DWD's Reviews

Published by HarperAudio in March of 2019. Read by Will Damron. Duration: 6 hours, 55 minutes. Unabridged. Arthur C. Brooks was the President of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute from 2008 to shortly after the publication of this book in 2019.  The author, Arthur C. Brooks Brooks is deeply worried with the present level of political discourse in America. Debates where the candidates just insult one another. Derogatory comments rather than actual proposals. Look at your typical Facebook political argument. Anonymous posters with names like "Trump_2020_Forever" arguing with "Trumpsters_Suck" and using terms like "libtards" and "conservacunts" while they insist that the other side is nothing but a literal bunch of communists and Nazis. This is getting us nowhere. And that is his point. What we are showing each other is contempt. He quotes a couples' counselor that he can work with all kinds of marital struggles ...

One of the most interesting and profound books I've read this year I'm a high school teacher that founded and sponsored the local Key Club (secular volunteer organization) at my high school for 7 years. My wife has been a professional volunteer coordinator for more than 15 years, in both religious and secular settings. There is nothing in these statistics that contradict our personal experiences. So, what does Brooks say? "The conventional wisdom runs like this: Liberals are charitable because they advocate government redistribution of money in the name of social justice; conservatives are uncharitable because they oppose these policies. But note the sleight of hand: Government spending, according to the logic, is a form of charity. Let us be clear: Government spending is not charity. It is not voluntary sacrifice by individuals." (p. 20) Brooks marshals a horde of facts to prove the point that the more politically liberal the individual, the community, the st...