Prepare for the Worst | Ron Paul

[Music] the doors are closing Ron is in the room yeah and the man to introduce in is the founder of the Ludwig von Mises Institute still serves as chairman and CEO mr. Lew Rockwell [Music] [Applause] well how do you introduce Ron Paul I could obviously take the rest of this meeting telling you about his qualifications I'll just mention a couple of things that when the Mises Institute was founded this man who from the time he was a medical student was reading Austrian economics and is because long ago even though his professional qualifications are in medicine is a real Austrian economist was a big help to the finding of the Institute financially help get us on the road and one of our members here was just reminding me of our first conference in 1983 in Washington DC on the gold standard that a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors came to debate Ron said was I think unless Erica and institution maybe in those days were on beaten by the way Charles party you won't be surprised to find out Ron has been beating the Federal Reserve ever thus ever since the fact that Ben Bernanke is having so much trouble today in Washington due to Ron Paul and all the work it's a building on the work of Mises and rothbard and Hayek and all our other great heroes we have our current hero who in his presidential campaign took the Austrian school to a big step up so that today there's no question that all over this country is Tom woods mentioned young people old people everybody's interested in the ideas of the Austrian school and we have a lot to say a lot of thank-yous to say to our next speaker for this wonderful thing that's happening for the trouble Bernanke is in dr. Ron Paul [Applause] thank you thank you very much like I often say I don't get that applause in Washington DC's so it's good to be at home it's good to be in Texas and it's good to be back in America so it's it's very nice to be here among friends but I do notice Lou I think there are more people here then than before it seems like there's being there's some growth in our movement and thank you very much for coming [Applause] there was a time when we would have meet again maybe that'd be six or eight or ten or twelve of us talking about what we ought to do with the future and now now it is a delight to see the growth and the enthusiasm and to me it's very encouraging I get a lot of credit for encouraging other people and getting them involved but the truth is is especially when I go to the universities I get a lot of encouragement because I find the young people are responding so favorably but this is there's definite signs that significant changes occurring and I do truly believe there is a revolution going on in this country [Applause] and I say that in in in the good sense of the word a revolution a true revolution is philosophic it's a change of ideas and it's it's pervasive it's not a Republican revolution or democratic revolution and I often think about you know how the revolution occurred in the 30s at least a continuation of one I actually started literally but a significant revolutionary change in in attitude and then it was sort of the climax came when it was announced it was official when we had President Nixon say we're all Kansans now so there may be a day that I will get up and we'll have somebody in Washington say we're all Austrians now you know it has been a lot of fun and a lot of enjoyment special for me in the last two years and also very hectic at times and but things definitely change after the presidential Kenny dramatically there was a big change in my personal life it was a big change in in attitudes and respect for what we all have been saying for so long but actually there's a change in walking through airports and that sometimes is you know quite you know enjoyable I meet a lot of people but it is fascinating why I'm so fascinated is by the individuals who come up and are excited about getting a picture or talking about what I've been doing and I can tell you the people who come and talk to me and want more information on they're very diverse believe me they do not look like the typical Republican and and I think this is great [Applause] those interested come from all walks of life there is no doubt that they don't come from the business class or the banking class although we'll have them but they'll come from the working class and then you know all areas of the society but because freedom is so popular and brings people together which has been my argument we follow the Constitution defend Liberty then all of a sudden we melt-aways so many of our differences but it also invites a bit of a problem because individuals who do come sometimes I am dumbfounded and all of a sudden new friends and they they seem to be even more than I expected for instance it's it's sometimes hard for me to totally understand why the TSA employees would be excited about talking to me but it does happen so I just wrote it off for a while yeah they know I'm a congressman and they just think that they have to you know be real friendly but I swear some of our very very sincere and just the other day this individual was reading all of my stuff and calling in the weekly report on the telephone listening to it so he's been very involved so this idea that we can take people and stereotype them and and say well they're in this category and they're not open for ideas and I I'm marveled at it to think that really with the ideas of Liberty and limited government we can approach anybody in everybody and to me I think that's just fantastic [Applause] you