"The Revolution: A Manifesto"

UPDATE: Welcome Mises.org readers!

It's Friday night and I just finished Ron Paul's book "The Revolution: A Manifesto". It's so brilliant that I wept upon turning the last page, like seeing your first born for the very first time...

No, not really, but Dr. Paul's short (less than 200 pages) prescription for returning these United States to her rightful place in the world as the beacon of hope, peace, freedom, and prosperity comes at the proper moment in time. This country is at a crossroads economically and politically. We have a dollar that is in collapse (it has lost 35% of its purchasing power since 2001), and entitlement spending that is ballooning in the near future that requires at least double digit economic growth to barely keep up (hint, we don't have double digit growth and haven't for decades). Our civil liberties are being rapidly eroded (of course, dipping crucifixes in urine and calling it art is still OK) with our government conveniently ignoring or evading nine of the first ten amendments consistently. Don't worry, the 2nd Amendment could be on its last legs as well depending on how and what the Supreme Court decides on the Heller case.

What Dr. Paul has done is put out into the arena ideas that we used to talk about, that this country was built upon. He asks questions that you won't find in the MSM, National Review, or the Pajamas Media Right. It is those questions that have made him a pariah in his own party and exposes what constitutes "mainstream conservatism" as the morally and intellectually bankrupt school of big government statism that we used to easily label as "progressive" or "liberal".

One example is in foreign policy. The conservatism of Bill Kristol, David Horowitz, David Frum, or yes, George W Bush has given us nothing but a foreign policy that is incomprehensible to anyone unless you grew up watching "Cruel Intentions", "Wild Things" or are a fan of Woodrow Wilson. Like the prom queen that maybe was a little too privileged, and a little too good looking during high school that got what she wanted whenever she wanted yet never learned that the real world doesn't work the way it did in high school (especially if it's twenty years later and you are divorced with kids, put on 50 pounds and are still a bitch). Our country doesn't have to play games and meddle, back stab, or undermine other countries in order to have peaceful relationships with them.

Dr. Paul distills what our trillion dollar foreign policy currently amounts to. We treat countries either one of two ways: we either give our money and arms to them (see Saddam Hussein) or we go to war with them (see Saddam Hussein) all in the name of some Wilsonian vision that we can impose our will with our money or at the point of a gun (but don't try and guess which side you are on). Never does anyone, aside from Ron Paul, suggest that we take our founding fathers advice and do neither.

I could go on, because "The Revolution" addresses economics, civil liberties, and states rights. But the bottom line is that what Dr. Paul has written is a call to return to the foundations of our country. To understand and take seriously the words of our Founding Fathers and not doze through them like it's a Sunday morning sermon on the one day of the year that we bother to show up at church and only because we are there with our parents.

Anyway, buy it, read it, let me know your thoughts on it.