I Can't Believe I'm Sitting Next to a Republican: A Survival Guide for Conservatives Marooned Among the Angry, Smug, and Terminally Self-Righteous Paperback – December 21, 2010

This book immediately made me think of Tom Wolfe's observations about the chattering intellectuals' arrogant put-downs of Red America he heard at Manhattan parties where no one knows anyone who voted for "Bush".Talk radio host Vicki McKenna is quoted in the book: "What happened to individual liberty? Choice doesn't matter when it comes to what kind of freakin' light bulb I want to buy ... Does choice only matter when it comes to killing a baby? (P.125)I noticed that quote because I've lost count of all the times in the past year when I've tapped a flickering new light bulb and thought or mumbled under my breath: "These new light bulbs don't work very well." Just thank God the environmentalists haven't seriously turned their attention to the flush toilet and toilet paper yet. Which makes me think of a funny Ann Coulter line I'll paraphrase: Since the dawn of time, man has desired to remove his excrement as far as possible from himself. Ann Coulter comes up more than once in the book, including: "[D]ining with Andrew Stein at Centolire on Madison Avenue the other night, a wild-eyed man came up to their table and shouted at Coulter for her right-wing views" (P. 94)A great thing about Ann Coulter, Harry Stein, who authored the funny book under review, Greg Gutfeld, Rush Limbaugh, and a number of others is their ability to use humor to mock liberals. Though it's not in this book, I think of a quote:"A sense of humor is a trait of the balanced; the unbalanced and fanatical don't have one. They have no ability to laugh at themselves or at the ridiculous things of life." - Father George William Rutler, interview with "The Catholic World Report"Though I live in the red state of Kentucky, the city of Louisville where I reside is purple, slightly more blue than red. This book is excellent for the more heroic conservatives among us who live surrounded by liberals in deep blue states. The subject matter is actually serious, the increasingly irrational hatred of conservatives by liberals. But it is handled in an often quite funny way.

The story of the left is selfishness and narcissism posing as principle. (P. 150)This book catalogs the left's lazy uniformity of thought, more than anything else. It would be interesting to read an update that includes 2017's screaming campus garbage babies.Otherwise, nice stories in the "you're not alone, they really _are_ that way." genre.Awesome section with a reading list for raising normal kids, starting at page 53:Tasha Tudor A Doll's ChristmasMaud Hart Lovelace the Betsy and Tacy booksLouisa May Olcott Old Fashioned GirlRumer Godden The Doll's HouseJoan Aiken The Wolves of Willoughby ChaseFrances Hodgson Burnett A Little PrincessAndrew Lang fairy tale booksRichard Chase The Jack TalesBooth Tarkington the Penrod booksGeorge Orwell Animal FarmAstrid Lingered The TomtenThirty Seconds Over TokyoSherlock Holmes storiesMark Twain's short storiesEdward Ardizzone's "Tim" seriesLaura Ingalls Wilder's Little House booksTove Jansson's Moomin booksThe Oxford Anthology of Poetry for ChildrenCharles Dickens David CopperfieldThe Childhood of Famous Americans series - the older the betterHoratio Alger's books(To these I would add the adventure books of G. A. Henry)This list earns the book an extra star, in my opinion.

A light read, but filled with amusing (and head-exploding) anecdotes that demonstrate how progressive authoritarians dominate the institutions of lower and higher education, journalism, publishing, psychiatry, entertainment and more -- and how utterly intolerant, dishonest and self-righteous they can be. Nice red meat for those of us who are too busy being productive members of society to focus on cataloging the daily drip of left-wing moral grandstanding, fallacious logic and double standards.And I just want to thank the left-wingers who gave the one-star reviews here for validating Stein's premise...

I live in a red state, and was surprised to see what a biased climate conservatives in deep blue areas encounter. Despite that, Stein maintains a sense of humor.

Brilliant, bold, funny, and more apropos than ever, Harry Stein's book should be required reading for anyone claiming to have an actual education.

This book trades substance for funny fluff, which is great for those wanting a break from more weighty fare. But, lost between the truly outrageous examples and the fairly gentle, smirky humor is what feels like righteous outrage and deft satire. Instead, we get a fairly blasé look at a laundry-list of annoying PC examples. Perhaps its the libertarian viewpoint of the author that leaves the writing feeling uncomfortably comfortable, but the lack of passion makes this book, though fairly short, feel a little slow through its enumeration of liberalized professions and topics.

This excellent piece of expanded anecdotal journalism shows today's upper class left wingers who dominate today's Democ-rat party for what they are--snooty left wing snobs--the "elite group of impudent snobs" then vice President Ford spoke about when he discussed Nixon's CREEP in 1973.The snooty attitude they express about those of us who have left liberalism for happier places, who no longer read liberalism's daily bible which comes wrapped in an appropriately blue plastic wrapper, who actually love our country and admire its democratic allies and disdain the third world dictatorships the liberals have come to love, who have uncommon admiration for Israel, a nation which has shared values with the United States, THIS is what liberals have come to disdain.They are a class apart and hopefully will be put back in their place in the coming election.