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Avg. Customer Rating:(based on 7 reviews) Sales Rank: 73 Category: Book
Author:Michael Medved Publisher:Crown Forum Studio:Crown Forum Manufacturer:Crown Forum Label:Crown Forum Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published) Media: Hardcover Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 288 Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1 Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2
Publication Date: November 18, 2008 (New: This Week) Release Date: November 18, 2008 (New: This Week) Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Product Description ?It ain?t so much the things we don?t know that get us into trouble,nineteenth-century humorist Josh Billings remarked. ?It?s the things we know that just ain?t so.?
In this bold and brilliantly argued book, acclaimed author and talk-radio host Michael Medved zeroes in on ten of the biggest fallacies that millions of Americans believe about our country?in spite of incontrovertible facts to the contrary. In The 10 Big Lies About America, Medved pinpoints the most pernicious pieces of America-bashing disinformation that pollute current debates about the economy, race, religion in politics, the Iraq war, and other contentious issues.
The myths that Medved deftly debunks include:
Myth: The United States is uniquely guilty for the crime of slavery and based its wealth on stolen African labor.
Fact: The colonies that became the United States accounted for, at most, 3 percent of the abominable international slave trade; the persistence of slavery in America slowed economic progress; and the U.S. deserves unique credit for ending slavery.
Myth: The alarming rise of big business hurts the United States and oppresses its people.
Fact: Corporations played an indispensable role in building America, and corporate growth has brought progress that benefits all with cheaper goods and better jobs.
Myth: The Founders intended a secular, not Christian, nation.
Fact: Even after ratifying the Constitution, fully half the state governments endorsed specific Christian denominations. And just a day after approving the First Amendment, forbidding the establishment of religion, Congress called for a national ?day of public thanksgiving and prayer? to acknowledge ?the many signal favors of Almighty God.?
Myth: A war on the middle class means less comfort and opportunity for the average American.
Fact: Familiar campaign rhetoric about the victimized middle class ignores the overwhelming statistical evidence that the standard of living keeps rising for every segment of the population, as well as the real-life experience of tens of millions of middle-class Americans.
Each of the ten lies?widely believed among elites and taught as truth in universities and public schools?is a grotesque, propagandistic distortion of the historical record. For everyone who is tired of hearing America denigrated by people who don?t know what they?re talking about, The 10 Big Lies About America supplies the ammunition necessary to fire back the next time somebody tries to recycle these baseless beliefs. Medved?s witty, well-documented rebuttal is a refreshing reminder that as Americans we should feel blessed, not burdened, by our heritage.
You need to read this. November 22, 2008 3 out of 4 found this review helpful
The 10 Big Lies About America: Combating Destructive Distortions About Our Nation by Michael Medved is a timely book that will set the record straight.....I hope. After years of "PC" and revisionist history, I'm amazed that anyone writing books remembers American history as it used to exist. Medved doesn't shy away from sensitive subjects in The 10 Big Lies. Dealing with misconceptions about slavery is always a touchy issue. Medved doesn't sugar coat slavery in America, but he does put it in perspective. I'm always amazed at how misinformed people are on the topic anyway. Slavery was tragic, and the United States shouldn't attempt to hide from its involvement in the trade. However, slavery was as much a legal trade activity in the seventeenth through nineteenth century as trading oil today. We need to keep that in perspective. Medved dismantles, one by one, ten lies about the United States. In doing so, he dismantles and disarms the arguments "the blame American first" crowd and does so in a direct manner. He also buries other misconceptions and outright distortions about this country. For me the biggest lie Medved deals with is that this has always been a multicultural country. Not true. Throughout our history the objective has always been to Americanize newcomers and their children as soon as possible. The U. S. was never invisioned to be one comprised of a multitude of cultural coexisting. Poles yes, but Americans first. Italians yes, but Americans first. Germans, Chinese, Africans all. But Americans first. The other big like Medved deals with is that the founders always intended us to be a secular country. Medved slam dunks that lie in short order. Also, that corporations are oppressive toward their workers and society. Maybe in the nineteenth century but not now, not for the last ninety years. Try doing anything without an economic base. Michael Medved is a breath of fresh air. Written in concise language and in an entertaining manner and well researched, The 10 Big Lies is a book you'll want in your personal library. If you don't want to buy it, check it out from your library. I highly recommend. Peace always.
From a waiting reader November 21, 2008 5 out of 10 found this review helpful
I have read the synopsis of this book and eagerly await reading the full thing. Even before reading I can tell you that I have never believed the lies which are being spouted about your wonderful country. I have made many friends during my many visits to the US and have been able to make what I consider to be an informed view. Please believe all the GOOD that your country does and ignore the vast majority of what is claimed to be the bad. Enjoy and be thankful for what you have, it is the envy of the world. Rated on the synopsis alone An English admirer
Michael Medved is a National Treasure November 21, 2008 11 out of 18 found this review helpful
Michael Medved has once again provided a valuable service to the citizenry. His newest book is sure to both entertain and educate. I received my copy earlier today and cannot put it down. At this very moment, chapter six should be of particular value. Medved takes to task the destructive notion that "Government Programs Offer the Only Remedy for Economic Downturns and Poverty." Far too many Americans have been seduced by the siren call of socialist styled economics. They are sadly tempted to worsen an already bad situation. The 10 Big Lies About America will also make an excellent Christmas and Hanukkah gift.
Allan Bloom Redux November 20, 2008 21 out of 44 found this review helpful
Since the best propaganda contains a grain of truth, when dissecting it one should always be looking for what is left out. In his discussion of slavery - which is emblematic of his overall line of reasoning - he ignores a great deal. His thesis, which is admittedly very narrow, namely 'slavery was bad, but not as bad as we've been led to believe', is wrong headed from the outset. Slavery was bad - period. Does it really matter how it was implemented or practiced? Slavery is the ownership of one human being by another human being- why would anyone try to lessen the impact of this fact?
As to his individual 6 arguments:
1. Slavery was an ancient and universal institution, not a distinctively American innovation: Since other people did it, it must be okay for us to do it? Does this logic ever lead to a strong argument? Or perhaps more pointedly: Why is someone from the political Right trying to use moral relativism to make an argument about something as morally repugnant as slavery? And to what end? Furthermore, who is he arguing with? He claims there is a "mania for exaggerating America's culpability for the horrors of slavery", presumably by the same "America-bashers" he notes in the preceding paragraph, yet he fails to name a single concrete example- no politician, no public intellectual, no author, no work of scholarship is referenced. Moreover, what makes the American brand of slavery so regrettable is that it occurred in a country that wrote, "All men are created equal" in its Declaration of Independence and which was supposed to be a truly representative democracy. Not to mention the obvious fact that a bloody Civil War, in which 600,000 Americans had to die, was fought, in part, to end the odious institution. What also goes unstated is who led the resistance to any form of abolition. Who was against Transatlantic abolition? Northern abolition? The eventual Southern abolition? Were these wild-eyed Radicals, or Conservatives desperately clinging to tradition, the status quo, and deathly afraid of change, viewing it as an uncontrollable and therefore destabilizing force. Why does this go unacknowledged?
2. Slavery existed only briefly, and in limited locales... involving only a tiny % of (our ancestors): Again the use of moral relativism to further an argument. For example: How many Americans ever owned a factory in which children worked in unhealthy, cruel, or even life threatening conditions? It's irrelevant how many people are directly engaged in a certain act, or who created the environment, the fact is, it is the very existence of those acts or conditions which is morally reprehensible. It is also surprising to hear a devout believer in the Old Testament rail against "generational guilt" when Original Sin is the very bedrock of their faith. Finally, his attempt to separate "a hundred years of Jim Crow laws, economic oppression and indefensible discrimination" from "those [years] connected to the long-ago history of bondage," strains credulity. One wonders if the author also believes the struggles of Frederick Douglass and the struggles of Martin Luther King, Jr. to be wholly dissimilar.
3. ...Slavery wasn't genocidal...: The UN definition of genocide (and by extension the US definition, since it was made the law of the land in 1988): "ANY of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group. b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group. e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide)
In addition, how much real difference is there between being killed outright, or being enslaved (and being raised and bred like a farm animal)? What also goes unmentioned is what effect did slavery have on the peoples and cultures of Africa, regardless of who implemented or profited by it. And since the author brought it up, are there any parallels between slavery in America and the Nazi Holocaust? For one, if we follow the author's logic, shouldn't we let Nazi officers, low level soldiers, and even German citizens off the hook since, honestly, how many of them had a direct hand in or direct knowledge about the Holocaust? Or was the blind faith and free hand they gave Hitler and his party the core of the crime, particularly since his plans were no secret, laid out on the pages of Mein Kampf, or in the actions of Kristallnacht.
4. It's not true that the US became a wealthy nation through the abuse of slave labor...: What was the South growing? (cotton) Where was it exported? (in part, to Northern textile factories) Who benefited? (everyone connected to the transport and production of cotton products, including the "dynamic banking centers" of the North). And while it is true not every citizen in the Confederacy was wealthy enough to own a slave, they went off in their thousands to defend the peculiar institution (state's rights was rooted in a defense of slavery as a Southern institution; see Madison's notes on the Constitutional convention) - does this help or hurt the author's overall argument when even those too poor to own slaves were willing to fight and die to maintain this dubious right for others? Furthermore, the South lagged behind economically due in large measure to the North's ability to transform its economy during the Industrial Revolution. What he also leaves unstated is the harsh environment faced by the labor movement in the South; while exceedingly violent in the North it was positively bloodthirsty in the South, so, unsurprisingly, they have levels of unionized labor far below the North to this day.
5. ...US merits special credit for its rapid abolition: Nations which abolished slavery before the US: Canada (1834), Denmark (1848), Haiti (1803), Great Britain (1833), Prussia (1807), Spain (1811), Netherlands (1863), Portugal (1773), France (1848), Ecuador (1852), Colombia (1821), Venezuela (1821), Chile (1821), Mexico (1829), Bolivia (1851), Uruguay (1842), Argentina (1813), and even in British occupied India (1860). Adding insult to injury, virtually all of these governments were monarchies, not Republics. How this "merits special credit" is beyond me. Furthermore, it begs the question, Who in the US resisted abolition for so long? Was it not the defenders of tradition and privilege? And what does one do with official US support for Apartheid South Africa - a system arguably more vile and destructive than even Jim Crow - right up until its abolishment in 1990?
6....No reason to believe that today's African-Americans would be better off... remained in Africa: This argument ignores not only the impact of slavery, but also colonialism/imperialism, and even the violence visited upon African countries during the anti-colonial period, not to mention many of the misguided if not brutal policies of international bodies such as the IMF, World Bank, or WTO on the continent's economy and its many diverse cultures. A basic tenet of ethics, of any system of right and wrong, is universality- if it's wrong for the other guy to do it, then it must be wrong if I do it. So would the author find acceptable the proposition which asserts the Holocaust was the best thing to ever happen to Jewish people since part of what came out of it was the creation of the strong, vibrant nation state of Israel? Any morally coherent person would reject this on its face- so too, then, with the author's proposition.
The political Right in America is talking at cross-purposes with the Left. The Right sees America as it should be; it assumes we have fulfilled the promise of the Constitution and therefore it is great. The Left sees America as it is, with all of its faults, and believes the Constitution holds great promise, but we still have a ways to go before that promise is fulfilled. It's not unlike a parent-teacher conference where the parent keeps insisting how great their child is, while the teacher keeps pointing out the many areas where the child needs to improve performance. Does it make sense to suggest the teacher in this analogy hates the child as the author does when he refers to "America-bashers". There are many things one could decry on the Left, but a lack of patriotism is not one of them. People on the Left enter into debates with those on the Right assuming their counterparts love their country, why is this so often not the case with those on the Right? Is it not possible to both criticize and love one's country? If not, how does one go about making their country better?
The author's arguments, when taken together, amount to little more than obfuscation and an attempt to distract his reader from the real problems and issues facing America - foreign policy, income disparity, healthcare, education, decaying infrastructure, too few of our young people going into or excelling in the hard sciences, and the state of our environment. As long as the middle-class continues to identify with the over-class and their interests, Americans will be told by their pundits and their politicians what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.
Balance to What My Children Hear in School November 20, 2008 46 out of 54 found this review helpful
My high-schoolers' history textbooks casually spout several of the lies that this book debunks in easily-understood, well-researched chapters. I was looking for something that would present the "other side" of what they hear, and this is authoritative and so engrossing that my son (age 16) read the entire book without stopping (even eating while he read!) as soon as we got it.
I'd heard Michael Medved on the radio and was always struck by his knowledge of history and ability to communicate, which this book confirms.
Reading The 10 Big Lies restored my positive feelings about the history of our nation, and also added to my pride and gratitude for living here. It was especially helpful to read well-supported GOOD news as a counterbalance to the negativity all over TV and the newspapers.
An uplifting book filled with useful and sometimes surprising facts--that I enjoyed reading.
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