Was Jesus a Socialist? By Lawrence Reed

 

Socialism Today

Was Jesus a Socialist?

Why this Question is Being Asked Again and Why the Answer is Almost Always Wrong

In his book, Was Jesus a Socialist? economist and historian Lawrence W. Reed demolishes the idea that Jesus called on earthly governments to redistribute wealth or centrally plan the economy - or even to impose a welfare state.

Was Jesus a Socialist? could not be timelier. Consider...

·    More than half of young Americans say they'd rather live in a socialist country than in a capitalist one;

·    In a 2016 Barna Group poll, Americans said that socialism aligns better with Jesus's teachings than capitalism does and that self-proclaimed "democratic socialist" Bernie Sanders aligns closest to Jesus's teachings; and

·    In a 2019 survey, more than 70 percent of millennials said they were likely to vote for a socialist.

Reed answers the claims of socialists and progressives who try to enlist Jesus in their causes. As he reveals, nothing in the New Testament supports their contentions. In Was Jesus a Socialist? you'll learn:

·    There’s a rising chorus around the country that suggests Jesus was either an ethical socialist at heart or was sympathetic to socialist economic ideas. This book explains for a broad, lay audience - Christian or non-Christian - that this perspective is hugely mistaken.

·    Jesus was neither a socialist nor a capitalist, but the ethics and economics of his teachings are compatible with one and not the other. Which one? The answer, and the reasoning behind it, may surprise you.

·    Jesus spoke frequently about the importance of helping the poor, but how that is to be accomplished makes all the difference in the world.

·    The rich are routinely denigrated and may soon get hit with higher tax rates. Is this compatible with what Jesus said about them?

·    Can a person be either a socialist or a capitalist and Christian at the same time? This book answers that question definitively.

·    As the Biden administration pursues expansive programs to fight poverty and joblessness and pushes for higher taxes on the rich to help fund them, some will be claiming that all this is "the Christian thing to do." Is that a defensible position?

Ultimately, Reed shows the foolishness of trying to enlist Jesus in any political cause today. He writes: "While I don’t believe it is valid to claim that Jesus was a socialist, I also don’t think it is valid to argue that he was a capitalist. Neither was he a Republican nor a Democrat. These are modern-day terms, and to apply any of them to Jesus is to limit him to but a fraction of who he was and what he taught."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). A former professor of economics, he is the author or editor of several other books, including Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism and Real Heroes: Inspiring True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction. He is a frequent guest on radio and television and an international speaker.

Cooperation & Coercion By Antony Davies and James Harrigan

 

COOPERATION AND COERCION

By Antony Davies and James Harrigan

In their enlightening book, COOPERATION AND COERCION: How Busybodies Became Busybullies and What That Means for Economics and Politics, Antony Davies and James Harrigan show that government is all about coercive power. That doesn't mean it's all bad. We need government. But they show the immense - and overlooked - power of cooperation... and the dangers of embracing government coercion as the knee-jerk reaction to any problem.

In COOPERATION AND COERCION, you'll learn:

·    COOPERATION AND COERCION provides a model for how the left and right can come together to solve our shared problems. The author looks at major problems facing the country from the perspective of fact and reason rather than party.

·    COOPERATION AND COERCION describes government and markets as neither good nor bad, but as tools that society uses. The trick to successfully addressing our shared problems lies in knowing which tool is best suited to which problem.

·    Whenever humans work together, they organize themselves either according to principles of cooperation or principles of coercion. Coercion, typically applied through governments, is best suited for preventing people from harming each other, and overcoming problems that can’t be addressed through voluntary means. Cooperation, typically applied through markets, civic organizations, and informal relationships, is best suited for finding creative solutions through decentralized decision-making and overcoming problems that require local knowledge.

·    Contemporary discussions of rights often fail because people confuse two distinct types of rights: negative rights (the right not to be interfered with) and positive rights (the right to be provided for). The Constitution was crafted around the idea of negative rights, but since the 1920s, Americans have come to embrace the idea of positive rights, and this has given rise to the remarkable growth in government we’ve seen over the past century.

·    The more we ask government to do for us, the more it must intrude into our lives and our pocketbooks. The inevitable consequence is that almost everything in our lives becomes politicized. And when that happens, communities fracture along party lines.

·    Raising the minimum wage is a good idea – but only for people who manage to keep their jobs. The wage rate isn’t a lever by which we can set the value of labor. It is a metric that measures the value of labor.

·    Historically, it hasn’t mattered whether the federal government has taxed the rich, taxed the poor, taxed corporations, or taxed households. It also hasn’t mattered whether those tax rates are high or low. The revenue the federal government collects from all sources combined has remained a pretty constant 18% of the GDP.

