Two Parties, Should We Care? | Ron Paul

and now the man of the hour the man of every hour our great leader a great moral leader as well as our great leader in economics and in politics and philosophy dr. Ron Paul [Applause] thank you very much as loser leaving the stage I might mention one thing that I don't have a speech because that that Tom woods tricked me today he tricked me and I gave my speech already that's what you have to always watch those media people so I have to think up a new speech but I might have a few words to say because I always argue that the crowd makes the speech you know and we have a good crowd here today so I might be able to wing it a little bit but I am so pleased to be here and I had to be very thankful for all the support and especially for Lu's very nice introduction and his statement and of course Scott Scott Horton has done a little bit of work on that subject to all of you have and you know I I think one has to be cautious about you know how big their head gets because I don't think you gain a whole lot from that and you know the people frequently at rallies would come up to me when I was still still in Congress they say Ron you're the best congressman in Washington and you know it's compliment and I but I would have to get a little easy and I say yeah but just think the competition isn't all that tough so we have to be a look at it in proper perspective you know the one thing in Washington that people often would ask me about Washington is how come I just never got really frustrated you know because I was I was there for six year seven years I had three terms and the then I that was in the early 80s and set in late 70s and there were various personal reasons for that I really didn't like the job I really didn't think I was going there in the first place you know I had was missing medicine and I still had kids in school and a few things like that so I just said you know I think I'll go back I gave it a pitch and and then I was out you know for 12 years in practice practice medicine for that that time but the the frustration level is is never I never felt that frustrated because I never had the same goals set as others you know the first thing that happens when you get to Washington is the leadership of your party comes especially their if they're in charge what committees you went on and what are you gonna give me you know if we put you on this committee what can you promise you'll do for this and I did Mike my committees and this sort of thing but that was that was not my goal I had enough seniority if you looked at at the old-fashioned seniority I had a lot of years eventually you know I went back in and in 290 1997 and was there you know up until 2013 so I had a lot of a lot of seniority probably a lot more than the ones that ran the committees but there was absolutely no desire on my part to get there because I knew what it would take you'd have to deal with lobbyists you'd have to deal with leadership you'd have to vote according to leadership I often wonder I would kid some of them but it was serious on my part there would be you know a group of us that would vote together six or eight or so pretty you know pretty solidly with the Constitution and one day one of the members of the groups have voted the wrong way he was voting with you know the leadership position and I said where what's the matter we're losing you how come you're voting this way he says I'm in leadership now so he was directed ha to go but you know to be a chairman of a committee I don't know how many millions I can't keep up it's not a million dollars you need to raise for the party it might be ten it might be twenty million dollars you'd actually have to talk to lobbyists you know and and get that money now that to me I had no desire for but also I also never any desire for the confrontation I my personality some who do very well and they vote well but personally I just didn't enjoy confrontation I didn't want to get into some battle over who's gonna get nominated you know for speaker and this sort of thing and there there was no interest at all for me to do that so I actually just sort of had had goals of you know in a social way just talking to people and asking about their kids or something else I didn't want to get into it because I didn't I didn't see a victory in that that the victory to me was always thinking about you and getting a message out I know last time the first time I was in a lot of financial news letters were going out to gold news letters because of the excitement of gold in the 70s in a community that way with a lot of people but I was always thinking of another audience and and realized that the audience was in in in Washington and the other one other thing that I came to a conclusion to on this was the two-party system and my topic sorta today is two parties it really who really cares doesn't make a difference and a lot of people people outside of Washington would would come up to me and media people would come up when the third party idea came up and they said well do you think we should have a third party yeah I think matter of fact though but I think we have to get a second party first [Laughter] but I am a member of two parties even though I'm not a very party person I don't belong to the Democrat Party but I do belong to the Republican Party technically speaking and to the Libertarian Party and when I joined the Libertarian Party I joined as a lifetime member and I paid with paid my membership with one ounce of gold but the party the parties are very secondary and I would get into trouble with the Republican Party when I thought I indicated the party is very secondary it's a vehicle as the way you do things but they're not very philosophic easy either party even though that's a lot of what what they make of the noise that they talk about but I thought it was better not to be in a confrontation with people it was more that part I sort of separated in my mind that was a social thing and the other part was I wasn't much interested in it because I never wanted to get into a fight that the results had no meaning and that's about what goes on up there long term you know just which party's in charge in her head of the committee