Lost Rights : The Destruction of American Liberty

Rating:
Summary: Excellent scope
Review: I read this several years ago, so I'm a little rusty. But Bovard's book is an excellent run-down of various specific issues and how government agents are violating our rights w/regard to those issues. His many anecdotal examples of people being molested w/o cause in the natural-rights realm are scary and worse, aggitating. Such as people's houses being broken into because they have some several firearms. Such is a clear violation of the 4th Amend against unreasonable search&seizure w/o warrant.

My biggest problem, content-wise, was his defense of pornographers. The purpose of the "speech" part of the 1st Amend was to protect people from being molested and jailed for critiquing government figures as was typical of omnipotent kings. (Hence, the outrage early in the republic when Adams pressed the Alien&Sedition Acts.) I think Bovard would be hard-pressed to find any documents or writings (and there are tons) in the seminal founding era which would indicate any concern about putting out smut or worse, subjecting children to it and allowing the perpetrators to get away w/it.

Rating:
Summary: Just what does an anecdote prove?
Review: Nothing, really, but unfortunately Mr. Bovard relies exclusively on anecdotal information to support his thesis. In some cases, he even cites lawsuits that have been filed to support his arguments, without mentioning the outcome of those lawsuits. Anecdotal evidence is one of the weakest forms of evidence, but it's all Bovard's got. He also deftly contradicts himself, decrying government regulation EXCEPT when it comes to the S&L bailout, where he decries government DE-regulation. He doesn't want schools to be racially integrated so that literacy rates can be improved with regard to race, and he doesn't want affirmative action either. He also really, really likes the word "vivify" but doesn't have a very clear idea of what it means (he mostly uses it to mean "illustrate," a different concept altogether). There are extensive footnotes, but footnotes don't equal good research. In short, Bovard has utterly failed to prove that there is a massive, coordinated operation on the part of government agencies to curtail citizens' rights, or even to make the case that the government does not sometimes have a compelling interest in regulating certain forms of citizen behavior. In any case, anyone who can write (presumably with a straight face) that the Exxon Valdez disaster in Prince William Sound was "inadvertent" (the captain was drunk and safety mechanisms were knowingly and deliberately switched off) has got some credibility issues.

Bovard uses a lot of sophisticated and technical language to SOUND like he's really smart, and from the looks of the reviews below, he succeeds. Oh, well; no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

Rating:
Summary: A Text On Current and Increasing Government Tyranny.
Review: Several years ago, my many friends from Norway, Sweden and Denmark often laughed when I used the word 'freedom' to describe life in the USA. I could not understand why they considered this country so repressive. After reading 'Lost Rights', I understand. My European friends could see our government for what it was and now Mr. Bovard has exposed the truth for the rest of us. Upon concluding Mr. Bovard's fast paced work, one must ask, "has the great sacrifce of life by the men and women who died to create and later to protect our Constitution been in vain?" Unfortunately, if the trends outlined in this well researched and extensively annotated volume are not soon reversed the answer will most certainly be a sad 'yes'. It should be hard for anyone to read this book without mourning our Nation and wondering how much more abuse of the Constitution we will allow before taking steps to reclaim our "lost rights".