·    As long as humans have lived in communities, we’ve had busybodies – people who stick their noses in others' business. But when government is able to intrude into our lives and tell us what things we may and may not consume, who we may and may not marry, where we may and may not live, busybodies level-up, becoming busybullies who don’t merely have opinions as to how you should live your life. They co-opt the power of government to force you to live your life the way they see fit.

You'll come away from this book with a clear understanding of everything from the minimum wage to taxes, from gun control to government regulations, from the War on Terror to the War on Drugs to the War on Poverty. People on both sides of the American divide are tired of the animosity and disrespect with which we treat each other, but they don't know how to stop. We provide an example of how to address divisive topics.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Antony Davies is associate professor of economics at Duquesne University and distinguished fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE).

Words for Warriors By Sam Sorbo

 

WORDS FOR WARRIORS

Fight Back Against Crazy Socialists and the Toxic Liberal Left

By Sam Sorbo

"They've hijacked words and use them against us. But we're gonna take 'em back. Because our words are our thoughts, and our thoughts are our prosperity." --Sam Sorbo

In the new #1 Amazon bestseller, WORDS FOR WARRIORS: Fight Back Against Crazy Socialists and the Toxic Liberal Left, with her trademark wit and intelligence, Sam Sorbo shows exactly how radical left-wingers have manipulated language to fit their own socialistic and anti-freedom agenda. Sam Sorbo is on a mission to reclaim today's hot button/culture war words for all freedom-loving Americans.

After hearing all the hatred spewing from ideologues, mainstream media, social justice warriors, and political hacks, Sam Sorbo was fed up: "I'm tired of their games, so I'm calling BS on them. It's time to set the record straight, especially for the folks who are just trying to enjoy the lives the Lord gave them and want a few things explained in easy-to-understand prose."

Arranged in an accessible "A-Z" glossary style, readers can dip in to discover the real meanings behind the acronyms, words, and phrases that the toxic liberal left loves to force on the rest of us.:

From Ad hominem, Antifa, and Anarchy...

To Woke, Wonk, and Zeitgeist...

With new and trending words like Covidiot, Pizzagate, and TERF...

Words for Warriors is a treasure trove of linguistic gymnastics the toxic lefties and Democrats employ to further their anti-American agenda. Arm yourself with Words for Warriors, and fight back against political correctness that squashes real debate, free speech, and prosperity.

"For too long the Left has tried to silence the Right through a war on words. Understanding their tactics and what we can do about it is crucial. Sam Sorbo lays it all out." --Sean Spicer, Host of Spicer & Company

"Grab a copy and fight back!" --Eric Metaxas, New York Times Bestselling Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sam Sorbo is a filmmaker, radio host, actress, international activist and author. She hosts the weekday, nationally-syndicated radio program and podcast, "The Sam Sorbo Show." Sorbo guest-starred in the television series Hercules and Chicago Hope, and also performed in Just Let Go, winning Best Supporting Actress from the Utah Film Awards. Sam produced and starred in the features Let There Be Light and Miracle in East Texas. A homeschooling advocate, she is author of numerous books including They're YOUR Kids, Teach from Love and True Faith, which she co-authored with her husband, actor Kevin Sorbo

American Awakening By Joshua Mitchell

American Awakening

IDENTITY POLITICS AND OTHER AFFLICTIONS OF OUR TIME

BY JOSHUA MITCHELL

Joshua Mitchell, Professor of Political Theory at Georgetown University has written a book, as a political philosopher, that is considered to be "a key to the times we are living in" - American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time. This book is about three separable but ultimately related ailments from which we suffer immensely in America today: identity politics, bipolarity, and addiction. Although identity politics is the more immediate threat, our republic cannot be healthy if we do not also understand and address bipolarity and addiction.

In American Awakening, you'll learn:

·    Whether it's the search for "clean" energy, the attempt to tear down our national monuments, or the desperate attempt to find cover for moral guilt by declaring "Black Lives Matter," in America today we are in the midst of a religious quest for purity, not unlike the Great Awakenings from our past.

·    Identity politics is less about respect and toleration of differences than it is about finding a scapegoat to purge. The words, fascist, Nazi, homophobe, misogynist, Islamophobe, hater, denier, are scapegoating words, not intended to solve real-life problems, but to purge people from the community.

·    The current scapegoat is the white heterosexual male. Once he is purged, there will be a need for another scapegoat on whom "innocent victims" can blame their troubles.

·    Black America is being betrayed by identity politics. 

·    Identity politics depends on the false idea that different "identity groups" are unified. So, "white" is one thing, "women" another, "black" another, and so on. Yet nothing is more obvious today than the divisions within these groups.

America has always been committed to the idea that citizens can work together to build a common world. Today, three afflictions keep us from pursuing that noble ideal. The first and most obvious affliction is identity politics, which seeks to transform America by turning politics into a religious venue of sacrificial offering. For now, the sacrificial scapegoat is the white, heterosexual, man. After he is humiliated and purged, who will be the object of cathartic rage? White women? Black men? Identity politics is the anti-egalitarian spiritual eugenics of our age. It demands that pure and innocent groups ascend, and the stained transgressor groups be purged.

