The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to the Constitution (Politically Incorrect Guides) by Kevin R. C. Gutzman
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Book Reviews of The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to the Constitution (Politically Incorrect Guides)
Book Review: Politically Incorrrect Guide to the Constitution
Summary: 4 Stars
Very interesting and informative book on how the US Constitution has been raped by the US Supreme Court over the years. A must read for everyone!Book Review: Required reading for all citizens
Summary: 5 Stars
This book should be required reading for anyone who plans to vote. If you'd like a laundry list of most everything that's been done to eviscerate the Constitution and lead America down the wrong path, this is the book for you.
Also, if you'd like to support authors who are brave enough to speak the truth (a rare thing today), buy this book. I was beginning to think no one but Ron Paul had read the Constitution. After you've read this book, ask yourself if Obama, McCain or any of our elected officials have ever read the Constitution. If they have, they simply don't care what it says.
Book Review: From Guaranteed Freedoms to Supreme Court Rule
Summary: 5 Stars
I recommend that everyone read The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution. It clearly shows how the Supreme Court has, since the founding of our country, taken more and more power for itself that never was granted by the Constitution. It explains why law is now based on past Court rulings, instead of on the words of the Constitution itself (unless, of course, the Supreme Court conveniently chooses to ignore any past precedents in order to make a new ruling they want to impose on the country).
Some of the reactions to Court rulings mentioned in the book include: "Louisiana briefly considered responding to the Court's decision in the Flag-burning Case by making it legal to beat up flag-burners. Perhaps such violence is covered by `freedom of expression.' In the end, Louisiana didn't go ahead with the idea: state legislatures often are more restrained in their behavior than the Court is."
Interesting sidebars in the book include "Books You're Not Supposed to Read," which includes The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas Woods. After reading this Guide to the Constitution you will know which Supreme Court justice was a former Ku Klux Klansman, who "took the lead in writing the twentieth-century Klan's views on church-state relations into `constitutional law.'" Sidebars also contain interesting facts such as: "Supreme Logic: Fraud Is a Contract--According to [Chief Justice] Marshall in Fletcher v. Peck (1810), a fraudulent land purchase was a `contract'-and was thus subject to the protection of the Contracts Clause. `Coincidentally,' Marshall was a substantial land investor." You will also learn which Court ruling was based on "penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees [in the Bill of Rights] that help give them life and substance." This book is a great starting place for understanding how we got from the guaranteed freedoms of the Constitution to where we are today.
Book Review: Enthralling
Summary: 5 Stars
What do you say about a book that puts on paper the thoughts and beliefs you hold as correct. Obviously the writer is an absolute genius. Now if we could fix the wrongs. An excellent look at the constitution that should be presented to all civics students. Book Review: Starts great, slips in the last few chapters
Summary: 4 Stars
I recommend this for, if nothing else, the depth of the history surrounding the ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. It could have gone deeper, but then it would have been a different book - and it goes deeper than most I've seen.
As the book progresses through various attacks on the Constitution through history, the focus is almost entirely upon the Supreme Court. Not a bad target, all in all, but perhaps the title could have changed to reflect the actual focus in the writing. I'd expected a more broad-based examination of violations of the Constitution from all of the culprits.
After the first half of the book, the writer loses his distance from the material, becoming more passionate about the violations of the Constitution by the Supreme Court, which actually weakens his writing - he'd have been better if he'd been able to maintain the factual, dispassionate presentation of the earlier material. At the end, his personal bias is remarkably plain, and it lost this reader a bit.
The P.I.G. features - factoids appearing frequently in the margins, under headings such as "A Book You're Not Supposed to Read", which recommends further reading relevant to the subject at hand, and "Legal Latinisms", which explains Latin phrases commonly used in law, are generally good - the damning quotes are too often given without context, and the half-page biographies could stand some bibliography notes, - but all in all, they're nicely used.
Don't mistake my criticism here - I strongly recommend this book, and will doubtless loan it to as many of my friends as I can. There are flaws, so this could have been better - but so far, nobody's done better with this material yet - not that I've seen, anyway.