Is "The Revolution" by Ron Paul any good?

"The Revolution" A Manifesto
by Ron Paul
167 pages

As mentioned, I'm still newer to politics, so I first heard of Ron Paul during the 2008 elections. During the debates, I remember him being laughed at on stage by the other Republican candidates, as he was the only GOP candidate opposed to the Iraq war. The major difference between Ron Paul and most other conservatives is his stance on foreign policy. Dr. Paul believes, as did our founding fathers, that we should do everything in our power to avoid intervening in the concerns of other countries. As Thomas Jefferson wrote "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." Right wing radio-talk and sound byte conservatives mislabel this as "isolationist", and move on to entangle us in hundreds of billions dollars foreign wars (which are declared unconstitutionally).

In my opinion, "The Revolution" is a must-read. It is a wake up call to all Americans, liberals and conservatives. While we argue over pork-barrel spending (0.00045 percent of the federal budget), $400 haircuts, how to add or tweak entitlement programs, or how to re-arrange our tax structure, we are going broke. Both political parties, Republicans and Democrats are to blame. Both parties sell their country out by spending more and more money and pass the buck on to the next generation. But the dollar is becoming worth less and less, and the economy is becoming exhausted, gasping for air and water, while politicians kick the spurs even harder, yelling faster, faster, as they create more wars, pay more corporate lobbyists, and add more entitlements than will ever be paid for.

Congress adds hundreds of billions of dollars and trillions of dollars to our debt. The Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air, which is essentially stealing money from us because that devalues our dollar. Politicians promise no tax increases but when they create more money, that is basically what they're giving you.

The book is divided into 7 chapters.

Chapter One- The False Choices of American Politics. What mainstream debate focuses on, the political choices we make and why nothing changes, the current conservative right and the liberal left, some on his 2008 political campaign.

Chapter Two- The Foreign Policy of the Founding Fathers. Quotes George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, as well as modern authors, how modern politicians ignore or sidestep the constitution, explains difference between non-interventionism and isolationism, nation building, George W. Bush's campaign promises of humble foreign policy and arguments against nation building, Afghanistan Iraq 9/11 blowback and the spreading of terrorism, past American involvements in the Middle East, the American media's role in the war of Iraq, Iran and nuclear weapons, Israel, foreign aid, how much wars cost.

Chapter 3- The Constitution. Contrast between how earliest Americans viewed Constitution and how we view it today, the large power increase of the executive branch, the executive order today vs. then, presidential signing statements, 10th amendment Article 1 sections 8 and 10 and the federal government's and state's roles, the "general welfare" and "necessary and proper" clauses, amending the constitution, war powers, the "living" constitution, the draft/raising armies/compulsory national service, the federal government's role in abortion, racism, and the war on drugs.

Chapter 4- Economic Freedom. Legal plunder, bailouts, lobbying with an example of sugar quotas, how it affects the "forgotten man", repealing bureaucracies and their budgets, National Endowment for the Arts, voluntary associations in early American history, the income tax, social security, medicare, medicaid, HMOs, welfare state, immigration, regulation and the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, productive capacity, standards of living, the Federal Reserve, inflation, trade agreements and foreign aid, poverty, Austrian school of economics and Ludwig von Mises, the environment, campaign finance reform.

Chapter 5- Civil Liberties and Personal Freedom. Warrantless surveillance of Americans international telephone conversations and the media, FISA warrants, NSA, 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) interpretations, President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales double-speak, Terrorist Surveillance Program, threats of officials resigning, Patriot Act and violation of the Constitution, warns what the federal government is now allowed to do, the use of torture, habeas corpus abandonment with the Military Commissions Act of 2006, detainment of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, detainment of AP photographer Bilal Hussein, some details of Ron Paul's own American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007, history of the War on Drugs, other personal liberties including homeschooling and children mental health screening.

Chapter 6- Money: The Forbidden Issue in American Politics. Fundamental problems with our unstable financial structure, the Federal Reserve, Congressional responsibility to maintain the value of money, founding fathers ideas of paper money, going off the gold standard in 1933 and foreign ties in 1971, how the Federal Reserve manipulates the economy, Cantillon distribution effects, inflation, false prosperity or malinvestments, Japan in the 1990s, Greenspan's views on the gold standard and his public denial, the case for commodity-backed currency, the German mark in 1923, financial bubbles and cheap credit, solutions to change the system.

Chapter 7- The Revolution. Disbelieves the notion that Americans don't want liberty but that Americans were not sufficiently taught liberty, recommends additional sources, summarizes the ideas throughout the book clearly stating that the present course is not sustainable economically, how America can gradually drop our dependency on reckless federal dependency programs, what the president in 2008 (apparently not yet elected as of its printing) can do on many issues including the Iraq war.

Mr. Paul also includes a reading list to further study the principles in the book.

As for negatives of the book, I must mention an obvious one. While there is a recommended reading list in the back and he mentions a few websites in the text, there are no source notes throughout the book. Mr Paul has spent a long time in politics and has obviously done a lot of research, but the objective reader should want to follow up directly on some of his facts and statistics. Also, I wish he would have gone into a little more detail in some aspects, such as how a gold standard really works in every day terms, more on pollution, and more on health care. I would love for this book to have been another couple hundred pages.

These discussions have to get out in the mainstream. Other than politicians, I don't know anybody who thinks that auditing the Federal Reserve is a bad idea. I don't know anybody who wants to burden their children and grandchildren with out of control debt or put their security in harm through bad foreign policy. For anyone who has followed the Democrats and Republicans for any period of time or has listened to conservative talk or mainstream media and is frustrated with their inconsistencies, this book is incredibly refreshing.