The Politically Incorrect Guide(tm) to the Constitution (Politically Incorrect Guides),   ISBN:9781596985056

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I've read dozens of books on this subject, so I was happily surprised that I was able to learn much new information that I hadn't come across before. For that reason I was going to give the book 5 stars. This book covers Supreme Court cases from the founding of the country to the present day to show how the court has been leading us further and further away from the constitution. Sometimes, however I lost the thread the author was trying to convey and wasn't sure of where he was coming from. These moments were perplexing and fortunately not too numerous. I also found myself disagreeing intensely with some of the authors take on what the founders intended. He first lost me when he said the state should have trumped the rights of the Cherokee in the decision that led to their removal to Oklahoma. By this logic any state can do as much evil as it wants to any group of people and the federal government and supreme court should just ignore it (Hmmm). The natural rights of the Cherokee should trump the state, federal, and judicial(in my opinion). He lost me other places as well. For instance, he seemed to say that it should be up to the state to resolve an issue such as what we can read in the privacy of our homes. This view is a far cry from the view of all of my constitutionalist friends. Yes the revolution was about decentralization, but it was also about protecting our natural rights from the government. If Oregon decides to forcibly euthanize all citizens over the age of 75 should the feds sit back and say it is up to Oregon to resolve this. How about if Nebraska says science fiction literature is illegal. What if Georgia decides to execute all Deists. These examples all violate the natural rights of life, liberty, or property. Perhaps it comes down to this question. May the states violate the federal constituion at will? If the author says yes, then I don't beileve he's politically incorrect, he's just plain incorrect. Just as the left wing socialists/progressives are destroying our Constitution and individual liberty, I believe Kevin Gutzman would be a danger to my individual freedom as well if he were say a supreme court justice. To sum up, it was very educational, slightly unclear at times(maybe only for me), and for many it will be controversial. Enjoy.

Customer Rating: 

Dr. Gutzman's monograph on the Constitution is a refreshing look into the origins of our Constitution and the ways that it has been distorted over the past two centuries of our nation's existence.

I have always thought that when the Gold Clause cases were decided in the 1930s and when Justice McReynolds said that the Constitution was gone that that was the time when our judicial system started its slide into the legal morass that we face today. Not so according to Dr. Gutzman.

At the beginning of this 229-page book, he states that the misinterpetation of our Constitution went way back to men lke John Jay and John Marshall who through his decisions in Marbury and McCollough started the rise of judicial misinterpetation that has destroyed the meaning of certain Bill of Rights provisions like the 10th Amendment.

Despite being a book that leans towards the conservatives, the book also puts the "liberty of contract" justices into the doghouse as the author explains that the states had broad power to enact legislation such as minimum wages, working conditions and the like. He also goes after the anti-free speech crowd that exhibited itself in Schenck v. United States. In my opinion, he rightly goes after the justices who upheld the military draft positions through the use of citing foreign law that was so instrumental in the recent Roper v. Simmons decision.

The book also has little piglet illustrations that suggest reading books that expand on the topics covered in this tome. The book is one that would make both liberals and conservatives uncomfortable to a certain extent and that might be a good thing in order to stop the rise of our imperial government. Five stars for this book.

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This book is unique in many respects - it is a serious, scholarly study on the history of the Constitution, its ratification, the discussions leading to the creation of the document, and a very concise history of its debasement by the Judicial branch of the government, the purported keepers of the integrity of its intentions and the rights it guaranteed for the States and the People. It is also highly readable, concise and fun. There is no other book like it out there, I believe, that has all these qualities.

As an expert in the history of the law and the Constitution, Dr. Kevin Gutzman chisels away at long regarded myths and icons of American history, taking apart the decisions made by important and influential individuals that manned the Supreme Court of the United States. It explains how these decisions totally remade the intentions behind the Constitution and its bridle on government power. He demonstrates the lack of scruples behind many landmark decisions that relied on interpretations of a certain article or amendment of the Constitution that were not warranted. The most troubling fact about many of these decisions is the way the Supreme Court totally misconstrues the LANGUAGE contained in the document, as if they were reading a totally different document.

The author does not limit his scope on judicial decisions, he also tackles important historical events that established Constitutional paradigm shifts that changed the way the judicial branch justified their decisions, now armed with the newly minted 14th Amendment. He first explains why the 14th Amendment was not ratified according to statute, clearly showing Congress totally misconstruing the status of the Southern states as actual "States" of the Union and thus having no legal say on the ratification of this amendment, totally disregarding the 4 years of war fought for the very purpose of preserving the Union. He shows how many modern and highly regarded "civil rights" decisions were made based on a liberal interpretation of this amendment, disregarding the actual intent of the amendment or even its language.

For those who think or believe the Constitution has just been recently (like 50 or 100 years since) attacked, Gutzman shows that the defiance it has suffered from its purported "defenders" started almost from the very beginning, with federal judges wielding their reinterpretation power almost before the ink had dried(!)

This book gave me (a non-American) a greatly appreciated insight on the American Constitution, on its origins and on the reasoning of the framers. Where I come from, the "Constitution" is just a collection of rules for government AND the People alike (!), with a list of "obligations" enumerated for the citizenry, as if the People were mere tenants of their own country. I am talking about Mexico, America's neighbor to the south.

I totally recommend this book for anyone interested in the history of judicial decisions, or the history of the Constitution and its ratification. Such a book is not available anywhere, nor in such an accessible and readable format. It is no mere fluff piece - this book is to be earmarked, with excellent references and foot notes.

Customer Rating: 

With Government leaders trashing our Constitution, this should
be on the "must read" list for all our Congress. The Judiciary
was intended to be the weakest leg of Government -- not where
it is today. Recommend this for any citizen.

Customer Rating: 

Regardless of your political persuasion this is a must read. Everything they didn't teach you in school but should have. Thomas Jefferson would be cheering.