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How to Argue the Constitution with a Conservative
Immigrants have no rights!
America is founded on Christianity!
Unlimited guns are my birthright!
These are just a handful of arguments being shouted by vocal conservatives even though the Constitution of the United States--the very laws of our nation--says something quite different.
If liberals are going to counter these erroneous, angry, ill-informed positions with facts, they need to learn for themselves what the Constitution says.
To remedy this knowledge gap, criminal defense attorney and unabashed liberal Michael A. Ventrella teaches the basics with a large amount of humor and snark, all illustrated with more than 40 cartoons by 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial artist Darrin Bell, creator of the syndicated comic strip Candorville.
Attorney Michael A. Ventrella has taught Constitutional Law at a number of institutions of higher learning, so clearly he's just one of those liberal elites.
Artist Darrin Bell's hard-hitting editorial cartoons can be found in major newspapers and all over the internet, where people share them without giving him credit.
America is founded on Christianity!
Unlimited guns are my birthright!
These are just a handful of arguments being shouted by vocal conservatives even though the Constitution of the United States--the very laws of our nation--says something quite different.
If liberals are going to counter these erroneous, angry, ill-informed positions with facts, they need to learn for themselves what the Constitution says.
To remedy this knowledge gap, criminal defense attorney and unabashed liberal Michael A. Ventrella teaches the basics with a large amount of humor and snark, all illustrated with more than 40 cartoons by 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial artist Darrin Bell, creator of the syndicated comic strip Candorville.
Attorney Michael A. Ventrella has taught Constitutional Law at a number of institutions of higher learning, so clearly he's just one of those liberal elites.
Artist Darrin Bell's hard-hitting editorial cartoons can be found in major newspapers and all over the internet, where people share them without giving him credit.
162 pages, Paperback
Published August 29, 2019
6 people are currently reading
23 people want to read
About the author
Michael A. Ventrella
37 books61 followersMichael A. Ventrella's humorous adventure novels include "Big Stick," "Bloodsuckers: A Vampire Runs for President," "Arch Enemies" and "The Axes of Evil."
He is the editor of many anthologies, including "Release the Virgins!," "Three Time Travelers Walk Into...", "Across the Universe" (with Randee Dawn) and the "Baker Street Irregulars" anthologies (co-edited with NY Times Bestselling Author Jonathan Maberry).
His web page is www.MichaelAVentrella.com and he can be easily found on Facebook and other social networking sites. His blog regularly interviews prominent authors.
Mike lives in the beautiful Pocono Mountains with a tolerant wife and four obnoxious cats. In his spare time, he is a lawyer.
He is the editor of many anthologies, including "Release the Virgins!," "Three Time Travelers Walk Into...", "Across the Universe" (with Randee Dawn) and the "Baker Street Irregulars" anthologies (co-edited with NY Times Bestselling Author Jonathan Maberry).
His web page is www.MichaelAVentrella.com and he can be easily found on Facebook and other social networking sites. His blog regularly interviews prominent authors.
Mike lives in the beautiful Pocono Mountains with a tolerant wife and four obnoxious cats. In his spare time, he is a lawyer.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 16, 2019
Catchy title –– How To Argue The Constitution With A Conservative by Michael A. Ventrella and illustrations by Pulitzer-Winner Darrin Bell.
This book is a brief, basic constitutional lesson for those of us who remain utterly perplexed during these politically tumultuous times, yet are never entirely sure what is proven law, what is Constitutional law, and what remains nothing more than opinion masked as 'fact.' The book makes clear there is a robust market for propagating distorted personal views, augmented, of course, by shady politics. These exploitative distortions are then shamelessly masqueraded as absolute facts contained in the Constitution. This kind of political manipulation is something that has always existed. However, now I think I have a somewhat of a better understanding of how these offenses have managed to be pulled off.
The book is, well, funny. Seriously. ––I know, I know… how could learning about the Constitution––of all things––be hilarious? Trust me ... this book was packed with a ton of facts, seasoned with snark, and spiked with wittiness, which only added to making a droll subject burst alive on the pages. I lost count as to how many times I laughed.
However, I would be sorely remiss if I didn’t also mention how the brutally honest, uncompromising editorial cartoons by artist Darrin Bell, exposed a conundrum of unpalatable facts, making for a perfect accompaniment to such a serious subject [despite the author's spot-on penchant for satirical humor.]
Again, the book isn’t long. I read it in just one sitting, jotting down notes for further research, but that didn't take away at all from the book's impact. As I read, I pictured the author, a criminal defense attorney and former Constitutional Law Professor, standing at the lecture podium in a room packed with eager students much like myself, all ready to learn once and for all, "What the hell is going on?"
And now, I know.
This book is a brief, basic constitutional lesson for those of us who remain utterly perplexed during these politically tumultuous times, yet are never entirely sure what is proven law, what is Constitutional law, and what remains nothing more than opinion masked as 'fact.' The book makes clear there is a robust market for propagating distorted personal views, augmented, of course, by shady politics. These exploitative distortions are then shamelessly masqueraded as absolute facts contained in the Constitution. This kind of political manipulation is something that has always existed. However, now I think I have a somewhat of a better understanding of how these offenses have managed to be pulled off.
The book is, well, funny. Seriously. ––I know, I know… how could learning about the Constitution––of all things––be hilarious? Trust me ... this book was packed with a ton of facts, seasoned with snark, and spiked with wittiness, which only added to making a droll subject burst alive on the pages. I lost count as to how many times I laughed.
However, I would be sorely remiss if I didn’t also mention how the brutally honest, uncompromising editorial cartoons by artist Darrin Bell, exposed a conundrum of unpalatable facts, making for a perfect accompaniment to such a serious subject [despite the author's spot-on penchant for satirical humor.]
Again, the book isn’t long. I read it in just one sitting, jotting down notes for further research, but that didn't take away at all from the book's impact. As I read, I pictured the author, a criminal defense attorney and former Constitutional Law Professor, standing at the lecture podium in a room packed with eager students much like myself, all ready to learn once and for all, "What the hell is going on?"
And now, I know.
August 4, 2020
I'm nuts about The Constitution. I can't read it enough nor can I read about it enough, but I do have the hardest time arguing about it with someone who reads the same words but come up with entirely different interpretations on what they mean.
Michael Ventrella's book was a fun, engaging read, Darren Bell's cartoons added insight and an additional tickle to the funny bone and, through this book, I learned the most important lesson of arguing about The Constitution... with anyone. The words are always up for interpretation. My read of The Constitution may not be 100% right, but neither is the person I'm arguing with and that's kind of the beauty of it all.
And thank you for making a Kindle Edition. It really helped save space.
Michael Ventrella's book was a fun, engaging read, Darren Bell's cartoons added insight and an additional tickle to the funny bone and, through this book, I learned the most important lesson of arguing about The Constitution... with anyone. The words are always up for interpretation. My read of The Constitution may not be 100% right, but neither is the person I'm arguing with and that's kind of the beauty of it all.
And thank you for making a Kindle Edition. It really helped save space.
November 23, 2021
Ventrella is a lawyer so he could talk about the Constitution in a legal sense. He also wrote about it with humor, finesse and colloquially. The book was well done and I learned a lot. There have been debates that missed the legal angle Ventrella had. Bakers and cakes. LGTBQ issues. Guns.
January 1, 2023
A fast read. Though many of the points are obvious, I appreciated the snark. For reasons that have nothing to do with this book, I'm not in a mood to write a longer review. The author is a longtime science-fiction fan.
December 6, 2024
I was hoping for an intelligent and informative book but this book ignores reality and history.
