Books You Read, People You Meet - Change You

Here is a list of High School Recommended Reading from the Young Americans Foundation, along with some personal commentary. These books take issue with the orthodoxy of the Left, provoke thought, and quite possibly can change your thinking:

• The Bible. It has inspired a whole host of writers beginning with Shakespeare, and continues to to give us book titles, story lines and incredible insights into human nature.
• The Declaration of Independence. Recently under attack for mentioning God, the Creator, Nature and Nature's God, thus offending ACLU sensibilities.
• Constitution of the United States. Including the Bill of Rights, with all its ammendments, which Leftist writer Gore Vidal called a "messy document," and called for a new Constitutional Convention to clean it up and pattern it after a more Europhile model.
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Life in the Soviet New World Order ain't so hot. But on reading Solzi's denunciation of the West at Harvard's commencement in 1972, neither is modern democracy in the United States.
• Great American Conservative Women: A Collection of Speeches compiled by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. Great women aren't all Leftists!
• The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater. Some of us remember what AuH2O meant and the movement to not throw out the baby with the bathwater and preserve the good during that Decade of Discarding.
• The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek. If you really trust the people, you will give them choice in all areas of their lives. Otherwise, central committees lead to slavery.
• The Myth of the Robber Barrons by Burton W. Folsom, Jr. Can lead to a questioning of Leftist liberal bias against corporations, which corporations just happen to be one way democracy manifests itself and brings you everything you love in your life - from shoes, clothes, food, computers, cars, books.
• The Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison, Jay. Still the best peak inside the brains of the Framers and of the Constitution, despite our puerile Euro-centric fascination of looking to Europe for inspiration on what the U.S. Constitution could really mean.
• The Law by Frederic Bastiat. Taxation becomes legal plunder and the forcible redistribution of wealth can be shown for what it is - theft by totalitarians.
• Letters to a Young Conservative by Dinesh D'Souza. Here are some letters to the young man and woman as artist and conservative, in a world that believes the Leftist lie that only Liberals are caring and feeling. The artististic and conservative sensitivities in me denounce that lie.
• Ronald Reagan by Libby Highes. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" And the world's timetable was hastened along, and changed forever.
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Show the hot flames of Political Correctness for what it is - right next to the book burners of the world.
• Animal Farm by George Orwell. Which animals do we identify with most?
• 1984 by George Orwell. Big Brother is watching! Thank Heaven for Macintosh computers being intoduced in 1984 to keep us from "1984!" And Patriot Acts to keep real Big Brothers at bay.
• The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck. Somewhere in all that Leftist, we-love-Russia-as-utopia sentiment, amid The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, he said something worthwhile.

I would add Aldous Huxley's Brave New World to the list.

Huxley argues against Fabianism - a severe Logical Positivism, wherein science will solve all our problems, social engineering will create the perfect society and the dirtiest word in their language is "mother."

With science being able to create, to incubate, and to raise children, the naturalistic mother and family become the vilest forms of savage primitivism.

Interestingly, Bill Clinton was a member of the Fabian Society while he was at Oxford. How much that association influences his actions toward dismantling the family in the international arena, can only be surmised. Read A Sacred Duty by Richard Wilkins, a Deseret Book publication.

Read; it will change your life.

Immigration - There is Room Enough For All!

Many of my students are from immigrant families, which may or may not be in the United States legally. Here is one take on the issue.

A dear friend of mine, who graduated with a doctorate from Columbia, who ran the elections in El Salvador, who counts the cities of Berlin and Boston as clients and who spent 30 years in Manhattan, tells of his father, a farmer from West Virginia, who when friends, or missionaries, or strangers came to eat at his home, would say in faith: Throw another potato in the oven; there's room enough for all!

We need to read Isaiah 54 very carefully; and we shall see this so-called "immigration problem" in a new light.

"Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations; spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes..." We are to make room under the pavillion of the Lord for all who would come here to seek refuge from the sun. Are there families who can't fit under the tent? Then, lengthen the cords and add more curtain; make way for the new comer.

And when these immigrants come, they will be so many that they will "break forth on the right hand and on the left," spilling out of the tent. Then, add to the tent; let them come! We Gentiles who have a dearth of births will dwindle, and our cities shall begin to be desolate and uninhabitated. Therefore, the immigrants who come will make up the lack. "Thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited."

My dear brothers, you and your families are welcome at the table; there is room enough for all! Come in from the sun of Oppression! Come and rest under this Tent of Liberty - this land, this Constitution! We shall enlarge the place of the tent! We shall stretch forth the curtains of our habitations; we'll lengthen the cords! There is room enough for you all, at this table, under this tent - this Pavillion of Our Lord!

Throw another potato in the oven; there is room enough for all!