Jerry Hopkins: Summer Reading Ideas | Opinion

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Over the summer, I’ve referenced several books that you might find interesting and insightful for a number of reasons. Many of these books come from the growing crisis politically, socially, economically and governmentally. These are all interdependent and linked. As summer draws to a close, I’d like to recommend some other great and essential books that can help you, your family, and your friends, by giving you plenty to think about.

Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny and Ameritopia are two of the most important books to read to understand what is going on politically and governmentally in our country. Of course, many social and economic problems are linked to these two issues. Indeed, the growing socialist threat that the Obama administration has imposed on our country is one of the prominent examples of what we are facing. With President Obama’s “czars” managing the vast bureaucracy of the federal government, we began to see some of the many things designed by the Obama and Biden administrations that will have implications for many years to come. With the implementation of Obamacare, we are moving towards a socialist society like that of England and other European countries. Limits and restrictions are just beginning to surface in many different areas. Levin reveals the danger as freedom is compromised and betrayed by powerful bureaucrats operating under the mandate of self-created laws and rules. The expansion and extension of government control has been enormous under recent presidents, especially under Presidents Obama and Biden. Levin’s book on American socialism is even more revealing and alarming.

Os Guinness, a permanent resident of our country who has contributed much to American thought despite being an Englishman and a D.Phil. graduated from Oxford University, has worked closely with the Brookings Institution and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies and has written or edited over 25 books, including The American Hour, Time for Truth and The Case for Civility. He currently lives near Washington, DC. He is the author of a major volume entitled A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future. It takes its title from a quote from Abraham Lincoln who said, “If destruction is our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through time or die by suicide. Guinness says there are three great factors that free people must cultivate if they are to remain free: leadership with character; business with ethics; and science with human values. In a short summary statement, Guinness says freedom with virtue will keep a people free. This is how Guinness puts it negatively: “Leadership without character, business without ethics, and science without human values ​​– in short, freedom without virtue – will bring the republic to its knees.”

We are going through a serious period in our history. Politicians cannot be trusted because they embrace lies and deceit to win and keep office. President Obama could not be believed or trusted because he didn’t do what he said and refused to admit his lies and failures. He was not the primary culprit in this tragic circumstance, true for Republicans and Democrats alike, not to mention third-party candidates. Guinness insists that expressing allegiance to natural rights and constitutional principles is not enough. We must have the application of character, ethics and human values ​​in essential applications.

This brings me to an important volume written by Monica Crowley, interestingly titled What the (Bleep) Just Happened? The Happy Warrior’s Guide to America’s Great Homecoming. Crowley disagreed with Ed Klein’s argument that Barack Obama was an amateur. She said Obama knew what he was doing and did it intentionally. Obama and his team attacked the four main pillars of American life – industrial, financial, energy and medical (health care). Systematically, President Obama and his colleagues seized the four great sectors of American life and dismantled or destroyed them to impose a socialist system. Their goal was to convert America into a socialist nation. Obama brought together several powerful, wealthy, and power-hungry factions that wanted to win specific things for themselves and their friends. Interestingly, Obama simply continued and built on what President George W. Bush did.

Obama had all the characteristics of other radical socialist leaders of the past. He dismantled or destroyed much of what had been done in the Middle East and joined, if not organized, the “Arab Spring” which was anything but truly democratic. All this can be considered historically as a great defeat for American foreign policy. If radical Islamists have access to weapons of mass destruction, they will use them. There is no negotiation with such radicals. No compromise is possible with them. They cannot be trusted. When you read the history of socialist radicals in the past, you can see how Obama was like them in the alliances and associations he had and still has. He distanced himself from his administration of Israel and embraced anti-Semitic radicals in Iran and elsewhere in the world. Not only that, he and his administration ceded our financial, industrial and energy future to the Chinese and other foreign elements. This continued under President Joe Biden, but at a much more radical pace and scale.

I found another author who provides valuable information to solve our dangerous situation. Attorney Larry Klayman’s autobiography describing his battles with Washington bureaucracy and the swamp of the “deep state” is based on a text by Isaiah (1:21-26) and appropriately titled Whores – Why and How I Came to Fight the Establishment. He agrees with Levin and the other authors I have cited, concluding, “If we all want to survive, this nation’s body politic cannot remain a fucking vested interest, establishment and elite in power, and its advisers and judges must be restored. Not only do the American people depend on it for their survival in these dangerous and trying times, but so does the entire world. »

I would be interested to know what you think of summer reading and what you think we need to do in light of these alarming volumes. Take the time to reflect and respond to this column. Let me know what you think.

– You can send your thoughts to [email protected], or by mail to Dr. Jerry Hopkins, PO Box 1363, Marshall, Texas 75671. Dr. Jerry Hopkins is a retired historian and professor.

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