Atlas Shouts: A Modern Patriot Calls for Action

I love truth. In a never ending quest to find it, i found myself with Atlas Shouts in my hands. This book is a truth atomic bomb. Writer John Lofgren has self described been in over 10,000 debates where he closely studied the behavior of debate with both liberals and conservatives. He is well educated and uses historic presedent to back every single claim and he provides massive amount of proof. He focuses on the destruction of debate and how it allows lies and agendas to run wild and ruin a country. In detail he describes how both sides participate in this un honest agenda ridden politic scheme that benefits the shot callers and keeps the country down, over and over. He also hit the nail on the head with this book by how he broke down tactics used to destruct debate. Every single one incredibly true. Since reading this book i have been able to call out tactics used in debate and has strengthen me as a debator and a warrior for truth. Things a reader can only get from a seasoned master of debate. It doesn't stop there, Lofgren goes deep in how political parties continue to voter bribe for support ( as well as documents the times of the past) as the government abuses that and becomes more corrupt. But to not be a sour puss Lofgren also analyses the economical times of the pastwhere honesty prevailed and worked! As every good Author does he gives the logical exit strategy our country needs to fix this broken political system of lies and bribes. This is the climax of the book as well as the end making ATLAS SHOUTS a excellent read from beginning to end. This book is 100% packed full of truths! Every fact is backed by a web page link for your own continued research. I am giving this book 5 stars because i found it to be incredibly enlightening, rescourcefull and brutally honest. Who doesn't want some of that in life :)

An amateurish attempt to cherry pick facts and figures from the internet to support preconceived conclusions. If you believe Oliver Stone's movie depiction/conclusions about the JFK assasination are accurate, this book is for you. So many falsehoods and inaccuracies it is hard to know where to start.Beginning on page 2, the author demonstrates a lack of basic constitutional knowledge by confusing 'constructionist' principles with the principles of 'originalism'. As the late Justice Scalia noted "unlike an originalist, a strict constructionist would not acknowledge that he uses a cane means he walks with a cane (because, strictly speaking, this is not what he uses a cane means)" (see ref 1). Scalia averred that he was "not a strict constructionist, and no-one ought to be"; he goes further, calling strict constructionism "a degraded form of textualism that brings the whole philosophy into disrepute" (see ref 2). Mr. Lofgren goes on to describe originalism principles in detail, all the while incorrectly praising them as constructionist, a fundamental error. Misrepresentations like this occur often throughout the book.This is not to say the book does not have some redeeming qualities. For example the lack of prosecutions related to the 2008 economic collapse is factual. The S&L crisis in the 80s, 1/7 the size of the recent economic collapse, resulted in 30,000 criminal referrals and over 1,000 successful felony prosecutions by the DOJ. Under the Obama administration, the DOJ levied (sometimes multi billion dollar) fines against companies involved in illegal behavior without criminal prosecutions, punishing shareholders and not holding criminal behavior accountable. Further, the companies were not required to admit wrong doing.The problem with the book is the intermixing of facts with false conclusions (perhaps a 70/30 mix). For objective readers, this recurring pattern destroys the author's credibility. Incidentally, EVERY single liberal Mr. Lofgren has interacted with ever (supposedly thousands) are characterized as dishonest to a person, a monolithic group castigated repetitively with ad hominem attacks based on the author's supposedly objective observations. Not a single honest person amongst thousands and thousands, about as statistically likely to be true as one's chance of winning the lottery.There are too many examples of inaccurate and false conclusions to enumerate in a review, so two examples are chosen.1) The author falsely states that 10% of US retail stores have been struck by flash mob robberies. That would be a staggering number of stores nation wide. The actual truth is that 11 of the 106 retail CHAINS surveyed by the National Retail Federation in July 2013 reported that at least one of there stores were struck by flash mob attacks, meaning it could be as few as 11 stores nationwide, not the tens of thousands Mr. Lofgren falsely portrays.2) The author apparently is a birther and in section 11.9 outlines "The Strongest Evidence of Forgery of the Birth Certificate". The so called 'evidence' of forgery is shown by a close up of A) 'different-size pixels' exhibited in the scanned file of Obama's birth certificate, and B) the absence of blurring near the crease of the book which was not flat on the scanner bed.A) The actual truth is that the incorrectly interpreted 'different-size pixels' are not 'evidence' of forgery as Mr. Lofgren stipulates, but instead artifacts common to compression/decompression techniques. Was this scan compressed ? Clearly it was. A scanned 8.5 by 11 inch page at 150 dpi consumes over 2 megabytes, scanned at 300 dpi, over 8 megabytes. The pdf is 377 kilobytes. Enough said.B) The absence of blurring at the edge is a feature of high end scanners that have an increased depth of field to prevent just that situation when scanning bound items (I used to sell high end office equipment).So the author is just plain wrong and misleading. He conveniently ignores other requirements of his conclusion - a conspiracy between the hospital and local Hawaiian newspapers that reported Obama's birth in 1961 as well as another conspiracy in 2011 when the scanned long form certificate was produced.These are just 2 examples of the dishonest contortions that Mr. Lofgren engages in, representative of his style, in an attempt to portray his conclusions as something other than the subjective opinions they actually are. Judge for yourself if its worth your time to read this book.1) See Smith v. United States, 508 U.S. 223 (1993)2) A. Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation, ISBN 978-0-691-00400-6, Amy Guttman ed. 1997, at p.23.

I cannot praise this book enough. I do not have a background in economics or the history of banking and policies that are currently driving and effecting our nation. After reading John Lofgren's book, I feel considerably more and better informed. John took the time to define specific terms and use vocabulary that is understandable for those of us not familiar with "economics". I appreciate the background of historical data he included as to why we are here and how we got on this path. Opinions are fantastic in editorials, however, John uses facts and statistics to inform the reader and allows for conclusions to be drawn and not dictated, One specific portion that helped me the most was the chapter defining and explaining the difference between liberals, democrats, progressives, socialists, and leftists. I hear these terms used frequently and now I have a much better understanding of the context of the terms. If you want to be better informed and are a thinking person, buy this book! Joy Beth Pinto is using Albert's amazon account to write this review.

Atlas Shouts is an excellent analysis of the economic and political forces that are destroying many critical features of the United States, which in the past had made it the greatest nation in the world. The analysis is extremely well documented and is presented in such a way that the causes, effects, and necessary changes can be easily understood. It does not take sides when the data reveals problems, whether the fault lies with liberals, independents, or conservatives. The book is very professional in its style, very thorough in its treatment of issues, and easy to follow. I highly recommend the book to anyone who cares about the future of the United States.An added feature is Mr. Lofgren’s insight into the conduct of discussions of controversial issues with someone holding a different view, and without creating hostility or name-calling.Thomas and Rosalind Holland