Through the Looking Glass Freedom cannot exist without discipline, self-discipline, and rights cannot exist without duties. Those who do not observe their duties do not deserve their rights. --Oriana Fallaci
On May 30, 1997, late in the afternoon, Jonathan Levin, a beloved English teacher at a Bronx high school, answered a phone call from Corey Arthur, a former student whose mentor he had been. Arthur pled with him: "I need to see you. It's important." As court records and testimony show, Levin responded to Arthur's plea by inviting him to come to his apartment. When Levin opened his door, however, he found not only Arthur but also another young man, Montoun Hart. Jon Levin's tortured and partially decomposed body was found three days later. According to Hart's 11-page confession, he and Arthur misled Levin in order to gain access to his apartment. They then tortured him to make him tell them the PIN for his ATM card.
According to Hart, Levin asked, in the final moments of his life, "Why are you doing this to me?" The young men stabbed him in the chest and the back of the neck; they then pulled his head back and cut his throat three times before shooting him in the back of the head with a .22 caliber pistol. They then went to an ATM near his home and withdrew $800. Jon Levin was the son of Gerald Levin, then the chief executive officer of media conglomerate Time Warner. Jon had made a decision not to follow his father into corporate America. Instead, he had dedicated his life to helping the disadvantaged and had become a teacher at an inner-city school where most of the kids were poor and black. His payback was brutal. The evidence was overwhelming against the two defendants. Corey Arthur's voice begging to see Levin was on the answering machine, his fingerprints were found on the duct tape used to bind Levin to a chair (which Arthur admitted doing), and his girlfriend testified that he had confessed the killing to her. Even Arthur's lawyers admitted their client was present for the robbery, though he always denied pulling the trigger. He insisted it was the older Hart, who had no history with the victim, who had committed the murder. Hart, in his own confession, gave details of the crime that only someone who had been present would know. A witness identified Hart as the person who was making a withdrawal from the ATM at the relevant time. It looked like an open-and-shut case of first-degree murder. For many years the homicide law in New York State had classified as first-degree murder only the killing of police officers and prison guards. However, in 1995 the law was amended to include killing "in the course of committing . . . and in furtherance of robbery," and also killing where "the defendant acted in an especially cruel and wanton manner pursuant to a course of conduct intended to inflict and inflicting torture upon the victim prior to the victim's death."7 First-degree murder is a capital crime, punishable by death or by imprisonment with no possibility of parole. Corey Arthur's jury acquitted him of first-degree murder. Instead, he was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years in jail, with eligibility for parole. The verdict for Montoun Hart is even more shocking and dangerous. In the face of overwhelming evidence, Hart was found not guilty and freed. What got Hart off? The
Tammy K. Bruce is an American conservative radio host, author, and political commentator who currently serves as Spokesperson for the United States Department of State in the second Trump administration. She has been a Fox News contributor and hosts Get Tammy Bruce on the Fox Nation streaming service. Once a prominent liberal activist and president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women, Bruce became increasingly critical of what she viewed as the failures of modern feminism and the intolerance of the political left. Her shift to conservative politics became a defining feature of her public persona. Born in Northridge, California, Bruce left formal education at an early age but later earned a degree in political science from the University of Southern California. She began her career in entertainment and publicity before moving into feminist activism in the 1990s. Following a controversial censure by NOW, she resigned and launched the Women’s Progress Alliance. Bruce later transitioned to national radio and conservative media, becoming known for her outspoken views on political correctness, gender politics, and liberal ideology. Openly gay and pro-choice, Bruce has often challenged ideological conformity, drawing both praise and criticism from across the political spectrum.
Bruce is so spot on that I can't find any true depth from my own ability to express a visceral reaction/ review of this book. There is NO double talk in this book. It is not erudite phrasing parsed. It's life real.
The statistics alone and her chapter designations are precisely what the crux is for our current cultural USA deep dive. Not just within the repulsive moral relativity accepted for extreme and vile acts, but for the cultural relativity of mean spirited divisions that she also described, saw, and have since this book was published in 2004- become an apparent USA national neurotic condition. IMHO, it is exemplified in evidence of how people treat and talk to strangers OR "friends" presently. She absolutely displays the exact downward pit Bruce lists and defines. There are lists and lists of researched statistics on each and every page. Most embrace outcomes. Real outcome curves.
Her chapter on the Death of Innocence- should be read by all teachers. And anyone who has close contact with people under 8 years of age, IMHO. Psychologically and emotionally- what is being foisted on people of extreme youth presently was absolutely foreseen by Bruce here.
But it isn't only in education and in mores. It's in consequence to those who differ in opinion, that especially. They are no longer tolerated. It's the opposite of the former "liberal" or open minded to opinion, form, reaction stance. Object being to make a source or person with difference of opinion "suffer for it".
