The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul
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Book Reviews of The Revolution: A Manifesto
Book Review: Ron Paul + Jesse Ventura = Critical Mass
Summary: 5 Stars
Ron Paul excels at the Constitutional fundamentals: individual liberty, sound money, and non-interventionist foreign policies. Although I am dismayed by his unwillingess to play well with others (Ralph Nader has the same problem, Jesse Ventura does not), and he does not have a strategy for governance as much as a laundry list of non-negotiable starting points, he is still, for me as an estranged moderate Republican, an inspiration for breaking with the two-party spoils system.
This is an eloquent book in which he draws with extreme care from the thoughts of others, always attributed in the text, and provides a series of arguments that do not call for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, but certainly do call for the impeachment of the complicit Congress. Three books in particular support his angry denunciation of how Congress--both Republican and Democratic--has allowed the Executive to attack our civil liberties, sustain executive warmaking never intended by the Founding Fathers, and precipitated an unprecedented financial crisis. Congress standing still for "signing statements" [and I would add, for morons like Gonzalez that give all Latinos a bad name], is the last straw.
See:
Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders
He cites Michael Scheuer with admiration, and as I am one of the very few to notice this in my reviews of Scheuer's books, I am delighted that he validates Scheuer's basic view, to wit, Bin Laden and terrorism against America are motivated by *our* presence in Saudi Arabia, our foreign behavior, our unilateral militarism, virtual colonialism, and so on.
He suggests that it was the Clinton Administration that first set the course on Iraq, being too willing to listen to lobbyists for Israel. Of course it was Cheney and Rumsfeld that gave Sadaam Hussein the WMD as--as the joke goes--kept the receipts.
He is very specific on Iran not being a nuclear threat to the USA (and in other writing, e.g. our weekly GLOBAL CHALLENGES report from the Earth Intelligence Network, we note that all the oil states are going nuclear as fast as they can).
He labels the neoconservatives as false conservatives.
At this point in my notes I have written "This is an original work rife with learned quotations from other scholars and practitioners."
He is starkly upset by how the Bush-Cheney regime has destroyed the US dollar, not just with Iraq, the The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict but with our global presence that Chalmers Johnson has addressed so ably in The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (The American Empire Project).
Halfway through the volume he takes issue with those who call for a "living" Constitution, and pointedly says that this would equate to a dead and worthless Constitution. Later in the book, but it goes beautifully here, he writes that the Constitution was intended to restrain government, not citizens.
He is also against the draft and income taxes, both of which suggest people are property of government and can therefore be forced into labor. As he states, "young people are not raw material" for the government to play with.
He cites former Comptroller General David Walker with admiration. Walker told Congress in the summer of 2007 that the USA is insolvent, and they ignored him. Today Walker runs the Peter Peterson Foundation and his mission is to educate citizens on their own governments high crimes and misdemeanors in the economic and financial arena.
He shares my view that the Federal Reserve should not exist and manufactures credit out of thin air, one reason we will see more credit bubbles.
He ends by pointing out that the Patriot Act not only violates all our liberties, but was unnecessary because the USG had all the information it needed in advance of 9-11 was was in his words, inept. I disagree. I am fairly certain Dick Cheney received nine different warnings, including from Pakistan and Israel, and he arranged an exercise so he could control the government and let it happen. I think Larry Silverstein, with Bush family assistance, planted controlled demolitions to get rid of his asbestos problem at tax payer expense, and I think Rudy Guliani should be indicted for his role in "scooping and dumping" fire fighter bodies in his rush to destroy the crime scene. See, among many other excellent books and videos, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, First Edition
He favors the legalization of marijuana and is opposed to attention deficit and other drugs being prescribed to children without adequate testing. I put the book down wishing that Gary Hart, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, Michael Bloomberg, Jesse Ventura, and Ron Paul could have formed a new party, the Constitutional Party, and cleaned house. I have lost all respect for Bill Bradley--he sold out to the Trilateral Commission and greed (as did Al Gore). See Obama - The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate
John McCain is walking a tightrope. In my view, if McCain can form a Transpartisan Cabinet now--even if only a transitional one--and get David Walker and Ron Paul to lead the group in creating a balanced budget that wipes out the national debt and begins pulling back from all our overseas bases, especially the secret ones that are not worth the outrageous $60 billion a year we pay for the 4% we can steal and not process), then I think it is possible some good may come from this election. Otherwise, it is just four more years, and we MUST create a new political party.
