I've been meaning to read this since the 2008 presidential race, and finally got around to it just as Ron Paul is running for the republican nomination for the 2012 election. The book, particularly at the start, is fairly ranty and there are plenty of cavalier sweeping statements that raise a big 'citation needed':
Dissenters who tell their fellow citizens what is really going on are subject to smear campaigns that, like clockwork, are aimed at the political heretic. Truth is treason in the empire of lies.
I agree with his position of reducing military spending, and overseas military commitments, as a huge cost saving and a pissing-off-other-countries saving. I was fascinated to read an intelligent quote along these lines from, George W. Bush's campaign in 2000, a sentiment that obviously changed drastically after 9/11.
"If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. Our nation stands alone right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we've got to be humble." We should be "proud and confident [in] our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course."
I've read a few books about the Iraqi war, and Paul Wolfowitz' statement that
...the ousting of Saddam would allow the United States to remove its tropps from Saudi Arabia, where their presence had long been a major al-Qaeda grievance.was news to me.
Having said all that, some of his ideas I don't agree with, such as stopping all foreign aid (his reasoning is that it props up failed governments), and some seem downright naive, such as pledging that if he was president he would never use executive orders. Given how dysfunctional and adversarial congress is, executive orders are one of the few tools a president has to actually get things done. I also objected to his horrific example of an abortion of a 2 lb baby to promote his pro-life stance. It is completely disingenuous - no sane pro-choice supporters are in favour of late-term abortions.
Paul is completely against centralised federal government power, apart from a small number of exceptions such as the Departments of Justice and Defence. If he got his way and had most powers delegated to the states he claims that:
We wouldn't have to worry that a social policy of which we disapproved would be imposed on our neighborhood at the whim of the new president and his court appointees, or that more of our money would be stolen to fund yet another government boondoggle.
but provides no evidence as to why he thinks state government would be any more efficient, likely to make better decisions, or even overcome the obvious inefficiency of 52 times the government they have now. I do however agree that government has become bloated and inefficient, the federal budget was 40% larger in 2007 compared to 10 years ago, but I would contend that it is bloated at all levels - city, state, and federal. He proposes abolishing income tax, but provides no justification for how this would improve the economy or even offset the thousands of government job losses it would require.
He rages against the 'welfare state' and offers up the thought experiment that if there were no government (federal or state) welfare programs, people would be more likely to volunteer and make donations themselves. I contend that lots of people are selfish, and a little pro-bono work by lawyers or a few hours of volunteering by an unskilled general populace is not going to be anywhere near enough to replace the efforts of full-time trained and paid social workers.
His position on health care is similar, and interesting since he is an obstetrician, and has been around long enough to see the system break down:
As a physician I never accepted Medicare or Medicaid money from the government, and instead offered cut-rate or free services to those who could not afford care. Before those programs came into existence, every physician understood that he or she had a respobsibility toward the less fortunate, and free medical care for the poor was the norm. Hardly anyone is aware of this today, since it doesn't fit into the typical, by-the-script story of government rescuing us from a predatory private sector. Laws and regulations that inflated the cost of medical services and imposed unreasonable liability standards on medical professionals even when they were acting in a volunteer capacity later made offering free care cost prohibitive...
I can see how this would work when most patients could pay. What about poor neighbourhoods where most people can't pay? What doctor would work there for free?
Interestingly, apparently the government is to blame for the crazy coupling of employment and health insurance:
...the HMO Act of 1973 forced all but the smallest employers to offer HMOs to their employees. The combined result was the illogical coupling of employment and health insurance, which often leaves the unemployed without needed catastrophic coverage.
This review is already gigantic, so I'll just finish by adding that his stance on legalising marijuana to relieve court and prison systems seems sensible, and backing the US dollar with gold is an interesting idea, but I need to know more about macroeconomics to decide if it is a good one.
Overall, thought provoking and interesting. It's also really short, so not a hard read.
4 stars.
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