know for a long time we were a very small minority was still our minority and we have to recognize that we still have a long way to go but several years ago before we were getting any attention at all I was talking to a member of Congress belong to the black caucus and they were some moaning and groaning about you know taking care of people who were in the minority when I told him I looked at this congresswoman and I said look you have no idea what it's like to be in the minority you ought to try being a libertarian in the US Congress but that that that is changing right now and fortunately I think ultimate all to our benefit but we certainly have a lot of problems yet that to deal with this past week we had a perfect example of where we really stand especially on the foreign policy foreign policy might be the hardest not to crack as far as getting people to come to a better understanding I thought maybe after the election you know up in Massachusetts that people might say hey maybe maybe they do really want some changes here maybe we ought to look at things more carefully and we had a vote this week some of you might have read about it had to do with Haiti and I thought well maybe they'll look at this maybe they'll reads a bill maybe they'll pay some attention and maybe there'll be more than one vote maybe there'll be three votes or for the the vote the bill simply said we expressed our condolences as our sympathies for the people who have suffered in Haiti that is what the that is what the title said and that's what nobody looks at any of that stuff until they get to the floor and that's what the little sentence is on the desk what are you voting on Oh to express our our sympathies for the people hating but if you read the bill you find out that it was a endless commitment of militarism and occupation and no limitation funds to stay there as far as anybody's concerned forever so the vote was going on and there were it was of like four hundred and thirty two three and I thought was he tripled our boat but I was wrong it did work people started looking at it and probably people running over say you know what you're doing you know so that so then it was 432 - then all of a sudden you know you can remove it you change your boat the last minute then it turned out 432 to one and I was sitting I was sitting with close friends who understand a little bit about this but they also understand from their viewpoint this is too risky for them to deal with you know standing on principle on this they said they looked up and they say Braun it looks like you're all by yourself again and I said well I said it's just soon have that because my message is that there's you know it's me against the state and [Applause] so it's a terrible way to get symbolism but in a way that's the way we all are when you think about the numbers but the difference is is we're dealing with ideas we don't have to deal with 51% of the population most people are followers Congress eventually will follow when we become the dominant philosophy of the country and everybody is desperately looking for some answers for the crisis and the problems have been created by the illusion of Keynesian and socialist economics oh and they're looking more carefully all the time the other delight about coming into politics from our viewpoint is that you know typically if you're a conventional conservative Republican you know you get a lot of interviews on Fox News Network you know but if you come at it from a free-market viewpoint and an Austrian viewpoint all of a sudden you know occasionally on some of the liberal stations there'll be good civil libertarians and they'll understand foreign policy and instead of can since the campaign was over instead of being excluded from Fox I I was excluded of course during a campaign and given a lot of grief but now I think it's been over 50 times since I've been interviewed on Fox on economic issues since the campaign [Applause] but the more liberal station some of them wouldn't dare want to talk to me because their agenda is Democratic Party politics and and they're not for liberty they're just for a Democratic Party politics and big government but even on those stations you will have a few on there that are very honest people now the one individual that I never had heard of and that shows my shortcomings before the campaign I had heard on but never watched the program and that was John Stewart but that that guy is pretty fascinating I've come to respect him I see he's most likely it comes from the left but he's an honest person and when the left really messes up he loves to go and get them and that there's the kind of people in and therefore it is not unusual to see something like a Jon Stewart befriend us all of us through me by I don't know I've been on a show I know at least twice maybe three times of those kind of shows we we get on to they're considered liberal shows but but the delightful message here is that we do approach all spectrums and that means this can be a a true a true movement through a revolutionary change and we should be very optimistic about what we see so far the question of the tea parties come up I believe it was dirty young there in the campaign presidential campaign that somebody during the campaign it wasn't always our a student central organization occurred I mean Weber we ran a campaign because there was an excitement out there and there was a lot of spontaneity to it and there was a lot of spontaneous fundraising efforts and the use of the Tea Party in modern days I believe really started at that particular time the the subsequently