Social Civics

A combat manual for getting elected to local public office - on a shoestring budget.

America is at a crossroad. Current public opinion surveys report that Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track, and they are broadly pessimistic about the future. Diminishing social trust, lack of civility, and promotion of individualism over community has resulted in a country that is discontented, fractious, alienated, and divided. What is happening to our American values and virtues?

Theodore Roosevelt has a complicated legacy. To some, he was the quintessential American patriot and hero, a valiant soldier and hawkish leader. Others remember him as the Progressive cultural icon, the trust-buster who split from the Republican Party.

Don’t be scammed! The movement that brought Donald Trump to the White House is under attack by scam artists. Mainstream media, liberal elites and professors, and Antifa-led rioters are promoting a scam, notorious for its long history of failure and disasters. The S.C.A.M. is Socialism, Communism, and Marxism. Attorney and theologian Scott L. Smith, Jr. brings together the 20th century’s greatest defenders of truth to explain once and for all how to defeat scam.

How did people in our country, North and South, East and West, come to share a remarkably durable and consistent common vision of what it meant to be an American in the first 50 years after the Revolution? How did the nation respond to the problem of slavery in a republic?

The glorification of citizenship is a given in today's world, part of a civic narrative that invokes liberation, dignity, and nationhood. In reality, explains Dimitry Kochenov, citizenship is a story of complacency, hypocrisy, and domination, flattering to citizens and demeaning for noncitizens. In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Kochenov explains the state of citizenship in the modern world.

When those we elect descend into criminal malfeasance and emulation of foreign autocracies and oligarchies, Cedric Alexander says it is the unelected apolitical "fourth branch" of government - our nation's public servants, civil servants, and first responders - who must save the nation. Alexander, a former deputy mayor, police chief, and CNN commentator, argues that these people do not constitute a nefarious "deep state" pursuing a hidden agenda. They keep the country running and its people safe....

Empathetic and excellent advice from one of our nation's leading Housing Authority experts, having served in leadership roles across eight major U.S. cities and one in Canada. In his book, Housing Humans- A Vicarious Memorandum, Gene first describes his early childhood and military life and details how his experiences led him to finding his ultimate calling in working to improve the lives of others via affordable housing. Gene later articulates his specific call-to-action for national housing reform.

Power to the People addresses growing voter apathy and disenchantment worldwide - that familiar sense that governments have become decoupled from their constituencies, that votes no longer count, and that politicians and institutions are too focused on short-term issues to grapple with complex global issues such as climate change and rising inequality. The book is structured into two halves, the first half diagnosing problems and the second half proposing solutions. Danny urges listeners to make a positive difference through engagement and active citizenry.

The majority of Americans are far closer in values than the ideological opinion-shapers lead us to believe. This book asks how we can restore the civic unity that our political elites have worked for years to dismantle.

An analysis of The Second Amendment as it has evolved since the Ratification of The Bill of Rights and its impact on American Society.

Toxic culture is eroding our sense of belonging, community and well-being. Our capacity to collaborate and innovate together is also being undermined by the rising incivility and divisiveness. We need each other to address the complex challenges facing our cities and communities—from the infrastructure deficit to climate change, homelessness, mental health and addiction issues. To thrive, our local democracies depend on our ability to revive the art of living and working well together.

As both an evangelical Christian and a member of the Hollywood community, Coleman Luck has had a unique vantage point from which to view the cultural and political wars of the last decades. It is from this double perspective that he has written The Curse of Conservatism.

The Forging of the American Mind is a revolutionary road map for transforming education. This book gives devout parents and teachers the concrete information and inspiration they need to build a new and better way of learning for all American children.

Our democracy is a trainwreck. Our elections feel hollow and our legislatures have become toxic. Voters are increasingly turning towards the angriest candidates, or simply tuning out completely and staying at home. But as Dave Meslin's career has shown, we can fix things. We can turn elite power structures upside down. We can give a voice to ordinary people. But it means fixing things from the bottom up, and starting locally. It's hard to change the world if you can't change a municipal by-law. Teardown shows listeners how to do both.

The electronic age compels us to confront the delicate balance between the convenience of constant connectivity and the protection of personal privacy, security, and democracy itself. Presented as a two-fold concern of digital and civic literacy, surveillance and privacy expert Heidi Boghosian argues that our fight to uphold democracy must extend to the online world. As “smart” citizens, our best chance of thriving in the digital era lies in taking care of our “smart” selves as diligently as we maintain our smart devices.

Authenticity. Vulnerability. Humility. Transparency. These are some of the 21st-century virtues proselytized by mindset gurus, paraded (if not practiced) by big corporations, and lauded by professionals on LinkedIn. The quest for authenticity, for example, is central to progressive campaigns for greater diversity and inclusion, while our political and business leaders are highest praised if they appear to be humble. But are Australia’s newest virtues fit for purpose? In this provocative book, Lucinda Holdforth questions the new orthodoxy.

With almost 20 million listeners on more than six hundred stations, Rush Limbaugh is the leading and most dangerous figure in the conservative movement today. John K. Wilson uses the most effective strategy of all—Rush’s own words—to show how Limbaugh’s flagrant disregard for the truth and penchant for savage personal attacks laced with racist, sexist, and homophobic slurs have held the political arena hostage.

We believe that rules and laws are in place to protect us. They are what keep our societies from descending into chaos. C.L. Skach feels differently. She always believed in the strength of the law - she spent her career in some of the most fractured, war-torn corners of the world, reading and writing constitutions to help fix society. But as she sat alone in a sandbagged trailer in Baghdad after a rocket attack, she admitted what she'd been denying for years: a good society cannot be imposed from above.

In Here We Go Again, you will be challenged to realize that much of what you have been conditioned to believe, might be at odds with Scripture.