Saturday, June 02, 2012

The Tyranny of Cliches

Jonah Goldberg's The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas was a very enjoyable read. I would quibble with the title of the book since it dealt more with ideas than cliches. The book informs the reader about the political science and history of a variety of subjects and does so in a most amusing way. It gets two big thumbs up from this guy.

Some of the "cliches" dealt with have often bothered me - "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" always seemed like a crap expression. The moral equivalence involved in thinking such thoughts is sickening to anyone who takes the time to really break down what is being said. I wonder how many MSM pundits have called Bobby Kennedy's murdered Sirhan Sirhan a freedom fighter?

The history behind some of the sayings and ideas like "let them eat cake" was particularly enlightening while the hypocrisy involved in most of the other ideas mainly left one angry. For instance when some Hollywood actor threatens that if so-and-so gets elected then they will move out of the country.  Goldberg points out that what they are really saying is that they value their own political beliefs over the beliefs of other citizens and even over the country itself.