though since then there's been a lot of Tea Party movements a lot of tea parties and now it's pretty hard to identify exactly who they are and what they are and and exactly what's what's going on but it it is a I think it's a good sign because they're anti-washington and they're anti Republican establishment and anti-democrat establishment and I believe that's good [Applause] but those of us who do only in academic education and also in in trying to change ideas that's a little bit different than dealing with with Tea Party movements but those who are more involved in politics I think they're rather significant but all I got to say about it is that you just can't reject them all or endorse them all because they're they are very diverse and I believe what has happened was there a lot of people who spontaneously came together not fully aware of exactly what they believed in they had the energy and the disapproval of what was happening and they came together but then all of a sudden when the conventional politician realized hey there's a few people disgruntled out there hey that must be a new movement I better get into that movement and get in front of the line so I can be a leader of that movement and that's essentially what has happened they're jumping in and they claiming and there's pretty strong evidence that that many of the Tea Party meetings are are infiltrated by the neoconservative element and not an anti-war sound money group of people but nevertheless our our job really is spreading ideas and those ideas being so pervasive that they will influence not only the parties but the tea party people as well but it is certainly encouraging that that there is a this much excitement you know the other day I was talking over in in in Atlanta and I had just been reading and doing some research on a subject dealing with intelligence gathering you know that thing that CIA does every once in a while and and I made the statement which I don't back away from but it came came out after me expressing am i concerned about you know the secret government and how much control they had and I had just read recently that you know when the Soviet system collapsed guess who really got in charged the KGB the KGB took over ran things and right now 70% of anybody that has an important position in Russia today we're KGB members and my my thoughts were that you know we ought to be cautious I mean I know we've complained about it and the CIA is something that I've been criticizing for so many years quite frankly I believe that if you have a truly constitutional republic you would not even have a CIA [Applause] then the opposition will immediately say oh you don't care your you don't care about protecting America and all those all those arguments but then again the other side of that argument is how much more money do you want you claim that you have what we know you have seventy five billion dollars for the 16 agencies and you don't do it all that good a job and and you want more money and more personnel to do things that we don't even know what you're doing yet the CIA is funded not only directly but indirectly they run their own businesses every once in a while they get in the drug business and in there a government unto themselves Chalmers Johnson said it was a private army for the president that is until they turn on the President and then who knows what happens but it is it's done in secrecy and it's it they're pervasive they're they're into elections around the world they're into assassinations they're into interrogations and tortures as well as being involved in just about everything around the world and nobody really knows much about it and that that to me is that the big complaints you know you wouldn't have to spend a heck of a lot of money if you just had a few people who were responsible for gathering up information of individuals or groups that might want to attack us and maybe what they ought to do is maybe just listen to the person who wants to tell him what my son's a bit crazy he's liable to come over here and do some pretty good and that would have probably cost about a $10 for a phone call you know that's that's not likely to happen they're going to want more and more money but you know we've talked a lot about the the Federal Reserve System and I think we could deal with the Federal Reserve System the same way I suggested we deal with the CIA we really don't need the Federal Reserve at all big question is what's gonna happen the audit bill it's in the house for House bill of regulation of the bill I voted against because it's an atrocious bill but it's still the system works that way so I had the chance to stick it on there I did it's not doing so well in the Senate side and there's a lot of effort over there to make sure it's not in there but this very week this whole Bernanke issue is related to the audit audit the bill and the energy so many of you put into it to get the attention of the American people and the congressmen right now to get 317 members of Congress to sponsor this bill doesn't mean that it does mean that the American people have sent a message they're on and I think it's very positive but what's likely to have there they're likely the water down but the fact that Bernanke may not make it through means that this is closely tied to the audit bill because there's been put some hope there some have been holds put on the confirmation process and they have to have 60 votes in order to get that out and unless they have an up and down vote on on auditing the Fed so the issues are closely tied I generally over the years have not chosen to go after the individuals even though sometimes it's much better to do that because you get a lot more attention because I think it's the the philosophy of money and the banking system it's not Bernanke who created our crisis hits the Bernanke like people that have been around for way too long especially since 1971 that that is the real problem so we I generally don't but this week really it is a big issue you know if Bernanke goes down that means that they have a real setback for their desire to cover up and not allow to have transparency but there are some over there that are adamantly outspoken against what we're trying to do and against some openness with with the Federal Reserve I sense from the discussions I've had and the hearings that we've had that the most important thing to defend to conceal is of course two things one international action activities and second how they bail out their buddies through the discount window those are the two things that they get hysterical over and that means oh you want to turn the power of the money system over to the Congress so that we will let the people know what's going on and what if a bank is weak and the people get to know that well isn't that what you're supposed to know why should the Federal Reserve cover up the information you know in this day and age you know you take a couple company like Enron if they if they fudge the books and like the people and they go to prison for fraud but here they're saying that if the Federal Reserve comes in and finds out that the bank is very very weak their job is to keep it secret I mean it makes no sense whatsoever they do not like that information getting out about their friends and who they bail out but the other thing is the internationalist they have the exclusion on what the GAO kanata is that we're not a lot of look at any international agreements with governments other central banks or international financial organizations that's IMF and World Bank and here we have a central bank that can do all these things and they never have to ask the Congress for anything they don't have to say hey you know we want to send a billion dollars over the country a and we want to make an agreement guarantee loads of all these kind of things no they only have to they just have to click a computer and they can get themselves involved in in in any all these dealings so in many ways my my suspicion is if we ever got to look at the books that they're probably very much involved in foreign policy if our CIA is going over in being involved in elections and assassinations and and you know just running the world in a secret manner and they only get seventy five billion dollars a year in the open and they might need a hundred or two hundred or three hundred and they have unlimited credit it to me it's unimaginable what they might what kind of deals they might me so is it conceivable that the CIA and the Federal Reserve may may get along quite well together and it's a possibility but the whole thing is is we're not even allowed to know the Congress is just there they're oblivious to it all the conservative side way you can't dare or restrain the CIA in any manner whatsoever and and and then also nobody wants the banking industry and all wants to protect you know the central bank now my guess is what will happen is that we will not go through the system get the Senate to pass something the president signs in on next year here and I have an audit you've got to know what's gonna happen at Fed I I don't think so it'll be sort of like McCain McCain Feingold he finally get a favorable ruling and allow a little bit more freedom on how to spend money and being involved in in politics but immediately next week they're gonna have a bill up again that will reinstate some of those reasons same restrictions and they'll be in effect by November and it would be back to the courts again and take two three or four years to you know overcome it so it that'll probably happen on the on the audit even if you get something through the two cases going on right now one by Bloomberg and one by Fox they've been you know the one case has been ruled favorably for the freedom of information I could gather not but there on the appeal but it's going on and on and I think they're very they're very beneficial but even if you get something through and signed I even if it's good it's gonna be meeting to go to the courts so we could go a year or two or three in this age at this time from my viewpoint is that's a long time because we're working with a financial system where the foundation has been shattered there really is no foundation through our monetary system in our financial system we've had the financial crisis hit and we have seen this a lot of liquidation and transfer of debt of course the debt was transferred from the big guys to the little guys it goes from yes there was no deflation because debt was transferred and we the taxpayer is not buying this debt and they're back at it again and and and feeling good about it but the foundation is not stable the financial system I do not believe the world the worldwide financial system can be rebuilt on a dollar reserve standard I think they got away with it for a lot longer than they ever dreamed which means that they just have a bigger bubble than ever before from 71 up until now to until 2008 so I don't think that's gonna be rebuilt but the dollar is still being accepted around the world people still you know the stock market goes down and the dollar the dollar goes up in value I think that's all temporary the one thing I think that we're facing is not only