Wikipedia on The Revolution: A Manifesto needs work

[LittleLightShining]

The wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution:_A_Manifesto) on TR:AM needs some help. I was just asking a friend in a Wales (A librarian) if his library had it yet and he said no. I 'm not surprised, but I wanted to send him a link of a good review, googled and found the wiki entry. It's not good at all.

[rpfan2008]

bump

[Dan.]

So...fix it up to your standards?

[LittleLightShining]

So...fix it up to your standards?The last time I changed a typo in an article my IP address was flagged so I don't think I can.

[smartguy911]

The last time I changed a typo in an article my IP address was flagged so I don't think I can.

change your IP address. if you have cable modem, leave it off line overnight. :D

[rpfan2008]

change your IP address. if you have cable modem, leave it off line overnight. :D

or use this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28anonymity_network%29

[LittleLightShining]

change your IP address. if you have cable modem, leave it off line overnight. :D

Really? Ok, thanks.

[LittleLightShining]

or use this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28anonymity_network%29:confused:

I don't understand this at all. My puter is a dinosaur and I only have the most rudimentary knowledge of its mysterious inner workings :o

[rpfan2008]

Go to the Tor Project website.. http://www.torproject.org/
Install two packages Vidalia bundle + TOR,it will connect you to a large anonymous network of computers around the world each routing its traffic through another, so one can't trace where the data packets originate or being sent. Your IP address will appear as someone else's and wiki can't ban you actual IP .

[LittleLightShining]

Go to the Tor Project website.. http://www.torproject.org/
Install two packages Vidalia bundle + TOR,it will connect you to a large anonymous network of computers around the world each routing its traffic through another, so one can't trace where the data packets originate or being sent. Your IP address will appear as someone else's and wiki can't ban you actual IP .Is that legal? Could someone be using my IP address and me not know it?

[RonPaul2000Ate]

I'll let my team of wikipedia editors know it needs fixing, they'll get on it pretty soon.

[Jeremy]

the summary section could use a lot more

I haven't finished the book yet though... still have like a quarter of it left

[Jeremy]

I'll let my team of wikipedia editors know it needs fixing, they'll get on it pretty soon.

which group? or is it a group at all?

[Soccrmastr]

Is that legal? Could someone be using my IP address and me not know it?

you use the IP address of a node. and othrs use yours if you're set up as one.

[Maestro]

Is that legal? Could someone be using my IP address and me not know it?

It is not your IP address. You are just "leasing" it for a period of time.

[LittleLightShining]

It is not your IP address. You are just "leasing" it for a period of time.Right, but it's how I can be located, isn't it?

[dannno]

Right, but it's how I can be located, isn't it?

For the moment.

[Jeremy]

Just register at Wikipedia if you don't want a shown IP address

[RonPaul2000Ate]

which group? or is it a group at all?

UWEA, the United Wikipedia Editors Alliance.

[Expatriate]

Check out the talk page for the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Revolution:_A_Manifesto). At the bottom someone pointed out this thread on this forum, they are mad that someone suggested using Tor to get around a block.

I'm surprised that those Wikipedia editors take the time to come to this site and look for people suggesting changes to Wikipedia articles:D They must really have a lot of time on their hands...

[LittleLightShining]

Well, they noticed and expanded the article. I still specifically take issue with this particular quote, as it is unqualified:


Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit gave the book a favorable, though mixed, review, saying, "The book benefits from many of the Paul campaign’s virtues, in the form of accessibility, clarity, and straightforwardness. On the other hand, it also suffers from some of the Paul campaign’s vices."[11][12]

What vices are referred to by Reynolds?

[angelatc]

Check out the talk page for the article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Revolution:_A_Manifesto). At the bottom someone pointed out this thread on this forum, they are mad that someone suggested using Tor to get around a block.

I'm surprised that those Wikipedia editors take the time to come to this site and look for people suggesting changes to Wikipedia articles:D They must really have a lot of time on their hands...

