book: BROADSIDES.

First, I don't consider myself to be a libertarian or liberal, mainly since I have seen what the American versions of these groups are like and find very little within either that can be described as especially redeeming (much less attractive). In short, neither have maintained its philosophical root (and they ARE philosophical before political) or heritage (or, dare I say, integrity?); I doubt that they have any foundation beyond the obvious almighty pursuit of power. Ilana manages to sort all of this out in her book, Broadsides, and pulls no punches in identifying the causes and effects of our corrupt culture.

Although I cannot agree with everything she writes, I wish America COULD take the lion's share of her advice. The difficulty here, I'm afraid, is that the changes in American culture, legislation, etc., require an honest society that is willing to "do the right thing" rather than "the safe thing" or "the thing that makes me more politically powerful."

Figure the odds...

If there ever is a nation (New Utopia?) that works as Ilana would have it, I would sign up in a heartbeat. But unless we have some SERIOUSLY significant emotional events (as 9/11 was), I'm afraid it won't be the United States.

And by the way, read WorldNetDaily.com for a sample of Ilana's work.

As someone whose roots follow Ilana's I found the book profound,not taking anything away from many American's love of "Liberty",Ilana demostrats ,like many before her... Alexis DeTocqueville comes to mind, that those from a foreign land have a greater ability to see the current attacks on true Freedom and Liberty than those blessed by being born in the Land of the Free.

This book establishes Ilana Mercer as the greatest intellectual since Ayn Rand.

same old rhetoric. generalizing. slanted. could represnt any group of people wished to idealize.