it really didn't make a lot of difference you know at night in 2012 there was a convention and we were doing very well but we didn't get all our votes counted they slipped through the cracks someplace so then our votes weren't kind of but we had our own car we had our own convention I think we had probably as many maybe more than that we're at the other convention and there was a lot of excitement of course I remember giving my probably very typical speech at the time and typical political speech would be 45 minutes or an hour I'm not gonna go that long today don't worry it would it would be and I think that day it was hour and 15 minutes ago there was a lot of excitement a lot of people and somebody from the media came up to me and they said you've talked for an hour and 15 minutes and you never once mentioned the opposition of Obama or Mitt Romney and I said who are they to me to me I didn't do it deliberately I wouldn't do that I'm a nice person so I I excluded them because I did seem to be that important you know and and but but they said that you never mentioned mention her name but concentrating on why I thought was important in a scheme of things long-term I think it'll turn out that they're fairly irrelevant and I think I think people like you who think and have ideas people who support the Mises Institute and these other other groups I think that's that's what has real value and that is where I could get energized you know and and and not and not expect a political fight there so I wasn't cut out for politics I didn't like those kind of fights I I never thought that I was could be successful so I was always surprised how well we how well we did but you know you know I tend to think that people shouldn't be arrogant and boastful and people should think that a little bit of humbleness doesn't hurt you and at times that I learned that in campaigning I don't know if my wife has arrived here today but she might be yeah I here she is in the back there she snuck in but she she would do a lot to humble be not by lecturing me by just getting recognition you know but I remember one time and we were in our canoe in our district here and we were leaving a restaurant and I was in the car drive and she was sitting next to him I see a lady coming out of the restaurant running over toward the car so I rolled my window down she didn't even stop she went immediately over to the other side she wanted to talk to my wife before I lectured her after that there's a limit to how much said this you can do you know I'm the congressman but you know she was pretty important and all that because you know in nineteen ninety seven ninety six and seven you know that was the campaign I had been on for twelve years and the Republicans weren't anxious to have me back I couldn't understand it because I was a nice guy you know and I never fought with him but boy they didn't want me back so I went to the the group of Republicans by that time when I first went to Washington there were three Republicans in all of Texas this time they're about fifteen you know so the Republican Party was growing so I went and had a meeting with this group and that was when delay and rah an army were in charge of the Texas delegation so it was a courtesy call you know this is what I'm thinking about doing there was a Democrat in the seat and I usually didn't fight over you know leadership positions I said they shouldn't expect that and I would give the Republican a vote on leadership so I went in there thinking I can sell them this look I think I can beat this Democrat you have in air I think we can make this a Republican seat and I'm thinking about running but you know I was shocked after I decided I was gonna run that is the seat changed a lot sooner than I realized I went and bribed the guy to switch over to become a Republican and they gave him everything so to my surprise everybody else because I didn't think I could overcome that because Newt Gingrich came to campaign against me both Bush's campaign against me both senators can't paint against me and I think the House of Representatives had about 65 House of Representatives donate some of their campaign money you know to to beat me on this so I thought well I was sort of you know stoic about the whole thing let it be what has to be but then then we we did accomplish that and we we won that seat but but it was it was something that probably was a big surprise to him and to me but it also says something because the whole issue was I had been a libertarian in 1988 and one of my issues because even then that I thought was so ruthless was the war on drugs and I took this a very strong position of abolishing the war on drugs and so when when I announced I had talked to friends I said you know well you know what they're gonna hit me on it's gonna be the war on drugs you know so the Republican then I had to have a priority Republican primary race and the establishment of the NRCC put into money and did some many other things and they put some of the worst ads up against me ugly mean nasty stuff about what how these how these drugs are hurting babies and we counteracted that by me delivering a baby and holding a newborn and nobody believed their demagogue thing about what harm I was going to do to these kids but they spent a million dollars and they didn't win and you'd think that would that would tell the Democrats then I had to run against a Democrat but they said nobody can be against the war on drugs in the 1990s maybe today they can't but back then nobody was opposed to it they all opposed it you know and would tell me that we'd have token boats in Washington they said we know you're right but oh I couldn't handle how would I explain this this to my district so I that said the demo Democrats spent a million dollars to and it didn't do him any good and it was still strong very strong Democratic district in in many ways but it is a it is something that people you just don't know and I've came out of that it was the conclusion that a lot more people had been damaged families damaged by by the drug laws that was back when it was not unheard of to take teenagers and put them in prison with hardened criminals and just make real criminals out of them and I