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“What not to read” if you’re a conservative Republican

This is pretty funny (not sure how I landed between A. Dworkin and MacKinnon! [UPDATE:  it's organized by first name, I missed that]):

Irritus college has received several requests for lists of banned books so that a new student browsing a bookstore other than our college bookstore does not inadvertently purchase a book that would confuse or complicate issues for our students. While we hate to use the word 'banned,' this list contains books that under no circumstances should even be opened for perusal – they are that dangerous.

Charles Darwin tops our list, Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky are also verboten, most of our students already know these three names, but many of the authors below are not as familiar and should be avoided. Any book from these authors could confuse our students and even our teachers. Remember if a book does not contain God, Guns, and Freedom on its cover, use care when reviewing. 


Irritus has a broad selection of writings to keep conservative republicans occupied and away from complex ideas. Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Jonah Goldberg, Mark Levin, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Dinesh D'Souza, and other conservatives write simply and to our point. You'll be glad to know we also have a rush order in for Rush Limbaugh's new book on being a patriot. Get it, 'rush' order.   And check sites that propagate our message: Newsmax, Fox, Heritage, Cato, Tea Party, Washington Times, and Wall Street Journal among others.   Asterisks represent the worst of the worst, double asterisk are really really really bad. Please do not Google or investigate our list:
*'Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance' by Robert Proctor, Londa Schiebinger
'Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing' James Waller
'Beyond Geography: The Western Spirit Against the Wilderness' Professor Frederick Turner
*'Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War' Joe Bageant 
*'Ill Fares the Land' Tony Judt
**'Invisible Hands: The Making of the Conservative Movement from the New Deal to Reagan' Kim Phillips-Fein
'Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981-1991' Jeremy Waldron
'Liberty before Liberalism' Quentin Skinner 
*'Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming' Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. M. Conway
*'Political Liberalism' John Rawls
'Science and Human Values' Jacob Bronowski
*'Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty' Alex Carey
'The Age of Reform' Richard Hofstadter
**'The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer'  Dean Baker
*'The Culture of Contentment' John Kenneth Galbraith
'The Culture of Make Believe' Derrick Jensen
'The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations' Christopher Lasch 
'The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America, 1932-1972'  William Manchester
'The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States' Gordon S. Wood
'The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20Th Century' Peter Watson
'The Radicalism of the American Revolution' Gordon S. Wood
'The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin' Corey Robin
**'The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy' Albert O. Hirschman
'The Rise and Fall of Communism' Archie Brown
'The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History'  Isaiah Berlin
*'The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener' Martin Gardner
'There's No Such Thing As Free Speech: And It's a Good Thing, Too'  Stanley Fish
'Unruly Voices'  Mark Kingwell

 And authors to avoid:  Some are also noted above.

 Alex Carey
Albert Camus
Albert O. Hirschman
Andrea Dworkin
Brian Leiter  
Catharine MacKinnon
Dean Baker
Derek Parfit
Eli Horowitz 
Eric Hoffer
Gordon S. Wood
Gore Vidal
Isaiah Berlin
Jacob Bronowski
Jeremy Waldron
John Kenneth Galbraith
John Rawls
Jonathan Wolff
Joshua Cohen
Karl Popper
Lewis Mumford
Mark Kingwell
Martha Nussbaum
Martin Gardner
Michael J. Sandel
Neil Postman
Peter Singer
Peter Watson
Stanley Fish
Tony Judt
William T. Vollmann

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