One important thing I've been meaning to do, and had originally planned to get to in due course while telling my own story, has been pointing out some of the absolute best stuff I've had the pleasure of reading in the past few years — on topics ranging from the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror, to the economics and politics of liberty, to the characteristically American way of life and its critics and ideological opponents foreign and domestic.
I'm now thinking I'm going to try to get to that sooner rather than later, since it's become clear that it may otherwise take an indeterminate amount of time for me to get around to it if I stick to strict chronological order. We face serious dangers to our culture and way of life now, and I think we desperately and urgently need an attitude change if we're going to have hope of successfully tackling them.
So far I've been quietly stocking my sidebar with top-level links to sites that I feel especially merit readers' attention, but I haven't yet written much of anything about them beyond the brief descriptive comments I placed beside the links. It's my intention to now begin assembling, and soon post, a “top however-many-it-takes” recommended reading/listening list — which at this point will involve sifting through a few years' worth of browser bookmarks and jotted-down reading notes to make sure I don't miss anything important...
Meanwhile, I'll start with a positively easy first recommendation: If you haven't already read every bit of Bill Whittle's work, I can only say that you are missing out tremendously — by all means head over to his site and choose any essay at random from his “Silent America” series. (I hope to write more about specific pieces among them in the not too distant future.) Or, go straight to Bill's most recent piece, “Tribes” (link updated 2009-10-13), which I pointed out when he posted it back in September, and which I just had the supreme pleasure of re-reading again with fresh eyes. No writer I have yet encountered speaks so eloquently or clearly about the American idea and way of life, and why they are every bit worth risking one's life and security to defend and preserve. Bill lifted me up from the depths of despair when I needed it most, and for that I will be forever and gratefully in his debt. I can't speak to whether his arguments would be persuasive to someone coming from a strongly different ideological bent, but I would certainly recommend his work as offering some of the most coherently presented and meritorious advocacy in favor of the American path in general and our present course in particular. I urge anyone who may be undecided on such matters and open to considering a different point of view to give audience to Bill's ideas and expression of them. In my at least somewhat humble opinion, one's time can hardly be better spent.
More to come...
