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508. One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Ted Cruz

Genre:  Non Fiction, Law, Public Policy, Politics, Memoir

271 pages, published September 29, 2020

Reading Format:   Book

Summary

In One Vote Away, Senator (and former Supreme Court litigator as Texas Solicitor General) Ted Cruz writes about seminal Constitutional law cases before the Supreme Court and how the decision was often rendered by a single vote.  His detailed discussion includes cases impacting school choice, abortion rights, the right to bear arms, religious liberty, state and national sovereignty, freedom of speech, capital punishment, the rights of criminal defendants, and the criteria Republicans should use when selecting judges.

Quotes 

“The Supreme Court is supposed to protect our constitutional rights. It is also charged with securing our Constitution’s defining structural features, federalism and the separation of powers. Both doctrines protect Liberty by dividing power, by establishing checks and balances to prevent any branch of government from becoming too powerful…Over the past six decades, the Court has arrogated to itself far too much power– well beyond what it is entitled to under the Constitution. It has seized this power at the expense of Congress, the executive branch, the states, and We the People alike.

 

“An individual’s life prospects increase dramatically with each successfully completed phase of education.”

 

“Education is antecedent to most of our other public policy concerns. From poverty to crime to healthcare to substance abuse, if kids don’t get an education, we know that those other challenges are far more likely to follow; conversely, if children do get an excellent education, each of those problems is much more likely to be overcome. It is a damning stain on America’s conscience that a child’s chances of life success are so heavily influenced by– perhaps dictated by– the zip code in which he or she is raised. It is a profound civil rights crisis… the urgent need to secure access to a quality education– and access to educational choice, in particular– for every young American… In a just world, teachers unions would enthusiastically support school choice…But the union bosses who lead the teachers unions have decided that school choice is an existential threat to their power, and so they demand partisan fealty above all.

 

“There is no moral and just government that does not respect the religious liberty protections of its people. True political liberty, free speech, social stability,and human flourishing all depend upon a robust and durable protection, under the rule of law, of our fundamental right to choose our faith. And, on the flip side, efforts to undermine religious liberty and to persecute religious minorities are a telltale sign of tyrannical government.”

 

“In the Citizens United fight for free speech rights, “ While Senate Democrats sought to empower Congress to restrict individual citizens’ political speech rights, they did not want to apply that same treatment to giant media corporations like CNN and the New York Times…Citizens United was a conservative nonprofit corporation that made a movie critical of Hillary Clinton. And Senate Democrats now wanted to give the federal government the constitutional authority to punish anyone for criticizing Hillary Clinton or any other political candidate.”

 

“I believe in capital punishment. I believe in carrying out justice for those who commit unspeakable crimes, retribution for those who have been horribly victimized, and strong deterrence for the community to prevent horrific crime from happening again.”

 

“The way the First Step Act passed, through policy, legal, and constitutional arguments about what is right, appropriate, and just, through a consideration of facts and data and evidence about what is most effective in deterring crime and preventing recidivism– all of it was done through the legislative process That is how our system is supposed to work. Elected legislatures exist to consider and to weigh policy arguments and to reflect the wishes and values of the voters who elected them. When unelected judges seize issues of the criminal law and mandate that violent criminals receive lesser punishments, they are going against both the constitutional structure and their responsibility as judges.”

 

“If history teaches anything, it is that when people tell you they want to kill you, believe them. Or, at a minimum, don’t give them hundreds of billions of dollars to help them accomplish their objective. But, for whatever reason, Obama desperately wanted a deal with Iran.”

“Republicans have, historically speaking, been absolutely terrible at judicial nominations–…Republicans at best bat .500. Once confirmed as justices, at most, half of Republicans’ Supreme Court nominations actually behave as we hoped they might behave in terms of remaining faithful to their oath of office and the Constitution…The most important criteria that I believe should be applied is whether that individual (1) has a demonstrated proven record of being faithful to the Constitution and (2) has endured pounding criticism– has paid a price for holding that line.

