Sunday, September 18, 2011

When a bad attitude is good - a book review

Many may be familiar with Claire Wolfe whose previous books include such classics as 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution: Ideas and Resources for Self-Liberation, Monkey Wrenching and Preparedness and Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom.  She has a regular column at Backwoods Home Magazine and her blog is Living Freedom.

For those unfortunate ones who have not tasted her literary delights, her newest, The Bad Attitude Guide to Good Citizenship, will serve as an excellent introduction.  The book is a compilation of selected columns from the aforementioned Backwoods Home Magazine and her "The Enemy At The Gate" columns from S.W.A.T.  The first three sections describe the problems we face and she uses the last two sections for proposed solutions.

Personally, I like the way she describes our problems with government.  In fact, I love the way she writes and intersperses seriousness with humor.   For instance, after describing federal laws, rules and bureaucrats as a "long parasitic worm" entwining itself in our daily lives, she writes:

Like any parasite feeding on its host, the government gets bigger and more self-important while the host gradually fails.  But there's a difference between our parasite and all others.  Your typical tapeworm doesn't try to persuade you that it's your friend and savior.  It doesn't expect you to love it, salute it and obey it.

Her piece "Spirit Of Rebellion" is worth the price of the book all by itself.  In that column Wolfe relates the incident in 1946 when a group of WWII veterans with firearms attacked a county government and how in 1969 the people of Estonia befuddled their government by...singing a song.  Exciting stuff.

A reviewer once referred to a previous Wolfe book as "Like A Prairie Home Companion...with grenades!"  I can't beat that.

And finally, Paladin Press has produced a quality paperback with print large enough that I can read it without removing my anteojos.

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