IMHO.
See also:
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
Don't Start the Revolution Without Me!
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Book Review: An Easy To Read & Understand Book...A Must Read For All Americans to Understand What Our Founding Fathers Wanted - When...
Summary: 5 Stars
An Easy To Read & Understand Book...A Must Read For All Americans to Understand What Our Founding Fathers Wanted - When They Created the Declaration of Independance & The U.S. Constitution.
I Highly recommend this to even the folks who laughed at Dr Paul in the GOP Presidential debates...and went the other direction, to vote for the same old rags that we have been having for a long time. The Rags like our current President, and The Clintons, etc....all the way down the line since Abraham Lincoln...YES...he has
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War
Listed on the back of his books to further read...
Ron Paul...you deserve an A+++ for this book!!
Quote from this book: "Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies..."
More Excerpts follow:
"Every election season America is presented with a series of false choices. Should we launch preemptive wars against this country or that one? Should every American neighborhood live under this social policy or that one? Should a third of our income be taken away by an income tax or a national sales tax? The shared assumptions behind these questions, on the other hand, are never cast in doubt, or even raised. And anyone who wants to ask different questions or who suggests that the questions as framed exclude attractive, humane alternatives, is ipso facto excluded from mainstream discussion.
And so every four years we are treated to the same tired, predictable routine: two candidates with few disagreements on fundamentals pretend that they represent dramatically different philosophies of government.
The supposedly conservative candidate tells us about "waste" in government, and ticks off $10 million in frivolous pork-barrel projects that outrage him--the inevitable bridge-to-nowhere project, or a study of the effects of celery consumption on arresting memory loss--in order to elicit laughter and applause from partisan audiences. All right, so that's 0.00045 percent of the federal budget dealt with; what does he propose to do with the other 99.99955 percent, in order to return our country to living within its means? Not a word. Those same three or four silly programs will be brought up all campaign long, and that's all we'll hear about where the candidate stands on spending. But conservatives are told that they must support these candidates, and so they do, hoping for the best. And nothing changes.
Even war doesn't really distinguish the two parties from each other. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry voted for the Iraq war. With the exceptions of Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, even the Democrats who postured as antiwar candidates for the 2008 primary elections are not especially opposed to needless wars. They typically have a laundry list of other military interventions they would support, none of which make any sense, would make our country any safer, or would do a thing to return our country to fiscal sanity. But liberals are told that they must support these candidates, and so they do, hoping for the best. And nothing changes."
"When Republicans won a massive off-year election victory in 1994, neoconservative Bill Kristol immediately urged them not to do anything drastic but to wait until the Republicans took the White House in 1996. Well, the Republicans didn't take the White House in 1996, so nothing ever got done. Instead, the Republican leadership urged these freshman congressmen to focus on a toothless, soporific agenda called the Contract with America that was boldly touted as a major overhaul of the federal government. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The Contract with America was typical of what I have just described: no fundamental questions are ever raised, and even supposedly radical and revolutionary measures turn out to be modest and safe. In fact, the Brookings Institution in effect said that if this is what conservatives consider revolutionary, then they have basically conceded defeat.
Needless to say, I am also unimpressed by the liberal Left. Although they posture as critical thinkers, their confidence in government is inexcusably naive, based as it is on civics--textbook platitudes that bear absolutely zero resemblance to reality. Not even their position on unnecessary wars is consistent--Hillary Clinton and John Kerry both supported the Iraq war, for instance, and the major Democratic candidates in 2008 who claim to be antiwar are generally eager to invade some other country apart from Iraq. Even Howard Dean was all in favor of Bill Clinton's intervention in Bosnia, going so far as to urge the president to take unilateral military action beyond the multilateral activity already taking place. Liberals at the grass roots, on the other hand, have been deeply alienated by the various betrayals by which a movement they once supported has made its peace with the establishment.
No wonder frustrated Americans have begun referring to our two parties as the Republicrats. And no wonder the news networks would rather focus on $400 haircuts than matters of substance. There are no matters of substance.
My message is one of freedom and individual rights. I believe individuals have a right to life and liberty and that physical aggression should be used only defensively. We should respect each other as rational beings by trying to achieve our goals through reason and persuasion rather than threats and coercion. That, and not a desire for "economic efficiency," is the primary moral reason for opposing government intrusions into our lives: government is force, not reason.
People seem to think I am speaking of principles foreign to the Republican tradition. But listen to the words of Robert A. Taft, who in the old days of the Republican Party was once its standard-bearer:
"When I say liberty I do not simply mean what is referred to as "free enterprise." I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and to live; the liberty of the family to decide how they wish to live, what they want to eat for breakfast and for dinner, and how they wish to spend their time; liberty of a man to develop his ideas and get other people to teach those ideas, if he can convince them that they have some value to the world; liberty of every local community to decide how its children shall be educated, how its local services shall be run, and who its local leaders shall be; liberty of a man to choose his own occupation; and liberty of a man to run his own business as he thinks it ought to be run, as long as he does not interfere with the right of other people to do the same thing. "
As we'll see in a later chapter, Taft was also an opponent of needless wars and of unconstitutional presidential war-making.
This is the Republican tradition to which I belong."
End of Excerpts
By The Way...I am a NON-NEOCON-GOP(Republican) and not a Libertarian!
Book Review: Excellent Book. Dangerous Advice.
Summary: 5 Stars
Dear Dr. Paul,
I commend you on your new book: The Revolution. On your courage to be the lone voice of dissent. On your faith in the Constitution. Your grasp of economics. And not least of all: your prose. As I finished up the final chapter I knew that I would spend the next few weeks helplessly fueling the flames of your intellectual napalm. Nearly everything you say is right. Nearly every claim you make is accurate. They make sense to an average reader even though he may have paid more attention to his attractive classmates than his economics lectures. And yet, I could not help but see the great harm that your manifesto could bring.
You see, Dr. Paul, there are some ideas that mean well but are still so dangerous that they are best abandoned before they unleash an epidemic. Communism comes to mind. As does religion. In theory, both work for improvement in the condition of human societies, but in practice, have done little except systematically enslave and exterminate most of humanity. Your ideas, although nothing like the two killers aforementioned can certainly exterminate our way of life.
When I was learning how to formulate a thesis, the instructors never let the students read the critics until they had a thesis of their own. The reason is that many young people read a brilliantly argued position and gravitate towards it even though it could very well be wrong. Dead wrong. Because young brains are filled with last night's football scores, social networking profiles and Britney Spears, they have limited perspective to bring to bear on a hypothesis. But yours is here and it sounds great so why not sign up? All the cool people are doing it. Their brains are desolate, and to the thirsty, even sea water tastes delicious.
Our disagreement is simple. You believe in the inherent good of your countrymen whereas I am convinced of their incredible, unbelievable stupidity. It is one thing to seek the "spirit" of a 2 century old document in guiding modern government but it is a whole other matter to delay action while seeking consensus from 300 million imbeciles. I understand the concept of representative democracy but each time I see it play I cannot help but feel sorry for the dog that has a constitutional obligation to let the tail wag it. Please understand that I do not regard our Constitution as broken. What's broken is our population. They can't be bargained with, they can't be reasoned with but they're not goal-driven like the Terminator. They're as care-free as the house cats. And since their walnut brains lack the necessary interface for reason the only way to govern this feline herd is through deception and obfuscation. Shine the laser dot in the direction you want them to go and watch them run! Gay marriage over there! RUN! VOTE! Tax Cut X over here! VOTE! The framers designed a government to serve a people that is concerned, informed and intelligent. If you look at America today and see it to be even one of the three then I believe your passion has triumphed over reason.
The same applies to your position on sound money. Surely, the best way to avoid spending is to ACTUALLY spend. Warfare may rest in peace. How many of our countrymen would cheerfully write a check for their share of Iran? Or Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Now ask yourself how many would pony up for Rwanda, or Yugoslavia or even the ship pirated off of the Somali coast. I bet fewer than you think. Non-intervention sometimes carries a steep price denominated in human suffering. Wait long enough and it's lapping at our shores. Are you so certain that your constituents would not rather live the illusion of benevolent heroes than face their true reflections as petty monsters? Such illusions are not cheaply bought and what better way to pay than to institute a tax that few know about and even fewer understand? It's the government's money! Let's spread it around!
It is true that armies and warfare have always been, due to their cost, the exclusive domain of governments. They would clearly decline with a Paul monetary policy. But what about science? I hate to imagine the decline in research of all kinds that would occur as soon as the bulk of our citizens knew how much it cost them. Cancer? Why should I pay? I don't know anyone with it. AIDS? Only gay people get it. Malaria? I don't visit the tropics. I would be shocked if, with completely sound money, humans could have ever launched a satellite, made it to the moon or built a Large Hadron Collider. Who would pay for something they don't understand and/or failed in high school? The veil of private enterprise is quickly pierced by the repeated failure that is characteristic of all great journeys of discovery and nothing but inflationary government can long endure its filthy wake and deadly undertow. You and I both know that it would not end there. Mass population requires mass production which requires mass consumption which, whether we like it or not, requires a spender of last resort. With no credit limit.
All that aside, I was impressed by your manifesto. It was the first, and likely last, time in my lifetime that a bona-fide politician has brought up real issues instead of regurgitating the stupid petty garbage currently enlisted to divide the flock and win elections. Thank you. But so long as voting is as much a right as breathing, the ballot box will ever be the scythe with which the foolish cut down the intelligent. The penalty is steep and growing. Eventually, enough people might notice. But so what if they do? Our society operating on truth and sound economic principles will always be reduced to the lowest common intellect.
Joseph Marie de Maistre wrote that every country has the government it deserves. We certainly deserve every pork-barrel of ours. Leaders should not be judged on the eloquence of their voice, nor the color of their skin, nor, with apologies to Dr. King, even the contents of their character. They, as all people, should be judged exclusively on the contents of their minds and when we collectively wise up and realize this, perhaps then, we will deserve a president like you.
Dr. Paul, may you live so long.
Sincerely,
Helga Mohammed el-Salami
Book Review: Ron Paul: Back To The Future
Summary: 5 Stars
The "Pro Life Republican Party" continues to embrace the same old failed strategy of waiting until a Supreme Court Justice dies or retires in order to appoint pro-life Judges to overturn Roe v. Wade.
There is one exception. The Champion of the Constitution, a 10 term Republican Congressman from Texas, Doctor Ron Paul! As a medical doctor, he has delivered over 4000 babies.
Congressman Paul has repeatedly introduced "sanctity of life" legislation in Congress. His bill essentially declares unborn children have rights. The 50 States would be required to implement the new law which would invoke Congress's Article III authority to deny any Federal Court interference. It is an alternative and Constitutional solution for one of the Republican Party's major policy positions.
Congressman Paul's legislation has been ignored. As President, people might listen!
IT'S THE ECONOMY... STUPID
During his 20 years in Congress, Ron Paul has served on the House Banking committee; He has been a key member of the Gold Commission. Currently, he is a vice-chairman on the House Financial Services Committee, he is a member of the Joint Economic Committee, and he serves on the International Relations Committee.
Dr. Paul is the author of several books and countless articles on economics. He has been a distinguished counselor to the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Economics. And is widely quoted by scholars and writers in the fields of monetary policy, banking and economics.
He has received many awards from organizations such as the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste and the Council for a Competitive Economy.
Ron Paul knows economics!
He is the only Presidential Candidate who wants to fundamentally change the disastrous policy which allows the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank to charge Taxpayers interest on money it creates out of thin air. Washington Politicians take this money, ignore their oath of office and give it to every type of special interest group imaginable. This debases the currency, creates inflation, and robs Americans of their wealth.
Ron Paul would end the folly of subsidizing the world with trillions of dollars of "foreign aid." This would cut spending and stimulate the economy more than any of the other Candidates wildest dreams.
DO UNTO OTHERS
Ron Paul's detractors call him an isolationist because he wants our Federal Government to heed the advice of our Founders and stop meddling with the internal affairs of other countries.
What would we think if China had a military base here in Florida? What if Iran's Navy was constantly patrolling in the Gulf of Mexico? What if Pakistan was openly seeking to influence our elections? Our Federal Government's interventionist foreign policy and recent acceptance of preemptive war inspires hatred and terrorism against us. As a nation, we need to understand this or we will never even begin to solve the problem of terrorism.
RON PAUL CAN WIN!
Ron Paul's foreign policy position of no nation building and no sending brave young Americans into harms way overseas to police the world is the same position that won George W. Bush the Republican nomination and the Presidency in the 2000 election. It is the only position with any potential of drawing the bipartisan and independent support needed to win in the general election.
While Americans were throwing Republicans out of office in droves in 2006, Congressman Paul received over 60% of the vote in his district.
According to the Federal Election Commission, active military donate more to Ron Paul than any other Republican. His record breaking 4th quarter fundraising of nearly $20 million leads the GOP and puts him on par with the leading Democrats.
Ron Paul is a Veteran, a Medical Doctor and married over 50 years to his wife Carol. He has 5 grown children and 18 grand children. In his 20 years in Congress, Ron Paul has amassed one of the most conservative and Constitutionally compliant voting records in American history. The man is a modern day Founding Father. The lobbyist call him "Dr. No" because special interest groups can never get any of our money out of him.
He is pro-life, strong on National defense, and gun owners have no better friend in Congress. He wants to cut taxes, cut spending, and secure the borders. He is a true Conservative. A REAL Republican who's rock solid record stands head and shoulders above any of the other Candidates.
PRESIDENT PAUL
Year after year, administration after administration, Republican or Democrat; nothing seems to be able to stop the unrelenting growth of government. Every time government expands, Americans must sacrifice more of our wealth and more of our freedoms.
The moment Ron Paul becomes President, the era of big Government in Washington is over!!!
President Paul would usher in a return to the Constitutional principles of limited government, just taxation, fiscal responsibility, sound money, free market trade, individual liberty and strong national defense.
Freedom, peace and prosperity is Ron Paul's campaign message. He wants to get rid of the income tax, abolish the IRS, end the Federal Reserve monopoly and he's serious as a heart attack. Let's get back to the future; Back to the Constitution.
Vote Ron Paul! Thank You.
Book Review: The most important book written since COMMON SENSE
Summary: 5 Stars
Dr. Ron Paul's THE REVOLUTION: A MANIFESTO is a concise (167 pages) and convincing argument for a return to America's libertarian principles. During his campaign for president, Dr. Paul established a very diverse following: Republicans, Democrats, Greens, and "even some anarchists," he would joke. In truth, many people were drawn to him due his obvious sincerity -- a breath of fresh air! -- even if they did not fully agree with or understand his ideology. Now they will understand and become Austro-Jeffersonians, one and all!
