It seems to me that any serious pursuer of knowledge must be willing to seek out enlightenment from every available source, no matter how different his philosophy may bee from that espoused by his source.It was with this spirit of skepticism that I attacked the Revolution by Ron Paul, a long-serving, and long-suffering, US Congressman from Texas who, until recently, had spent his political career in the wilderness of the fringe. And though I come away from the experience not wholly convinced by his case, I have had my eyes opened to a set of societal challenges that promise to have a powerful impact on our world.
Mr. Paul's philosophy of government is simple; the less it does, the less it can screw up. He spends most of his work backing up this contentious claim by setting his sights on the sacred cows of American government: the Federal Reserve, American military bases on foreign soil, the national debt, and social programs. But in a gratifying departure from the norm of such pieces of partisan propaganda, Mr. Paul offers solutions to the problems he sees, causing the Revolution to read more like Milton Friedman than Anne Coulter. Though Mr. Paul will surely get pushback on many of the problems and inequities he raises here, the Revolution leaves us with a sense that he's willing to hear us out and debate the virtues of American policy with us rather than resort to shouting us down, an all-too-common method of disagreement in today's political climate. Interesting, how one must sometimes go to the fringe to find rationality. (4/5 Stars)
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