The whole concept of Wikipedia is great. I ised to give them $150, twice a year. However, like anything else, a bizarre heirarchy evolved. When I found myself heatedly arguing about why hidden DVD content should be classified as an easter egg, because that's where people were likely to look for it, I realized I was about finished with them.

I have no time for that - I have a Revolution to deal with.

[Expatriate]

The whole concept of Wikipedia is great. I ised to give them $150, twice a year. However, like anything else, a bizarre heirarchy evolved. When I found myself heatedly arguing about why hidden DVD content should be classified as an easter egg, because that's where people were likely to look for it, I realized I was about finished with them.

I have no time for that - I have a Revolution to deal with.

Hear, hear. I tried being a Wikipedia editor for a while, but I soon realized that in order to make an impact I would have to devote a rather sizeable portion of my life to it. Arguing with people about why G. Edward Griffin should not be deleted and immediately being called a sockpuppet was the last straw for me. I hope others who dislike censorship can find the time to fight the battle of Wikipedia, but the place has become a little too pedantic for me.

P.S. No offense meant to any Wikipedia editors surveilling this page: not ALL of you are that bad:D

[Expatriate]

Wow. Look at the reviews they decided to include in the article.
http://reason.com/news/show/126457.html
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=561642

Can't we find a few more good reviews from "reliable sources" to balance these out? Right now it looks like there are more bad reviews than good.

[NightOwl]

Wow. Look at the reviews they decided to include in the article.
http://reason.com/news/show/126457.html
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=561642

Can't we find a few more good reviews from "reliable sources" to balance these out? Right now it looks like there are more bad reviews than good.

How about the review by Michael Scheuer, who is a far more important figure than that nobody from Seattle? http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/scheuer9.html

[Expatriate]

How about the review by Michael Scheuer, who is a far more important figure than that nobody from Seattle? http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/scheuer9.html

I have seen multiple cases where information cited to lewrockwell.com was removed from wikipedia because, according to certain elite editors, it is an "extremist" or "fringe" website and considered "unreliable". This is the rule they use to back up their removal of anything that they feel doesn't jive with the mainstream viewpoint:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Extremist_and_fringe_so urces

Extremist and fringe sources

Main articles: Wikipedia:Verifiability#Questionable_sources and Wikipedia:Fringe theories

Organizations and individuals that express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist should be used only as sources about themselves in articles about themselves or their activities, and any information used must be directly relevant to the subject and their cause of notability. Articles using such sources should not repeat any contentious claims, or any claims made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources. Finally, these sources should never form the primary source for an article.

Organizations and individuals that promote what are widely agreed to be fringe theories (that is, views held by a small minority, in direct contrast with the mainstream view in their field), such as revisionist history or pseudoscience, should only be used as sources about themselves or, if correctly attributed as being such, to detail the views of the proponents of that subject. Use of these sources must not obfuscate the description of the mainstream view, nor should these fringe sources be used to describe the mainstream view or the level of acceptance of the fringe theory. When using such sources, reliable mainstream sources must be found in order to allow the dispute to be characterized fairly, presenting the mainstream view as the mainstream, and the fringe theory as a minority fringe view.





AFAIK this means that it is perfectly legit for an editor to repeatedly delete information that they don't like, as long as a mainstream viewpoint shares their opinion. You can try to add the review by Scheuer, but I bet it will be noticed and removed by one of the mainstream-viewpoint-enforcement-officers that patrol Wikipedia.

What bothers me about this is that Wikipedia is supposed to possess a neutral point of view (NPOV) and the MAINSTREAM point-of-view is certainly not neutral in my opinion.:( I think they should present all sides of an issue, not disqualifying certain viewpoints as "not notable enough" "extremist" or "fringe" or giving more credence to a certain opinion because more people support it according to the Old Media, especially since, according to Wikipedia itself, the Old Media's integrity itself is probably compromised (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird):eek:

Then again, notice at the top of the page on reliable sources, it mentions that occasional exceptions may be made to the rule. Since Scheuer is quoted by Ron Paul in The Revolution perhaps this makes his opinion relevant enough to be included despite the source.