 

My Take

One Vote Away was a quick and fascinating read.  I especially enjoyed all of the behind the scenes details that Cruz provides.  Rising from poverty, he has had quite the life.   However, I am an attorney and a Republican so I am the choir that Ted Cruz is preaching to.  Liberals may not like this book too much.

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506. The Kindness of Strangers: How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Moral Code

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:    Michael McCullough

Genre:  Non Fiction, Psychology, Sociology, Public Policy

368 pages, published May 12, 2020

Reading Format:   Book

Summary

In The Kindness of Strangers, psychologist Michael McCullough explores the issue of why human beings are altruistic.  He first looks at this question through an evolutionary lens and then traces the development of increasing altruism and help to our fellow man throughout human history.

Quotes 

“Natural selection is a penny pincher.  People tend to actively avoid feeling empathy for strangers.”

 

“Reason is the slave of the passions.” David Hume

 

 “Modern humans’ concern for the welfare of perfect strangers has no analog in the rest of the animal kingdom or even in our own history as a species. It’s a true one-off.”

 

“Our stone-age ancestors didn’t care very much at all about the well-being of true strangers.”

 

“The 21st-century explosion of social media revolutionized philanthropy, allowing instant appeals and massive responses from “bathrobe humanitarians” sitting at their computers.”

 

My Take

The Kindness of Strangers and its exploration of the reasons why human beings are altruistic and seek to help their fellow man is a fascinating read.  I was especially interested in the section discussing how altruism is the result of natural selection. Cooperation and tamping down selfish instincts often led to greater survivability.  Worth a look.

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470. So You Want to Talk about Race

Rating:  ☆☆

Recommended by:  Darla Schueth, Sue Deans

Author:   Ijeoma Oluo

Genre:   Non Fiction, Politics, Sociology, Cultural, Public Policy

248 pages, published January 16, 2018

Reading Format:  Audiobook on Overdrive

Summary

In So You Want to Talk About Race, Ijeoma Oluo offers her take on the racial landscape in America, addressing issues including privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the “N” word.

Quotes 

“When we identify where our privilege intersects with somebody else’s oppression, we’ll find our opportunities to make real change.”

 

“If you live in this system of white supremacy, you are either fighting the system of you are complicit. There is no neutrality to be had towards systems of injustice, it is not something you can just opt out of.”

 

“To refuse to listen to someone’s cries for justice and equality until the request comes in a language you feel comfortable with is a way of asserting your dominance over them in the situation.”

 

“1. It is about race if a person of color thinks it is about race. 2. It is about race if it disproportionately or differently affects people of color. 3. It is about race if it fits into a broader pattern of events that disproportionately or differently affect people of color.”

 

“You are racist because you were born and bred in a racist, white supremacist society. White Supremacy is, as I’ve said earlier, insidious by design. The racism required to uphold White Supremacy is woven into every area of our lives. There is no way you can inherit white privilege from birth, learn racist white supremacist history in schools, consume racist and white supremacist movies and films, work in a racist and white supremacist workforce, and vote for racist and white supremacist governments and not be racist.”

 

“Systemic racism is a machine that runs whether we pull the levers or not, and by just letting it be, we are responsible for what it produces.”

 

“And if you are white in a white supremacist society, you are racist. If you are male in a patriarchy, you are sexist. If you are able-bodied, you are ableist. If you are anything above poverty in a capitalist society, you are classist. You can sometimes be all of these things at once.”

 

My Take

I read So You Want to Talk About Race as part of my Boulder Rotary Club book group.  While the women who assigned it were well meaning, I found it to be a very offensive, counterproductive book.  It’s hard to take Ijeoma Oluo too seriously when she spends a chapter talking about how soft her hair is and how much she resents people asking to touch it.  Really?  My bigger issue with this polemical book is her basic premise that America is systemically racist.  This is the big lie being perpetrated in 2020.  If you disagree with this viewpoint, read Heather MacDonald’s comprehensive article on the subject (https://www.manhattan-institute.org/police-black-killings-homicide-rates-race-injustice).  The police make approximately 10 million arrests a year.  For the last five years, the police have fatally shot about 1,000 civilians annually, the vast majority of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous.  In 2019, the police shot 14 unarmed black victims and 25 unarmed white victims, 0.2% of the total.  This hardly constitutes an epidemic of police brutality.  Moreover, defunding the police will only worsen conditions in minority areas.

