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f you have ever wanted to shoot your TV set when
CNN or Peter Jennings comes on, but been frustrated by the gun control laws
enacted by namby-pamby bleeding-heart liberals and tax-and-spend politicians,
or if you think the guy in Sledge Hammer made some good points,
you may be a candidate for membership in the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.
If you've been around long enough, you may even have a six-inch stack of
membership cards from the NRA stacked neatly behind your bound issues of
National Review, which means you are already an unofficial
member of the V.R.W.C. To become an official full-fledged member,
however, you need to know the Vast Right Wing Catechism. This book
will get you started. It even comes with its own official membership card.
Repeat after me: "Tear down the U.N. and replace it with a Starbucks ... They can have my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead hands ... If you subsidize it, you'll get more of it .... Life begins at fertilization." This book consists of statements repeated by liberals, such as "Illegal immigrants do jobs that Americans don't want to do," followed by a brief discussion of why the author believes the liberal point of view is wrong. The discussion consists mainly of brief talking points; you won't find any profound arguments in this book. How should one respond, for example, when a co-worker says, "I don't see why there was such hysteria about Communism" or "Hillary would make a terrific President!" For arguments like these, this Handbook is just not enough, and you need a copy of The Black Book of Communism or, to deal with seriously loony co-workers, perhaps a copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, version IV.
The real audience for this book is not die-hard right-wingers, but people teetering on the edge. It's been argued that anyone who thinks for himself or herself will, sooner or later, automatically become a conservative. Unfortunately, getting people to think for themselves is not so easy. The great mass of people can't escape the years of indoctrination to which they have been subjected. For them, politics has to be fun and easy. Most people identify with whichever end of the spectrum appears to suit their lifestyle. If they prefer nose rings to bowties, they think they must therefore be liberals and adjust their beliefs accordingly. What this country needs is to restore the political balance by counteracting the demonization of the Right that is the modus operandi of liberals. If this clever book gets just one child to recognize that right-wingers are not gun-toting, bible-thumping rednecks, as the news media and Hollywood would have you believe, it will have done the country a great service.
