Showdown: Confronting Bias, Lies and the Special Interests that Divide America

Rating:
Summary: Larry Elder presents a very interesting view of politics
Review: This book is a follow up to the excellent "The Ten Things You Can't Say in America". The topic is again the various aspects of political and social ideologies that Elder feels gives rise to a continuing "victim" status that keeps minority groups in a cycle of poverty, poor education and a failure to make the most of the opportunities they have. He also discusses the various Democratic policies that simply make no sense regarding the environment and security.

For example, the political posturing regarding the environment continues to show how difficult it is to sort through the complexities and get to the facts. For seven years, eleven months and twenty-eight days in office Clinton kept the arsenic (in drinking water) levels exactly where they had been since 1942 - fifty parts per million, but in the very waning hours of his administration reduced the allowable parts to ten per million. Bush put it back to fifty when he took office. The water industry argued that allowing the change would cost billions, despite virtually no improvement in health risks. (Page 29) In regards to the Kyoto treaty, 17,000 scientists as part of the Oregon Petition urged the US to reject the treaty. (Page 31) That this is nearly ten times as many scientists that spoke out on global warming is lost on those who see only political gain and do not appeared interested in actual discourse.

Elder really gets going when discussing civil rights issues. When debating Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney regarding accepting money from the civil rights leaders in Saudi Arabia (sarcasm) Elder points out something you will never hear from the Left: America's 32 million black Americans are simply the best-educated, best-fed, most healthy, and most prosperous blacks in the world. In fact, if black America were a separate country, its half-a-trillion dollar economy would make it one of the world's top fifteen wealthiest nations! (Page 87). Not surprising that this was a complete surprise to me.

Larry Elder makes some very poignant points on public education, and also about the inefficiency of how our government runs the public school system. The President of the Libertarian Ludwig von Mises Institute describes the data research that shows a surprising difference between the common perceptions in regards to the cost of private schools. "The per-pupil cost of public schools averages $6,000, compared with $3,100 for private schools" (Page 106) The gap is even larger in California; with Los Angeles public schools spending $12,300 annually per student compared to the Catholic school system in Los Angeles which educates over 100,000 and spends on average $2,800 per pupil. In addition home schooling is growing at 11 percent per year, making a powerful statement about the quality of public education. Larry discusses the political forces at work that result in this poor use of public funds.

Never content to avoid controversial subjects, Larry attacks the faulty premise of the role of families in our society. Citing undeniable statistics on the impact of not having a father available on crime, he discusses how the values of the Democratic Party continue to hurt the very people they profess to care about. (Page 137)

Where Larry really gets humming is in his discussions of how the Democrats handle race relations. However, given how much space he uses to discuss this issue, I can't begin to do it justice. However, Larry is in a unique position to balance the "victim" mentality often associated with how the Democrats treat their constituency.

Overall, Larry is a good writer, explains his position clearly and provides supporting information. Of course he has an opinion, and it may not be held by everyone, but he does a great job here with this interesting and engaging book.


Rating:
Summary: An excellent follow-up to 10 Things...
Review: When you read Larry Elder's book, you can't help but realize that this is someone who flat-out makes sense! Most telling is his follow-up chapter "Why I became a Republican" - his points echo those of Zell Miller (who is yet to become a Republican in name but is Republican in spirit). The rest of his book follows up on some points from 10 Things..., and brings up new points that effectively defeat most arguments from Liberals. And he uses Real Facts too, something those on the Left rarely do!

Should be recommended reading in High School government classes (College too, but someone would have to read it to the Liberal government professors because they wouldn't understand the big words or would slip into a denial coma).