The Ten Things You Can’t Say In America is written by Larry Elder, a Libertarian nationally syndicated talk show host and who occasionally is seen on MSNBC (now NBC News Channel), Fox News, and others. He is also on daytime TV, but I have not had the opportunity to catch a show.

The book originally written in 2000 has ten chapters, with an extra eleventh to handle the Bush v. Gore debates. His ten points (from the cover):

  • Blacks are more racist than whites.
  • White condescension is more damaging than white racism.
  • There is no health-care crisis.
  • The War on Drugs is the new Vietnam.
  • Republicans and Democrats are the same beast in different rhetoric.
  • Gun control advocates have blood on their hands.
  • America’s greatest problem? Illegitimacy.
  • The welfare state is our national narcotic.
  • There is no glass ceiling.
  • The media bias: it’s real, it’s widespread, it’s destructive.

The author explains his points well, and some chapters, such as the glass ceiling, gun control, welfare, and racism, are backed up with exhaustive statistics. Even if a reader may not buy some of his arguments from a moral standpoint, the figures show that the current way of doing some things just isn’t working and we need to be trying something else.

The book is easy to read, with no difficult vocabulary, but I found myself wandering off when I was reading in areas I already knew about (Welfare/entitlements and Republicans/Democrats) and there was little innovation in the framing of the debate. I would have probably enjoyed the book more back in 2000, when the statistics were fresher. This is a book that I recommend to those new to the arena of ideas.