Tellingly, Oluo, whose mother is white and whose father is from Nigeria, routinely criticizes her mother who struggled as a single mother to raise Oluo and her brother after being abandoned by her black husband when Oluo was a toddler, while having nothing negative to say about her absentee father who provided her with zero support as she grew up.  Indeed, I believe that absent fathers is the real crisis in the black community which has a shockingly high 77% out of wedlock childbirth rate.  Children raised in single parent households face myriad obstacles that negatively impact their life prospects.  I (and many others) assert that this is the primary cause of black underperformance rather than systemic white supremacy argued by Oluo.  Today, the only law on the books which discriminates on the basis of race is affirmative action.  Accusing Americans of being white supremacists may make Oluo and others like her feel better, but it will do little to improve the lives of other black Americans.  To do that, the black community needs to take a cold-eyed look at their culture and advocate changes to it that will actually make a difference.

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460. Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Vivek Murthy

Genre:   Non Fiction, Health, Psychology, Self Improvement, Public Policy

352 pages, published April 28, 2020

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In Together, former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy argues that loneliness is at the root of our current mental health and drug abuse crisis’s.  In response, he advocates social and community connection as a cure for loneliness.

Quotes 

“Like thousands of others, we survived the storm and the many dark days that followed because of the kindness of strangers who brought food, water, and comfort’.”

 

“To be real is to be vulnerable.”

 

“Intimate, or emotional, loneliness is the longing for a close confidante or intimate partner—someone with whom you share a deep mutual bond of affection and trust. Relational, or social, loneliness is the yearning for quality friendships and social companionship and support. Collective loneliness is the hunger for a network or community of people who share your sense of purpose and interests. These three dimensions together reflect the full range of high-quality social connections that humans need in order to thrive. The lack of relationships in any of these dimensions can make us lonely, which helps to explain why we may have a supportive marriage yet still feel lonely for friends and community.”

 

“Solitude, paradoxically, protects against loneliness.”

 

“What often matters is not the quantity or frequency of social contact but the quality of our connections and how we feel about them.”

 

“loneliness overlaps with and is often inherited with anxiety disorders or depression.”

 

“Loneliness is the subjective feeling that you’re lacking the social connections you need. It can feel like being stranded, abandoned, or cut off from the people with whom you belong—even if you’re surrounded by other people. What’s missing when you’re lonely is the feeling of closeness, trust, and the affection of genuine friends, loved ones, and community.”

 

“we need to more deeply appreciate the relationship between loneliness, social connection, and physical and emotional health.”

 

“Most of us are interacting with lonely people all the time, even if we don’t realize it.”

 

“We all need to know that we matter and that we are loved.”

 

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. You need one because you are human.”

 

“John Cacioppo helped us understand an additional way loneliness causes mental and physical exhaustion: it takes a toll on the quality of sleep. When we’re profoundly lonely, we tend to sleep lightly and rouse often, just as our ancestors did to prevent being overtaken by wolves or enemies.”

 

“When we become chronically lonely, most of us are inclined to withdraw, whether we mean to or not.”

 

My Take

I enjoyed reading Together and wholeheartedly agree with its message.  As illustrated in real time by the Covid pandemic, human beings are social creatures and we suffer when our opportunities for social interaction are diminished.

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458. White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:  Scot Reader

Author:   Shelby Steele

Genre:   Non Fiction, History, Politics, Sociology, Public Policy

208 pages, published May 29, 2007

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In 1955 the killers of Emmett Till, a black Mississippi youth, were acquitted because they were white. Forty years later, despite the strong DNA evidence against him, accused murderer O. J. Simpson went free after his attorney portrayed him as a victim of racism. The age of white supremacy has given way to an age of “white guilt” and neither has been good for black Americans.  In this deeply thought analysis and personal recollections, acclaimed scholar Shelby Steele examines how liberal in the United States has undermined the black community by absolving them of personal responsibility thereby debilitating their ability to lift themselves up as equal members of American society.