the dollar bubble but the bond bubble why why in the world would bonds ever serve anybody's interest if you could buy a 10-year bond and make a couple percent interest and and think that you're going to have something of value at the end of 10 years or 20 years nobody invests in bonds to protect their assets so it's all it's all just it's all it's all just gambling and trickery this going on and then if nobody will buy them out there the Fed for the feds you know wheeling and dealing with other central banks and they prop these markets so it's just right now I think it's in everybody's interest to prop up the dollar but eventually I think the dollar is is going to go down and down sharply since 1971 the dollar against a basket of currencies the Federal Reserve basket currencies down about 32 percent that's serious and significant but it doesn't tell you a whole lot because other other currencies are the same thing I mean why why would anybody think well okay the dollars in trouble that's all buy euros you know that that one that wins save us but even in spite of that our dollar which is supposed to be the king of all the currencies is still down 1/3 from the other currencies in these last several decades but the CPI it's down 82 percent and the goods go it's down 97 percent so the dollar is very very weak but it's been you know I've had people before the Banking Committee and from from either the Federal Reserve or Treasury and talking about you know the dollar going down and what the significance and their response usually is it's okay to go down as long as it's orderly so I say oh okay if you steal from people in an orderly fashion then it's okay but that's but their their attitude of course is that as long as you don't have the crashing dollar but I don't believe they can prevent the crash in the dollar but I don't believe the dollar is going to crash all by itself I think there so in early I don't know of any time in our history history of the world where it's been so global in nature where all the currencies are linked together all the currencies are fiat and then that the dollar of course is is key to this so some event will come along that will shatter the confidence in the United States it may be that Osama bin Laden is going to win on what his plans were you know his plans were rather precise he said his goal was to stir up so much trouble that we would go into the Middle East of course we've been there a long time and he didn't want us you know having anything to say with Saudi Arabia or any any place else but in order to bring this to a head he says I want to entice the American people over here to get them bogged down in a war and and in the bogging down will be something that will drain the support from the American people I think he's doing a fairly good job but and it's gonna get a lot worse but he also wanted to drain us financially and lo and behold I think we have a few financial problems so we're doing his bidding there and the other thing he wanted us to do was get so involved and get so careless with how we were dealing with our foreign policy that more there would be more victims which would create more recruits for him and so I believe very sincerely that since since 9/11 that probably the number of Muslims around the world that hate us and despises those numbers have probably grown and they this claim well they don't belong to the Taliban or they don't belong to al-qaeda and I think those numbers don't mean very much I just I just believe that there's a lot of people in this world responding logically to to our foreign policy and that there's many more enemies enemies out there than than ever before so they this this means though that nothing in in that manner will be corrected overseas and unless we have a change in in our foreign policy but you know the significant changes I don't expect him to come with next year's election a lot of times I hear the statement this coming election is the most important election in the history of the country and therefore we have to win this then we have to put we have to put in this individual because it's so important now there they're all significant and all but I just don't think it's it's going to be that way I think what's going to happen is that since we are not going to get 10 20 30 or 40 more constitutions in the Congress I think we're going to see a crisis and when the crisis hits and a dollar crisis hits then there'll be a time when the market the free market will demand that we do something differently if people don't trust the money what what power does the federal government have they've been totally neutralized the only thing left for them is the creation of new money out of thin air they can't tax us any more I mean every day there's less people working for 10 years now the middle class has been losing losing wealth we lose wealth we lose good jobs real real the standard of living is going down and the good jobs aren't going to come back so they can't taxes in the true sense of the word there's there's not enough wealth left to do it it'll just make the crisis that much worse eventually they'll quit loaning money is to us but then the tell-tale sign will be when they can't print the money at will and then the more they print the more the more the people become disenchanted so right now the the checks will keep coming they will print the checks so for as long as as necessary Social Security will keep getting their checks but what they cannot control because it's beyond all government's is to maintain value in a currency the markets ultimately determine that and even today