Thursday, January 1, 2009

The Ron Paul Page-A-Day

Amazon.com recently announced that Dr. Ron Paul's "The Revolution: A Manifesto" was the most positively reviewed book (by Amazon customers) of 2008.
I've read it twice, and am currently plowing through it a third time.

I'm going to skip a groove here, but hang with me for a second. VampE recently sent me a link to a Tom Robbins website on which a blogger posts a few paragraphs from a Robbins novel every week, and the readers have a chance to discuss it. Devotees of that site are going through the current book (Jitterbug Perfume) at the same pace, discussing and commenting as they go.

This blogger only posts a few random paragraphs from each chapter, just as a frame of reference to get a conversation going or to draw new readers into the Tom Robbins universe.

I hope to do the same thing with "The Revolution: A Manifesto", but in an all-inclusive manner. I'd like to post a couple of pages per week until the entire book is on this site, or until the Grand Central Publishing group tells me to cease and desist (for copyright reasons).

Warning: Do not read any of this if you want to remain comfortable while voting for The Mommy Party and Daddy Party candidates.

So with no further ado, here's Chapter One, Page One and Two of the Ron Paul Page-A-Day service.

"Every election season America is presented with a series of false choices. Should we launch preemptive wars against this country or that one? Should every American neighborhood live under this social policy or that one? Should a third of our income be taken away by an income tax or a national sales tax? The shared assumptions behind these questions, on the other hand, are never cast in doubt, or even raised. And anyone who wants to ask different questions or who suggests that the questions as framed exclude attractive, humane alternatives, is ipso facto excluded from mainstream discussion.

And so every four years we are treated to the same tired, predictable routine: two candidates with few disagreements on fundamentals pretend that they represent dramatically different philosophies of government.

The supposedly conservative candidate tells us us about "waste" in government, and ticks off $10 million in frivolous pork-barrel projects that outrage him - the inevitable bridge-to-nowhere project, or a study of the effects of celery consumption on arresting memory loss - in order to elicit laughter and applause from partisan audiences. All right, so that's 0.00045 percent of the federal budget dealt with; what does he propose to do with the other 99.99955 percent, in order to return our country to living within its means? Not a word. Those same three or four silly programs will be brought up all campaign long, and that's all we'll hear about where the candidate stands on spending. But conservatives are told that they must support these candidates, and so they do, hoping for the best. And nothing changes.

Even war doesn't really distinguish the two parties from each other. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry voted for the Iraq war. With the exception of Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, even the Democrats who postured as antiwar candidates for the 2008 primary elections are not especially opposed to needless wars. They typically have a laundry list of other military interventions they would support, none of which make any sense, would make our country any safer, or would do a thing to return our country to fiscal sanity. But liberals are told that they must support these candidates, and so they do, hoping for the best. And nothing changes.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

And.....

It's not only the "liberals" voting for the two major parties, it's everyone except for a few reasonable Libertarians and a handful of Independents.

Anonymous said...

I'll do one better. Click my name for a full audiobook - Mises and Economics by Ron Paul.

Anonymous said...

Thank you financial fiend - Ron Paul must be sickened by American politics today as his predictions are before us. American politics are so corrupt. It is very scarey to me. Seriously. Glad I'm a country girl at heart and wasn't raised with everything handed and given to me. If I have to, I can go back to living that lifestyle.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Suzette,
I don't say the phrase "two major parties" when I can help it. There's the Mommy faction and the Daddy faction within the government. Nothing more.

Fiend,
Thanks for commenting. That's an interesting site. I had no idea that Rand spent so much time in front of cameras.

Dr Ralph said...

Not that I care, of course, but how does reproducing Dr. Paul's (I'm assuming) copyrighted work/intellectual property square with the idea of property rights trumping all other rights?

Just curious. If he's given the world a pass like Lawrence Lessig I'll withdraw the question.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Dr.,
The intent is to reproduce it in the short digestible chunks (I'm sure you've read the boilerplate legalese which make exception for brief excerpts for "commentary, review, or educational purposes".

If I'm willing to type a book into the internet over the course of a year, I'm betting that the benefits to The Good Doctor and his publisher will outweigh the negatives.

In fact, I bet you eventually purchase a copy just to have more time to think about your rebuttals.

But we're praying for you, sir. As long as I'm allowed to type the Holy Scriptures onto this site, there's hope that you'll read them, feel convicted, experience a movement of the spirit, walk the aisle, and let Dr. Paul into your heart.

Dr Ralph said...

So...your desire to proselytize outweighs Dr. Paul's property rights? Interesting.

Also, remember what they say about the Devil quoting Scripture!

PS. glad you are back, comrade!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.