Critique du Publishers Weekly

Since 1992, Kennedy, newspaper columnist and publisher of Common Ground, has been the executive director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, an affiliate of the ACLU. But since the ACLU has been demonized as a base for leftists, it may seem paradoxical that a conservative Republican admirer of Barry Goldwater heads one of its state branches. Not so, writes Kennedy, stressing that conservatives want to conserve the best of the past, especially the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And, proceeding subject by subject, from school prayer through pornography to gay rights, she demonstrates why many of her fellow Republicans (and some on the far left) attack the libertarianism that is the basis of the American social contract. Kennedy is particularly telling when she points out that much of the agenda of "religious right" Republicans agitates for laws enforcing censorship and other matters that would expand the power of government. Concluding her compelling arguments, Kennedy sums up America's‘and her‘values, involving liberty, equality before the law, the marketplace of ideas, the rule of law and the civic virtues necessary to realize those values. Her book makes a worthwhile contribution to American political thought. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved