This is a hoot!!!
10.
Don’t ask me why I subscribe to this ultra-conservative newsletter but I got this today. Check out the 10 books this list & the Honorable Mention list! Of course, The Origin of Species made this list.
yeah, i have to agree that i wouldn’t have placed “the origin” on that list… although i do agree with most of the others…
isaac
You’ve got to be kidding 
Er… I’m with Isaac on this one. You probably coulda guessed that though…
TG
saying that they’re harmful does not mean these books had no impact… i maintain my beliefs in small, protectorate governments… philosophers such as marx are in direct contrast with my principles, hence i would agree with the fact that they are indeed “harmful”…
and no, i am not kidding… although you didn’t mention any specific reasons, i find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t consider the communist manifesto a “harmful” piece of literature… it seems that modern liberals have strayed so far from the root word, “liber”, meaning “free”, and now somehow justify socialist and communist ideals as “liberating”?.. i guess i just don’t get it 
…
isaac
Well I do but:
- The Kinsey Report - ohhh sex is bad
- Democracy and Education by John Dewey (man is he bad)
- The Course of Positive Philosophy - sounds real danagerous
- General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - by that radical John Maynard Keynes
and the:
- On Liberty - by John Stuart Mill
- Coming of Age in Samoa - by Margaret Mead
- Unsafe at Any Speed - by Ralph Nader
Come one guys…
are you saying “well, i do” as a response to my suggestion that some liberals justify socialism and communism as liberating?!.. think carefully before you respond!..
i expect that some left winger(s) will present a list of their own as a reaction to this… there will probably be quite a few across the web, if not already… i believe that list will be very revealing about some liberals… nonetheless, if marx isn’t on that list, i will be very disappointed and concerned about my own left leanings (yes, i consider myself a “social liberal”, think libertarian)… but i would be very happy to see atlas shrugged and the fountainhead on any of those leftists’ lists… both incredible reads, and would confirm some other beliefs about those i suspect only pose as true “liberals”…
isaac
Literary works cannot by nature be “harmful”, they are only words on paper. Only the thoughts of people.
In the same way I could claim the Bible as harmful because some nut read into it that they should blow up abortion clinics. This is a very narrow minded, myopic and censorus view.
Is Michaelangelo’s David harmful? He is, after all, naked, and that may arouse some one into a sexual frenzy who then proceeds to sacrifice kittens (see also Fark).
Works cannot be “bad” or “Harmful” only people are capable of those things.
When it comes to Ayn Rand - anyone who reads them is a masochist to start with, I wouldn’t be too concerned about the great unwashed masses flocking to that one.
And the tired propaganda “Liberal” = “Communist” it total bullsheet. It’s populist propaganda spouted by Rush “Oxyman” Limberger and his hoardes of lockstepping drones. Liberals have no more interest in becoming communists than you do. If I was interested in converting the US to communism, I would have joined the communist party (Yes there is an American Communist Party). No one from the centre - left is proposing a totalitarian society, just a truthful one. In which our taxes are used to benefit ourselves primarily through education, law enforcement and maintaining our society, not thrusting our beliefs on the rest of the world at the point of a gun (literally and metaphorically).
.-=gp=-.
idover, you obviously have never read Marx - not even the Manifesto, which is a lightweight occasional piece and not a theoretical work, much less Das Kaptial. But it’s OK, most people make judgments like yours wihtout actually knowing anything about what they are talking about.
Anyway, what chutz said. Some state positions that are wrong. Others state postions that are not. Some of the ideas have been influential. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
In any case, no one really ever read Mein Kampf. And it is just plain stupid to lump Darwin, Beauvoir, Keynes, and Marx in with Hitler. More than stupid, it is offensive. Then again, look at who the judges are. These are not defenders of liberty and free speech, these are people who want to shove their morality down your throats, and do it the old fashioned way, by book burnings.
Good god we live in an ignorant and foolish society.
Book burning, ah yes Hitler was into that too!
Harmful books… lol. Watch out, here comes a thought…DUCK!!!
If you want a really harmful book, try this one. It hurts my head everytime I read it.
Mike
I want to re-phrase your words.
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| Harmful books… lol. Watch out, here comes a thought…DUCK!!! |
How about…
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| Harmful books… lol. Watch out, here comes a thought-DUCK!!! |
I have this vision about what a Thought-Duck might be…Every time someone thinks something Mr. Duck considers to be a bad thought he starts pecking at that someones crotch until he stop thinking those dirty nast thoughts.
…ooooo…quack…OUHHH
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| Liberals have no more interest in becoming communists than you do. |
i am very happy to hear that!.. get out and tell your friends!
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| Works cannot be “bad” or “Harmful” only people are capable of those things. |
just curious, and off topic, what are your feelings on gun control, 2nd ammendment, etc.?
an fyi, i’m certainly not a limbaugh fan… i’ve listened a couple of times, but find him to be a pompous ass the same that you probably do… i’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic with the rand comment, she’s by far my favorite author… if you haven’t read any of her works, you really should…
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| In which our taxes are used to benefit ourselves primarily through education, law enforcement and maintaining our society… |
hey, cool! we’re already applying the tenth measure of the manifesto!
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| idover, you obviously have never read Marx - not even the Manifesto, which is a lightweight occasional piece and not a theoretical work, much less Das Kaptial. But it’s OK, most people make judgments like yours wihtout actually knowing anything about what they are talking about. |
ummm… sorry, you seem a nice guy, but wrong here… how is it “obvious”?.. just because i don’t subscribe to the noam chomsky hourly newsletter doesn’t mean that i’m not well read… you are guilty of that of which you have accused me…
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| …by book burnings |
oh dear, you’ve gone and done it again… i guess that anyone that suggests any type of conservative opinion is by definition a book burning nazi?..
nonetheless, it’s fun to argue these things…
- john galt
Well, my bet is that you haven’t read them. What are the central demands in the Manifesto, and to what extent do they fit your depiction of Marx’s theory?
People who want to censor books, conservative or not, are dangerous. It just so happens that liberals tend to want to promote free speech, conservatives tend to want to repress the free flow of ideas. I wasn’t that way in the past, but it is now.
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| Quote Liberals have no more interest in becoming communists than you do. i am very happy to hear that!.. get out and tell your friends! |
I’m sorry to see that you have subscribed to the Republican propaganda/spin machine. This is THE reason the country is so divided; hate/lies filled propaganda.
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| Quote Works cannot be “bad” or “Harmful” only people are capable of those things. just curious, and off topic, what are your feelings on gun control, 2nd ammendment, etc.? |
This is another one of those over-simplifying arguments. “Books are like guns, they are not bad by themselves…” lol. I just heard on the news last night that over 100 people were killed in the US yesterday by book wounds.
The problem with this argument is that the person making the arguement fails to realize that humans are ego-centric babies, prone to fits of uncontrollable fear and rage. Give that person a book and they might learn to control their fear/rage. Give them a gun and they kill. So gun control is not about guns, it is about getting destruction out of the hands of the immature.
But you seem like a bright guy, you probably already knew that.
Mike
by “central demands”, do you mean the measures which should apply to any “advanced” society?.. i recall there being ten, and because my degree is in education, i was especially interested in the tenth, because it scared me so… i think the third is another with which the US is pressing forward, a graduated income tax… honestly, i’ve never truly read das kapital… i’ve thumbed through it probably the same that i expect you would thumb through any savage or hannity book (neither of which i’ve ever read)…
as for dewey, i actually referenced him in quite a few papers… and being in the technology field, dewey was required reading… honestly, he left no impression…
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| People who want to censor books, conservative or not, are dangerous. |
my friend, i couldn’t agree with you more on this statement… cheers!..
