Benzion N. Chinn

Fantastic Book!

Revisado: 10-21-23

This is a feel-good book about a 6th grader with dislexia. As a special education teacher, I enjoyed it.

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What is the Alternative?

Revisado: 05-12-23

The book makes a great case against the effectiveness of voters in democratic countries. This should not be news to people who read books on political theory. Then again, as the author would point out, people who bother to read political theory are a distinct minority. The ending of the book was a bit of a disappointment as the author fails to lay out a particular vision of epistocracy and why it might be reasonable to imagine that a real-world version of it might do better than a conventional democracy. Of particular interest is the fact that the author does not make a case against those who would agree with his opinion about voters but respond that the solution is essentially what we have now, mainly a constitution backed by an activist Supreme Court, a bureaucracy, and politicians who are perfectly willing to ignore their voters.

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Is There Such a Thing as an Arab?

Revisado: 08-19-22

This is one of those books that takes on a topic too vast and complex for its own good. What we end up with is less a history of the Arab people and more a meditation on what it means to be an Arab and its relationship to ethnicity, Islam, and the Arabic language. As someone with an extensive academic background in history, I found this book hard to follow. I would not recommend it to anyone not already well-read in the field.

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Zaphod Beeblebrox as Haym Salomon

Revisado: 07-24-22

I would like to point out the hypocrisy of this audiobook. It bends over backward to portray "enslaved people" and transgender individuals in a politically correct fashion yet it, somehow, thinks that it is ok to voice Haym Salomon, one of the most important Jews in American History, as if he were Zaphod Beeblebrox. In essence, they imply that Salomon was a drunken sleazy con artist. Considering that Salomon was a financial genius who spoke numerous languages, I find this particularly insulting. We can see the basic problem of all attempts to be politically correct. It is impossible to show maximal sensitivity to all groups. Inevitably, it will be revealed that some groups' sensitivities matter more to the author than others. In the end, political correctness is a version of Animal Farm's notion of equality. All Animals are Equal. Some Animals are More Equal than Others.

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A Solid Classical Liberal Fairy Tale

Revisado: 05-05-21

In the spirit of Animal Farm, Rowling has produced a fairy tale with classical liberal values. The government lies to the people, robs them, and arrests anyone who objects. What is particularly worthwhile here is that, like George Orwell, Rowling has a keen sense for the thought process of how people become incentivized to believe what should be an obvious lie. There are a pair of plucky kids who go on a quest and learn the meaning of sacrifice. In the end, even one of the villains shows that he is capable of self-improvement.

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A Basic Collection of Free Market Talking Points

Revisado: 11-09-20

This is a good summary of how libertarians think for those trying to understand that school of thought. The book is very repetitive though and should have been better edited.

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Incomplete

Revisado: 07-21-20

One of the strengths of the Dresden series has been its ability to throw an emotional punch in addition to having Harry Dresden run into monsters, run away from monsters, and quote pop culture. That has kept the series relevant despite its length. This book is clearly the first part of a two-part adventure. The problem is that one gets the sense that Butcher found that Battle Ground was running a little long so he took the first part, added some filler, and decided to publish it as an extra book.

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Son Loves It!

Revisado: 02-12-20

My 5-year old son wants Dan Wells to write a third “Zero G” book.

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Jews Will Argue With Each Other

Revisado: 09-12-19

This is one of the finest books about contemporary Judaism out there and deserves to be compared to such works as Jew Vs. Jew and Like Dreamers. Even if you have no particular interest in Judaism, this book is valuable as an exercise in recognizing that people are going to choose different legitimate values and this will lead to disagreements without anyone being a villain. For example, there is a question that haunts this book; if we were to decide that it is not possible for there to be a peace treaty with the Palestinians and the Arab world and the only Israel that will be possible is one always at war would you still want there to be a Jewish State? Like any serious moral dilemma, the only possible answer is that there are no good answers that one could offer with a clear conscious.

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Tradtionalism Vs. Fundamentalism

Revisado: 08-07-18

This book stands as a model of how to handle one of the most important issues in modern religion, traditionalism vs. fundamentalism. In a traditionalist model where there is no clear and present danger from any Enlightenment or secularism. In a traditional society, people might be fairly conservative in practice while caring little for ideology. Religion is the society in which they live. It is important but, like oxygen, easy to take for granted and ignore. To be a fundamentalist, you first have to be conscious that you are under attack. This makes people much less tolerant because all of a sudden even minor deviations become signs that a person has aligned with the "enemy."

A good example of this is the infamous Scopes trial regarding the teaching of evolution. Fitzgerald argues that the push to ban evolution from classrooms had little to do with people from Tennessee, where there were few actual "unbelievers" to threaten anyone. Rather, the attack on evolution came from northern fundamentalists, who were fighting a losing battle with the liberal wings within their own denominations, not just regarding evolution but over the authority of scripture itself.

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