A Reason to Vote [Paperback]

Robert Roth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1999

The Natural Law Party was founded in 1992 to create a new mainstream political party that would offer voters forward-looking, prevention-oriented, commonsense solutions to America's problems. Here is the remarkable story of the party's founding and its successful efforts to enter the national political arena, as well as the party's point-by-point platform to lead the country into the new millennium and an update by the author for the 2000 elections.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An engaging book . . . I enthusiastically recommended A Reason to Vote for courses in American politics, legislative studies, and party politics."--Carol M. Swain, Ph.D., Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University

"In this startling and well-researched book, Robert Roth documents the creeping decline of American democracy in the last half-century."--Harvey Brooks, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

"I consider it to be one of the most important books of the late twentieth century. It infuriated me, and it enlightened me. The Natural Law Party is the mechanism of political choice for the next decade." --Neale Donald Walsch, author of The New York Times bestselling Conservations with God

"Third parties have contributed huge ideas to American politics, from the abolition of slavery, to a woman's right to vote, to child-labor laws. A Reason to Vote give us the information we need to bring third parties back to center stage."--Marianne Williamson, author of The Healing of America

"A brilliant and provocative book which argues impressively that the America envisioned by our nation's founders can be realized through the Natural Law Party. This is must reading for our democracy to thrive."--Harold H. Bloomfield, M.D., author of Healing Anxiety Naturally

From the Publisher

"Third parties have contributed huge ideas to American politics, from the abolition of slavery, to a woman's right to vote.... A Reason to Vote gives us the information that we need to bring third parties back to the center stage." --Marianne Williamson, author of The Healing of America

"I consider it to be one of the most important books of the late 20th century. It infuriated me, and it enlightened me. The Natural Law Party is the mechanism of political choice for the next decade." --Neale Donald Walsch, author of The New York Times bestselling Conversations With God

"A brilliant and provocative book which argues impressively that the America envisioned by our nation's founders can be realized through the Natural Law Party. This is must reading for our democracy to thrive." --Harold Bloomfield, Ph.D., author of Healing Anxiety with Herbs

"In this startling and well-researched book, Robert Roth documents the creeping decline of American democracy in the last half-century." --Harvey Brooks, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

"An engaging book...I enthusiastically recommend A Reason to Vote for courses in American politics, legislative studies, and party politics." --Carol M. Swain, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and author of Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress

"For a better tomorrow we desperately want and need visionary leaders with new ideas, hopes, and possibilities to make it work now! A Reason to Vote teaches and gives that alternative." --Mark Victor Hansen, co-author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312243162
• ISBN-13: 978-0312243166
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,764,641 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will send you running to the voting both in 2000!, December 3, 1999

By 

Roger Pelizzari (Fairfield, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Reason to Vote (Paperback)

Abe Lincoln once called America, "the last best hope" for the world. Robert Roth's A REASON TO VOTE may well be the last best hope for America and the world. The bottom line -- even if you've given up on the mud, blood, and influence peddling of politics, this book will send you running back to the voting booth.

Roth's personal and powerful first person narration leaps off the page. As press secretary for the NLP, the fastest growing new political party in America, he has stood on the front lines of third-party battles to reclaim democracy and access to the ballot and the debates. He unmasks our democracy to be the most exclusionary and undemocratic of any on earth.

"How tough is it for third parties? As Richard Winger [America's leading authority on third-parties] said, in most states, Republicans and Democrats have written the laws that grant themselves automatic access to the ballot. On the other hand, in 1998, a new party must collect over 5 million valid signatures to run a full slate of candidates nationwide."

This is only the first hurdle in an obstacle course built by the two major parties, and supported by the mainstream press. We hear harrowing experiences of volunteers who, in 1996, in the face of unconstitutional opposition from the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Election Commission, and the courts (whose members are either Democrats or Republicans) achieved ballot access for NLP candidates in fifty states. We share in their exhilaration and confidence that it is possible to meet the challenge of a nation in transitiion.

