Rent The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas

Synopsis

[Read by the author, Jonah Goldberg]

An uncompromising look at the dark side of clichés and how liberals use them to camouflage their true beliefs.

''We are only as free as the least free among us.'' Is that really true, or is it the kind of statement most people will nod at without actually thinking about? Bestselling conservative author Jonah Goldberg calls it a liberal cliché -- fundamentally wrong and potentially very dangerous.

According to Goldberg, if the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist, the greatest trick liberals ever pulled was convincing themselves they're not ideological. Today ''objective'' journalists and academics and ''moderate'' politicians peddle some of the most radical arguments by hiding them in homespun aphorisms such as ''Violence never solved anything.''

Goldberg exposes the truth behind many such clichés, including ''the living constitution,'' ''social justice,'' and even simple words like ''inquisition.'' With humor and passion, he dismantles these Trojan horses to show how our thinking is profoundly shaped by deeply ideological concepts and convenient myths that most of us accept uncritically -- to our great detriment.

You'll learn the real history of dangerous liberal clichés, such as:

--''It's better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man be put behind bars.''
--''One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.''
--''I don't agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it.''
--''Those who sacrifice their liberty for security deserve neither.''
--''Politics stops at the water's edge.''

From Gandhi to Marie Antoinette to Madonna, he explores the context of clichés in our culture and shows how often we rely on them at the expense of serious thinking.

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