>> RAND PAUL: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Liberty University for inviting
me and thank you to President Falwell for allowing me to come this morning. I already feel uplifted. The music's great. I went to a Baptist university, but I don't
remember it being so rocking. You guys have some good music. I got up early this morning and I couldn't
find my cell phone anywhere so I had to borrow this one from Harry Reid. Do you think the NSA is gonna be surprised
when they find Harry Reid at Liberty University? I thought maybe this morning we'd do an experiment. Maybe we could all get our phones out — oh,
that's probably against the rules — we all get our phone out and we try to sign up for
Obamacare but then I realized we only had an hour and we would never even get started. In 1984, Orwell describes doublethink. The ministry of peace concerns itself with
war, the ministry of truth with lies, the ministry of love with torture, and the ministry
of plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor
do they result from ordinary hypocrisy. They are deliberate exercises in doublethink. Just Orwellian fiction, right? It could never happen in America. Decide for yourself. The PATRIOT Act allows the most unpatriotic
of acts, the government to search and seize things without a judicial warrant. Instead of patriotic rejection of tyranny,
we are asked to know your neighbor in order to report upon your neighbor. Your local bank is commanded to report suspicious
activity to the feds. In the past decade, over eight million suspicious
activities have been reportedly filed. National security letters, which are basically
warrants without a judge's review, have been used to snoop on hundreds of thousands of
Americans. Daily — anybody ever been on a plane lately? — daily, millions of travelers are subjected
to invasive searches without probable cause. In the name of patriotism, billions of American's
emails and your phone calls are being monitored. Not just communications deemed of probable
cause by a judge but every phone call in the entire country is being collected and stored. The number can't even be revealed because
it's a state secret, but the number is beyond normal cognition. Beyond normal computational prowess. A gazillion is not an overstatement. And I'm allowed to use that word cause gazillion's
not a real number. When Winston renounces Julia in 1984, I cried. OK, well maybe not the first time I read 1984,
but the second time 30 years later I cried. And they say "real men don't cry." But you know, when Winston finally renounces
Julia, it's a heartbreaking moment. The point at which we renounce what we love
is the point when grown men should cry. The first time I read 1984 I was profoundly
sad the entire read but I was a teenager. And you know, teenagers are messed up for
no apparent reason at all. You might know a few of 'em. The next time I read 1984, I was 40 something
and I had experienced love and I could understand what it would be like to renounce the person
you love. What would it take for you to renounce the
one you love? What would it take for you to renounce your
rights, as free men and women? What would it take for you to renounce your
God? Two months ago, in Syria, a young man, a young
Christian, was made to answer that very question. In the ancient Christian village of Ma’loula,
Syria where they spill — still speak Aramaic the language of Jesus spoke, Sarkese al Zarcom
knew the answer. When the marauding Islamic rebels swarmed
into town and demanded that Christians convert to Islam or die, Sarkese stood and replied
"I am a Christian, and if you must kill me, do it." Sadly, those were Sarkese's last words. What will your generation stand and fight
for? We fought for over 800 years to restrain the
state. From the Magna Carta on, our tradition has
been to fight, to limit the power of the state. What would it take? Would it take starvation and beatings for
you to give up your rights? Would it take rats pressed against your face
to get you to renounce your rights? To renounce the right to trial by jury? Or would you let fear, fear alone cause you
to relinquish your guarantees to due process? Will we let fear of terrorism allow us to
give up our most basic liberties? When I first read 1984 and a Brave New World
in high school, I had trouble relating to them. I understood, and I was wary of Big Brother
but I took consolation in the fact that government didn't have two-way televisions. In fact, in my day we only had three channels,
and they were all crummy. Black and the fuzz all over the TV, you don't
even know what I'm talking about. Three channels on TV, that's what we had! But we couldn't conceive of TV that looked
at you and watched what you did in your, in your, in your personal actions, in your house. In those days, government didn't have drone
surveillance to monitor your every move, the desire by man to control his fellow man, it's
always existed. As has the desire by fellow man to resist. Fellow man always had places to hide, fellow
man always had places to flee. One's thoughts, one's books, one's religion,
one's private actions were hard to control, to discern and disrupt. Dystopian novels were just that, bad utopias. But not practically possible. One could always sigh in relief that such
surveillance, such invasion of privacy was not technologically possible. Until now. Now we have the technology. Drones that measure less than an inch, weigh
less than an ounce, and can hover noiselessly outside your bedroom window, are not a dystopian
future but today's reality. The individualist who feared 1984 in 1949
when Orwell wrote the book need now shout, from the top of his or her lungs, for the
technology has now made the unthinkable thinkable. In your lifetime, scientific advancement is
exploding. Scientists have now mapped the entire human
genome. Hopefully that leads to great progress in
combatting disease but keep an eye on who controls that technology. I remember watching the movie “Gattaca”
and I was thinking it just happened a few years ago but I think it came out before you
all were born. So, but “Gattaca,” back in the 1990s,
the good old days came out but I remember thinking "how awful it would be to have one's
whole life mapped out and known in advance simply by analyzing one's DNA." But I remember thinking, "well at least that
technology doesn't exist for the state to abuse." But it's no longer true. In your lifetime, much of your potential or
maybe lack thereof, will be known simply by swabbing the inside of your cheek. Imagine a world in which disease and disability
are eliminated. No meningitis, no Down’s syndrome, no cleft
palate, no cerebral palsy. Man is able to select against all of these. Each individual's biological future can be
predicted by looking at their DNA. Who could argue against such a world? But hopefully someone will stand and say "wait
a minute, not so fast! Didn't we try that? Didn't we learn what can happen when you let
the state select for perfection?" In the movie “Gattaca” in the not too
