I found this book while I was researching the 17th Amendment, which elects Senators by popular vote rather than by the state legislatures. I think the 17th Amendment is one of the most damaging Amendments (along with the 16th on income tax) because it has allowed America to become a democracy where the majority can vote away the rights of the minorities (e.g. voting to increase taxes on the rich so the money can be redistributed to the poor). The Founding Fathers purposely created a system where one house (the House of Representatives) was elected by the people and the other (the Senate) was elected by the states. This system was to ensure that neither faction (people or states) would gain the upper hand and lead to tyranny. The 17th Amendment passed the congress in 1912, and it took exactly 100 years for a majority of the people wishing to violate the property rights of the minority to vote into power a President and a majority of Senators committed to carrying out their wishes.
While researching the 17th Amendment on the web, the only author I found with this same view was Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. I figured that if he got this right, he must have other useful things to say and I was not disappointed. This book is a long list of ways the government has lied to the American people as a cover for its own increasing power. It discusses many Supreme Court cases which set the precedent for increasing the power of the federal government and which have changed the course of America for the worse.
The most useful insight from this book is that politicians were no better one hundred years ago than they are today. It make Obama look like just more of the same rather than a radical departure from previous politicians. I was especially interested in the duplicity and arrogant power grabs of FDR who probably did more to damage this country than any other president.
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