Read this book!

I’ve just finished Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto, and am once again floored by Dr. Paul’s ability to identify the most important issues facing this country and explain their libertarian solutions in “honest, direct language,” as George Carlin would say.

In seven concise chapters, heavy with notable quotes from the founders, American historical figures, social researchers and Austrian economists, Dr. Paul destroys the myths of governmental benevolence and benefit on nearly every issue of importance for the present and future of this country.

He begins, of course, with foundational explanations of natural rights and the limits placed on the general government by the constitution which allows its existence. Paul then excoriates the government and explains the solution to its problems of empire, war, terrorism, conscription, violations of the Bill of Rights, spying, torture, the drug wars, health care, the welfare state, regulatory state, managed trade and the destruction of the American economy at the hands of the Federal Reserve system. He points out that the differences in the positions of the major parties and politicians are nearly meaningless as our country becomes a de facto one-party state under the centrist Democrats and neoconservative-controlled Republicans. They fight all day about meaningless details while we descend into tyranny.

Dr. Paul, whose steadfast opposition to warfare in the U.S. Congress extends back to his first terms in office in the 1970s, makes his standard case that rather than leading to some abstract “national greatness,” empire, in fact, weakens America. He says the cost of maintaining our empire is nearly a trillion dollars a year and that we just can’t afford it. Paul maintains that rather than protecting our freedom, war is nearly as destructive to our society as those of the people we wage them against. War leads to unchecked executive power and the destruction of our most highly valued liberty. Paul denounces our government’s policy of “preemptive” aggressive war as always morally and consequentially wrong and never justified. He also explains the anti-imperialist legacy of the Old Right and the antiwar sentiments of the more thoughtful leaders of the middle-to-New Right such as Russell Kirk, Richard Weaver, and Robert Nisbet. Paul explains that there is nothing conservative about waging war; it undermines every principle that conservatives claim to cherish (i.e.: the Constitution, the rule of law, family values, free markets, fiscal restraint.)

Paul thrashes the War Party over the subject of the next aggressive war on the horizon: Iran. He reminds us that he’s been correct for years in saying there was no evidence of a secret nuclear weapons program in Iran as all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies confirmed in their National Intelligence Estimate last fall and shows clearly that to this administration, as with their invasion of Iraq, the agenda is war and any excuse or varied combination of excuses will do.

Terrorism, the current excuse for our world empire, he explains, is not an enemy, but a strategy employed by enemies. People in occupied countries, Muslim or otherwise, have used this tactic to try to force the democratic societies which occupy them to withdraw their combat forces due to the expense of the predictable overreaction. He quotes intelligence beat journalist James Bamford’s reporting of Ayman al Zawahiri’s stated goal of trapping us in the Middle East to give us a “desert Vietnam” - to bleed us dry and force us out as the Reagan administration helped them do to the Russians in the 1980s. This being the case, Paul concludes further invasions and occupations of their countries is exactly the wrong policy to follow. It is the founders’ foreign policy of peace, commerce and honest friendship which best protects Americans from terrorism. (In this section, Paul quotes former CIA counter-terrorism agents Michael Scheuer and Philip Giraldi from my interviews of them for Antiwar Radio.)

Paul says we should demand the immediate repeal of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and insist on the protection of habeas corpus for all detainees unless the most immediate circumstances on the battlefield prevent it and that no American should ever be held by the military and subjected to torture as was José Padilla. He has introduced legislation in Congress to ensure those very things, among others, in the American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007.

Paul says that torture is always wrong and should never be tolerated for one second by the proud residents of a free society no matter what excuse those with power can conjure.

Paul also makes an eloquent case against conscription, calling it “slavery” and quoting Daniel Webster and Ronald Reagan to make the case that the draft contradicts the very premise of a free society, the constitution forbids it and that it should never be allowed in this country ever again.

He explains in detail how the administration has told lie after lie in order to justify their blatantly unconstitutional, unnecessary and illegal spying on Americans.

Economist Paul also explains his moral and practical opposition to managed trade organizations like NAFTA and the WTO, since they are unconstitutional transfers of Congress’ delegated powers and they actually sanction trade wars, require our Congress to raise taxes when they feel like it and otherwise interrupt peaceful trade. He points out that nothing new needs to be done to have free trade with other countries, all the government has to do is stop interfering. Presto, no tariffs, no subsidies.