IE: It paints Scalia as the boogeyman of the left. He claims that Scalia claimed to interpret the intentions of the Founding Fathers and that anyone who he "disagreed with was evil". He completely ignored the fact that Scalia was against that idea. In 1993 Scalia famously wrote "We are governed by laws and not the intentions of legislators." He ignored the fact the Scalia was good friends with RBG who was "supposedly evil", in his interpretation of Scalia. They celebrated holidays together, they vacationed together in France and even rode an elephant in India together. Scalia is more complex then the boogeyman Micheal makes.
Logical fallacies and false assumptions are what the books analysis is based upon. Fake assumption on the second amendment
False assumption - It is inferred that reason for the 2nd amendment was to preserve southern state militias to hunt down run away slaves. Page 19 Paragraph 3 The reality this was done by local posies if the slave was inside the state and bounty hunters if they crossed state lines. The "state militias" were seldom called out for this. Their response time was slow and they were limited where they could go. So his logic fails.
Reality - It ignores that fact that the Second Amendment was needed to defend against Pirates, Brigands and Tyrants. (Does anyone remember the war of 1812?)
Even worse was some of the base ideas were ignored because they were to difficult for Micheal to deal with. He states that God is not in the Constitution but he ignores two section where it is referred to. In the preamble they used the word "Ordained" which has an archaic meaning of "Decree before God". IF they did not want to use that meaning why not just use the word decree? In Article 7 the Library of Congress ends in with the words "In the year of Our Lord," Micheal deletes these words just as he deleted the preamble. If they did not want to use those words they could have dated it "In the Modern Era". Which was the secular format of dates in that time. And in 14th Amendment he ignores the words "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof". This is that phrase that will probably be the key to eliminating the "anchor babies" that conservatives will use in court in the coming years. Yet Micheal ignores these issues that are difficult to deal with conservatives on.
All in all this was a disappointing book that did not show much logic behind their ideas and did not go deep into arguing the constitution with conservatives. However he does do a good job explaining the branches of government.
IE: It paints Scalia as the boogeyman of the left. He claims that Scalia claimed to interpret the intentions of the Founding Fathers and that anyone who he "disagreed with was evil". He completely ignored the fact that Scalia was against that idea. In 1993 Scalia famously wrote "We are governed by laws and not the intentions of legislators." He ignored the fact the Scalia was good friends with RBG who was "supposedly evil", in his interpretation of Scalia. They celebrated holidays together, they vacationed together in France and even rode an elephant in India together. Scalia is more complex then the boogeyman Micheal makes.
Logical fallacies and false assumptions are what the books analysis is based upon. Fake assumption on the second amendment
False assumption - It is inferred that reason for the 2nd amendment was to preserve southern state militias to hunt down run away slaves. Page 19 Paragraph 3 The reality this was done by local posies if the slave was inside the state and bounty hunters if they crossed state lines. The "state militias" were seldom called out for this. Their response time was slow and they were limited where they could go. So his logic fails.
Reality - It ignores that fact that the Second Amendment was needed to defend against Pirates, Brigands and Tyrants. (Does anyone remember the war of 1812?)
Even worse was some of the base ideas were ignored because they were to difficult for Micheal to deal with. He states that God is not in the Constitution but he ignores two section where it is referred to. In the preamble they used the word "Ordained" which has an archaic meaning of "Decree before God". IF they did not want to use that meaning why not just use the word decree? In Article 7 the Library of Congress ends in with the words "In the year of Our Lord," Micheal deletes these words just as he deleted the preamble. If they did not want to use those words they could have dated it "In the Modern Era". Which was the secular format of dates in that time. And in 14th Amendment he ignores the words "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof". This is that phrase that will probably be the key to eliminating the "anchor babies" that conservatives will use in court in the coming years. Yet Micheal ignores these issues that are difficult to deal with conservatives on.
All in all this was a disappointing book that did not show much logic behind their ideas and did not go deep into arguing the constitution with conservatives. However he does do a good job explaining the branches of government.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews