Given the fact that it’s a writer for the National Review, I doubt anyone would get the joke if I put 1984, 300, and the Bible? All three written by liberals or anti-conservatives, all embraced by the right.

from Wiki…

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950),[1] better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and journalist. His work is marked by a profound awareness of social injustice, an intense, revolutionary opposition to totalitarianism, his passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism.[2]

I guess I never realized or cared about his political leanings, as his expose of totalitarianism can be equally applied to the right or left. I suspect his liberalism and belief in social justice is rooted in the rigid class structure he witnessed in his youth. Since he died relatively young (47 years old), I wonder if his political orientation would have drifted more centrist (sic) as he got older? As Churchill said (paraphrased):

… a man who is not liberal when young, has no heart, one who is not conservative when older has no brain…

I read the entire piece, I guess he did not have a brain.

I would say that the reason why Orwell is worth reading, even though he was a socialist, was that he was committed to the truth, which he was learning. Through his commitment to the truth, he learned that communism is a terrible thing, even though he fought in Spain with an essentially communist unit.

His books are probably going to have a far longer lasting impact on the world than what he may have said to some journalist or at a cocktail party with fellow liberals. Those books completely negate what he had stated about socialism anyway. Make no mistake, Animal Farm starts out as typical socialism and ends as totalitarianism. The message is pretty clear there. Does any of his works that people still read have such a credible defense of socialism?

So he gets to write some anti-communist and anti-socialist books that people are reading to this day, long after he died, while maintaining his social status on the cocktail party circuits and remaining a recipient of liberal largesse in all its forms.

Maybe he was on to something there.

Anything from John Ringo, Tom Kratman, or Michael Z Williamson. They don’t do “high art”, but they do good entertaining novels. Kratman is more conservative than libertarian, but he does have interestingly bloodthirsty interpretations of the geneva conventions and such.