Wednesday, December 26, 2007

"The Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights" by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose

Molly Ivins was one of the best political commentator's (and one of the funniest) to ever come out of Texas, I think. I started reading her stuff back when our current leader was just the governor of that fine state, back when Molly dubbed him "Shrub." Sadly, Ms. Ivins lost her battle with cancer in January 2007, but her voice lives on, mostly in part to Mr. Dubose and his push to finish this work.

If you feel like the world's going to hell in a hand basket, this is the sort of book that will give you the proof you need. Even if you don't think things are that bad, it should give you cause for thought. Hopefully you're familiar with at least a few of the cases mentioned here, especially the school board from Pennsylvania, the PUBLIC school board, that tried to force its science teachers to go along with textbooks for "intelligent design". Regardless of what you do or do not believe, that sort of thing should get your ire up; public schools are not the forum for those sort of arguments. At least, that's how I feel, and as it turns out, so did a lot of other people in that town. Before was all said and done, however, the battle had pitted neighbor against neighbor, co-worker against co-worker, and just generally brought out about the worst in everyone involved. How sad.

I would highly recommend this book to people who believe in constitutional rights, regardless of your political slant. These rights are what the country was founded upon, and like Ms. Ivins, I believe our forefathers were intelligent and sound of mind when they wrote them. Actually, probably smarter and saner than many of us today. We miss you Molly, but we'll try to keep pointing out the idiotic and insane on your behalf.

No comments: