I was fortunate to get my hands on an early version Dr. Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto” almost two months ago. The book is a magnificent, concise, compelling… a approachable yet radical call for peace and freedom.

The book is officially released today and is currently number one on Amazon.com.

The most hopeful thing about Paul’s run for the Whit House is the support from young Americans that Dr. Paul received. So it should be no surprise that this is the perfect book for young Americans fresh out of high school or college.

Buy 5 copies, two for you and three to give away.

David Weigel examines all the contenders and pretenders for the Libertarian Party’s nomination.

(For a bit of history on how one wins the LP nomination, I recommend the late R.W. Bradford’s classic account of the 2004 convention that resulted in dark horse Michael Badnarik’s nomination.)

My inaugural post on the Ron Paul Blog was delayed by a few days because after 8 months in the trenches of the presidential campaign, I needed to relax and recharge my batteries. That meant a visit to Costa Rica. 

I find the “Rich Coast,” as Columbus coined it, to be an interesting study in comparative culture.  Costa Rica has no military, banned by the 1949 constitution, which was written after an attempted military coup. Costa Ricans are not known to suffer foolishness gladly.

The country also has virtually no zoning laws, yet somehow American fast food joints, houses, offices, schools, and “sodas,” the little family-owned lunch counters that spring from the foyers and front yards of hundreds of homes throughout the country, manage to coexist peacefully and create far more colorful and convenient neighborhoods than the zoned to death mega-suburbs and ex-urbs that litter the American landscape.

As for personal behavior, the law expects you to make good choices and take responsibility for bad ones. 

It is a cultural worldview that does not assume that dictating behavior can create optimal outcomes.  I often observe that the most palpable difference between the US and CR is that in the States, many of the choices of previous generations are lost to us, replaced by edicts. Personal responsibility for decision-making replaced by blind adherence to the decisions made by others on your behalf.

Tico’s, as they call themselves, see it differently. They see the primary function of government to defend liberty, not to regulate behavior. Costa Ricans call their way of seeing things, “Pura Vida,” pure life.  When you are there, the difference between freedom and managed freedom becomes obvious.

And so I submit, for your consideration, a benchmark for when I will know that our revolution has succeeded. 

When I can share a bottle of wine with a date in a public park, when I can build a business, or a home, or a swimming pool on my land without asking permission, when I can have a bonfire on the beach without police involvement. I short, when I can make reasonable choices affecting only my own happiness without bumping up against the state, whatever form it takes.

The following is word for word from one of the DEA’s website many propaganda websites:

A word about prohibition: lots of you hear the argument that alcohol prohibition failed—so why are drugs still illegal? Prohibition did work. Alcohol consumption was reduced by almost 60% and incidents of liver cirrhosis and deaths from this disease dropped dramatically (Scientific American, 1996, by David Musto). Today, alcohol consumption is over three times greater than during the Prohibition years. Alcohol use is legal, except for kids under 21, and it causes major problems, especially in drunk driving accidents.

It’s up to you to get the facts. To know the difference between fact and fiction. To think twice.

It’d almost be funny if the government wasn’t spending billions of dollars to lock up millions of people using this flawed reasoning.

RonPaulBlog.com blogger Daniel McCarthy’s write-up on what comes next for the Ron Paul rEVOLution is online on the American Conservative’s website.

Included in the article is a look at fellow RPB blogger Jonathan Bydlak’s new Discover Scholars initiative.

Since Team McCain continues to have fund raising problems, they’re turning to…

forced inmate labor.

Now for a little self-promotion…

I’ll be on the Livin Large with Geoff Pinkus radio show today around 6:30 7 pm Eastern time talking about state imposed smoking bans and giving some cigar recommendations.  The show is on 560 AM WIND in Chicago.

You listen live online here.

Here is my appearance from last week:

The Stogie Guys on Livin Large with Geoff Pinkus

For more cigar blogging come on over to StogieGuys.com

One interesting theme from this year is that the conflict between what conventions are supposed to be, and what they really are is being drawn out on both the Democrat and Republican sides.

Democrats are facing what will likely be the first truly contested convention in decades, with Clinton positioning her candidacy to challenge for the nomination all the way to the convention.  Many Democrat insiders (including DNC chair Howard Dean) want the delegate counts worked out by the end of June latest, so that the convention can be only a formality. 

Meanwhile, the Ron Paul challenge to McCain’s presumptive nomination is challenging the notion that the GOP convention in Minnesota should be a coronation of McCain devoid of debate or anything that might not be favorable to McCain. Paul supporters say they want to be in Minnesota to ensure that Paul gets to speak at the convention and to be there to push the free-market, limited government, libertarian views of their candidate.  (Let’s not forget it was Republican saint Ronald Reagan who once said “I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism.”)

The view of Minnesota as simply a formality for McCain was expressed during yesterday’s events in Nevada where Ron Paul supporters challenged attempts by GOP party officials to push through a McCain slate of delegates:

Despite a Paul majority in delegates, McCain will win Nevada support at the national convention, said Ryan Erwin, a Republican consultant from Las Vegas who supports McCain.

“This is still a McCain convention,” Erwin said, adding that enthusiasm for Paul’s speech was for his message, not necessarily his candidacy. “There are parts of his message that the entire Republican base likes.

“But at the end of the day, part of the job of being a national delegate is to do what is best for the party in November. And that means supporting the party’s nominee.”

But that view rejects the fact that national conventions are ostensibly for the purpose of selecting the nominee.  And that selection process is the justification for the over four million in taxpayer funding that each major party receives to hold the convention.  (Interestingly, the timing of the conventions is now determined by efforts to maximize the public general election money.) 

My view is that if the GOP and the McCain organization want the convention to be a four day long press conference for McCain’s candidacy they shouldn’t be doing it on the taxpayers dime.  As long as they take the public’s money - and I don’t think they should - they need to accept that the purpose is to pick a nominee, meaning that forcing out or silencing dissenting delegates who don’t support the presumptive nominee is a violation of their justification for taking money from the public’s coffers.