It should be no surprise that a free market fundamentalist like Paul opposes all foreign aid and “restructuring” of other countries’ economies though the IMF and the World Bank, whose proclaimed purpose is to help the poor, when all they do is prop up governments that the locals oppose, distort and disrupt local markets and generally impoverish those who are supposedly being helped.

In The Revolution, as on the House floor, Paul takes a heroic stand against the federal government’s war on drugs and the entire policy in general. It is the creation of the black market by the congress and state legislatures which creates the environment in which murder, extortion and gang wars prevail, he explains. He gives special attention to the long history of frauds perpetrated by government in order to criminalize marijuana possession and sale. It was simply racist bigotry against Mexicans and a desire to persecute them which motivated the early American drug warriors. Their legacy is one of lives destroyed not by drugs, but by the state in its post-constitutional, “we own you and will decide what’s good for you” role it now plays in our society.

In the book Paul brings up the issue of race in terms of a limited national government, the unfair prosecution and sentencing of minorities in the drug wars and in terms of the impossibly burdensome regulatory state. The solution, he maintains, is a belief in individualism and a willingness of people to enforce their rights from the bottom up rather than looking to Washington DC. He explains how government serves only to divide us more even when attempting to ameliorate the problems of the past.

Paul also explains how government drives up the cost of health care for everyone and how the current welfare state is simply unaffordable and unsustainable by any measure. He explains how government interventions have led us to our current crisis and how real laissez-faire - not corporatist or socialist - reforms would fix the problems.

Another example of government failure cited is the current state of public education in this country. While not calling for abolition of all public schools, Paul does demand we get rid of the federal Department of Education and also explains how incredible amounts of resources are wasted into oblivion by the bureaucrats in ways that would never happen at private schools, making a strong case that parents could afford many more choices in education without the oppressive tax burdens they carry and that they would be well served to seek education outside the strictures of the state. Always tying political questions back to individual liberty, Paul also asks a basic question almost unheard of in polite company: why should anyone be forced to pay for the education of another and particularly when that person disagrees with the slant of the instruction? As just one example of the direction DC is leading us, Paul points out a little noticed but obviously dangerous move by the pharmaceutical companies and the national government to give mandatory “mental health” exams to all school children in order to force many millions more of them to take psychotropic drugs at the threat of removal from their parents. He rightly complains that even 20 years ago the people of this country would have been absolutely outraged. Maybe it’s the Prozac.

Dr. Paul also excoriates the modern regulatory state and explains how it makes us all poorer in order to benefit those who are already rich. Paul sticks up for the individual and his property rights against all, the rich, the poor or anyone else’s attempts to separate him from it with force - personally or through the state. It is our free economy, not government intervention which has made us so prosperous. Paul’s argument is nowhere close to an apologia for big business. It is they who have pushed all along for the governmental cartelization and regulation of business. The state is the mechanism by which those connected to its power can stifle competition and socialize their costs onto the rest of society. Questions of environmental pollution are one of Paul’s favorite examples of the failures of regulation, and for good reason. Really, no EPA is necessary - to protect the victims of the crime. Pollution can be handled simply by protecting people’s basic property rights with local courts. In fact, the purpose of the EPA is to protect the polluters from competition first and the consequences of polluting the environment second by claiming “public” ownership of the affected area (the air, bodies of water, etc.) and then providing immunity to those politically connected corporations who are within the “guidelines” they set for themselves. The right of the average guy to seek redress in a local court is then circumvented by the regulation of the executive branch. The explanation of why this is so, contained in The Revolution, should be enough to educate even the most pointy-headed of your liberal and leftist friends.

Paul, a supposed student, but really an Austrian school economist in his own right, also gives a concise explanation of the criminal Federal Reserve System which robs the poor to benefit the bankers and merchants of death. Inflation, Paul explains, is a hidden tax, one that hurts the poor, working and retired people most for the benefit of these war-mongering plutocrats. They try to make the system seem too mysterious for the average guy to understand but it’s not. Stealing is stealing. The central bank causes the booms and busts they claim to “smooth out” with their process of artificially inflating the supply of money, causing bubbles of malinvestment in the market and setting us up for recessions. The popular line that “we the people,” through “our” Congress, use the state’s regulation to protect us from the “excesses” of capitalism must be the greatest line of bull fed to a population since the Aztec Flower Wars. Again, the light shed by Paul provides clarity to a subject extremely important and yet opaque to the people most affected.

Dr. Paul ends the book with a celebration of the varied millions who’ve rallied around his campaign and a call for those of us who love liberty to stand up for ourselves and put our out-of-control empire back in its place.

The joy I feel knowing that millions will eventually read this concise libertarian primer just makes me want to celebrate.

The heroic Ron Paul has done it again.

Thanks to Lew.

ABC

My interview of Ron from this morning.

Texas Presidential primary race results here.

Update: Ron thrashes Peden 2:1; is re-elected to Congress (He has no Dem opponent for the fall.)

Yay Ron!

Ron Paul for minority leader!

For the Albert J. Nock types!

Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement, Justin Raimondo’s excellent story of the origins of the American Old Right opposition to Great Dictator Roosevelt’s New Deal and dastardly plot to get the U.S. into WWII, its marginalization at the hands of the vile William F. Buckley Jr. and the return of Old Right libertarianism in our time is being reissued by ISI Books. It tells the stories of all the leaders of the Old Right and of the ex-communists who infiltrated the movement and turned it into nothing but a mob of support for belligerent nationalism and imperialism.

Says Ron Paul:

“When I was deciding whether or not to run for President as a Republican, I re-read Justin Raimondo’s Reclaiming the American Right and it gave me hope – that the anti-interventionist, pro-liberty Old Right, which had once dominated the party, could and would rise again. Here is living history: the story of an intellectual and political tradition that my campaign invoked and reawakened. This prescient book, written in 1993, could not be more relevant today.”

At Amazon.

Update: William F. Buckley is dead.

The Speech on YouTube: One, two, three, four, five.

Notes on Ron Paul’s great speech at UT today:

Thanks again Dr. Paul for doing this. (And for autographing my Antiwar.com sign!)

The cops said they estimated 4,000 people were there. It was a awesome crowd. When I showed up the sun was shining and Jimmie Vaughan was playing “Floodin’ Down in Texas.”

Of course in Paul’s speech, the lines on the war, for example, “Just come home,” got the most applause.

Besides that, Dr. Paul explained a vision for an America run from the bottom up by free people operating within the constraints only of the rights of other individuals. A society where the government’s only job truly is the protection of individual liberty, where the government is not expected to run our personal lives - since we trust in freedom and in each other - or the economy - since they can only “run it into the ground” - and certainly has no mandate to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations since it doesn’t work, we can’t afford it and run by crazy people or not, none of them are a threat to the United States.

A country which, like the Jedi Knights of Old, uses force for defense, never for attack. Where congressmen have so little power, there is nothing for a lobbyist to bribe. It would be a society, Paul says, with no income tax or the need for it. One where the resentments fostered by our seemingly endless culture war fade away since those matters would no longer be determined by the mandatory state and people could resolve them themselves.

A free society. A wealthy society. A live and let live society – and at peace with the rest of the world to boot.

Dr. Paul also promised that if he were the president he would never legislate through executive orders, he would never issue “signing statements” which act as an unconstitutional line-item veto, he would never let the government torture, employ the use of secret courts or secret prisons, employ military law or force in the United States, that he would always protect the great writ, habeas corpus, and each and every protection from government defined in the Constitution and its amendments. And he would never take this nation to war unless it was mandated in an official declaration by the Congress.

I believe him.

He said the Ron Paul Revolution was really just the American Revolution and the Texas Revolution - war of independence from Mexico - continued. These were men who believed that patriotism meant defending liberty. They did. Those revolutions live on today in this movement for liberty and peace.

Speaking of liberty and peace, Dr. Paul also said you can’t have liberty without peace. It is in wartime that the state truly comes into its own and violates individual rights with impunity. Where war is waged against us, war may be necessary to protect liberty, but when we start wars and occupy the world, our liberties become threatened by those sworn to protect them. And you should never sacrifice liberty for security. The trade-off is not worth it, Paul said, because you have to have liberty to provide security in the first place and without liberty, what’s to secure?

Paul also bragged that Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, libertarians and “even a few anarchists” have joined the Revolution.

Oh yeah, and as an aside when talking about how government shouldn’t interfere, Paul mentioned a bit about “what life is all about”: Trying your best to strive for virtue and honesty - stuff like that.

It will be my last vote and I will be proud to cast it for Dr. Ron Paul - best congressman ever.

Dr. Paul is still running for president and the message of individual liberty, free markets and peace that he’s delivering is still ringing bells across the land.

We love you Ron. Keep giving ‘em hell!

I forget what it was I read that fixed me from my naive belief in anti-trust laws back in the 1990s, but Ron Paul is right, executive regulation protects those the market would rightfully depose rather than the other way around. (The other guest is Dom Armentano.)

Thanks to Lew.

February 18, 2008

The DC neocons think their old dream is about to come true. They think they can defeat me in the Republican congressional primary in Texas on March 4th. And you know what? They may be right.

My opponent, who describes himself as a traditional conservative, is a dedicated servitor of all the special interests who have given us the disaster of recent years, from unconstitutional wars to a looming recession, from huge deficits to massive new welfare programs.

A Republican operative allied with the worst forces in DC recently said: “Give what you can [to Ron Paul's opponent]. Ron Paul is running scared — using his Presidential campaign’s donors’ money to subsidize a desperate last-minute attempt to save his Congressional seat.”

That is a lie, of course. It is illegal to use presidential campaign donations in my congressional race. The congressional campaign has to stand on its own. But so far, we have raised only about a third of what a well-funded effort would need.

In my 10 terms in Congress, I have not only been able to serve my constituents, and help them, for example, negotiate federal red-tape. I have also been able to defend our principles of less spending, lower taxes, no inflation, and strict adherence to the Constitution. Some people in DC laugh at the idea that I should obey my oath of office, and ask first of any proposed legislation, is it constitutional? But I know that you share my support for the vision of the framers.

My friend Congressmen Wayne Gilchrest (R-Maryland) was just defeated in his primary election by a neocon fraud similar to the one I face. My friend Walter Jones (R-North Carolina) is under heavy pressure as well. People like our hand-picked opponents will do anything to gain and keep power. They represent everything that is wrong with DC.

If I am defeated in the upcoming congressional primary, our ideas will be held to have been defeated as well. It will be proclaimed from the rooftops in DC that such “ridiculous and outmoded notions” as the free market, sound money, personal liberty, limited government, and a pro-American foreign policy are through.

I am determined not to let this happen. All that you and I believe in is far too important to the future of our country, and to everyone and everything we love, to let the neocons dance on its grave.

Please, help me stop the lies, the distortions, the pressure groups, the special interests that benefit from DC rip-offs. There is still time to run radio and tv ads, to set up phone banks, to get out the vote. But unless you help, my reelection to Congress may be in jeopardy. Please help me return to Congress to fight for the people of my district, and for the ideas that can save our country from the path to trouble we are now on.

I hesitated to ask you, since you have already done so much. But my wife Carol said, “When you need help, you ask your best friends.” So I do ask you, to hold out your hand in support.

Please give today http://www.ronpaulforcongress.com, as generously and as quickly as you can.

Sincerely,

Ron

It’s been a hell of a great Ron Paul Revolution. Thanks so much Dr. Paul for all of your efforts. It’s great to know you’ll still be taking ‘em on in the Congress.

Paul’s statement:

February 8, 2008

Whoa! What a year this has been. And what achievements we have had. If I may quote Trotsky of all people, this Revolution is permanent. It will not end at the Republican convention. It will not end in November. It will not end until we have won the great battle on which we have embarked. Not because of me, but because of you. Millions of Americans — and friends in many other countries — have dedicated themselves to the principles of liberty: to free enterprise, limited government, sound money, no income tax, and peace. We will not falter so long as there is one restriction on our persons, our property, our civil liberties. How much I owe you. I can never possibly repay your generous donations, hard work, whole-hearted dedication and love of freedom. How blessed I am to be associated with you. Carol, of course, sends her love as well.

Let me tell you my thoughts. With Romney gone, the chances of a brokered convention are nearly zero. But that does not affect my determination to fight on, in every caucus and primary remaining, and at the convention for our ideas, with just as many delegates as I can get. But with so many primaries and caucuses now over, we do not now need so big a national campaign staff, and so I am making it leaner and tighter. Of course, I am committed to fighting for our ideas within the Republican party, so there will be no third party run. I do not denigrate third parties — just the opposite, and I have long worked to remove the ballot-access restrictions on them. But I am a Republican, and I will remain a Republican.

I also have another priority. I have constituents in my home district that I must serve. I cannot and will not let them down. And I have another battle I must face here as well. If I were to lose the primary for my congressional seat, all our opponents would react with glee, and pretend it was a rejection of our ideas. I cannot and will not let that happen.

In the presidential race and the congressional race, I need your support, as always. And I have plans to continue fighting for our ideas in politics and education that I will share with you when I can, for I will need you at my side. In the meantime, onward and upward! The neocons, the warmongers, the socialists, the advocates of inflation will be hearing much from you and me.

Sincerely,

Ron