About book Demonic: How The Liberal Mob Is Endangering America (2011)
Demonic - how the liberal mob is endangering Americaby Ann Coultera short "book report" by Ron Housley______________________________________I read Ann Coulter’s new book this weekend (6.19.2011): Demonic. Over the years I have read a fair amount about the French Revolution, including its depiction in a few novels, notably A Tale of Two Cities and Ninety-Three (Victor Hugo). And I knew that the assault on the Bastille was a classic mindless mob action. But it hadn’t dawned on me that the French “celebrate” Bastille Day as a national holiday, much the same (Coulter points out) as it would be if Americans made a national holiday to celebrate the LA Riots. Coulter is a “quick” read, mostly the consequence of her non-scholarly style ----- damaged by “quips” that she inserts like a talking head scoring a “hit and run” point on an adversary. On the other hand, there is a serious theme; and the theme is colored in richly ---- drawing upon example after example of “breathtaking cognitive dissonance” to hammer home her message that the mob behavior driving today’s politicians is “free of all reasoning and all proof.” Her theme is the irrationality of mobs in history and the alignment of current-day Democrats with the mobs past and present. There’s too much documentation for us to claim that she’s making too much out of a superficial coincidence. She documents how the Democrats will support any mob; I hadn’t realized just how numerous were the instances of mob support thus tendered. “No matter how many carcasses pile up, liberals simply cannot shake their belief that government is the key to improving the human condition.” These are some examples of the liberal mindset: (a) support for Mao and the Chinese Communist party, as they murdered78 million people; (b) support for the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, as they murdered 2.7-million Asians; (c) support for North Korea in the early 1950s (by the Democratic candidate for congress and Los Angeles Times columnist)Robert Scheer reported that he had been to North Korea and he had seen the future that works(!); (d) support for North Vietnam; (e) support for segregation in the South from the Civil war until the late 1960s; strong appeal to the racist mobs. All the while the senior Democratic senator was a former Klansman; (f) support for the group overthrowing the Shah of Iran; (g) support for the Soviet Union; (“Teddy Kennedy was sending secret messages to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov complaining about Reagan”); that Communist mob murdered tens of millions of its own citizens over the years; (h) support for Obamacare; “no matter how mad the plan is (the “New Soviet Man;” the Master Race; the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Building a New Society or The New Deal, or the Great Society) a mob will believe it; (i) support for criminals; litigating to let criminals go free, as if their real purpose were to create chaos from public loss of faith in the system --- a system which obviously doesn’t work if the criminals are turned free; (j) and, as they say, much more.Coulter begins to make her case with the mob that was the French Revolution. And we are treated to the reminder that the inspiration for the French Revolution was Rousseau’s fantasy that the elites’ job is to fetter out what is the “general will” of the people. This is the same “general will” that was explored in the Woodrow Wilson biography, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism (Pestritto) which I reported on about a year ago. Wilson was a great advocate of racial segregation and of forcing his notion of the “general will” upon everyone else. (“Rousseau saw the government as the vessel to implement the “general will.”)In American history, the expression “public interest” was used more commonly than the term “general will.” But the concept always entailed the abrogation of individual rights so that the elite “leaders” could FORCE their will on everyone. “Public interest” has ALWAYS referred to the interests of some citizens at the expense of other citizens. Coulter focuses on how the mob mentality organizes behind some elites’ notion of what is the “general will” or “public interest.” Every bloodthirsty regime claims to be redressing the wrongs of previous regimes --- all the way up to an including Obama forcing Obamacare down the throats of Americans. With Obamacare, the Democrats were happy to suppress freedom to enact what they felt was the “general will.” They played to the mob (unthinking) mentality to push the bill into law. Notice that the mob never sides with those who seek to protect human life and individual rights. The mob sides only with those who seek to punish. When it comes to Civil Rights, she paints a nice portrait of how the Democrats officially appealed to the racist mob in the South for decades; how the Democrat leaders were the ones steadfastly AGAINST civil rights legislation; how Lyndon Johnson voted against every civil rights bill during his time in the Senate ---- but once he ascended to the Presidency, he could no longer appeal to regional mobs….his tactic was summed up when he said: “Be ready to take up the (Negro) bill again.” Democrats changed mobs once blacks were finally voting in high enough numbers to make a difference at the ballot box ----- and then they claimed credit for everything their party had ferociously blocked since the Civil War(!). [It was the Democrats’ obstructionism that created the civil rights protests in the first place.]When it comes to real violence vs. allegations of violence, she cites scores of individual acts of violence show that the actual violence comes almost entirely from the Left. But accusations of incitement to violence are always against, not the actual perpetrators of violence, but against the RightIt turns out that Coulter may be right: that liberals tend to defend mobs; that Liberals are the “some of the people” you can fool all the time. You definitely get the sense that her accounting comes with a slant; but it’s hard to conclude that she’s outright wrong.If you were thinking of reading Demonic, I hope this blurb helped…. Like all of Coulter's books, this is very well written and heavily footnoted. She contrasts the French Revolution which was driven by the mob mentality and the American Revolution which was about freedom and individualism. Its a great historical piece as well as political commentary about the dangers of collectivism, currently primarily a trait of liberalism. The only criticism I have is Coulter's typical "republicans can do no wrong" commentary. While to a large extent Republicans are not driven by a mob mentality, there are elements who do tend to go along with the crowd (such as with the religious right). At any rate, after reading this book, I am drawn to reading more about the French Revolution. I highly recommend this book.
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A persuasive, and as always humorous, elucidation by Ms. Coulter on how leftist mobs rule
—fredfournier
She created an excellent device in tying mob rule to demonic activity. Clever.
—Ryan
she has some good points review coming after mid term exams
—littlemouse30
She's purposefully controversial, but usually spot on
—SumZz
