Cheap Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power and Deception in American History

Judge Andrew Napolitano takes a broad brush and paints a picture of Constitutional abuses that have transpired from history past and present. His premise is that both the Democrats and Republicans have been way to busy promoting the political agenda of each party and failing to uphold the Constitution. This is the one area of his book that I find myself in agreement. The Washington powerbase is being played between two parties and a third party stands little chance of breaking into this old boy's club. Napolitano's case in this book is to drum up a ground swell movement to take back Washington and build up the Libertarian Party. This book bases lots of its' economic theories from the Austrian School of Economics. These theories argue that any government intervention is destructive. The theory, in essence, is to allow the free-market forces to have full sway in the well organized economic community. I like some of these economist theories especially Fredrich Von Hayeks'. The economics of the book are not its problems and sadly getting government out of our lives is almost next to impossible. Unfortunately for this book there was a tendency to start picking and choosing historical facts to fit an agenda and presenting them as true. Thomas Jefferson stated that "The moment a person forms a theory his imagination see in every object only the traits which favor that theory". This is where the problem arises in this book. Napolitano or his researchers start playing fast and easy with some, not all, history. My first red flag jumped up when he begs the question on McCulloch vs Maryland and the necessary and proper clause that John Marshall ruled which gave the Supreme Court, and not the states, the right to interpret the Constitution. Napolitano never really states whether he wanted the Supreme Court to maintain this or send it out for some sort of peer review. The next red flag was on Lincoln. He takes the position of dressing Lincoln up in the tyranny suit because of his bending the Constitution to prevent more states from joining the Confederacy. Unfortunately the suit doesn't fit very well and mainstream historians reject the tyranny totalitarian label. The other red flag was on FDR using Pearl Harbor as a catalyst to get America into WWII. This is merely conjecture and the good judge knows better than to try and pass something off with mere speculation. The McCollum memo makes good fireside chat and conspiracy theories chatter but not much more. That FDR even saw, heard or acted upon this letter's points can only be guessed at. If Napolitano or his staff can read and understand the closed FDR mind they would be the only ones to have done it. Most of the time FDR had the habit of keeping his own council and not even his closest advisors knew what he was thinking. I really did want to like this book. There are so many ways we need to watch and get government off our backs but merely removing Amendments and laws without offering a better way may sale books but will not protect us poor citizenry when the winds blow and those lusting power hungry Democrats and Republicans turn back on us. We do really need to watch that the Constitution is not violated but I can only recommend part of this book. 2.5 StarsGet more detail about Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power and Deception in American History.