the value in the dollar depends a lot on on on the force that they use the legalized cartel the the emphasis a we in this country has used in currency they have legal their laws if you start trying to circulate silver dollars as currency you can't go to jail and have your syllables stolen from you so this this is you know we're at a point where something something we'll have to give and I think what will happen then is that when it stops functioning there will be like de-facto nullification I don't think we'll ever have legal knowledge occasion this is not going to go to the court is that well yeah that sounds like a good idea we think the original intent was the states could nullify laws well what the states will do what the individuals going to do they're just gonna ignore the federal government and [Applause] and now that of course will bring on you know more problems but then again the society will have to be rebuilt and that is where I think we come in on on on how it should be rebuilt how pervasive our ideas are how important it is to have sound money I did make a token step of weeks ago and talked about it last week just to make the point of what how we would rebuild you know when at the time comes where we could have another currency and my suggestion has been to allow compete in competition in currencies and I made the point that you know even in in the post office we had a little bit of competition because you don't have to use the post office to mail a package you have UPS and FedEx Han and it hasn't been the end of the world and the post office is still there I don't know how long they would last if we legalized the delivery of first-class mail which wouldn't be a bad idea but we allow competition we're always being challenged but we still have the legal right to educate our children in private school and home schooling and that's good to people who can do it Ford it or manage it that's excellent but it also sends a message to the public school system that especially I really get the greatest delight when I see home schoolers winning some of these geography bees and spelling bees and find out you won you mean they actually got educated at home how did that happen but there's competition there that it'd be great if we could do something in medicine to preserve competition in medicine you know they talked so much on all this reform about the public choice how many times have you ever heard anybody on TV get up and say what's the matter with the private choice why don't we guarantee a private choice in medicine which would be the medical savings account every penny you put in the account you get off your taxes you pay your own bills and you buy a major medical policy and the major medical would be actually insurance it wouldn't be this prepaid social policy now that's [Music] [Applause] so the one thing that we should always strive for is to have enough option to get out of a government system but I think it's becoming tougher all the time and and I'm afraid if if and when they do something more with medicine there won't be any chance at all for you to opt out of the system but in money money's a little bit different it's more esoteric and people don't understand it as well but the bill that I've introduced does three things in order to allow individuals to use gold and silver the first thing is it should be appealing to a few people if you say well you know the Constitution has never been amended and was the Constitution says only gold and silver can be used as legal tender that wouldn't be too bad just legalize the Constitution that's but that's a that's that's that latter you guys are radicals that's a radical idea that's a radical idea for for Washington to do that to do that though you have to repeal the legal tender laws that's where they get their monopoly control you can't you can't use anything other than Federal Reserve notes as legal tender and the other thing you would do is have allow private mints if you have a go goats corn or silver coin you ought to be a lot allowed to use it at all the the private mint smite defraud you they might not have a full ounce of gold or glass of silver I said well the fraud laws would take care of that is just too bad we can't apply those fraud laws to the Federal Reserve System and the other issue is you shouldn't tax money you know if you want to if you want to deal in silver and silver dollars then you go and trade in some of your Federal Reserve notes for silver dollars and you just go into a shop they're gonna they're gonna say you have to pay a sales tax so 7% sales charge on that then you go out and you take your silver and you spend your silver oh the silver went from $18 to $20 you have to pay capital gains tax on that you know it can't work so you have to get all taxes off money and all taxes off silver and gold so why why should they be so intimidated i we're not forcing it we're not blowing up the buildings we're not closing it down we're just saying allow competition of course they know the reason is the competition might embarrass a Barratt embarrassed the opposition and the price of gold in Baris is the opposition as well they don't like to see and and governments are notoriously anxious always to keep the dollar price or the currency price of gold down because that's a vote against the currency and I told us tell story in the Fed and Lou Lou knows about this story is one day in the midst of the the dollar crisis and gold soaring up to seven eight hundred dollars we had a private meeting with Volcker and that's one thing I have given Volcker credit for he at least would talk to you in in a reasonably sensible way but he had a private breakfast over there for us just to talk but Lou and I got there and there was a staff person there and we were just chatting and and not nothing special and Volcker came in and the amazing thing is Volcker you know he he wasn't being not cordial but he went immediately to staff person he says what's the price of gold so they know about it and just think how long they artificially held gold at $35 an ounce people always talk about well what are they doing these days well you know with with our our Federal Reserve's ability to make all kinds of deals with other central banks and financial organizations and foreign governments they have the facility to do whatever they want in the marketplace they you know the president's working group on financial markets they've actually been given a four to get involved in markets so do I have proof that they get involved and rigging the gold price no I don't but I suspect they it's in their interest to do it my guess is that they usually come in and maybe get involved not when gold prices are getting too high but when there is a more no less and natural correction you know they say markets do that they go up and then they go down that they'll do this and then they'll come in and maybe try to punish people but that might be too conspiratorial for a group like this you wouldn't buy in any of that but III think that that that a little competition shouldn't hurt them but they're not likely to give it give that to us but in the meantime if we establish what real money is then in the midst of the crisis we ought to be able to come up with with an alternative the issue of Liberty itself is of course what I have been involved in I frequently said that you know the financial system motivating in the 1970s to run and I've been interested a lot of policy changes but really the true interest I have but I'm sure it's also yours and that is the preservation of Liberty that that to me is what it's all about [Applause] if we were permitted if we were in charge and permitted to keep the government's hands off the needed correction there would have been some painful moments people matter of fact some of those big companies AIG and oh well goldman sachs coatings very painful for them they might have gone bankrupt who knows but just keep just keep our hands off and let it happen but if it if you have significant changes made a lot of liquidation of debt and a lot of scary things happening after your year so if we had our freedom if we had the marketplace and property rights and contract rights and sound money and strictly limited government I am so convinced of that philosophy that within a year or two we would all be back on our feet again even if those of us who have tried real hard to protect ourselves in our our families if all of it gets wiped off the table but you're allowed to go back to work and allowed to keep what you earn I'll tell you what I think economic growth would come back so fast and we wouldn't have to worry about it what's happened in Washington they've lost confidence and an understanding about freedom and liberty there's that's secondary to everything that they do and in the argument of course is that we have to give up sour civil liberties since 9/11 is to give up our civil liberties we need to CIA we need all this interrogation we need this tor torture we need all this because what good is it if you're not safe how can you be free you can't enjoy your freedom unless you're safe but of course we know that once you start sacrificing your Liberty for the so-called safety that government is supposed to provide you end up of course with neither and I think the point is well made when it is said that when a president bush or Obama comes out pieces my main job is to make you safe well is the main job of a policeman to make you safe in your home can you imagine how many policemen it would be make you saving her home I thought we were base eight with the second amendment his way we were supposed to be there [Applause] but too often we may we've made these sacrifices and the people are willing to go along with it if there's a if there's a major crisis overseas with another major bombing are a lot of Americans being killed there will be a much greater eagerness to even sacrifice more of our liberties so the issue is Liberty and the two issues that I have picked to concentrate on in relationship to protection of Liberty has been the monetary system because it is so key on everything that we do was interesting when I first read that why is money so important well it's one half of every bit of you every transaction you have so therefore the issue of money and the value of your money and what they do is involved in every single thing that that that we do and in the other hand the other interest I've had is in foreign policy and I have to admit that probably in the early 70s although I did have some personal experiences about what it was like for our government to be involved remembering World War two remembering Korea war some of my teachers going off and being killed and then Vietnam and being in the military for five years in the middle of 1960s and and thinking about it but it wasn't the the top issue on my mind but as time has gone on it it is interconnected with the monetary system as as well as the issue of Liberty and of course you can't talk about the money issue and the issue of Liberty or the foreign policy without considering the foreign policy because the more we're engaged overseas the bigger mess we we get ourselves into and I have a little