Governments are bigger and more powerful than ever, while a citizen's ability to control his or her own life has never been less effective. Bovard shows how the State threatens to destroy the individual in order to preserve the belief that any government is superior to the citizen. Bovard asks how we got to this point and answers with a thoughtful look at the history of governmental control from ancient times to the present, peppered throughout with observations on our present day, out of control governmental regulatory commissions and all-confiscating IRS.
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Bovard (Lost Rights) throws more red meat to angry libertarians in this antigovernment jeremiad. While he provides some frightening examples of how governments?mostly the U.S. federal?do more harm than good, his passion leads him to some hyperbolic conclusions. There are many passages that will make readers?not only welfare-state liberals but also moderate Democrats and Republicans?wonder whether they live in the same country as Bovard. One of his biggest targets is the notion of state sovereignty: "The doctrine of 'sovereignty' often does nothing more than provide a respectable gloss for some people's lust to control other people's behaviors, or to seize the fruits of other people's labor." That last clause is telling, for it could just as well be turned against Bovard. It is precisely to stop nongovernmental entities (e.g., factory owners) from seizing the fruit of other people's labor (e.g., factory workers) that so many of the regulations and laws Bovard decries (e.g., a minimum wage or corporate taxes) were instituted. But Bovard is well-read and makes entertaining use of Rousseau, Hegel, Hobbes (he's very fond of Leviathan) and other thinkers. He's also consistent and intellectually honest enough to follow his own ideology to its logical conclusion about, for instance, marijuana (legalize it, he says). Few readers will agree with Bovard that the dominant spirit in America today is one that idolizes the state, but most will find that he makes a rousing theoretical case against statism. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This author comes highly touted by the mainstream conservative press, and with good reason. Bovard, a journalist best known for his influential Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (St. Martin's, 1994), sets forth a passionate indictment of the state's coercive powers over the people. He is especially critical of the "Peter Pan" theory of good government and other political illusions fostered by the state. Bovard reviews 200 years of political philosophy and makes effective use of extreme examples of government programs and regulations to drive home his essential message. Although his argument is bipartisan in its critique of the state's excesses and excuses, the overall effect is one of polemical overkill. Still, this is a well-researched book that can serve as a sampling of libertarian thought for many libraries.?Thomas A. Karel, Franklin & Marshall Coll. Lib., Lancaster, PA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
James Bovard is the author of Public Policy Hooligan (Kindle version 2012), Attention Deficit Democracy (St. Martin's/Palgrave, 2006), and eight other books. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader's Digest, and many other publications. His books have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean. He is a contributing editor for the American Conservative and a regular contributor to the Future of Freedom monthly, published by the Future of Freedom Foundation.
The Wall Street Journal called Bovard 'the roving inspector general of the modern state,' and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a 'one-man truth squad.' His 1994 book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty received the Free Press Association's Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism and Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner Award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association.
His writings have been been publicly denounced by the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.
James Bovard explains, point blank, how the United States government has grown into an uncontrollable monster, negatively impacting each and every one of us, and taking away many basic rights that were once taken for granted.
There is no denying that power corrupts. Give a politician the authority to pass one oppressive law and, eventually, more and more oppressive laws will follow. Government has become increasingly intrusive, unethical, and dishonest over the years as more and more special interest legislation has made its way through congress.
This process did not take place overnight and it will not be eliminated overnight. Americans must work for change first on the local level, leading up to the state and national levels. We must act quickly before it is too late. I hope that many people will read this book and take action. A totalitarian United States government is closer than we think.
After reading Lost Rights, I couldn't wait to read this book. This book is an outstanding follow-up, with more insight into the evolution of government power. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in political science, philosophy, law, or really just interested on how the world works. If every American read this book, the Democrats and the Republicans would be relegated to third-party status practically overnight. The government is one thing if nothing else- coercive power over the individual. Upon that understanding we should make one thing clear: that the more power that is given back to the individual, the better we shall be able to live our own lives without a "nanny state" to watch behind our backs to make sure we don't do something "wrong", like ingest politically incorrect substances. It is in this spirit that I give this book my highest praise. It is worth every penny.
Once you read this book you'll have a tough decision to make: What will you do with the information? Will you muster the courage to start resisting tyranny while there's still some hope for a rebirth of liberty here in the U.S.?
If you're in America, you do not live in a free country. If you have any doubt about that, you must read this book, and with it, I would recommend "Why Government Doesn't Work," by Harry Browne and "Your Money or Your Life," a brand new book by Sheldon Richman.
While the Federal Government is distraction you with Kosovo and our new gauranteed-to-be-protracted war on terrorism, the IRS is tooling up do to more of what it's been doing for years, invading your privacy and controlling your life. The elephant/donkey boondoggle does not have your best interest in mind at all. You must put your best interest up front, especially when you vote. VOTE LIBERTARIAN!
