(no subject)

I have got to get this book. Some excerpts (from this article):

Curiously, after spending three hundred pages making the United States sound like Calcutta, Buchanan wraps up his book with a one-sentence paragraph about what a beautiful country this is. Speakers at the Republican National Convention do the same thing: Once they've finished telling us that the United States is a shithole, they wrap up their speeches with claims that the United States of America is unique in the world, a shining example to other nations, and the greatest country on earth. Oh, and God bless America.

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Social conservatives will sometimes argue that rap music or violent movies or drugs need to be banned to protect the weak and vulnerable from taking up a life of sinful indulgence. It would be easier to take these arguments more seriously if the same social conservatives weren't opposed to laws that protect the weak and vulnerable from unsafe workplaces, flammable children's pajamas, and arsenic in our drinking water.