All of these, each and every chapter- are pure cut to the chase. She saw this at least 10 years before most others. It was her placements and personal life that helped, I'm sure.
Up is down and down is up. In most cases it is truly within 180 degrees of "eyes" from just 20 or 30 cultural years ago. Certainly less than 2 generations. And we wonder why the scourge of drugs coupled within the identity politics of core narcissism has decimated so many lives within the USA. Tammy Bruce knows why. I strongly recommend this read.
Someone just gave me this book to read and I've really enjoyed the beginning. She's an interesting person, who lived the life on the far left and was president of an LA chapter of NOW and in leadership on the national level. She has an incredible/insightful opinion about how the "left" has changed the morality in the U.S. society. I'll write more when I've read it all!
After reading the book: She's quite the person. She's a liberal, lesbian, who (first hand) has seen how the extreme left wants to get rid of morality. I must admit, that since she was lesbian, I didn't know how she was going to defend morality. She's not religious, but in her life on the left has learned to respect (above all) Christians and how/why they are attacked by the "left." She takes real issues and talks about how leftist organizations take control of our country by influencing the abandonment of right and wrong.
I really enjoyed this book. I enjoyed reading about a liberal/democrat with an astounding sense of morality and as a liberal/democrat can criticize how the liberals/democrats are turning our country into a terrible place going into a downward spiral.
I really enjoyed a segment on how to decide what is moral and what isn't. I was told that the beginning was tough to get through, but keep reading. I thought the beginning was the best part!
THE DEATH OF RIGHT AND WRONG is mostly what you'd expect from a politically conservative book that sets out to delineate the moral decline of the United States of America. You'll read about corrupt judges and lawyers who care more about reaching out to offenders than they do to victims, teachers that foist sex-ed onto children fresh out of their Pampers and lie about the inherent risks of sexual promiscuity, viscous rap artists who record violent songs from behind bars, civil rights spokesmen and women who serve as apologists for statutory rape and child abuse, minority leaders who have a vested interest in keeping their own constituents down...etc., etc. It can all be a little shocking for Americans who are a bit out of step with modern culture, but the most interesting thing about this book has to be the fact that it was written by a woman who is both a pro-choice feminist and a lesbian who was once the head of NOW (National Organization for Women). Author Tammy Bruce does a very credible job of showing how organizations like NOW have been hijacked by people whose goals are not simply to support special interest groups, but rather to throw the whole notion of traditional values right out the window. The book serves as a nice little wake-up call as to just how topsy-turvey things have become in the USA lately, and I can't help but wonder what else the liberal elites have been up to in the eight years following this book's publication.
A fantastic book, radically politically incorrect from such an unexpected source - former president of Los Angeles NOW and lesbian, Tammy Bruce. She tells it like it is without fear or compromise. With Tammy Bruce there is no 'right' and 'left'. There is simply those who believe in truth and logic and those who fight against it. Spectacular!
I first heard of Tammy Bruce when she was a radio talk show host in Los Angeles in the early 1990's. Her credentials (lesbian feminist activist; president of Los Angeles chapter of NOW; etc.) made me wary, but I was surprised to find she had a lot to say that was worth listening to, even if you didn't always go along with her conclusion. She could be "liberal" without being unpleasantly extreme... She considered her liberalism to be a quest for freedom for the individual, as well as civilization for the culture. Her special concern was the plight of women whose horizons were limited by cultural conventions or raw brutality; at the same time, Tammy was acutely aware that freedom would be lost if the answer to every problem involved increased government bureaucracy and regulation. She understood that capitalism was the engine of economic prosperity, and she was unabashedly proud to be American. In short, Tammy was both idealistic and realistic, and she presented her ideas with class and wit.
Perhaps it was inevitable that an independent thinker like Tammy would come into conflict with the dogmatic NOW bureaucracy. The trigger was the O.J. Simpson murder trial. To Tammy, this was the textbook example of a major threat to women: the incorrigible batterer. Simpson had a well-documented history of beating Nicole, and the justice system had merely slapped him on the wrist; thus his violence escalated until he finally murdered her. We (society, that is) should have seen it coming; we shouldn't have winked at the earlier offences. Isn't this what an organization like NOW should be concerned with? That's how Tammy reacted (as president of the L.A. chapter, this happened on her turf) - but the agents of political correctness jumped on her with both feet, thanks to the strange racial politics that came to surround the Simpson case. The national NOW structure lambasted Tammy for her lack of commitment to "racial justice" in a heavy-handed attempt to shut her up. But Tammy was not one to be silenced, and she ultimately chose to severe her ties with NOW.
