Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) may not become the Republican presidential nominee this year, but his campaign ignited the fires of liberty in millions of Americans and the revolution started last year has only just begun. Now comes The Revolution: A Manifesto, Paul’s clear, concise vision of how American liberty has been lost and how to get it back.

The Revolution hit the number one spot on theNew York Times bestseller list last week, in part due to a concerted book-buying campaign by Ron Paul supporters, and is still at number five this week.

I didn’t pick up a copy yesterday; instead I discovered that in a brilliant bit of forward thinking, the publisher saw fit to make it available to the Amazon Kindle. So I purchased an electronic copy and had it here in my hotel room seconds later.

If “Truth is treason in the empire of lies,” as Paul writes, then he has certainly committed treason by laying out the truth of the precarious state of the United States in 2008. With seemingly endless, senseless wars consuming our dollars and killing our brothers and sisters, recession today with economic collapse in the near future, and an ever-growing police state at home masquerading as security, homeland or otherwise, America stands at the brink of ruin.

Yet there is hope, and there is a way out. It was this hope which drew so many to Ron Paul’s campaign and which motivates them to continue their support even today, when his chance of becoming President is about the same as his vote percentage in the primaries. Wherever I go in these United States, I continue to meet people whose support of Ron Paul is unwavering because he is honest and his message is true.

I’ll quote briefly from the preface:

There is an alternative to national bankruptcy, a bigger police state, trillion-dollar wars, and a government that draws ever more parasitically on the productive energies of the American people. It’s called freedom. But as we’ve learned through hard experience, we are not going to hear a word in its favor if our political and media establishments have anything to say about it.

If we want to live in a free society, we need to break free from these artificial limitations on free debate and start asking serious questions once again. I am happy that my campaign for the presidency has finally raised some of them. But this is a long-term project that will persist far into the future. These ideas cannot be allowed to die, buried beneath the mind-numbing chorus of empty slogans and inanities that constitute official political discourse in America.

That is why I wrote this book. — Ron Paul, The Revolution

(As with other book reviews I’ve done, I won’t give away much of the book; hopefully just enough to convince you that it’s worth reading.)

Paul begins, appropriately enough, by analyzing the “false choices” with which questions of American policy are framed, demolishing the assumptions behind each of them that government must somehow involve itself in solving social and economic problems, when the truth is that, as Ronald Reagan said, “government is the problem.”

And one of the largest areas that government is the problem is in foreign policy. Paul points out again and again that the United States has strayed far from “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none,” as Thomas Jefferson advised. But he also pulls out powerful quotes from George Washington’s farewell address: “Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. . . . But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences. . . . The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. . . . Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?”

Why indeed should we listen to them? Times have changed, after all. Paul tells us why we should still be following “this sensible advice,” a part I won’t give away, and also points out that following that advice was one of George W. Bush’s many broken campaign promises.

While we’re at it, since times have changed, let’s just throw out that whole Constitution thing. Or, wait, we can’t do that, it’s not politically feasible, so we’ll just reinterpret it to mean whatever we want it to mean, like Alice in Wonderland. Ron Paul discusses the Constitution, along with modern day presidential executive orders and signing statements, showing how far we have gone away from the meaning and intention of the Constitution and how our society and country have been damaged as a result.

Jefferson’s approach to the Constitution — which he adamantly believed could be understood by the average person and was not some secret teaching that had to be divined by immortals in black robes — was refreshingly simple. If a proposed federal law was not listed among the powers granted to Congress in Article I, Section 8, then no matter how otherwise attractive it seemed, it had to be rejected on constitutional grounds. If it were especially wise or desirable, there would be no difficulty in amending the Constitution to allow for it. And according to Jefferson we should always bear in mind, to the extent possible, the original intention of those who drafted and ratified the Constitution. “On every question of construction, carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”

“Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution,” Jefferson advised us. “Let us not make it a blank paper by construction.” — Ron Paul, The Revolution

This is obviously not what the Supreme Court does today. Instead they call it a “living document,” which means a blank paper by construction, on which any meaning can be attached. Paul asks if by doing so, America is not violating “the terms of its contract with the people, interpreting its words to mean something very different from what the American people had all along been told they meant?” A “living” Constitution, Paul says, is actually “a dead Constitution, since such a thing is completely unable to protect us against the encroachments of government power.”

Paul discusses next how government power is used to encroach on economic freedom, allowing some to benefit at the expense of others, with government as the gun-wielding middleman, why this is so harmful to everyone, even the supposed beneficiaries, and how true economic freedom would allow all to prosper at no one else’s expense. He exposes how special interest groups use government to obtain money and favors, and how both of these harm you.

He also discusses the encroachments on civil liberties and personal freedom and argues that personal freedom and economic freedom are inextricably linked; you cannot have one without the other. In discussing the war on terror and the police state that is growing up around it at home, Paul illustrates vividly how the government has scared people into giving up their essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety — and as we all know, we don’t even have that; since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, we’re more vulnerable than ever. Paul makes the case that “it is precisely during times of relative crisis that we should adhere most closely to the Constitution, not abandon it.”

Next, Paul discusses money. Everyone knows something is terribly wrong with the American economy, but few seem to know exactly what or why. Ron Paul explains clearly exactly what has happened: Why there was a housing bubble and why it burst. Why the dollar is tanking. Why the price of gas, food and everything else is skyrocketing. Along the way he gives a crash course on Austrian economics, after which money may actually start to make sense, and the scam which is fiat money in general, and the Federal Reserve in specific, by which everyone is stolen from, is laid bare.

Finally, Paul closes by explaining how we can get out of the mess we’ve gotten ourselves into. If you’ve ever heard him speak, you know the answer already, and the answer is simple: Freedom.

Paul also acknowledges his nickname, “Dr. No,” and tells what he thinks of it. But I won’t give that away either.

The only thing I didn’t like about The Revolution is that it wasn’t published four months ago when it might have had a great impact on his presidential campaign. Nevertheless, this book is essential reading for every American who knows that something is deeply wrong with the country but can’t quite pinpoint it. You’ll find out where we’ve gone wrong and how we can start to set things right.