Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed! is a conservative book. If the title doesn’t give it away, you find out very quickly that the kids book espouses conservative philosophy and has a very low view of liberalism.
For conservatives the book can be a nice way to teach your children the values that you hold dear, but this book will not win any liberals or moderates over. While, it may reinforce the thoughts on the right, it will only serve to anger liberals. That may or may not be a good thing sometimes, but just be forewarned about the book.
If you are a conservative or traditionalist, you will laugh out loud at the way the liberal philosophy is parodied. If you are not a conservative, you may burn the book. But of course then you would only be proving the points of the book, so maybe every liberal should get a copy.
Special thanks to World Ahead Publishing and Active Christian Media for the chance to read and review this book.
Full review at The Wardrobe Door
Why burn it when it can just be ignored?
Because burning it depletes the ozone?
I started to read conservative blogs/books etc. in an effort to understand why "liberals" seem to be hated to much when they are the folks responsible for major improvements to American life like civil rights and the five day workweek.
After a year, one conclusion I've drawn is that conservatives feel attacked and besiged by popular culture and project hate/fear on stereotypes like the illusory but all-powerful "Hollywood liberal". Much easier to have a bogeyman to blame than to question your own beliefs.
One hopes the kids who read this book will take some of the lessons to heart particularly the advice about thinking for yourself.
Projecting stereotypes isn't a conservative thing, it's a human thing. If you want to understand why we despise liberals (or more specifically, liberal thinking), it is because they are perceived this way:
1. They err so much towards tolerance and acceptance that they've abandoned the other side of that coin, which is truth, personal responsibility, and character – they excuse the lack of these.
2. They are perceived, often rightly, as anti faith. They make no distinction between healthy faith and unhealthy faith and superstition. Along with this goes their unswerving and total faith in science to the exclusion of faith.
3. They rely too much on central government to solve problems instead of pushing responsibility back down onto those who should carry it – they give hand outs instead of hand ups.
4. They continue to push for abortion on demand throughout pregnancy, which, esp. in the second and third trimesters, amounts to infanticide in the minds of many. Along with this, they seem to want to abandon all ethical considerations in science and medicine, as witnessed by their dismissive attitudes towards the ethical conundrums around embryonic research and euthanasia.
5. They seem to be against the classic virtues of chastity and sexual purity, which makes them seem part of the problem, not the solution, to things like the spread of STDs, AIDs, and teen pregnancy. Their love of condoms does not redeem them because they are still in the business of encouraging teen sex, or at best, failing to discourage it.
I will say that conservatives are now pretty much on board with environmental concerns, though they may disagree on some particulars, like oil drilling in Alaska. Liberals have led in this area, to the shame of conservatives.
Seeker,
One can disagree, even strongly, with a
perceived position without despising it. Like you however, I see a great deal of rage on the Christian right and a hatred (not a disagreement) for perceived (accurately or not) "liberal" positions.
I think it's telling that you used the word "despise" – it illustrates the point I was trying to make. The roots of this fear and hatred do not lie in scripture.
They lie in the psyches of evangelical true believers who tend to be disproportionately white, Protestant, from the South, from middle to lower-middle class incomes, with less formal education and a general feeling that they have been disenfranchised by modern American society. There beliefs, are (they believe) mocked by the mass media, their values and culture scorned, their traditions under attack. Other ethnic or racial groups get sympathy and affirmative action programs for their plight; these people get nothing, not even respect.
Their response: to channel that rage and anger and project it onto something – the infamous "other". African-Americans served historically but will not do in today's climate. Jews are not an option after the holocaust. Liberals, however, are a good candidate to project all of that raw emotion onto. Especially rich liberals. Get some of that economic envy out along with revulsion towards those who would kill dead infants. Perfect target to "despise".
The facts are inconvenient – most of the American upper class is conservative as BushCo – but that's not the point. Reality, as is well known, has a liberal bias :)
Wow, in a comment about how one group despises another you manage to cooly state that the “other” you disagree with as poor, uneducated, racist, envious, delusional and full of hatred. Of course you state your ideas in an educated, “rational” way, but the insinuations are still there.
I would like to state as a poor, college-educated Southern who is not racist toward blacks or Jews that I don’t hate liberals. I may “hate” liberal policies, but only because I feel they harm those that they intend to help. I don’t view those on the left as my enemies. I just think they are misguided.
But as seeker said, this is not merely a conservative issue, but a human one. Do we really need to explore the Bush hatred or conservative hatred to illustrate that point?
Part of the facts is that liberals are not just percieved this way, but often ARE that way, or do absolutely nothing to dissuade that image.
And the appeal to hating the rich and poweful definitely goes both ways, since both liberals and conservatives are derided for their money and power hungry ways.
It's just that conservatives don't pretend to dislike the capitalist system and how it rewards the diligent and penalizes the lazy (it has it's down sides too, though). Sure, many are greedy bastards who work the system, but rather than disguise it through feigning support for the poor by supporting higher taxes and social programs (see the book Do As I Say for examples of the hypocrisy of liberals who say one thing but actually live like conservatives), they encourage us by saying "we can all be rich if we all take resonsibility, work together and create opportunity for all."
Aaron,
No personal attack here – again, I'm not making any judgements about evangelical beliefs, just trying to understand why people believe the things they believe. It's not unkind to point out demographic facts (not insinuations) about evangelicals and certainly no shame attached to being either poor or Southern.
As to people projecting onto a demonized "other", it is (unfortunately) called the human condition and I make no claim to being immunue myself. That may be where you sensed the whiff of derision. I admit my prejudice. I try not to do it but it's easy and tempting to divide the world into "Hollywood liberal" and "redneck conservative" camps. It's easy not see the wisdom, folly and shared humanity on both sides. It's also wrong.
I didn't think you were attacking me personally, but it just came across as rather odd in this setting and on your previous statements. I agree that there are stupidity on both sides, as well as compassion and as you said humanity. We would all do well to remember that.