Quotes 

“It was the first truly profound strategic mistake we made in our long struggle for complete equality. It made us a “contingent people” whose fate depended on what others did for us.”

“Poetic truth—this assertion of a broad characteristic “truth” that invalidates actual truth—is contemporary liberalism’s greatest source of power. It is also liberalism’s most fundamental corruption.”

 

“despite all he had endured as a black in the South in the first half of the twentieth century, he taught the boys that America was rich in opportunities for blacks if they were willing to work.”

 

“One of the delights of Marxian-tinged ideas for the young is the unearned sense of superiority they grant.”

 

My Take

I found White Guilt to be a compelling read, especially in light of the “moment” our country is having with protests and rioting.  Shelby Steele offers a counter narrative to the one projected in the media and advanced by the woke Left, i.e. that America is irredeemably racist and it is impossible for blacks to get ahead in the face of so much discrimination.  Rather than accept this defeatism, Steele posits that the only way forward for black Americans is to embrace a culture of personal responsibility and empowerment.  The guilt of whites has made that harder to achieve as they have low expectations of blacks and seek to make allowances for them that actually serve to depress their initiative.  A “must read” for anyone interested in race relations.

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435. The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author: Arthur C. Brooks

Genre:   Non Fiction, Public Policy, Politics, Philosophy, History, Economics

261 pages, published July 14, 2015

Reading Format:  e-Book on Hoopla

Summary

In The Conservative Heart, former American Enterprise Institute President and author Arthur C. Brooks writes about his vision for conservatism as a movement for happiness, unity, and social justice that will challenge the liberal monopoly on “fairness” and “compassion.”  While Progressives have always presented themselves as champions of the poor and vulnerable, Brooks argues that they have failed the people they are trying to help as more and more people are hopeless and dependent on the government while Conservatives possess the best solutions to the problems of poverty and declining mobility.  However, because the right doesn’t speak in a way that reflects their concern and compassion, many Americans don’t trust them.  In response to this problem, Brooks presents a social justice agenda grounded in the four “institutions of meaning”:  family, faith, community, and meaningful work.

Quotes 

“No one sighs regretfully on his deathbed and says, “I can’t believe I wasted all that time with my wife and kids,” “volunteering at the soup kitchen,” or “growing in my spirituality.” No one ever says, “I should have spent more time watching TV and playing Angry Birds on my phone.” In my own life, nothing has given my life more meaning and satisfaction than my Catholic faith and the love of my family.”

 

“The ideals of free enterprise and global leadership, central to American conservatism, are responsible for the greatest reduction in human misery since mankind began its long climb from the swamp to the stars.”

 

“There is a lot to be mad about in America today, but we must never forget that our cause is a joyous one. Conservatives should be optimists who believe in people. We champion hope and opportunity. Fighting for people, helping those who need us, and saving the country—this is, and should be, happy work.”

 

“Meaningful progress toward social justice cannot be made in sclerotic education systems that put adults’ job security before children’s civil rights.”

 

“the best data consistently show that more than eight in ten Americans like or love their jobs. And incredibly, that result holds steady across the income distribution. This notion that “knowledge work” is fulfilling, but everyone who works in a garage or a restaurant loathes his or her life, is an incredible act of condescension masquerading as concern. The truth is much more egalitarian. Again, economic mobility is crucial, and stagnant wages are a huge problem for American families. But this doesn’t change the deep truth that work, not money, is the fundamental source of our dignity. Work is where we build character. Work is where we create value with our lives and lift up our own souls. Work, properly understood, is the sacred practice of offering up our talents for the service of others.”

 

“When Ronald Reagan made his case to the American people, he didn’t spend a lot of time talking about what he was fighting against. He spent most of his speech talking about who he was fighting for. This is what conservatives too often forget.”

 

“Households headed by a “conservative” give, on average, 30 percent more dollars to charity than households headed by a “liberal.”

 

“First, we should concentrate each day on the happiness portfolio: faith, family, community, and earned success through work. Teach it to those around you, and fight against the barriers to these things. Second, resist the worldly formula of misery, which is to use people and love things. Instead, remember your core values and live by the true formula: Love people and use things. Third, celebrate the free enterprise system, which creates abundance for the most people—especially the poor. But always remember that the love of money is the root of all evil, and that the ideal life requires abundance without attachment.”

 

“But at the same time, a bloated welfare state that nudges middle-class citizens away from the labor force is moving our society away from the dignity of earned success.”

 

My Take

I had previously read and enjoyed Love Your Enemies by Arthur Brooks, so I had high hopes for The Conservative Heart.  I was not disappointed. Brooks posits compelling ideas and makes a strong case for him.  He also weaves in a lot of on point anecdotes which makes the book very readable.  I was also struck by his thought that the ideal life requires abundance without attachment.  It made me think about my relationship to things and how I need to hold them loosely.  Recommended.

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365. Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus

Rating:  ☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Matt Taibbi

Genre:  Non Fiction, Politics, Public Policy

352 pages, published January 17, 2017

Reading Format:  Audio Book on Overdrive

Summary

Insane Clown President: Dispatches from the 2016 Circus is a collection of 25 pieces written for Rolling Stone magazine, plus 2 original essays, by correspondent Matt Taibbi.  Taibbi tells the story of the 2016 Presidential election with specific focus on the Republican primary.  He can’t believe that Trump is winning and is even more aghast when Trump actually wins the Presidency.  Taibbi explores how a repeatedly disappointed and disaffected electorate became mad as hell and how the old institutions may no longer be relevant.

Quotes 

“It will go down someday as the greatest reality show ever conceived. The concept is ingenious. Take a combustible mix of the most depraved and filterless half-wits, scam artists and asylum Napoleons America has to offer, give them all piles of money and tell them to run for president. Add Donald Trump. And to give the whole thing a perverse gravitas, make the presidency really at stake. It’s Western civilization’s very own car wreck. Even if you don’t want to watch it, you will. It’s that awesome of a spectacle.”

 

“Elections, like criminal trials, are ultimately always about assigning blame.”

 

“The final insult to all of this is that when Trump secured the nomination, media companies looked down at their bottom lines and realized that, via the profits they made during his run—Trump is “good for business,” CBS president Les Moonves infamously confessed—they had been made accomplices to the whole affair. —”

“How Giuliani is not Trump’s running mate no one will ever understand. Theirs is the most passionate love story since Beavis and Butthead.”

 

“America has been trending stupid for a long time. Now the stupid wants out of its cage, and Trump is urging it on.”

 

“Even in his books, where he’s allegedly trying to string multiple thoughts together, Trump wanders randomly from impulse to impulse, seemingly without rhyme or reason. He doesn’t think anything through. (He’s brilliantly cast this driving-blind trait as “not being politically correct.”)”

 

“Lots of people have remarked on the irony of this absurd caricature of a spoiled rich kid connecting so well with working-class America. But Trump does have something very much in common with everybody else. He watches TV. That’s his primary experience with reality, and just like most of his voters, he doesn’t realize that it’s a distorted picture.”

 

“He steps to the lectern and does his Mussolini routine, which he’s perfected over the past months. It’s a nodding wave, a grin, a half-sneer, and a little U.S. Open–style applause back in the direction of the audience, his face the whole time a mask of pure self-satisfaction. “This is unbelievable, unbelievable!” he says, staring out at a crowd of about 4,000 whooping New Englanders with snow hats, fleece and beer guts. There’s a snowstorm outside and cars are flying off the road, but it’s a packed house.”

 

“Sixty million people were announcing that they preferred one reality to another. Inherent in this decision was the revolutionary idea that you can choose your own set of facts.”

 

“The Republicans already lost virtually the entire black vote (scoring just 4 percent and 6 percent of black voters the last two elections). Now, by pushing toward the nomination a candidate whose brilliant plan to “make America great again” is to build a giant wall to keep out Mexican rapists, they’re headed the same route with Hispanics. That’s a steep fall for a party that won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote as recently as 2004.”

