http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/013892.html
July 01, 2007
Ron Paul Speech in its entirety
Posted by Nick Bradley at July 1, 2007 11:57 PM
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Uploading it to Google Video degraded the video quality a bit, but the sound is good.
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Ron Paul nails a bunch of the political sacred cows.
Nick Bradley blogged the following quotes.
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“You cannot have liberty without life, and you cannot have a decent life without liberty.”
“Government’s only function is to protect life and liberty…that the genius of the Constitution. But today we have a monolithic system, when we should solve our problems at the local level.”
“A fetus has legal rights; how can you allow a woman to kill her child a minute before birth, but throw her in jail for killing her baby minute after?”
“The welfare-warfare state introduces the notion that we do not own ourselves — it undermines the entire principle of liberty and the right to life. The worst part of our system is the notion that the Federal Government owns 100% of our government and merely chooses to allow us to keep part of it — let’s get rid of the income tax! (applause).”
“we don’t even own our own property — you have to get 25 permits to do anything on your own property; the concept of private property has been seriously undermined.”
“Get rid of the selective service! (applause)”
“We are facing an economic crisis — the government tells us everything is wonderful: deficits don’t matter, inflation is low, etc. etc. But if you look at your own financial situation, we are not nearly as wealthy as we think we are or foreigners see us as.”
“We are beyond our means. We China stops loaning us money, prices will go up. When our baker cuts us off, our interest rates will shoot up like in the 1970s.”
“We have accepted the notion of perpetually increasing welfarism.”
“If we do not soon get rid of this notion, we will go bankrupt.”
“We need to get rid of the Federal Reserve System (massive standing ovation).”
“You know what? The idea of paper money is so silly and dangerous — that the people allow the government that the do not trust to print funny money; and we wonder why we have problems. The Founders knew what was wrong with fiat money – they were very familiar with the collapse of the Continental; they declared that only gold and silver can be used as legal tender. There as never been a paper currency that lasted for a long time.”
“When they debase our currency, they are stealing our money!”
“Who suffers the most when the price is going up? Government — no. The middle class and the poor pay the inflation tax. Somebody is literally stealing 10% (10% real inflation) of our real income every year. Inflation wipes out the middle class. Just look at Mexico. Maybe if Mexico had a sound currency we wouldn’t have an illegal immigration problem.”
“The Federal Reserve causes the Business Cycle. We have no savings, yet interest rates are low. In a free market, if savings rates are low, interest rates are high.”
“The booms and the busts, the Great Depression, etc. all this cannot happed without the Federal Reserve System. We have to get rid of it.”
“The Fed enhances the growth of government.”
“Banks create credit our of thin air. Special interests who benefit from this want to preserve the Federal Reserve System. As president, we will not have this system.”
“We are set up for hyperinflation. We are not immune. We need more people like you when our system collapses so we can get back to the basics of a sound monetary system.”
“War is the health of the state. Up in a debate with ‘that mayor from New York City’ (hisses from the crowd), I said that they are over here because we are over there. (applause).
“We need to realize why these attacks happen, because when there is a Pearl Harbor or 9/11, we have to retaliate.”
“I was against the war 15 years before it started (the Gulf War.”
“It was in 1998 when I really started opposing the war, when Congress voted for regime change.”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t persuade a lot of people. I did my best, but it was not enough. I told the international relations committee that if they thing that going to war is such a good idea, they should declare war (massive applause).”
“One member of Congress told me that the declaration of war section of a Constitution is an anachronism. It falls on Congress to go to war. They delivered this responsibility to the President — they were amending the Constitution. They are now squirming over their stance a few years ago.”
“There is a strong history of non-interventionism in the Republican Party — let’s remind them of that (applause).”
“The Party is now stuck in the position of having to defend the indefensible. There is now way to continue to do well without resolving this.”
“In 2000, I thought ‘a humble foreign policy sounds good’, but that is not what we got.”
“Life is precious. But many in the right-to-life movement agitate for selective service and foreign wars. I told them that ‘you care more about your guns than you care about your kids’. We should never forget about the Christian Church’s teaching about ‘Just War.’ I do not have to accept passivism, and the second amendment protects me on that (applause). And under the constitution, we have a right to protect ourselves against threats. The problem is when we go to far and spread ourselves thin, we undermine our national security.”
“We need to bring the troops home to protect the border (massive applause).”
“In Just War theory, we have to follow a set of reasonable standards. It must only be in defense, it must be proportional, and it must be declared by the proper authority. But now we send our boys over there to enforce UN Resolutions. The best thing for us is to get out of the United Nations (standing ovation).
“We are in worse shape than when Woodrow Wilson was president. Today we are told that the war is endless. The war on terrorism is not a war — it is a tactic. Once we are told by our gov’t that the war is perpetual, they say that we must be willing to send our children anywhere in the world — that must end now! (applause)”
“After 9/11, they immediately started planning a war in Iraq. Talk about an interventionist foreign policy backfiring — we had Iran in check with their arch-enemies, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein and we get rid of them. What if they come to the conclusion that we inadvertently helped the Iranians. We need to quit.”
“There is preparation going on for a war on Iran. We don’t have enough troops to invade, so it will be different. Other candidates in our party are willing to launch a nuclear first-strike on Iran. We need to come back to our senses.”
“We are capable of defending ourselves. We have a policy designed that literally rewards those with nuclear weapons. Pakistan gets a nuke, and Musharraf overthrows a democratic government, and now they’re our friends. Pakistan is harboring bin Laden, and we send them money — and Pakistan sends nuclear technology to North Korea too. Let’s stop subsidizing them.”
“It’s not like WWII, where these measures can be repealed after the war — this war is perpetual!”
“Today, the president can declare an insurrection — only congress has the right to declare martial law. Americans can be held as enemy combatants without due process, without habeas corpus. These laws are designed to protect the state, when the state is designed to protect you! (applause)”
“Our country was founded as a republic. Natural Rights are not up for majority vote. Empire contradicts the notion of a Republic.”
“Down in Arizona, my supporters were talking about a Revolution. And I like Revolution, but a non-violent one. I want to go back to the Constitution, and today that IS Revolutionary. Historically, Revolutions are started by a select few, and are ignored by the mainstream for a long time — until they can no longer be ignored. That point has passed, and they can ignore us no longer.”
“They try to ridicule us for standing up for principle. We are moving gently over into the next stage, when they directly fight us — a philosophic fight of course.”
“They want to silence us — but they now fail to invite us to their little parties, so we now have our own, bigger parties (massive applause). Those same individuals who undermine our democratic process at home are the same who send your money and your kids overseas to build democracy in the middle east.”
“In the end, you win (revolution).”
“The purpose of politics should be simple — the promotion of liberty. All I have to do is fulfill my office, and obey the Constitution.”
“The exciting about the campaign is all the young people, they’ve been tipped off that they’re getting the bad end of this deal — massive debt, loss of liberty, invasion of privacy. They know this!”
“Maybe, just maybe, will be the ones who are on our side for the preservation of liberty — and that is exciting!”
“True principles are outdated. You know what is outdated? Tyranny! Authoritarianism! (massive applause).”
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