The second affliction is that citizens oscillate back and forth, in bipolar fashion, at one moment feeling invincible on their social media platforms and, the next, feeling impotent to face the everyday problems of life without the guidance of experts and global managers.

Third, Americans are afflicted by a disease that cannot quite be named, characterized by an addictive hope that they can find cheap shortcuts that bypass the difficult labors of everyday life. Instead of real friendship, we seek social media "friends." Instead of meals at home, we order "fast food." Instead of real shopping, we "shop" online. Instead of counting on our families and neighbors to address our problems, we look to the state to take care of us. In its many forms, this disease promises release from our labors, yet impoverishes us all. 

American Awakening chronicles all of these problems yet gives us hope for the future that builds securely on three pillars of renewal: refortifying our middle-class commercial republic, healing the legacy of the wound of slavery, and establishing and sustaining a modest foreign policy. These will involve difficult but necessary labors if the promise of America is to be fulfilled, and if the citizens of this country are to recover the sobriety and humility we so dearly need to live well, with a modest but justified hope for the future.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joshua Mitchell is professor of political theory at Georgetown University. The author of numerous journal articles and four books, most recently, Tocqueville in Arabia, Professor Mitchell's research focuses on Western political philosophy and theology. He is also a Washington Fellow at Claremont's Institute's Center for the American Way of Life.

Radical Son (new edition) by David Horowitz

 

RADICAL SON: A Generational Odyssey

By David Horowitz

Radical Son: Second Edition by David Horowitz is one of the most compelling and important political memoirs in recent American history - republished after more than twenty years with a new introduction by the author. In a narrative that possesses both remarkable political importance and extraordinary literary power, David Horowitz tells the story of his startling political odyssey from sixties radical to nineties conservative. 

A political document of our times, Radical Son traces three generations of one American family's infatuation with the radical left from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 to the collapse of the Marxist empire six decades later. David Horowitz was one of the founders of the New Left and an editor of Ramparts - the magazine that set the intellectual and revolutionary tone for the movement.

In the new edition of Radical Son, you'll learn:

·    The deep divisions that divide our country now began in the Sixties;

·    The violence that tore up our cities this past summer and the coddling of black criminals began in the Sixties. A murder committed by the Black Panthers ended my life in the left; and

·    The leftward shift of the Democrat Party began with the riot that Tom Hayden staged at the 1968 Democrat convention after which he led the anti-American left into the Democrat Party. This left took over the Democrat Party with the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

From his vantage point at the center of the action, he populates Radical Son with vivid portraits of people who made the radical decade, while unmaking America at the same time. This painful and difficult journey from Left to Right has made Horowitz the most hated ex-radical of his generation. In telling his story, he provides not just an intimate personal account of his own transformation, but a scathing moral history of the American left, and a guide to the evolving political conscience of an entire generation.

"David Horowitz’s political pilgrimage from a Sixties radical to a Reagan conservative - and the friends and enemies he has made along the way - makes for a very interesting, very compelling story. Speaking as a conservative: it's much better to have David Horowitz with you than against you. Radical Son demonstrates why."

--William J. Bennett, Author of The Moral Compass

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Horowitz is a conservative thinker and writer who has authored dozens of books over the course of his lifetime. He began his political career as one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s and served as an editor of its largest magazine, Ramparts. As described in this bestselling autobiography, Horowitz was forced to confront some difficult truths about the political left after a close friend of his was murdered by the Black Panthers, and ultimately found a political and intellectual home as a conservative activist. David is the renowned conservative commentator and New York Times bestselling author of Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America and Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America. He is the founder and CEO of the David Horowitz Freedom Center in Los Angeles.

13½ REASONS WHY NOT TO BE A LIBERAL By Judd Dunning

 

13½ REASONS WHY

NOT TO BE A LIBERAL

AND HOW TO ENLIGHTEN OTHERS

By Judd Dunning

Despite the fact that Americans are more likely to identify as conservative than as liberal in their political ideology, conservatives often find themselves in situations where liberals relentlessly hammer them with insults, accusations, and unfounded assumptions about conservatism. What is a proud conservative to do? The answer is in the new conservative playbook, 13½ Reasons Why NOT to be a Liberal and How to Enlighten Others by Judd Dunning, a definitive guide to persuasive facts and arguments that detail the policies, accomplishments, and often-ignored compassionate nature of the conservative philosophy.

Presented in an easy-to-access format, Judd Dunning's ideological treatise will empower readers not only to hold their own in an argument with a Liberal, but also to change hearts and minds, or at worst, preserve a few more mutually respectful relationships with more ease, clarity, and dignity.

In 13½ Reasons Why NOT to Be a Liberal, conservatives will find the perfect facts and figures to win the debate on all the hot-button issues important to freedom-loving Americans, and will learn how to successfully and intelligently enlighten liberals with these facts and more:

·    Why Big Government fails at almost everything;

·    Why people are inherently unequal;

·    Climate change and real versus junk science;

·    The myth of the GOP as racist;

·    Free speech versus leftist political correctness;

·    How justice does not need an adjective in front of it;

·    That American exceptionalism is not a hate crime;

·    Judeo-Christian values are American values;

·    Every nation secures its borders; and much more!

Based on current and timeless conservative philosophical arguments, this handbook book is tailor-made for right-leaning, independent, or "on the fence" Americans who are both passionate about politics and love being Americans, regardless of who's in office.

"Antifa leftists may still burn this book, but more than a few center-left individuals will read 13½ Reasons Why NOT to Be a Liberal and develop a new respectful understanding of conservatism." --DINESH D’SOUZA 

"Judd Dunning provides a crucial perspective for those tired of arguing with mindless liberals who believe in all the disinformation served up by the fake news media. This is a must-read for those determined to defeat the unhinged left." --ROGER STONE

About the Author: Judd Dunning is an author, host, producer, and president of CU Media Group, bringing together some of the biggest names in politics and entertainment, offering its own unique, unconventional, and highly entertaining brand of political discourse. He is cohost of the podcast, "BulletPointNation."

Thought Criminal By Michael Rectenwald

 

The "1984" of the COVID Era

THOUGHT CRIMINAL

By Michael Rectenwald

NYU Professor of Liberal Studies, Michael Rectenwald has written the "1984" of the COVID Era: Thought Criminal. In his 2019 book, Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom, Professor Rectenwald argued that the real danger posed by Big Tech is not digital capitalism as such, but leftist authoritarianism. Thought Criminal explores not only big tech, but also social media censorship, media propaganda, the virus, the vaccine, and collectivism. Most importantly, it shows what could happen to a society so eager to comply with tyrannical rules and regulations that defy common sense.

In Thought Criminal, a distinguished Professor of AI-neuroscience and Theory of Mind has dissident thoughts. He differs from acceptable opinion on matters of grave importance to respectable Human Biologicals and the Federation of Pandemos, the global state. Upon confessing his divergent theories to a graduate student assistant, his life is never the same. He is labeled a "Thought Deviationist," among other damning designations. He is arrested by a robot police agent and soon released but remains a covert "Thought Deviationist" living under the constant fear of future arrest, the treachery of friends, and the loss of his identity.

Thought Criminal's "Thought Deviationist" character discovered that the ultimate threat is posed by the Collective Mind and submission to the virus spells the obliteration of the self. Resistance to the virus means living as a fugitive of the law and being forever hunted by robot police agents to be taken in for "treatment."

·    The novel is set in a near-future dystopia where personal robots keep constant surveillance and report any conversations or actions that reflect dissident thinking; where Smart Cities track your every move; where a massive, centralized database, known as Collective Mind, threatens to regulate all thinking and obliterate individual identity.

·    The main character, 48, has lost his prestigious position as professor of the Theory of Mind and AI-Neuroscience at Transhuman University in Santa Cruz, Region of California, after expressing his dissident views about the virus and its role in connecting the neo-cortex of subjects to Collective Mind. This transgression has earned him registration as a Thought Deviationist and Vaccine Resistor, and thus he is hauled in by robot law enforcement agents to the Essential Data complex, which houses the most important processors of Collective Mind.

·    Not simply "a system of control imposed by an independent entity," Collective Mind is a system that is "only possible when a collective becomes complicit in its own subjection and when the subjects impose subjugation upon each other."

The novel treats the possibility, or lack thereof, of retaining one's humanity and individual identity in the face of transhumanism and a technologically enforced collectivism. Think about this in the context of the current state of the world today, in which a disturbing number of the population eagerly complies with useless, authoritarian mask mandates, social distancing, and vaccine compliance, and angrily shames those who do not comply.

Michael Rectenwald has written a thought experiment for our time, the '1984' of the COVID era, where we can step back and view today’s America for what it is: a society infected not by a virus but by collective hysteria. Thought Criminal explores the meaning of individualism in an increasingly collectivist society, where our thoughts are not our thoughts but those infused in us by the media and the Collective Mind, and the very notion of free will becomes a distant memory. This is fiction that makes us think and makes us dream. --Kenneth R. Timmerman

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Michael Rectenwald is a recently retired Professor of Liberal Studies at New York University, where he taught cultural and social history as well as academic writing since 2008. The author of ten books, Rectenwald is a prominent spokesperson for academic freedom and free speech and an expert on the history and character of the ‘social justice’ movement.