distant future, eugenics is common and DNA plays the primary role in determining your
social class. Vincent Freeman is conceived though and born
the old-fashioned way without the aid of genetic selection. He turns out very near-sighted, he has a heart
defect, his projected lifespan is only 30.2 years. Due to the frequent screenings, Vincent faces
genetic discrimination and prejudice. The only way he can achieve his dream of being
an astronaut is he has to become what's called a borrowed ladder. He has to steal or impersonate the DNA from
a valid person, someone who has acceptable GNA — DNA. He assumes the identity of a Jerome Morrow,
a world-class swimming star whose genetic profile is said to be secondary to none. But he's been paralyzed in a car accident,
so Gerome buys his identity, uses his DNA, his blood, his hair, his tissue, his urine
to pass the, the screenings that happen on a daily basis. To impersonate him, he must put Gerome's blood
underneath his fingertips 'cause they're checked daily. He must wear contact lenses with Gerome's
iris map on them. Gerome's genetic profile lets him get into
the space academy. There's no interview. Imagine a world when you graduate from college
there's no interview, they take a swab of your cheek. The whole process is done by DNA. Those who get in the space program must have
the proper DNA. He's selected. He eventually goes on this man space flight. After two years of training and daily evading
the DNA police, the launch finally comes. But he shows up and he doesn't bring any tissue,
he thinks there won't be any more testing, but he's stopped one final time for a urine
test. He hasn't brought anything with him, how's
he gonna get through? The urinalysis uncovers he's not who he says
he is. But the doctor smiles at him and he asked
Vincent, "did I ever tell you about my son? He was born the old-fashioned way. He has imperfect DNA and he wants to be like
you, an astronaut," and without another word the doctor changes the result and lets Vincent
go on and get on the flight. And when you hear this dystopia it's easy
to say — and to oppose eugenics and to say "how awful, we would never let that happen
in our country." But will we have the strength of character
to resist a world where eugenics is practiced voluntarily? Will we be sorry when we eliminate the disabled? Will we be sorry when we eliminate those who
have premature deafness, such as Beethoven? Will we be sorry when we eliminate those with
cerebral palsy, such as Christy Brown? Christy Brown's story is fascinating. He was born with profound cerebral palsy. He only had control of his left foot. It was uncertain whether he had any mental
capacity because he didn't speak. The doctors advised his parents to institutionalize
him. His family was a big, loving family in Dublin
and they kept him at home. His brothers and sisters carted him around
the street in a wheelbarrow to their games. And finally, at the age of 5, he picked up
some chalk with his left foot and wrote the letter A on the floor. He went on to become an author and a poet. Are we prepared to select out the imperfect
among us? What will be the limits? Will we stop with disability, will we go on
to select hair color, eye color, IQ, height — I hope we don't do height, I'm out of
here then — weight? In the process, will we perhaps eliminate
something, some part of our humanness, some part of our specialness if we seek perfection? Will we be flying too close to the sun? Will we — will our search for perfection
become an Icarus moment? Science offers us an amazing future. In the past 100 years, we've gone from nearly
50 percent mortality in childhood to less than one percent. The average life expectancy at the turn of
the last century was 43. I'm not against science, I'm a physician,
I'm for it. But my hope though, is that we don't lose
our appreciation of the miracle that springs forth from tiny strands of DNA. Einstein said "there are two ways to look
at life, to look at the world. We can either look at life as if there are
no miracles, or we can look at life and see miracles everywhere." I choose the latter. As a physician, I've sometimes witnessed the
tragedy of disease, the face of suffering, but I've also seen the miracle of life coming
into the world. As you make your way into adulthood, you can
choose to see the miracle, or you can succumb to that soothing voice that intones "everything
is OK, everything's just fine. All is well," until all isn't well. America is sick, there is a sickness among
us. And it's not just growing pains, there's something
fundamentally sick about our country. And it's not just President Obama's fault
either. OK, well a lot of it is. But seriously, the problem is bigger than
partisan politics. I believe that America is in a full-blown
spiritual crisis. The problem as Os Guinness puts it is not
wolves at the door but termites in the floor. Our foundation cracks. It's not that we've chosen the wrong politician
— although we may have chosen a few of the wrong ones — it’s more fundamental though
than that. I think we've arrived though at a day of reckoning. Will we falter, will we thrive and refind
our mojo? America has much greatness left in her if
we believe in ourselves, believe in our founding documents, believe that our rights come from
our Creator, believe in an economic system that has made us the richest and the most
humanitarian nation ever. But we must realize that freedom needs virtue. As Os Guinness writes, "the only proper restraint
to freedom is self-restraint." What does that mean? It means that those of us who love freedom
must realize that freedom is not license to do as you please, freedom could only be realized
when citizens know self-restraint, or put another way, virtue. This parallels Washington's belief that democracy
requires a virtuous people. Laws don't really restrain people. Ninety-eight percent of people follow a virtuous
course with or without law. Now this isn't an argument against laws, but
an argument that laws alone are not enough to civilize a nation. What America needs is not another politician. What America needs is a revival. What we need to discover is that the law follows
virtue. When virtue is restored, then will the law
reflect goodness. Ray Bradbury wrote "everybody must leave behind
something when he dies. Something your hand touched, so when people
look at that tree or flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do," he said, "so
long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it, into something
that's like you after you take your hands away." Michelangelo put it another way, he said "I
saw the angel in the marble and I carved to set him free." I like that, I think all of us have an inner
angel, an inner voice that if we pay attention to it will set us free. As each of you makes your way in life, don't
leave any page unturned. Free the angel from the stone. Strike a course full of joy and hope, and
do it with a smile. Embrace each day like the hymn proclaims "then
sings my soul." Good luck, we're counting on you. God bless you.