note paper that I use at home and the one quote on there is war is the health of the state and I believe that so sincerely that our civil liberties are undermined one time during the presidential debate Tim Russert came in and he made the initial announcement well this debate is is going to be on domestic economic issues because last time you guys talked about foreign policy and I even you know when I had my first chance I made I hope a polite objection to this by saying that you can't separate the two how can you believe that your foreign policy doesn't have a lot to do with your domestic economic policy because it runs out debt and all the problems that you have so it's all intertwined but it should be narrowed down most of the significantly to the issue of Liberty I think our country was the greatest and we had the greatest amount of wealth and abundance of any other country because we were the freest nation but that freedom is is on the ropes and I think a growing number of American people are agreeing with this with us because they see what's happening and we have a great opportunity I see a grand coalition building and they will not ever be an agreement on all our views but if we respectfully present our case for civil liberties and the anti-war position I really am convinced that we will soften the market for them accepting our economic views because their economic views are non-viable it's not so much of a they will think oh yeah this is really important and that's what we must do and we accept their their argument that the greatest prosperity and the greatest amount of wealth or the best way to take care of the poor in the middle class is through free markets but it's the failure of their system that will make them think differently so we have this tremendous opportunity to bring this coalition together and be available to help help rebuild and this is what I think is happening and it's as as I mentioned about the tea party not reflective in that but we have to obviously influence them I am under the under the belief that a hundred years ago or so for some reason our intellectual community got divided on the on the ideas of Liberty and I don't think the founders were divided I think they understood that if you had personal liberté it meant freedom of speech and your civil liberties and that you aren't going to have an income tax and that the government was supposed to run everything but all of a sudden in the beginning of the 20th century it became more understood that freedom is divided in half you have economic freedom over here and you have personal liberties over here and everybody's supposed to join in and make the world safe for democracy and that's where we've been that's where we've been stuck and we got it we got to put it back together again I think there should be a rallying cry for financial reasons and moral reasons and constitutional reasons for us to change the foreign policy and we will know that we're making progress then on that when we see the troops coming home from all over the world [Applause] and on personal liberties we get a lot of good lip service from the Conservatives yes we want individual liberty we're for this except when it comes to what you put in your mouth and what you smoke and what else you do and what you say and what political correctness is and all these things and maybe we can get them to come around and knowing what real Liberty is all about and and put personal liberty in context of the property property really you know if you only had one thing to protect you don't need ten amendments one property protect it if nobody can take your property including the government and you have property would protect your First Amendment rights because you it's your personal properties your house your home your church or whatever your newspaper that's private property so if you could just get the conservatives come over say oh this is a property right for you to defend individual liberty but it has to be put back together and it has to be started with the idea of where our rights comes from and what is important one thing that annoys me to no end and I hear constantly in Washington and you hear it all the time is hyphenated Americans I mean why do we have to be hyphenated and when we make progress it will not be hyphenated Americans there will be individuals Americans deserving equal rights for everyone [Applause] freedom actually is a rather new idea if you look at all of history thousands and thousands of years and I and yet we're about to give up on this grand experiment the grand experiment has lasted you know for a couple hundred years and is about to fade so this is a time that has come upon us to make our stand the Mises Institute has made their stand for a good many decades and they've had a great deal of influence and I was impressed Lou when we were at the University of Michigan they started talking about Austrian economics and all these things so it is pervasive the Mises Institution and other libertarian think tanks and free-market groups deserve a lot of credit for the change in the mood of this country so I congratulate you I thank you for coming today and I will be around for a little bit fighting for the cause of Liberty thank you very much [Applause] you [Music]

Channel: misesmedia

Views: 93,370

Rating: 4.9090261 out of 5

Keywords: Ron, Paul, Depression, Recession, Government, Washington, DC, Keynesian, Keynes, Failure, Ludwig, von, Mises, Institute, Circle, Liberty, Property, Peace

Id: 9W6KJRIums4

Length: 54min 26sec (3266 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 04 2010