 

“In the elaborate con that is American electoral politics, the Republican voter has long been the easiest mark in the game, the biggest dope in the room. Everyone inside the Beltway knows this. The Republican voters themselves are the only ones who never saw it. Elections are about a lot of things, but at the highest level, they’re about money. The people who sponsor election campaigns, who pay the hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the candidates’ charter jets and TV ads and 25-piece marching bands, those people have concrete needs. They want tax breaks, federal contracts, regulatory relief, cheap financing, free security for shipping lanes, antitrust waivers and dozens of other things. They mostly don’t care about abortion or gay marriage or school vouchers or any of the social issues the rest of us spend our time arguing about. It’s about money for them, and as far as that goes, the CEO class has had a brilliantly winning electoral strategy for a generation. They donate heavily to both parties, essentially hiring two different sets of politicians to market their needs to the population. The Republicans give them everything that they want, while the Democrats only give them mostly everything. They get everything from the Republicans because you don’t have to make a single concession to a Republican voter. All you have to do to secure a Republican vote is show lots of pictures of gay people kissing or black kids with their pants pulled down or Mexican babies at an emergency room. Then you push forward some dingbat like Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin to reassure everyone that the Republican Party knows who the real Americans are. Call it the “Rove 1-2.” That’s literally all it’s taken to secure decades of Republican votes, a few patriotic words and a little over-the-pants rubbing. Policywise, a typical Republican voter never even asks a politician to go to second base. While we always got free trade agreements and wars and bailouts and mass deregulation of industry and lots of other stuff the donors definitely wanted, we didn’t get Roe v. Wade overturned or prayer in schools or balanced budgets or censorship of movies and video games or any of a dozen other things Republican voters said they wanted.”

 

“Meanwhile the pessimism of Trump’s revolution is intentional, impassioned, ascendant. They placed a huge bet on America’s worst instincts, and won. And the first order of business will be to wipe out a national idea in which they never believed. Welcome to the end of the dream.” 

My Take

Really more of a screed than a book.  However, at times Taibbi has something interesting things to say.  For political junkies only.

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361. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Ben Shapiro

Author:   Greg Lukianoff,  Jonathan Haidt

Genre:  Non Fiction, Public Policy, Education, Philosophy, Psychology, Parenting

352 pages, published September 4, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

The Coddling of the American Mind, by First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, explores significant changes in what the authors refer to as the iGeneration (also known as Generation Z), who are comprised of kids and young adults born after 1995.  This is the first generation to grow up with smart phones (and other digital devises) as a constant presence in their lives.  This generation has also been raised with much more attentive and safety conscious parents than any previous generation.  The combination of these factors has led to a culture of “safetyism” which has resulted in a campus assault on free speech and what that means for kids and our country.  According to the authors, iGeneration has been taught three Great Untruths: their feelings are always right; they should avoid pain and discomfort; and they should look for faults in others and not themselves. These three Great Untruths are part of a larger philosophy that sees young people as fragile creatures who must be protected and supervised by adults. But despite the good intentions of the adults who impart them, the Great Untruths are harming kids by teaching them the opposite of ancient wisdom and the opposite of modern psychological findings on grit, growth, and antifragility. The result is rising rates of depression and anxiety, along with endless stories of college campuses torn apart by moralistic divisions and mutual recriminations.

Quotes 

“From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.”

 

“But efforts to protect kids from risk by preventing them from gaining experience— such as walking to school, climbing a tree, or using sharp scissors— are different. Such protections come with costs, as kids miss out on opportunities to learn skills, independence, and risk assessment.”

 

“Grant offers the following four rules for productive disagreement:10 Frame it as a debate, rather than a conflict. Argue as if you’re right, but listen as if you’re wrong (and be willing to change your mind). Make the most respectful interpretation of the other person’s perspective. Acknowledge where you agree with your critics and what you’ve learned from them.”

 

“A culture that allows the concept of “safety” to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger is a culture that encourages people to systematically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily life that they need in order to become strong and healthy.”

 

“But efforts to protect kids from risk by preventing them from gaining experience— such as walking to school, climbing a tree, or using sharp scissors— are different. Such protections come with costs, as kids miss out on opportunities to learn skills, independence, and risk assessment.”

 

“there are just two activities that are significantly correlated with depression and other suicide-related outcomes (such as considering suicide, making a plan, or making an actual attempt): electronic device use (such as a smartphone, tablet, or computer) and watching TV. On the other hand, there are five activities that have inverse relationships with depression (meaning that kids who spend more hours per week on these activities show lower rates of depression): sports and other forms of exercise, attending religious services, reading books and other print media, in-person social interactions, and doing homework.”

 

“parenting strategies and laws that make it harder for kids to play on their own pose a serious threat to liberal societies by flipping our default setting from “figure out how to solve this conflict on your own” to “invoke force and/or third parties whenever conflict arises.” 

My Take

This was my second time reading this book (taking Gretchen Rubin’s adage that the best reading is re-reading to heart).  I found The Coddling of the American Mind to be a fascinating inquiry into what has turned many of the young adults in our country into the “snowflake” generation who are afraid of micro aggressions, being exposed to speech they disagree with, and anything else that threatens the cocoon of safety they were raised to expect by their overindulgent, protective parents.   In addition to diagnosing the problem, Lukianoff and Haidt offer a comprehensive set of reforms that will strengthen young people and institutions and encourage diversity of viewpoint.  I have already raised my kids for the most part (they are currently 20 and 17 and right in the middle of the iGeneration), but am pleased to see that they are not snowflakes who will melt at the first differing opinion they encounter.  That is partly due to the fact that we are conservatives in one of the bluest counties (Boulder, Colorado) in the country.  My children grew up surrounded by people who disagreed with our political viewpoints.  That was extremely beneficial for them.  They were constantly challenged on their beliefs and had to deliberate and think about why they believed what they did rather than exist in an echo chamber that validated their every view.  Consequently, they are very experienced at hearing viewpoints that differ from their own and have no problem engaging with others on a myriad of topics without taking offense.

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350. It’s Better Than It Looks: Reasons for Optimism in an Age of Fear

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:   Lenna Kotke

Author:   Gregg Easterbrook

Genre:  Sociology, Economics, Public Policy, Politics, Science

352 pages, published February 20, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In It’s Better Than It Looks, author Gregg Easterbrook surveys a number of different metrics to see how well the world is doing and makes a convincing case that things are much better than most people think.  Under every meaningful measure, the modern world is better than it ever has ever been.  In the United States, disease, crime, discrimination, and most forms of pollution are in long-term decline, while longevity and education keep rising and economic indicators are better than in any past generation. Worldwide, malnutrition and extreme poverty are at historic lows, and the risk of dying by war or violence is the lowest in human history.

Quotes 

 

My Take

As a naturally optimistic and grateful person, It’s Better Than It Looks is my kind of book.  It is a clear-eyed look at how humanity is actually faring in the 21st century and the answer is amazingly well.  When you think about the fact that 70 to 80 million people died during World War II alone, you have a much better appreciation for how much things have improved worldwide in the past 70 years.  It’s Better Than It Looks reminded a lot of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think, another worthy read on this same topic.

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345. The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Stuart Taylor, KC Johnson

Genre:  Non Fiction, Public Policy, Law

384 pages, published May 22, 2018

Reading Format:  e-Book on Hoopla

Summary

The Campus Rape Frenzy is an investigative look into changes in the universities adjudicated sexual assault cases during the Obama/Biden years and the complicity of the media in falsely portraying campuses as hotbeds of violent crime against women.  Taylor and Johnson painstakingly debunk these claims and show how federal bureaucrats forced colleges and universities to essentially presume the guilt of accused students. The result has been a widespread disregard of such bedrock American principles as the presumption of innocence and due process.

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My Take

Reading this book made me very angry.  As an attorney, I have always placed a huge value on the importance of due process to the functioning of our country.  The fact that numerous young men are being expelled from college and having their lives ruined as the result of consensual sexual encounters and are not given the opportunity to confront their accusers or adequately defend themselves is a travesty of justice.  A good companion book is Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, also by Stuart Taylor.

 

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