Good luck if you try to add the review, make sure you properly source it though or it will disappear in a heartbeat.

[LittleLightShining]

http://thenewamerican.com/node/8045

Revolutionary Ideas
By: Charles Scaliger
May 26, 2008
» Email this page | printer friendly version

The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul, New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2008, 173 pages, hardcover.

Every now and then a book changes the course of human history. Such were the political writings of the American founding era — the pamphlets of Thomas Paine, the Federalist Papers, and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations prominent among them. The history of political freedom has been singularly blessed with epochal writings, from the musings of Cicero to 20th-century luminaries like Hazlitt, Mises, Nock, Garrett, and Flynn. Recent years, however, have seen few political statements as pithy and readable as The Law or as tightly reasoned and erudite as Human Action.

Congressman Ron Paul’s new book The Revolution: A Manifesto changes all that. Here is an elegant summary of both the philosophy and the praxis of limited government, neatly encapsulated in seven brief, masterly written chapters. The Revolution is one of those rare books that dares to tackle issues usually regarded as dauntingly complex (monetary policy in particular) and manages to render them in language both comprehensible and enjoyable to read. Nor is there a trace of the demagogy that so often passes itself off as good political prose, in this as in most other eras. The Revolution is not a rant but an impassioned appeal. It is Dr. Paul at his principled, gentlemanly, scholarly best.

Article Continues Below↓



After an introductory chapter on false choices and how the terms of modern political discourse typically exclude the crucial option of freedom, Dr. Paul tackles one of the topics for which he is best known and also most controversial: foreign policy. His language, as befits the subject matter, is diplomatic but to the point. In just 30 pages, Ron Paul gives an overview of foreign-policy issues that leaves no doubt as to the wisdom of the noninterventionist policy of the Founders. Here is a summary of American foreign-policy history, along with a brief but thorough discussion of just-war theory. Here also is a timely demolishing of the conceits that brought about the undeclared and illegitimate wars on terrorism and against Iraq, including a luminous rebuttal of those who have used Dr. Paul’s criticism of the reaction to 9/11 as an excuse to marginalize him. Who, after reading The Revolution with an open mind, could fail to reach the same ineluctable conclusions as Dr. Paul, namely, that American meddling in the Middle East has provided a strong incentive for terrorists to target the United States?

Following foreign policy, Dr. Paul devotes an entire chapter to that oft-maligned, almost universally misunderstood document, the U.S. Constitution. Here many of the most important principles of constitutional federalism are explained, including the separation between presidential and congressional war powers. Concerning the latter, Dr. Paul recounts a discussion in the House prior to the outbreak of the Iraq War, in which the then-chairman of the International Relations Committee (the late Henry Hyde, though Dr. Paul is too decorous to mention him by name) chided Ron Paul for insisting on a congressional declaration of war. “There are things in the Constitution that have been overtaken by events, by time,” the Republican congressman, who was once viewed as a champion of conservatism in the House, told Dr. Paul. “Declaration of war is one of them. There are things no longer relevant to a modern society. We are saying to the president, use your judgment. [What you have proposed is] anachronistic; it isn’t done any more.” Congressman Hyde’s statement is emblematic of the vast ideological gulf between those few souls in Washington who, like Dr. Paul, actually honor the Constitution and the vast majority who don’t.

Prominent also in Dr. Paul’s discussion of the Constitution is the bedrock principle of federalism. Nowhere in the Constitution are limitations on power more clearly delineated than in the Tenth Amendment, which reserves all powers not delegated to the federal government to the several states or to the people themselves. Yet no principle of the Constitution has been more systematically ignored or misconstructed than this one, almost from the inception of the republic. From at least the election of Andrew Jackson onward, the federal government has steadily accumulated power at the expense of the states, with major wars and economic crises along the way hastening the process. Dr. Paul points out that, regardless of almost two centuries of abusive precedent, the Tenth Amendment has not been repealed nor the principle of federalism successfully repudiated. No matter how much the opponents of federalism argue the point, the fact remains that the Founders did not intend for the American presidency to become an elective monarchy, nor the federal government to become the master of supine state legislatures.

