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A review by tonydecember
Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History by Andrew P. Napolitano, Ron Paul
4.0
It's good to read the works of a legal analyst who is no mere pundit and actually has significant judicial experience. Judge Napolitano, a libertarian, provides plenty to consider regarding the current state of our laws and constitutional history, and rallies readers to be aware and wary of governmental paternalism.
While some of his views are ripe for heated debate -- on successfully interpreting the Second Amendment to the Constitution, for example -- he does challenge readers to really think more broadly and deeply about our current American reality versus the common mythologies that we have digested since childhood and almost unquestioningly accepted as gospel.
The further you read along in this book, the more Napolitano reveals the frightening world we've inherited from our ruling class.
Must read chapters are those about:
...the loss of our gold monetary standard, and the Federal Reserve being the creation and sole domain of private bankers who "run" the country to this day;
...personal income taxation (representation seemingly immaterial to the tentacles of power) as originally a "temporary" measure of the Civil War, unapologetically revisited during the First World War, solidified with the Sixteenth Amendment and resurrected for good yet again during the Second World War;
...going to war: from flawed domino theories to our Prohibition on drugs;
...the damning, incontrovertible cases against the Bush administration for subverting the Constitution to justify a self-proclaimed war and profoundly illegal uses of torture;
...the not-so-free-as-you-thought U.S. market economy and the financial collapse of the last few years;
...and the irrefutable unconstitutionality of the so-called "Patriot Act" that Bush bequeathed to the nation and that Obama, the civil rights-minded attorney, has -- astoundingly -- maintained as law without even any remote sign of redress.
Quotables:
"There is only one reason that the government takes away freedoms: Freedom is an obstacle to...the lust to dominate."
Andrew Napolitano
"We have one party, the Big Government Party. There is a Republican version that assaults our civil liberties and loves deficits and war, and a Democratic version that assaults our commercial liberties and loves wealth transfers and taxes."
Andrew Napolitano
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money...the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless...."
Thomas Jefferson
While some of his views are ripe for heated debate -- on successfully interpreting the Second Amendment to the Constitution, for example -- he does challenge readers to really think more broadly and deeply about our current American reality versus the common mythologies that we have digested since childhood and almost unquestioningly accepted as gospel.
The further you read along in this book, the more Napolitano reveals the frightening world we've inherited from our ruling class.
Must read chapters are those about:
...the loss of our gold monetary standard, and the Federal Reserve being the creation and sole domain of private bankers who "run" the country to this day;
...personal income taxation (representation seemingly immaterial to the tentacles of power) as originally a "temporary" measure of the Civil War, unapologetically revisited during the First World War, solidified with the Sixteenth Amendment and resurrected for good yet again during the Second World War;
...going to war: from flawed domino theories to our Prohibition on drugs;
...the damning, incontrovertible cases against the Bush administration for subverting the Constitution to justify a self-proclaimed war and profoundly illegal uses of torture;
...the not-so-free-as-you-thought U.S. market economy and the financial collapse of the last few years;
...and the irrefutable unconstitutionality of the so-called "Patriot Act" that Bush bequeathed to the nation and that Obama, the civil rights-minded attorney, has -- astoundingly -- maintained as law without even any remote sign of redress.
Quotables:
"There is only one reason that the government takes away freedoms: Freedom is an obstacle to...the lust to dominate."
Andrew Napolitano
"We have one party, the Big Government Party. There is a Republican version that assaults our civil liberties and loves deficits and war, and a Democratic version that assaults our commercial liberties and loves wealth transfers and taxes."
Andrew Napolitano
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money...the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless...."
Thomas Jefferson