Top Ten Conservative Books of All Time

Earlier this year, Conservative Justin Quinn on About.com posted his list of the top ten conservative books that are indispensable to the novice conservative who isn't at all self-conscious about being so cynical at such a tender age.

In Quinn's list are predictable picks, such as Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative and Bernie Goldberg's Bias. Amazingly, other conservative classics such as Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged never made the grade. Either that, or Mr. Quinn decided that such shockingly brilliant and irrefutable masterpieces of conservative thought have transcended a mere "Top Ten Greatest" list and to join the works of Shakespeare, Milton and Danielle Steele (No relation to Michael).

However, all things being relative, I think it is incumbent upon everyone of all political stripes, from neoconservatives to moderate conservatives, to draw up their own list of the top ten conservative tomes of all time. And it's notable that, while Mr. Quinn also bypassed such worthy candidates such as Sean Hannity's Deliver Us From Evil, Jerome Corsi's Obama Nation and Ann Coulter's Treason, he showed a shocking lack of imagination by not including, as with the worthy Ms. Rand's canon, any fiction.

So here's my list that includes both fiction and non-fiction. Please do not note that this is a companion piece inspired by Jon Swift's 10 Best Conservative Movies. This isn't about movies.

10) The Island of Dr. Moreau

This classic book is a cautionary tale as to the dangers of animal/human hybrids we were so passionately warned about by George W. Bush in a State of the Union Address. It is also, in its subtle way, a wise warning regarding what would happen if PETA were to run amuck with billions in government bailout money.

H. G. Wells' central messages, obviously, are that science and scientists such as evolutionists, anthropologists and stem cell researchers are inherently evil and that the animal kingdom and any human foolish enough to reunite with nature must be defeated at all costs. With such a brilliant commentary on science and the uppityness of the animal kingdom, one immediately forgives the hedonistic Wells and his liberal calls for free love.

9) Confessions of an Economic Hitman

Part spy thriller, partly a joyous paean to Ayn Rand's vision of unrestrained capitalism come to hideous fruition, John Perkins' publisher perfectly captures the essence of this latter-day classic by commissioning cover art that depicts an American bald eagle shitting on the rest of the planet.

Was it reckless and even treasonous for Perkins, a free market sniper, to reveal how the United States had achieved such economic domination over the planet Earth? Perhaps. But then again, Perkins felt free to reveal such secrets because he innately knew that, even on the information superhighway, the earth's inhabitants will always be either powerless pawns or gullible naifs against the awesome and unstoppable juggernauts of multinational corporations and globalization.

8) The Bible

Not for the liberal faint of heart, the Bible is fiction to heathen leftists and nonfiction to right-thinking, God-fearing conservatives such as Fred Phelps and Mr. Adkisson. As we all know, the Bible and the word of God has a conservative bias, as is only right.

And real practitioners of the Bible, such as Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert, regularly venture back and forth from the evils of homosexuality and adultery to inform us of these evils while eshewing the turn-the-other-cheek bullshit New Testament, which was obviously a Christly sop thrown by King James to liberals, explaining its brevity compared to the gory, murderous Old Testament. Fortunately, today's leading evangelicals are smart enough to pretend that the pacifistic, anti Free Market Christ never existed.

7) Brave New World

Huxley's vision of a dystopian future, while viewed by some as on a par with Orwell's 1984, gives us a horrifying glimpse of how chaotic human society would be were it not for a rigid, genetically-engineered caste system. In fact, Huxley's Calvinistic masterpiece not only does away with abusive fathers and welfare mothers, just to be safe, he does away with the very concept of the family, the building block of the human race as well as the concept of abortion.

There are still thorny problems such as children playing games like Hunt the Zipper and promiscuity actually being a status symbol. But the two pulp figures depicted above, presumably Survivor's Richard Hatch and Jane Russell, run away from it all and they got theirs when they were eaten by New Mexico Indians or other genetically-imperfect savages. So obviously, this is also a morality tale.

6) The Anarchist Cookbook

We all know that government becomes the enemy the minute it decides things in a way that doesn't make a particular person happy. Fortunately, there's still William Powell's The Anarchist Cookbook, which has been ingeniously disguised as a liberal chestnut purportedly written by a teenaged hippie who was scared shitless about getting sent to Vietnam.

Powell's instruction manual for insurrection, which devotees such as Fred Phelps refer to as The Antichrist Cookbook, actually gives today's most passionate conservatives a starting point for defeating the government that is hell-bent to deliver us from anarchy. With such recipes for mayhem such as the making of bombs and other ways to become a minor irritant to the federal government, it was very savvy for an older, wiser Powell to disavow his classic so its revolutionary riches wouldn't be exploited by liberals, thereby remaining solely in the hands of real patriots such as Hal Turner and the late Timothy McVeigh.

5) Uncle Tom's Cabin

The book that started the Civil War and also waged war on pro-slavery Democrats, this book celebrates a free market agrarian economy in the good old antebellum days when white people were white and proud of it and black people like Topsy cheerfully acknowledged their place and lot in life. Unlike today, they had regular employment and, Dred Scott aside, were damned grateful for it.

Now that the Civil War II is gearing up and since we have Abraham Lincoln's reincarnation in the White House, we need another conservative book as that necessary spark to stir southern passions. I nominate this book by Byron York, one that uncovered yet another Democrat conspiracy that sought to enslave conservatives that had nonetheless risen above its persecuted status and, without media help, seized control of all three branches of government within this very decade.

4) Johnny Got His Gun

Disguised all these years as a pacifist masterpiece allegedly written for leftists, Dalton Trumbo's actual message still reverberates to this day even beyond the Walter Reed Army Hospital scandal: That wounded soldiers ought to be seen and not heard. Don't forget, the book gets its title from a pro-war jingle from WWI, "Johnny Get Your Gun."

The Johnny in this book is actually someone named Joe and after having lost both arms, legs and jaws, his eyes, ears and nose, Johnny is comforted by a nurse and cannot engage in liberal propaganda like Ron Kovic, who foolishly wrote an introduction to a reprint. Instead, Johnny/Joe Bonham lays in bed happily daydreaming about the peaceful but boring life he used to have, no doubt consumed with frustration that he didn't have four arms, four legs, four eyes, four jaws, four ears and another nose to give for his country.

3) Green Eggs and Ham

Dr. Seuss's classic indoctrinates children to the universal truth that diversity is counterproductive unless it is separated from mainstream society. The protagonist in this childrens' chestnut, Sam (as in Uncle Sam?), is obviously the personification of a lax Clinton-era Food and Drug Administration that no doubt would've allowed green food and perhaps even illegal, cheap Canadian pharmaceuticals into our country if allowed.

Throughout all sorts of scenarios and venues involving planes, trains and what have you, our hero steadfastly refuses to partake of the green eggs and ham, a concept as ridiculous and unsettling as interracial and gay marriage. Seuss in reality had written a different ending that involved him eventually outing Sam to the proper authorities. But his liberal publisher changed it so that our hero capitulated like a latter-day Democrat to George W. Bush.

2) The Devil's Dictionary

If a misanthrope can be defined as a promising Republican, then Bierce's masterwork certainly fits the bill. A deeply flawed book that takes pot shots at Free Market capitalism (Corporation, n. An ingenious device whereby individual profit is obtained without individual responsibility) as well as at conservatives, Bierce nonetheless displays enough of a conservative bias so that his lexicon deserves inclusion on this list.

Fortunately for today's liberals, Bierce disappeared in 1913 while experiencing a long-delayed midlife crisis by riding with Pancho Villa. Otherwise Bierce's inveighing about the evils of gluttony and pork consumption would've perfectly applied to the likes of Michael Moore and Alec Baldwin.

1) 1984

The ultimate triumph in speculative fiction about man's ultimate political and social triumph, Orwell's masterpiece is a celebration of the concepts of frigidity (Jane Russell makes yet another misleading, market-driven cameo on the cover but don't be fooled by her seductiveness. Note the "Anti-Sex" button over her ample right breast) and evils of the fourth amendment. The book's villain, Winston Smith, admirably starts out as a revisionist historian for the precursor of Fox News but later is seized with ridiculous notions such as free thought and freer sex with Julia. Later, in a hilarious fit of projection, Smith convinces himself and the impressionable Julia that Big Brother is really the villain!

The book brims with infectious optimism about Big Brother's ambitious and always-exceeded Five Year Plans. The answers to today's untidy civil unrest are laid out by Orwell in the form of a Thought Police and constant surveillance by the Inner Party. Conservatives through the decades have made some serious inroads to realizing Orwell's initiatives but, alas, our law enforcement is still, as yet, unable to read the minds of dissidents.

As proof that Smith is the villain and not the hero or antihero, he gets nabbed by O'Brien, who then treats him to some good old fashioned enhanced interrogation techniques that, of course, prove efficacious. The cowardly Smith gives up Julia rather than have his face eaten by rats and, with the help of lots and lots of Victory gin, he eventually grows to love Big Brother again as he ought. Orwell's utopia will, sadly, remain a work of fiction, as humans stubbornly sow the seeds of their own destruction in spite of the best efforts of capable men like Bush and Cheney (If you are not dead, it's because Bush and Cheney kept you alive. No, we don't have to prove it. Just take it as an article of faith).