think all you'd have to do is have one one individual treated that way and how many family members and neighbors would understand the stupidity of the whole thing so I think that was lying there but nobody and nobody ever talked about it but I have to give Carol a little bit credit for this too because she she really worked on the assumption she didn't know too much about this political stuff uh she was interested in raising kids and in Girl Scouts and all those things and so she she says you know with all these horrible ads out there about a horrible person you are we have to do something about it and I said what are we gonna do she says well you know I think we should do a family cookbook I said family cookbook who wants to care about our family cooking our recipe because some of them they had too much fat in them or something so she said no no we should we should we should do that and and we she she put this together and I said no nobody nobody wants this they want to hear me talking about the Federal Reserve it's an exchange Stabilization Fund but anyway I caved in pretty easily I said go ahead do it but there was really nothing political about a except it was shrewd politics so she took pictures of our kids and were married some weren't and little ones and big ones and she'd take pictures of each one and put two kids together and have a little note about each one of them now they're strangers what do they care about our family and so I make made fun of it a bit and I made fun of this you know what Republican rallies afterwards I say I did it and I said we went along with it and I said I have to admit it turned out to be the best political political outrage at political advertising we ever did people loved it and it makes a point though that even in spite of how important philosophy is and I put it way up here you know the on confrontation and getting along with people and being friends with people go a long way to because most people don't pay much attention and that's why a personal approach if you're involved in politics is pretty important and it turned out that that had a lot to do with change and changing the attitudes because after what she described how wonderful our family was and we do have a wonderful family they say this guy can't be a drug dealer [Laughter] we took we took care of that so you know you know the issue during the campaign was whether or not we should have a strong president and we don't want a weak president a strong president is one that knows how to fight wars and a strong president sometimes gets credit if they even start the wars because sometimes people say you have to be a wartime president and I think there was a Bush that claimed that one time I need a war to be a wartime president which is pretty bad as far more bad morality I think so the they the the strong president shoes needs you signed with militarism law and order crackdown control people and and all that some people think of your strong you take away the guns from the people and you give it to the bureaucrats it's all kind of a mixed bag of a strong president but I think that there's a different type of strength and I think that's what we see in the philosophic group the strength you know I had met Murray and Mises and sand holds and the hazlit all these people and they were strong people of character you know and to me that's where I thought the strength came from not in this political demagoguing and we we hear that so resisting you know this temptation and press resisting the deep state that you know gets the organization there to put pressure on the politician like in a drug war they did admit the drug wars were bad but they were convinced that it would hurt their political career and they had to do it so I think of strength in politics as the willingness to stand for what you believe in and not be intimidated and it's not an by it's not a violent has it you know confrontation it's just a philosophic strength and that's to distinguish from that of the pivot people who are militant and think that the thing of the greatness of American American exceptionalism is our willingness to spread our goodness around the world and and have the people accept our way well I don't happen to accept that I think that's a terrible thing to do and I believe in America is a great country has been has some great ideals but if they're worth anything we as a people should be practicing those qualities and people should want to emulate us and then I think we could spread the goodness of American rather than thinking you spread it with guns and killing and Wars you know I want to just mention a few things that does motivate me and I mentioned that a little bit earlier when Tom was quizzing me about what my speech was all about the is the thing that I really find as a great selling point about about Liberty is that it's not divisive and it brings people together you see what do you mean yeah you know how can you bring these far for our leftist well some you can't do it but some conservatives you can't do it either the people with an open mind you you can and there are people from the left or whatever you can call but honest progressives progresses who believe in civil liberties and believe in a non-confrontational foreign policy so you can reach people but what people have to realize that in Liberty the government is out of the way people get to choose totally and completely how they're going to use their Liberty and the hardest thing to accept is the fact that once you get your Liberty the responsibilities is on that individual on all of us to do what we think is right and you can't depend on on the government so if you want to use your Liberty to do dumb things and what if what if you aren't very good at reliable working and you sway store money and you gamble and do a lot of dumb things like that shouldn't the government be there to take care of you and I say no and you should suffer the consequences is what should happen if you waste your Liberty and this whole idea that you have to have government there to make us safe and secure whether it's it's socially religious wiser or economically this this isn't truth people should be allowed to use their Liberty any way they want that