Building the Conservative Canon

Glad my first post on the subject generated some interest. I really didn't have anything else planned for this week. The Democrat primary doesn't interest me in the least. (Who's going to win, the liberal Senator or the most liberal Senator?)

The POTUS race still has a lot of time to play out and who wants to get burned out before the snow melts?

So, continuing the discussion of the previous post, let's answer a few questions:

Which P.J. O'Rourke book do we go with? "Parliament of Whores" is generally considered his most important book, "Eat the Rich" is a valuable tool for understanding economics, "Republican Party Reptile" is very popular, "All the Trouble in the World" is a classic in my mind; "Holidays in Hell" and "Age and Guile" have their attractions as well.

My vote is "Parliament of Whores" and "Eat the Rich." I don't want to give any author more than 3 books on the canon so those are the constraints we have to deal with.

We should also create categories to help us organize the canon.

Here are some I came up with:

Political Technology (practical politics, how to win elections, etc)
Family Values
The Law
History
Liberty
Economics
Education
Faith
Tyranny
Literature
Conservation (environment)
People (i'm a huge believer in biographies and I think the movement has been shaped by the personalities who were involved as much as by philosophical enquiry)

Expanding, re-naming or correcting the categories would be welcome.

Finally, what to do with the left wing literature conservatives should be familiar with (John Rawls' "Theory" or Marx's "Manifesto")?

I figure one post a week on this subject between now and the end of the POTUS race should be sufficient to get a good discussion going.