Book Review

The Revolution: A Manifesto

By Ron Paul

Copyright 2008

Review by Steve Fritsch (May 2008)

During the 2008 Republican presidential primary, Ron Paul was viewed by many GOP voters, candidates and pundits as the crazy and radical libertarian candidate who had no chance of success. However, despite this perception, Paul was able to attract a wide array of supporters (including Iraq war protestors, civil libertarians, anti-tax groups, and strict Constitutionalists) and raised enormous sums of money in the process—including breaking the single day fundraising record (twice) and receiving more financial contributions from members of the Armed Forces than any other Republican candidate. This process has been deemed the “Ron Paul Revolution” and is thus the reason for his best selling “manifesto” being simply titled, The Revolution.

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But this is not some type of Barack Obama-like “revolution,” dictated by fancy rhetoric that generates emotion but in content lacks any serious proposals for real change that will benefit the American people. Paul asserts that when politicians say “change” it always means more of the same. In fact, as many conservative writers have pointed out, Obama isn’t new at all; he’s just a typical left-wing politician whose inexperience is being trumped as something fresh.

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On the other hand, for genuine freshness and proposals for real change, one should learn a little more about what Ron Paul stands for. This doesn’t mean you have to buy into everything he says—there were plenty of ideas and analyses in his book that I wasn’t entirely sold on. But Paul at least makes the reader think critically and forces individuals to revaluate what it means to be a conservative. In addition, The Revolution is full of legitimate sources to back up Paul’s arguments, and with some of the sources Paul uses (respected conservative thinkers like the Founders, Russell Kirk, F.A. Hayek, and Michael Scheuer) it’s hard to sit there and still think, “Paul is nuts.” Indeed, much of what Paul has to say will hit home with conservatives.

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At the same time, Paul is not very complimentary of the current conservative movement, which is perhaps why his base never really extended into it during the primary. “A substantial portion of the conservative movement has become a parody of itself,” Paul writes. He even attacks the Contract of America of not being as revolutionary as some conservatives claim it to be, stating: “If this is what conservatives consider revolutionary, then they have basically conceded defeat.”

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However, before conservatives get too angry with Paul’s criticisms they should remember the one theme that is constant with him—and is probably the reason why his momentum has continued despite his lack of primary success—and that is freedom. When Paul talks about freedom he’s not just throwing the word around superficially. Freedom to Paul means just exactly that: freedom of the individual to live his or her life without unnecessary government interference. “Unnecessary” is subjective here and Paul does find the littlest things government does unnecessary. Sometimes you will agree wholeheartedly with him and other times you might think, “OK, you’re right in principle, but it is probably unrealistic to achieve.”

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Yet isn’t complete liberty what we should all strive for? Had the Founding Fathers had that pessimistic attitude, or Abraham Lincoln had that pessimistic attitude, we would be living in a very different world right now. Shouldn’t we always strive for an American society to be one built on individual liberty and protection from injustice? Ron Paul, whether you like him or not, certainly believes so and he has a long list of people who are unnecessarily intruding into the lives of the American people and making a mockery of the Constitution.

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He attacks neoconservatives, such as The Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, as “false conservatives” who have still maintained their power and influence within the Bush administration although many of their predictions for Iraq have been disastrously wrong. Regarding the Iraq War, he is very critical of it and believes it was an illegal act by the president and an abuse of executive power. Paul calls Iraq the “most ill-considered, poorly planned, and just plain unnecessary military conflicts in American history.” He adds that he has opposed war against Iraq not only since 2002, but beginning in 1997 and 1998, when the Clinton administration was seriously considering major military operations against Saddam Hussein.

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Paul is even tough on past presidents, most notably Harry Truman. Calling Truman’s decision to involve the U.S. in the Korean War the “great watershed in the modern presidential power grab in war-making,” he argues that Truman’s interpretation of the Constitution—like George W. Bush’s today—was “completely untenable.” On other foreign policy issues, Paul wants to discontinue foreign aid to all nations, which he calls “immoral” since it transfers the wealth of the American people to other countries—many of which do not share our same values—and he also thinks it is counterproductive, citing Africa as an example.

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On domestic issues, Paul is strongly pro-life, against the death penalty, and he is against the use of torture. He is also, like many libertarians, highly critical of the war on drugs, which he states, “Has wrought particular devastation in minority neighborhoods.” Additionally, he is very much against the Patriot Act and uses some of his harshest anti-government, anti-Bush administration rhetoric in his opposition to it. He accuses the “misnamed” Patriot Act as a devise to focus more on American citizens than foreign terrorists and essentially accuses the government of spying on the people.

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On economics, Paul is very libertarian and talks affectionately of economists such as Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises. He is staunchly opposed to the income tax and to most taxes in general.  He is against NAFTA and the WTO, as well, saying that both organizations “represent government-managed trade schemes, not free trade,” and that both infringe on American sovereignty.

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As I mentioned before, one does not have to agree with all of Ron Paul’s positions to read this book. Whether you agree with all of it, some of it, or none of it, The Revolution is a passionate call to Americans to understand how their freedoms and liberties are always under attack in both subtle ways and direct ways. Paul’s mission is to wake up Americans so they realize that they cannot take their freedoms and liberties for granted. Moreover, he calls for Americans to learn more about the Constitution, the beliefs of the Founders, and how basic economics works; all of which are things that most conservatives and patriotic Americans can support. (Paul even provides a recommended reading list at the end of the book.)

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Furthermore, with statements in the book such as, “The government does not own you, and it does not own your children,” and “The Constitution was created to restrain the government, not the people,” it will have you cheering at times, even if in the back of your mind you still cannot take Ron Paul too seriously. But in the end, Paul’s message is one that has to be taken seriously. That message is the protection and advancement of human liberty and freedom, and for his crusade in defense of it, all Americans should be thankful for Ron Paul and The Revolution.

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