Letters to a Young Conservative

by Dinesh D'Souza

Overview

Dinesh D'Souza rose to national prominence as one of the founders of the Dartmouth Review, a leading voice in the rebirth of conservative politics on college campuses in the 1980s.He fired the first popular shot against political correctness with his best-selling exposé Illiberal Education. Now, after serving as a Reagan White House staffer, the managing editor of Policy Review, and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution, he addresses the next generation in Letters to a Young Conservative. Drawing on his own colorful experiences, both within the conservative world and while skirmishing with the left, D'Souza aims to enlighten and inspire young conservatives and give them weapons for the intellectual battles that they face in high school, college, and everyday life. Letters to a Young Conservative also illuminates the enduring themes that for D'Souza anchor the conservative position: not "family values" or patriotism, but a philosophy based on natural rights and a belief in universal moral truths.With a light touch, D'Souza shows that conservatism needn't be stodgy or defensive, even though it is based on preserving the status quo. To the contrary, when a conservative has to expose basic liberal assumptions to scrutiny, he or she must become a kind of imaginative, fun-loving, forward-looking guerrilla--philosophically conservative but temperamentally radical.Among the topics Dinesh D'Souza covers in Letters to a Young Conservative: Fighting Political CorrectnessAuthentic vs. Bogus MulticulturalismWhy Government Is the ProblemWhen the Rich Get RicherHow Affirmative Action Hurts BlacksThe Feminist MistakeAll the News That FitsHow to Harpoon a LiberalThe Self-Esteem HoaxA Republican Realignment?Why Conservatives Should Be Cheerful

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786739097
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	04/28/2009
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	103,609
File size:	224 KB

About the Author

Dinesh D'Souza, the Rishwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, served as senior domestic policy analyst in the White House in 1987-88. He is the best-selling author of Illiberal Education, The End of Racism, Ronald Reagan, and The Virtue of Prosperity. He divides his time between Washington, D.C, and San Diego, California.

Table of Contents

1	Conservatives vs. Liberals	1
2	The Libertarian Temptation	11
3	The Education of a Conservative	15
4	Pig Wrestling at Dartmouth	23
5	Fighting Political Correctness	35
6	Authentic vs. Bogus Multiculturalism	45
7	What's So Great About Great Books	55
8	How Reagan Outsmarted the Liberals	61
9	Why Government Is the Problem	77
10	When the Rich Get Richer	85
11	How Affirmative Action Hurts Blacks	91
12	The Feminist Mistake	101
13	Who Are the Postmodernists?	107
14	Why Professors Are So Left-Wing	113
15	All the News That Fits	117
16	A Living Constitution?	123
17	More Guns, Less Crime	131
18	How to Harpoon a Liberal	135
19	Lies My Teacher Taught Me	145
20	Was Lincoln a Bad Guy?	149
21	The Self-Esteem Hoax	161
22	Who Cares About the Snail Darter?	167
23	Against Gay Marriage	171
24	Family Values Since Oedipus	177
25	Speaking As a Former Fetus...	189
26	The Hypocrisy of Anti-Globalists	193
27	Are Immigrants to Blame?	197
28	Why Liberals Hate America	205
29	A Republican Realignment?	211
30	Why Conservatives Should Be Cheerful	219
31	A Conservative Reading List	225

Editorial Reviews

A young foot soldier of the "Reagan Revolution," bestselling author D'Souza (What's So Great About America, etc.) came to prominence during his years at Dartmouth, as one of the founders of the controversial Dartmouth Review. In his latest book, the newest installment in the Art of Mentoring series, D'Souza provides students of the next generation with a basic understanding of modern conservatism and its fundamental precepts. Addressing a fictional student by the name of "Chris," D'Souza outlines the major distinctions between the three main political positions in the U.S.: liberalism, conservatism and libertarianism. He goes on to explain how conservatism debunks an array of issues, such as affirmative action (it strengthens the "widespread suspicion that [blacks] might be intellectually inferior"), feminism ("the feminist error was to embrace the value of the workplace as greater than the value of the home"), postmodernism ("pompous, verbose, and incoherent") and some lesser known sins such as the "self-esteem hoax" (self-esteem doesn't promote better performance). In these chapters, the author is witty, even irreverent at times. He punctures the stereotype of conservatism as the dry and stodgy movement that liberals love to hate. Rather he says, conservatives are "radicals," resisting the morally deficient tide of modern liberalism, fighting for a common code of virtues. D'Souza will no doubt succeed in inspiring young conservatives to go out into the world and fight for what they believe in. (Oct. 1) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A recruiting brochure for the conservative cause, padded with the usual slams against Hilary Clinton, feminists, and anyone who questions the intellectual might and political accomplishments of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. This volume in the Art of Mentoring series finds Reagan administration alumnus D'Souza (The Virtue of Prosperity, 2000, etc.) piloting a young college student between the treacherous shoals of liberalism on one hand and libertarianism on the other. Avuncular and arch, D'Souza peppers his letters of instruction with homespun homilies about right-wing virtues: if I give a hungry man a sandwich, he writes, "then I have done a good deed, and I feel good about it. . . . But then see what happens when the government gets involved. The government takes my sandwich from me by force. . . . Instead of showing me gratitude . . . the man feels entitled to this benefit." Humans are inherently driven by self-interest, he goes on to explain, and conservatives, unlike liberals, have no illusions about their perfectibility; hence, conservatives have a more realistic view of humankind, which is why they're so much better at government and better people to boot. In all of this, D'Souza avoids the empty windbaggishness of Rush Limbaugh and the nastiness of Ann Coulter, but his arguments for the superiority of conservatism (or, really, neoconservatism) turn on a similar glibness: he falls easily into us good-them bad rhetoric and half-baked formulas (conservatives care about money, whereas liberals care about power, which is so much dirtier than money). Some of his attacks are well placed, if of the fish-in-a-barrel variety, as when he takes on proponents of academic "politicalcorrectness" (a term he popularized with his 1991 book Illiberal Education) and twits elite radicals who "communicate their anger in very nice lounges over expensive meals and fancy cocktails." Few, however, are completely thought through, suggesting that D'Souza wrote his Letters in a hurry-for money, of course, and not for power. Add water and stir: a political philosophy in 30 easy lessons, just right for college students too busy or ill-educated to read Edmund Burke or William Buckley. Author tour

Kirkus Reviews