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| It just so happens that liberals tend to want to promote free speech, conservatives tend to want to repress the free flow of ideas. |
unless that free speech contains conservative ideals, right?.. or would you take the easy road and say that most conservative talk is “hate speech”?..
here in atlanta, we have a place called “little five points” that is a liberal bastion, complete with anti conservative bookstores, posters, etc… on the entrance to the stores/venues in the area each have a “no hate speech” sign… this amuses me about the modern liberal thought… if liberals REALLY believed in free speech, then they’d have to suck it up and listen to what ANYONE had to say… even if it’s a guy standing on the sidewalk screaming racial slurs… of course, since i really understand freedoms, i realize that these businesses have the right to post anything they want or to eject anyone, as i have the right to avoid those shops… and anyone has the right to read/write any book he wishes, even the anarchist’s cookbook…
i’ll have to revisit the list to see what others are on there… wanting coffee now…
john galt put it best - “i will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine”…
your friend,
henry reardon
| Quote (DrGuitar @ June 03 2005,21:16) |
| Harmful books.... lol. Watch out, here comes a thought....DUCK!!! If you want a really harmful book, try this one. It hurts my head everytime I read it. Mike |
here's another for you... if you're ever in a bookstore and remember, just go thumb through this one..
http://tinyurl.com/7lt4r
although, i must admit that i have it on my bookshelf, along with many, many other technical books... wow, i even referenced it recently enough that it is on my sofa...
any others that will have you on suicide watch?...
isaac
Yaz, be careful. It’s a long held tradition in internet forums and newsgroups that if somebody utters the name of the late Austrian corporal or the name of his party, she/he has lost the argument.
One of the more honorable traditions we have, indeed. 
(And yes, same applies to a certain former student of a Tbilisi seminary and his party…)
While you can look to what happened in Soviet Union (or happens in China, for that matter) and rightfully declare the Communist Manifesto or Das Capital as harmful, that is not the whole story. Those same books were essential in establishing in Europe - and Northern America - the idea that, despite family backround, race, upbringing, rank or sex or whatever, everybody has a right to education, decent pay, vote and rightful trial. They were not the first in their area, but they had a lot of influence. We’re all reaping the harvest, ladies and gentlemen, even if we don’t agree with the others who took the books more literally.
(And of course, everything said here can be applied to, say, the Bible.)
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| 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. |
So, which of these have we judged to be of some worth? Every single one of them, to some degree. Highly developed societies like the US would not have been possible without free education, e.g. Some aspects of the program are extreme, but we are long past the idea that we can go on blithely with our own business and not worry about the people around us. Well, most of us understand that, although the radical fundamentalist apocalyptic conservatives who have hijacked the repub party don’t get it.
Now, about Dewey - why in the world could anyone think Dewey’s work on education, which is part of his more general work on democracy, was harmful? idover, you see the problem - you remembered that Marx and Engels stated 10 measures that they thought would be applicable in most cases in a revolution they expected to see a century and a half ago, but you have not read Das Kaptial, you didn’t study Dewey enough to get what he was saying, and yet you have an opinion about how dangerous these are? That’d be amazing to me, except it is the sort of thing one finds in the US over and over. We don’t like to study, we like to know without studying. We don’t like complexity, we don’t like ambiguity, we want “moral clarity.” So we get Bush “disassembling” things.
Concerning the comment about conservative ideals (and ideas too) - to criticize an idea is not the same as trying to censor it. Go check out the fellow on the top ten list from Calvin College. Some of the people on that list favor censorship. Again, conflating censorship and criticism is typically American. We have so much trouble understanding the difference. You want my stance on this particular issue, that is, the issue of free speech and censorship, think ACLU. You bet the people who published the list have the right to do so, you bet conservative voices ought to be heard, but they ought not be allowed to control what gets said, and that is exactly their program. Your mention of two Fox entertainers is on target - Murdoch et al long ago set out to control the information you get. You tell me that that is a conservative value, and you will hear more than a few chuckles. Mill had it right in On Liberty - free speech is a necessary component; the folks on that list want anything but free speech.
Are you a conservative in the original sense of the word, or are you a conservative in Bush’s sense?
