James Madison once wrote, "A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives." To those who seek to reclaim their command over American government today, The American Ideology serves as a powerful weapon to advance that cause.
The American Ideology provides an objective investigation into the political philosophy that facilitated self-government in the United States. The book examines the origin of the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence. It demonstrates how the Constitution was designed to preserve those ideals. And it identifies the fundamental values that must accompany freedom in any republic in order to sustain it. Based on the writings and speeches of the Founding Fathers, the observations of Alexis de Tocqueville, and the critical works of John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu, and William Blackstone, The American Ideology serves as an authoritative study on the foundation of American liberty.
The American Ideology also sheds light on the means by which the federal government has since subverted American liberty. It identifies the points in American history when the government has departed from its founding principles. It explains how the federal government's commerce and taxing powers under the Constitution have been stretched so far that any kind of individual activity can now be taxed and regulated. And thanks to the Supreme Court's recent ruling on the legality of "Obamacare," the federal government now has free reign to coerce individual behavior--it can tax and regulate inactivity.
When this regulatory state is compared against the Founding Fathers' original design, it is clear that the federal government's authority today is overbearing, unnatural, and unconstitutional. As Brian Vanyo writes in The American Ideology, there is a way for change to prevail--for the people to recover their sovereignty and restore their natural rights. Using the political philosophy that inspired the American Revolution, there is a way for the people to win their independence once again. But they must first arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.