Tammy's experiences gave her a basis for much soul-searching, and she pours out her observations and conclusions into this book and also her previous book, The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds. She explores two questions in detail: 1) What is happening to make our culture less civilized?, and 2) Why is it happening? To the first question, she gives countless disturbing examples of how various Left-leaning organizations worm their way into our institutions (schools, charities, philanthropic organizations, etc.) and then create programs that are stupid and harmful, all the while spouting high-minded ideals and principles. To list one example: She describes how a Massachusetts school workshop for kids as young as 14, supposedly for the purpose of promoting tolerance of alternate lifestyles, in fact teaches an extremely graphic course in all manner of sexual indulgences. This is not an isolated incident; this sort of thing gets funded by major corporations who donate to (supposedly) civic-minded organizations that work with local schools; yet, somehow, this is the result we get, in spite of the high-sounding rhetoric that surrounds the effort. But because of that high-sounding rhetoric, it's easy to brand anyone who opposes this sort of questionable enlightenment as a racist or whatever. (Obviously I'm glossing over many details here for the sake of brevity; you'll have to read the book, but they're all there, complete with citations and footnotes.)
I find the question of "Why is this happening?" particularly fascinating. For example, how could NOW attack Tammy for condemning a wife-beating murderer? What is going through the minds of the intelligent, articulate, charismatic people whose actions serve only to appease the supporters of that murderer? Tammy's personal odyssey gives her a vantage to do more than theorize; she's been there and she's got the perspective to speak with authority about how a class of emotionally-damaged people get caught up into cult-like Left-wing movements; movements in which the most disturbed individuals are most likely to rise to positions of leadership. Tammy knows because she was one of them. This book is, in part, her confession and her mea culpa.
In summary, this book is both a personal testimony to Tammy's strange adventures in the world of reality-challenged activists, and a powerful wake-up call to raise awareness of the dangers we face if we allow the inmates to take complete control of the asylum.
More straight talk from an admittedly not straight individual. Tammy Bruce has a knack for cutting through the pseudo-intellectual b.s. put forth by the left and its tentacle organizations. Willing to call a spade a spade, it's not surprising she isn't heralded by gay and lesbian groups, to say nothing of feminista groups -- she is willing to slaughter the sacred cows of those groups in the open range of intellectual debate.
while I don't agree with the author's lifestyle, I agree with her in most other areas and appreciate her honest, candid writing on the state of society. All her books are very readable and informative.
Honest and direct. If 'like' is quite the right thought to have after reading it, I liked it. Could possibly cause some people to blast coffee froth out of their noses though....food for thought.
Although this book was published in 2003, things have not gotten better. The book talked about the BSA sticking to their principles, well that ship has sailed. There is no longer a Boy Scouts of America, today it’s Scout America. In a majority of cases, the elite left( i.e. left wing media and celebrities) have pushed agendas that’s different from what mainstream would desire. The legal system is also more involved in letting criminals go to steal, kill, and rape than protecting the victims. Perhaps one day the pendulum will swing back to law and order. The author points out her life style as a lesbian,but still her philosophy is more conservative. She writes about Planned Parenthood and what they stand for today. When I hear the term , my first thought is abortion as a means of birth control. However I have mixed emotions as aid to dependent children is at an all time high. Also, when I read about some woman letting their boyfriend shake their child to death or a woman with numerous children with a variety of fathers. Then there is the fact that men are not held accountable for impregnating numerous women and just walking away.
It is amazing how 2004 book remains relevant for 2020. It is probably because Tammy Bruce was arguing from principles and logic. Such things do not change... at least they don't change if one is to remain honest.
This was the first book I'd read from Tammy Bruce. The main take-away I got from it is there are malignant narcissists among us, and they have an effect on the people around them, and the society we live in, whether they're a relative, a lover, a friend, your boss, or someone in power in government. She cites a study of the psychology of the malignant narcissist, so that people can recognize their characteristics. She also cites a study of group-think, another characteristic of the Left, to help with recognition.
A powerful part of the book was her own personal experience with this type of person, and how for a time it turned her into a narcissist, which influenced her politics. Something changed in her life and she sought personal help, to a healthier mental state. She talks about what was "the final straw" for her, and why she and the Left parted ways in the early 1990s.
She cites several cases that are taken from contemporary headlines to illustrate the death of right and wrong.
She characterizes this death on the Left as a symptom of malignant narcissism. This makes some sense, reading her POV, because she talks about how people she knew in leadership positions on the Left often conducted their political meetings not as strategy/management meetings, but as group therapy. She thought they were in need of personal therapy, that they had unresolved emotional issues, which they never healed, that they were acting out in the political sphere. However true that may be, I think Evan Sayet makes a compelling case in a book he published recently ("The KinderGarden of Eden") that there is a utopian, philosophical basis for the death of right and wrong as well.