That transition from a world of disconnected, selfish, quarreling factions to one of purpose and unity, is profoundly described by the doctors, scientists, teachers, and farmers that Roth interviews. We learn how close "natural law" is to our lives from world-renowned Unified Field physicist and NLP Presidential candidate, Dr. John Hagelin.

"Everything we accomplish is achieved by applying natural laws," he says. "We have the electric light courtesy of technologies that apply natural law, a man walked on the moon and a rover scoured the surface of Mars because of technologies that harness natural law, and we treat our sick with medicines that utilize laws of nature.

"The problem is that technologies can be used for good or for bad....With so much money invested in the research and development of new technologies, these technologies often get shoved into the marketplace before they are adequately tested for safety. To protect their investments, these industries also pour megabucks into the treasure chests of both the Republican and Democratic parties."

A clear view of the problem, and the amazingly simple solution -- the NLP's fool proof formula for assessing new technologies -- that they must work! It rings true even in sound bitten ears. And Mike Tompkins, NLP Vice-Presidential candidate, and descendant of former Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, tells us why, enlightening us about our nation's natural law origins,

"... before the Republicans, before the Democrats, before all the other political parties there was natural law. One of the founders of our country, John Adams, called natural law 'the Great Legislator of the Universe.' And in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, in the very beginning of the document, derived our very existence as a country and also all our rights from what he called the 'laws of nature.'

"...Our founders believed that if we could gain knowledge of natural law, of how it operates both inside us and all around us, then we would grow as individuals and also as a nation."

For the facts about genetic engineering that few reporters are aware of or brave enough to print Roth turns to the maverick molecular biologist, Dr. John Fagan, who in 1994 returned $614,000 in grant money and withdrew proposals for $1.25 million more from the National Institutes of Health in protest of the deadly direction in which genetic engineers are leading us. If anyone is still swallowing the strange science that biotechs are dishing out they're in for a jolt of the real stuff. Step by step, Fagan exposes the dangers inherent in manipulating a system which has taken millions of years to evolve.

Then comes another jolt when we learn that

"...the testing of genetically engineered substances at present is largely voluntary-more than 90% of genetically engineered foods are not required to be tested before they enter the market. Consequently, the details of the testing programs are left primarily in the hands of the developers-namely, the biotech industry. We've left the fox guarding the chickens."

But Roth energizes us again with the story of the Mothers for Natural Law, Laura Ticciati's amazing nonprofit group that has formed an unprecedented coalition of statesman, scientists, doctors, clergy, farmers, and businessman to stand up to the biotech industry.

Next Roth lets some of the nation's leading doctors describe America's 'disease care system', a system that results in more than 3 million injured by medical mistake, and more than 180,000 deaths from 'correct practice' each year. We hear about the body's inner intelligence and how natural medicine is quickly rising to become the new world standard with proven preventative measures and no negative side effects.

Crime? No problem. With powerful techniques like Transcendental Meditation, Judges report addicts stay out of prison and off drugs, and the American Heart Association says the neglected victims of crime , the elderly, become free of hypertension.

Throughout this invincible book, from schools that foster creative genius, to a global information economy that encourages perpetual learning, to a peacekeeping force that will make war finally impossible, Roth keeps the emphasis on powerful, practical, and proven solutions. It will empower all who read it. Free of the Donkey and the Elephant at last, we could vote with our heads on straight in the the first year of the millenium

We now have a reason to vote.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars vitally important, a must-read and act-upon book, October 27, 1999

By 

Sundareshvar - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Reason to Vote (Paperback)

"A Reason to Vote" opened my eyes to the state of our democracy, and how we the people have been denied any substantive choice of leaders by the crushing two-party system and by the tyranny of special interest lobbies. However, more important than exposing the problems, Mr. Roth offers a practical solution that empowers his readers to turn around the deplorable state of politics and government in the USA: The Natural Law Party. "A Reason to Vote" is so powerful it has even inspired me, a person who could be described as usually apolitical, to join the Natural Law Party and run for office!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You WILL want to vote after reading this, March 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Reason to Vote (Paperback)

The importance of this book can't be overstated. You will learn about the deplorable state of American democracy and be infuriated. But you will also learn about what can be done and be motivated to be part of the solution.