The first chapter, "The False Choices of American Politics," demonstrates why those Ron Paul supporters who do understand his message cannot bring themselves to vote for either McCain or Hillary/Obama, or even to really care who among them wins: There is very little (if any) substantive difference between them. They may disagree about when and where to use foreign intervention, but never over whether it should be used at all. They may disagree over how fast interest rates should be cut by the Fed, but never over whether the Fed should exist. You get the idea.
Chapters 2 and 3 are titled "The Foreign Policy of the Founding Fathers" and "The Constitution," respectively. Here Dr. Paul challenges his neocon and liberal opponents to openly condemn the wisdom of the founding fathers, which they do with their actions, or else follow it. The framers of the Constitution were far from unanimous -- there were bitter disputes among so-called "Federalists" (Hamiltonian nationalists) and "republicans" (Jeffersonian decentralists) -- but today's neocon/liberals reject the wisdom of both parties, taking an expansive view of their powers that even Hamilton himself would have seen as excessive.
Chapter 4, "Economic Freedom," may be an eye-opening one for many readers. First, there are the liberals who were attracted to Dr. Paul's campaign, who may for the first time be presented with a contrast between the true Austro-Jeffersonian libertarian brand of capitalism and the inflationist, Kudlow & Company / Forbes magazine variety. Secondly there are many "paleoconservatives" I met who supported Dr. Paul but were under the mistaken impression that he was against free trade -- nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, as Dr. Paul points out here, he is 100% in favor of unilateral, unconditional free trade and 100% against quotas, sanctions, embargoes, duties, and protective tariffs. He does oppose phony "free-trade" deals like NAFTA and the WTO (joining many liberal Democrats in doing so, but for different reasons) not because they "steal American jobs" (they don't), but because they limit trade too greatly. Furthermore, they erode constitutional sovereignty and work for the benefit of politically connected elites, something with which libertarians, paleocons, and liberals can all agree.
All three constituencies will also cheer Chapter 5, "Civil Liberties and Personal Freedom." Here the contrast between Jeffersonian libertarianism (once considered "liberalism" before that philosophy was given a bad name in the early twentieth century) and the so-called "conservatism" of the neocons and post-WWII New Rightists is perhaps at its greatest. Ron Paul supports the Constitution and the limits it places on government -- which makes him a "blame America" leftist among the neocon punditry, all apologists for the liberal Wilson/FDR/Truman/LBJ foreign policy, by the way.
But the best and most important chapter, without a doubt, is Chapter 6, "Money: The Forbidden Issue in American Politics." Here Dr. Paul expertly details the operations of the Federal Reserve System in stunning clarity -- no conspiracy theories or half-truths that often further obfuscate discussion of the secretive monetary authority. The Austrian (and true) perspective on the Fed is not to be horrified that the Fed isn't a government agency (it is, even if indirectly), but to be outraged that all banks are essentially arms of the government. We don't need the government to have even more control over the money supply, we need it to have no control whatsoever (the exact opposite of what movies like FREEDOM TO FASCISM seem to suggest). What's more, Dr. Paul doesn't spread the myth that the Fed somehow profits as an entity when it creates money (its profits go to the Treasury), but instead, politically connected individuals and businesses profit at the expense of working-class and poor families. You see, the effects of inflation are not uniform -- the Fed System works as a wealth redistribution system from poor and middle-class to the rich and politically connected. How so? Buy this book and find out!
Finally, the book ends with the self-titled seventh chapter in which Dr. Paul lays out a moderate and realistic course that could be accomplished over one or two presidential terms. I'm tempted to share this blueprint for you here but I don't want to discourage anyone from buying the book. Instead, I'll use the last few words of this review to lament the fact that this blueprint will certainly not be implemented by the next president. Perhaps a young man or woman who volunteered for Ron Paul's campaign in 2008 will work his or her way up through the political establishment and be swept into office, with a like-minded Paulian Congress, sixteen years from now (just as Reagan followed sixteen years after Goldwater -- not that either of these two are to be looked at as heroes. . .). We can only hope that the Republic can endure that long!