Fans of Laura Ingraham's popular radio show will recognize the themes discussed in this lively book. She is a person who is passionate about traditional moral values, protecting the family, enforcing the country's laws & our Constitution, and cleaning up the culture from what she calls its pornification.
Laura began her political writing as one of the conservative students at Dartmouth who wouldn't just sit back and take the pronouncements and bias of the left wing faculty. One of the incidents that came from her writing is recounted in this book. The chairman of the music department, William Cole, was using a general music class that kids took for an easy credit, to make pronouncements on racism and culture in America. She wrote about it and he became not only angry but threatening. Things escalated from there.
While she is also a lawyer (University of Virginia Law School - and she clerked for Clarence Thomas), is a blonde and a media personality, she should not be confused with Ann Coulter. Coulter is much more of a bomb thrower and sensationalist than Ingraham is. Ann Coulter makes much of her impact through shock and satire of her opponents. Laura is much more about speaking directly from her heart about what matters to her. While she isn't afraid to call things as she sees them without pulling punches, she doesn't look for the most inflammatory way to say things. However, Laura's language is full of passion, energy, clarity, and humor.
This book pleads with everyday conservatives to stand up and speak up about the things that we see as going dead wrong in our culture. She begins by talking about the assault of the left upon the traditional family and the way that kids are actually being devalued despite all the appeals about "the children" and traditional marriage is being undermined.
Her chapter on illegal immigration is spot on. She is clear that immigration is an American tradition and valuable and even necessary to our economic growth and success. However illegal immigration undermines us in several ways. It allows those who are employing illegal aliens to externalize costs that they should actually bear. That cheap lettuce only seems cheap because the costs of medical care for illegal workers and educating their children are not factored in. This is an issue where her opponents constantly misrepresent her position to make her (and those of us who agree with her) out to be ignorant bigots. To be for controlled borders and legal immigration is not racist. It is a sensible response in a Welfare State.
Open borders made sense in a time when people had to make it without taxpayer support (or minimal support) once they arrived. However, nowadays, our hospitals and schools are being burdened with huge costs for treating illegal immigrants and our schools lose billions from educating their children. No one wants anyone to be untreated or to die. Nor do we want children to be trapped in illiteracy or innumeracy. However, if they were still living in their home country, they would not have to be treated or educated at US taxpayer's expense. If they were employed legally, at least some of those costs would be borne by their employers and through them, by those of us who purchase the goods and services they provide. You know, like regular workers. Then there is the whole issue of how the winking at breaking our laws undermines the rule of law in our country. A culture that winks at lawbreaking rots the very structure that allows civil society in the first place. Yet, the idea of being repealing immigration laws is obviously foolish. So, the only honest options is to simply enforce our laws and to change them as needed, through the legislature not the judiciary.
I also loved her chapter on why we have to get control of our judiciary by only electing and appointing judges who understand the principle of judicial restraint. Legislating from the bench is not only an abuse of our Constitution; it undermines our freedoms because it takes lawmaking out of our hands through the people we elect every two years.
Laura is also dead on about the importance of local government versus the constant Federalization of our lives. She could have discussed how the 14th amendment has contributed to that process, but even without it, her overall point is true. Her chapters on the pornification of our culture and the failure of our public schools are also very good. The left has always known that the key to its success over generations is to get control of educating the young and filling their minds with their values and principles. In this, they have succeeded for decades. The question is whether we will let them continue to win.
I obviously can't cover everything in the book in this little review. However, I will stress that we simply must hear her pleas for us to stand up and be counted. We must become those irritating "loud folks" our politicians complained about during the recent debate on "comprehensive immigration reform". If we don't, we are simply acquiescing to the agenda of the other side of the important debates of our time. Laura also expresses her faith in God and her gratitude for the second chance she has gotten in surviving her bout with cancer. For me, hearing expressions of faith and gratitude are among the most beautiful uses of the human mind, voice and heart. Thanks, Laura!
This is a very good handbook for those debates that you are likely to have with your liberal friends. It will give you some good stories that will both energize you and provide some information that will aid you in the debates that will surely arise over these issues. But make sure you become one of those speaking loudly to your representatives, too. Just because they got elected doesn't mean that they get to shut you out until the next election. Your voice counts, so let them hear it.
Recommended.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson
