Dismantling America
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Dismantling America
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Narrated by:
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Robertson Dean
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By:
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Thomas Sowell
About this listen
These wide-ranging essays - on many individual political, economic, cultural, and legal issues - have as a recurring, underlying theme the decline of the values and institutions that have sustained and advanced American society for more than two centuries. This decline has been more than erosion. It has, in many cases, been a deliberate dismantling of American values and institutions by people convinced that their superior wisdom and virtue must override both the traditions of the country and the will of the people.
Whether these essays (originally published as syndicated newspaper columns) are individually about financial bailouts, illegal immigrants, gay marriage, national security, or the Duke University rape case, the underlying concern is about what these very different kinds of things say about the general direction of American society.
This larger and longer-lasting question is whether the particular issues discussed reflect a degeneration or dismantling of the America that we once knew and expected to pass on to our children and grandchildren. There are people determined that this country’s values, history, laws, traditions, and role in the world are fundamentally wrong and must be changed. Such people will not stop dismantling America unless they get stopped—and the next election may be the last time to stop them, before they take the country beyond the point of no return.
©2010 Thomas Sowell (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Critic Reviews
What listeners say about Dismantling America
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mark Penberthy
- 06-08-2023
Facts
I have just listen to this, and while it was written in 2010, it would seem the major issues then are not much different from the ones that have plagued humanity and seem more current today than yesterday.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 22-10-2023
Sowell hits the sweet spot
Clear and considered, rational and reasoned, Thomas Sowell is at his eloquent best in why America is slowly but surely being taken apart. The Romans would have benefited from such a book before it was too late for them.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- David M
- 26-03-2023
Master of the false dichotomy
As an interested observer of American politics and policy I read widely. Sowel was recommended as an eloquent example of conservative thought. I have no issue with the quality of the prose, he presents his arguments cogently in plain language.
However the content and quality of the reasoning leaves one wondering as to the quality and throughness or the reasoning and research conducted to support his assertions.
I classify this work as populist and focused on a narrow target audience, using the language and idiom typical of the American right. For the student I suggest contrasting and comparing this work with those of Shapiro.
The work contains repetitive themes aligned to conservative thinking. In the examples where the author speaks to the healthcare systems of other countries, a subject in which I have some expertise, he is either misinformed or deliberately disingenuous in his examples and present numerous false dichotomies (examples that use inaccurate or wrong contrasts) to support his assertions. These assertions are often unsupported by facts or references.
He appears to fundamentally missunderstand how the provision of universal medical care using public funding actually functions. It is not an insurance scheme. If you are ill or have chronic medical issues in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand you got to a doctor and receive first class care without preference to your ability to pay and without recourse to an external insurance scheme. In the vast majority of cases for free or for a small nominal fee. I recently had heart surgery in Australia, it happen promptly and used the very latest techniques and my cost was less than $1000. The balance was not covered by any insurance, it was covered by a public funding mechanism where the basic costs of building and maintaining the medical facilities and the pay of medical support staff is covered by normal state funding. The variable costs of the particular test or procedure is funded by a draw on my medicare account, though it looks like insurance it is in practice a method of allocation of federal funding to state facilities, external providers and attending physicians.
The only person who says you need a particular treatment or not is your doctor. The bureaucracy is outward facing, negotiating rates for services and costs with international drug companies, and doing it very well. I pay $12 a month for a Satin prescription, I understand that the same prescription in the US is over $50.
Sowel does his readers a disservice by attempting to contrast the quality of care in America with other countries. The issue is not quality, but access to care where delivery of care in America depends on your ability to fund the care you need. Whereas in all other first world countries there is no financial barrier to access to care for everyone, and care is delivered on an equal basis.
Sowel's observations on international policies and strategies often contain the same shallow and unsupported reasoning, Particularly when it comes to power politics between the US and belligerent stats like Iran. Here he criticises current policy without analysis nor presenting relevant historical references. Nazi Germany in 1939 is not a valid comparison for Iran, a medieval theocracy situated in ancient society with significant domestic legitimacy issues. For a more reasoned and nuanced view of Realist international relations I suggest the reader seek out Mirchiemer ( apologies on the spelling) or even Fukiyam's more recent thinking.
If you have waded through my thoughts this far, thank you for your time and may we find better quality of thought in other works.
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