Ron Paul - "The Revolution: A Manifesto"

Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) has published his review of Ron Paul's "The Revolution: A Manifesto" and over all I would say it is mildly positive, so maybe the book isn't a total waste of time. Reynolds said something though that bothered me, and I also hear this from a lot of conservatives and it bothers me from them too:

Paul is surely right that the federal government has expanded its powers far beyond anything the Framers contemplated, involving itself in things, like public education, that are best left to the states and to private entities.

In and of itself I agree that the federal government is too large and too bloated and that many responsibilities should be devolved to state and local communities, but I find the idea that the reason for doing so isn't governmental efficiency and maximum personal freedom but the fact that the "founders didn't contemplate it" to be troubling.

The founders also didn't contemplate allowing women and non-landowners to vote. Should we return to a system in which what is essentially a small landed aristocracy controls the country? The founders appear to reject the idea of a standing army. Should we have not fought and won the cold war?

There were lots of other things that the founders didn't contemplate in America's shift from an agrarian, mainly homogeneous, rural society to an industrial, urban, culturally diverse one. That is why they included both the necessary and proper clause and a method of amending the Constitution.

Like Justice Scalia I reject the idea of the "Living Constitution", in fact I agree with him that originalism is the proper method for interpretation, but I also realize that trying to freeze a society in time is a recipe for disaster. That is one of the major disagreements I have with the tear it all down school of conservatism / libertarianism.