# Good right-wing reading material **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 2, 2003, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924 "2003-04-02T08:38:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Carcosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@Carcosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carcosa)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/21 "2003-04-03T00:09:19Z")
In Defense of Elitism by William A. Henry Reviews are available at Amazon ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/22 "2003-04-03T00:28:41Z")
P.J. O’Rourke is great. So is [Ann Coulter](http://www.anncoulter.org/) (though the more sensative mistake her unwavering un-political correctness for outright racism). [Jonah Goldberg](http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg.shtml) is almost as good as P.J. A little less witty but a bit more serious. [Mona Charen](http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/charen2.asp) is another. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/23 "2003-04-03T03:54:22Z")
If you want the best explanation of early conservative thought read Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke. ---
**Author:** ![Sapphire\_Bullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@Sapphire\_Bullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapphire_Bullet)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/24 "2003-04-03T12:46:01Z")
The Conscience of a Conservative by Barry Goldwater. I’ll third the recommendation for Hayek, as well. And for one conservative perspective of feminism, read The War Against Boys by Christina Hoff Sommers. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/25 "2003-04-03T12:50:07Z")
Perhaps _The Shadow University_, by Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silvergate. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/26 "2003-04-03T15:28:52Z")
For welfare policy - **The Tragedy of American Compassion** by Marvin Olasky and **The Dream and the Nightmare** by Myron Magnet. For Affirmative action and race **Losing the Race** by John McWhorter and \*\* The content of our character\*\* by Shelby Steele. For economics\*\* Free to Choose\*\* by Milton Friedman and [http://www.jim.com/seen.htm](http://www.jim.com/seen.htm) by Bastiat This [http://www.city-journal.org/](http://www.city-journal.org/) is a great magazine of conservative thought. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/27 "2003-04-03T15:44:31Z")
the one Taylor Caldwell to remain in print- CAPTAINS AND THE KINGS. If you can find them, her novel on Cicero - A PILLAR OF IRON; Luke- DEAR AND GLORIOUS PHYSICIAN; and her last two novels BRIGHT FLOWS THE RIVER and ANSWER AS A MAN. Non-fiction: Dennis Prager’s THINK A SECOND TIME Antony Sutton WALL STREET AND THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION; WALL ST & FDR; WALL ST. AND THE RISE OF HITLER; Rose Wilder Lane THE DISCOVERY OF FREEDOM; I wish there was a good reliable primer on the Eastern Establishment/Corporate Internationalist organizations that didn’t veer into paranoid extremism. Alas, the best I can do is recommend John Birch literature on the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, & the Bildeberg Conferences- believe it or not, the JBS actually is more moderate than a lot of other Rightist literature on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/28 "2003-04-03T19:30:35Z")
I’ve always found Rush Limbaugh’s first book, “The Way Things Ought to Be” to do an excellent job of explaining and arguing for the conservative side. Skip his second book, though. That one just comes off sounding bitter. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/29 "2003-04-03T20:49:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cmkeller \* > I’ve always found Rush Limbaugh’s first book, “The Way Things Ought to Be” to do an excellent job of explaining and arguing for the conservative side. Just make sure you get the version with all the mistakes annotated. 😉 > [@](#): > > **LIMBAUGH:** “Don’t let the liberals deceive you into believing that a decade of sustained growth without inflation in America [in the '80s] resulted in a bigger gap between the haves and the have-nots. Figures compiled by the Congressional Budget Office dispel that myth.” (_Ought to Be,_ p. 70) > > **REALITY:** CBO figures do nothing of the sort. Its numbers for after-tax incomes show that in 1980, the richest fifth of our country had eight times the income of the poorest fifth. By 1989, the ratio was more than 20 to one. > **LIMBAUGH:** “The worst of all of this is the lie that condoms really protect against AIDS. The condom failure rate can be as high as 20 percent. Would you get on a plane – or put your children on a plane – if one of five passengers would be killed on the flight? Well, the statistic holds for condoms, folks.” (_Ought to Be,_ p. 135) > > **REALITY:** A one in five AIDS risk for condom users? Not true, according to Dr. Joseph Kelaghan, who evaluates contraceptives for the National Institutes of Health. “There is substantive evidence that condoms prevent transmission if used consistently and properly,” he said. He pointed to a nearly two-year study of couples in which one partner was HIV-positive. Among the 123 couples who used condoms regularly, there wasn’t a single new infection (_Associated Press,_ 8/29/93). ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/30 "2003-04-03T21:34:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cmkeller \* > \*\*I’ve always found Rush Limbaugh’s first book, “The Way Things Ought to Be” to do an excellent job of explaining and arguing for the conservative side. \*\* I wholeheartedly disagree. The “no books by people whose primary day job is TV/radio punditry” rule will serve you well. Not only will you manage to avoid books by Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly and Coulter, but you’ll also manage to avoid books by Carville and Begala. You can’t miss. (N.B.: I _would_ recommend Chris Matthews’ book [Hardball](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684845598/qid=1049405559/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/104-6156549-2131910), but that does NOT break the pundit rule as it was written nearly a decade before Matthews became a full-time pundit. And it’s neither conservative nor liberal – it’s a course in how politics is played in Washington, sort of a modern-day version of Machiavelli’s _The Prince_.) ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2003, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924/31 "2003-04-03T21:44:18Z")
Try _The Terrible Truth About Liberals_ by Neal Boortz. He’s a Libertarian, it’s a fairly short book, and I found it very interesting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/good-right-wing-reading-material/165924.md?page=1)