Other chapters lay out Dr. Paul’s philosophy on economic freedom and personal liberty, seamlessly wedding the historical (Prohibition, for example) with the contemporary (the misnamed war on drugs). Especially commendable is a late chapter on the “forbidden issue in American politics,” money, which is really an explanation of what the Federal Reserve does (and doesn’t do) and why a paper money system is at variance with the policy of the Founding Fathers. Here is as concise and readable an account as you will ever find of how complex central banking isn’t. The operations of the Federal Reserve, shorn of numinous banker’s terminology, amount to a counterfeiting racket. The more paper money the Fed prints, the more the dollar’s value declines. Try printing your own money supply in your basement, and you’ll earn a prison sentence. Do essentially the same as Fed chairman, and earn the plaudits of a swooning financial press and a servile Congress. The beguiled public, meanwhile, pays the price for Fed policies in the form of economic crises, like the ongoing mortgage debacle and the steady devaluation of savings.

Congressman Paul, despite his years of being Capitol Hill’s oft-derided “Dr. No” because of his consistent voting record against unconstitutional legislation, is an optimist at heart. He recognizes that people, in the main, do not prefer bondage to freedom, despite the direction of our country or the statist politicians people vote into office. A majority of Americans, contrary to what historians have been telling us, did support the American Revolution, as Dr. Paul comments in a late footnote. Regarding our time, Dr. Paul insists that “liberty is not given a fair chance in our society, neither in the media, nor in politics, nor (especially) in education. I have spoken to many young people during my career, some of whom had never heard my ideas before. But as soon as I explained the philosophy of liberty and told them a little American history in light of that philosophy, their eyes lit up.... We are engaged in a great battle of ideas, and the choices before us could not be clearer.”

Fair enough. But a good manifesto needs to have a plan of action, not merely a statement of beliefs. And here Dr. Paul also delivers, albeit with a program that will leave the politically ambitious with the vapors. We must begin allowing people to opt out of Social Security, as a prelude to phasing out the program altogether. All cabinet budgets must be frozen immediately, and extra-constitutional departments, like the Department of Education, must be terminated. Monetary freedom, specifically, the freedom to transact business in gold and silver, should also be restored, allowing people to choose between precious metals and paper money in their business. It is not hard to see that such a step would make the elimination of the Federal Reserve much easier.

In foreign policy, Dr. Paul enjoins the recall of U.S. troops serving abroad and he makes the case that following the Golden Rule in international affairs is a much surer route to peace and stability than aggressive war.

Ultimately, Dr. Paul’s book is not so much about freedom but about consequences — what will surely come to pass if we continue to abuse our Constitution, reject free-market principles, and wage war across the globe under the spurious banner of democracy. One way or another, the militarism, the squelching of personal liberty, the “robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul,” in Kipling’s unforgettable phraseology, must come to an end, as inevitably as night follows day. From our mad careen toward insolvency and national humiliation we can either withdraw voluntarily or wait until the inexorable laws of economics and history force our hand. “I know which option I prefer,” Dr. Paul says in his concluding remarks. “Ours is not a fated existence, for nowhere is our destiny etched in stone.... If freedom is what we want, it is ours for the taking.”

Here’s hoping that Americans choose ultimately to stand with the Constitution — with freedom! We are yet a long way from the successful revolution on behalf of freedom that Ron Paul envisions, but this book is a very fine start.



Charles Scaliger is a teacher and freelance writer.

[Expatriate]

Thanks for finding that one LittleLightShining! If nobody else does it soon I'll try to add both reviews from LewRockwell and TheNewAmerican.

I just really don't feel like getting involved in an edit war on Wikipedia again, but I'd kinda like to see the reasoning they use to disqualify both those websites. The good reviews will probably end up at the bottom with a little disclaimer saying "These websites are not considered fair and balanced" or something:D

[lasenorita]

...suffers from some of the Paul campaign’s vices.

Which ones? Chocolate chip cookies and exercise (http://youtube.com/watch?v=JWAcEI1_-qg)? :p