The Revolution; A Manifesto
In the book, The Revolution; A Manifesto, the author, Ron Paul, takes an in depth look at the problems in today's American government. Paul's frustration with the American government is evident in the preface when he points out that the majority of people, including most of our elected politicians, never take the time to question obvious fundamental flaws in our government. This excerpt from the preface accurately depicts Paul’s angst towards the liberal and neo-conservative agenda of today’s government.
"With national bankruptcy looming, politicians from both parties continue to make multi-trillion dollar promises of "free" goods from the government, and hardly a soul wonders if we can still afford to have troops in 130 countries around the world."Statements like this not only open up the eyes of the uninformed, but they encourage questioning and humane alternatives. All too often the media incorrectly labels these statements as Isolationist rants made by just another wackjob. Most the time these statements and ideas are simply excluded from mainstream discussion. It's a shame our mass media doesn't take pride in portraying such patriots as heros. In Paul’s first chapter he addresses the false choices of American Politics and exposes one of the biggest flaws within election system. Year after year, two candidates with few disagreements on fundamentals, pretend to represent dramatically different philosophies of government while presenting voters with a set of false choices. Paul exposes numerous fundamentals flaws, within the shared assumptions between the usual set of candidates. The biggest problem that we are facing today in America is the passionless impersonality of political corruptness. Paul accurately depicts this problem in the second to last paragraph of the Preface, it reads;
"There is an alternative to national bankruptcy, a bigger police state, trillion-dollar wars, and a government that draws ever more parasitically on the productive energies of the American people. It's called freedom. But as we've learned through hard experience, we are not going to hear a word in its favor if our political and media establishments have anything to say about it."Unlike most of his colleagues, Paul does not hesitate to expose facts that diminish the myth of government benevolence. Paul cleverly points out some problematic fundamental flaws that, to most politicians in Washington, are hidden beneath the depths of an ever-expanding government. Paul identifies some of the main flaws as government expansion, excess government intervention, and excess government spending. Which have at very least, all proved to be the breeding grounds for corruption. Other politicians, mostly liberals and neoconservatives, dismiss the relevance of these flaws. They refuse to acknowledge the real problems, which stem from these flaws. Rather, they focus instead on patching up the problems with the use of more government expansion, more government intervention, or more government spending. Which is, according to Paul, the very mechanism that entangled, and entrapped society in these problems to begin with. In this case, Ron Paul would argue that the federal government’s massive expansion over the past 30 years has been both the cause and the symptom of unintended consequences and government corruption. To illustrate the real danger in expanding government in a time likes this, Paul sites one of his most influential mentors in economics, Ludwig von Mises, who wrote that,
"Government intervention causes unintended consequences that lead to calls for further intervention, and so on into a destructive spiral of more and more government control."Paul emphasizes the facts that today; the government is expanding, taxes are increasing, more senseless wars are being planned, inflation is ballooning, and our basic freedoms are disappearing. He argues that this is a fast road to destruction if blindly followed by ill informed citizens who believe that the liberal agenda will change any of this.
Paul warns of the liberal policies that are emerging today, and becoming popular thanks mostly to the failure of the Neo-Conservatives and their false portrayal of true conservative values. Paul claims that the media and the two-party system in place have discouraged open debate by excluding anyone who questions the shared assumptions between the two parties. For instance, you often here the issue of Health Care brought in to debate. It is true that our Health Care system today is not as efficient as it could be. The questions then should be, what is wrong with it? What are the problems? Why is it failing? But as usual those questions are ignored by the mainstream because they stand boldly in the way of the tyrant’s goal: which is to increase the size of the government and the amount of power they hold over the people all under the pretext of providing either safety, solution, or welfare. Paul believes that like most problems we deal with today, more government intervention is not the solution. It is what caused the problem in the first place back in 1965 with HMO's. Paul and many others believe that today HMO’s have become corporate, bureaucratic middlemen in our health care system. Since 65’ a degrading in care and an increase in cost has taken place and the only solution they come up with is the call for more intervention. This is living proof of the destructive spiral of more and more government control that Ludwig von Mises pointed out in the early twentieth century. There is a better solution than to fight fire with fire, Paul suggests. His faith lies in the free market. Ron suggests that,
"Free market systems are likely to deliver better care at lower cost than the current bizarre hybrid of employer-paid private insurance, government regulation, and user/payor separation."Overall, Paul effectively illustrates why the Liberal left's ideas of solving problems by government expansion, government intervention, and excessive government spending is a naive and disastrous confidence in government and that it would only be a catalyst for further degradation to any problem being treated. Paul's arguments are based on a notion that limited government, economic freedom, individual rights, and non intervention, are among the most important policies of attaining a free and prosperous society. To him, the value of these principles in government today has diminished to a dangerous low. The fact that the abandoning of these principles in the American government is so largely overlooked and is even tolerated in today's society frustrates Paul the most. He urges for his message to be spread in a bold effort of Patriotism. Through Ron Paul, the voice of our founding fathers is echoed into the twenty first Century.
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty. Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day. " -Thomas Jefferson
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." -Benjamin Franklin-
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