means that in a free country you know you can have any religion you want you don't have to have one if you don't want and you say well you don't care yeah I care but I just don't think the government should be involved and that's a big difference and if you have personal moral and religious beliefs they should be expressed you know in your own way in a voluntary manner but you know not through the government the government shouldn't be there for that the government should be there for one thing and that is the preservation of Liberty so that we can make our own decisions about our life on our money and allowing other countries to do the same thing but you know the bringing bringing together means that the crowds should be diverse the more diverse they are I think the better but the problem the problem really is is that their diversity that the opposition wants means they want the upper upper hand in what we do and I think the best answer for people that talk about this is if they see I believe I believe socialism should be illegal what the heck there's been socialist type cutting you know enclaves but they should be legal and but but they don't have a right to make you participate in their socialism so a good libertarian society should tolerate people who believe in economic economic socialists they should be allowed to do that but they're not Eliza use force to do this and that's of course if you're a the conventional wisdom of socialists is no we don't want any voluntary capitalism we need your money and now that's that's the whole thing they want to use force and and they have all the guns we should work much harder at talking about getting rid of guns I think guns need controlled we need to really crack down on the guns that are used to modify our lives that means I want to eliminate all the guns of all the federal bureaucrats in the whole country so we we're for we're for gun controls but we're for self-reliance too and self-defense so that's a that's a big difference and yet today every year we have more and more police force and not only do we have the federal police force we have the militarization of local police departments now too and even our current president brags about you know how much weaponry and military weaponry we can you know put in but this was a consequence and still probably is to a degree of the war on drugs you know you need you need tanks to go after these bad guys and and they have all kinds of of equipment and so and that's that's the opposite of a voluntary Society so I I think of volunteerism is a good example of what we should do if we have our freedoms all associations are ok one strong rule is no lying no cheating no stealing and no killing it's not too complicated you know how long that's been around probably about four or five thousand years they've been talking about that so why aren't we doing better at this and one thing I think has happened over the years is technologically has happened in technologic Knology especially the last 200 years especially in the last hundred years especially in the last 30 years and it's moving rapidly and so often who gets control of it or helps design it and that is the government you think of I remember at the end of Second World War when the jet aircraft even talking about well they'll be and they did they made jet fighters one of the first thing you know the the the first wheel was deep was discovered and used probably thirty thirty thousand years of BC and it was the first wheel was a Potter's instrument to make pottery and the first wheel for movement was used on chariots military chariots so it's this is this moral attitude that so much is conceded to the government too much power to the government and technology is used so much you know to perpetuate what they're doing even even today just think how much money goes into the military and all this technology and right now you know I thought the internet was the greatest thing in the world and I still do I I think it's wonderful but I don't like the part where they're in bed with the government they just collect information for the government and that's getting worse you know these this super Patriot Act it's coming in they're going to accumulate more and more information ever and the Attorney General and the presidents all for this thing because we have to find out the potential bad people and put them away without trial you know that sort of thing so that this technology is wonderful but it can be used the wrong way and for some reason we have it you know in spite of this challenge we have from the government just think of all that has advanced in in the modern age tremendous advancement that we have even in the last 100 years I mean a hundred years ago they were still you know horse and buggy days and so that we do get it in spite of the government but can you imagine what would happen if we had a government her lack of government or a minimal government where people made all the decisions and that you had to follow these rules I think it would be a nice place to live you know and it would be a safe place to live - but it wouldn't be perfect but the imperfections now are magnified because it's the government that coerces us into doing things and the collection of the revenues we pay for but of course that is the calamity that we're working toward and that's why our message is so important and the calamity is that we have taught people to believe that entitlements or morally pause and proper that they are entitled thing and they are victims and we have to take care of them and they think of that as a moral principle as strong as we think of self-reliance and hard work and effort it is a good moral principle so they they they think that this moral principle of entitlement is the thing that we must go along with and I say no that has to be reversed and you can you you can say well wouldn't us make the world a lot more and more dangerous now I I don't think so I think I think there's all forms of of being protection but what we have done is we've slipped away to thinking that the government and I don't know how people could accept it it's omnipotent and they can make us safe and secure so they will always make us safe from harm and they'll make a secure economic exchange well the economy is on the verge of becoming like Venezuela or worse so it doesn't make us safe and secure how many policemen do you think you need john pease it would tell us how many how many police ins would he have to engage if he wanted to just go into the homes of all the people just in this room to make sure that there was never a harm done to anybody on your property you'd have to have about six policemen at each house so the whole thing is ridiculous they they can't make us safe so what do we do on the inner city where most of the crime is that's where the strongest laws are against the guns where they might do something for themselves self-reliance self-reliance is great there's a motivation and people are inclined to do more and more and then you say well what is this all about can't we just send good people to Washington and they'll take care of us and I say no you can't do that won't work but one of the reason and this is very personal and other people will have other reasons why we want to live in a free society for economic reasons or whatever but I think ultimately a free society that I talk about and I envision is something that is very personal I think our freedoms are very personal they come to us in a personal way in a natural weight or a god-given way and that we're that we're responsible for that but we we should then have to deal with our lives not only for safety we might not even need the FDA you know we could maybe put them on a business and we might even learn better he'd happen you know and in the campaigning one of the examples I used to throw out to the crowd and I thought it was just just as a spare moment nobody but everybody would think was silly I said you know in a free system we were supposed to have a free society and we're not even a lot of buy raw milk and there were simple applause and as it went on it was sort of like sort of a joke but there's a lot of people who believe that things like that what you can drink and and and eat but I think the the goal should be for me personally and suggest for others is that in a free society you're more responsibility falls on us and individuals with the help of family friends and neighbors and churches and that is that hopefully we can get people to think that you know it would really be pretty neat living in a society where everybody's goal is to seek excellence work for excellent do the best we can and I think the rewards no matter where you are on a scale of IQs or what your abilities are I think the rewards are not that way just because somebody has more ability that have greater rewards but I think when people work for their excellence and do what they can to take care of themselves the satisfaction that people have for self-reliance is is is not related to the the size of somebody's bought pocketbook or anything else or basic intelligence it's just that assuming this responsibility but I think that the free society offers that or puts pressure on people to seek excellence but also seeking virtue but virtue is something it's not that easy to find I think everybody has a pretty good idea about it and there's a lot of people in Washington assume that you have no virtue you don't behave yourself you have habits like this and you do this so we want you to be more virtuous so they take over this whole issue of making people virtuous and make them work for excellence and make them prosperous and make them safe I would say that's all wrong we should limit it strictly to the role if we are to have government the role of government ought to be narrowly limited to the protection of your Liberty I think the founders understood that and they made that point and they understood it I always marvel at reading about the founders when you think about their intelligence and how well-educated they were you know they they were they really were educated and they didn't even have an internet you know they had books I read books and they probably and probably most I weren't educated in a government school either but it was they were well-educated they knew their history and they brought together the ideas of Liberty that had been around and of course Adams said that we we've given you a constitution but the truth is it won't work if the people are not moral and that's back to the virtue and excellence so in an immoral society and that's our real challenge today is because we see more and more immorality it might be more challenging to accept my optimism that there's still a lot of people out there but they care about this and that we can still win this and IIIi really do believe that in my goal is to take all this wonderful technology that we have and instead instead of building poor tanks maybe we need more ambulances and more good medical care coming out of the market but everything should be voluntary everything should be peaceful and I would think that that would be a worthy goal it's probably a little bit you know a dream but believe me that dream of a living in a free society is a lot better than a nightmare that we're facing and it's going to get a lot worse because we have to resolve all the mistakes made amendment the the financial mistakes and if people think that modern monetary theory is going to solve the problem just run the presses faster and they're in a dilemma right now and the end stages are coming because even those on Wall Street and the banks and the Federal Reserve we have never heard any time in all of history where people had nay of interest rates figure out what does that mean you know interest rates are key because it tells the price of every transaction and the price of money but this whole thing that that the price is down to negative that's going to be resolved that it's not workable so that's what we have to prepare for and see it as an opportunity we may have to be frugal for a while and take care of ourselves but we'll all survive and we'll all do well if we can live in a free society thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: misesmedia

Views: 9,352

Rating: 4.9584198 out of 5

Keywords: Ron Paul, politics, democrat, republican, election, president, presidential, 2020, Trump, Clinton, disinformation, liberty, freedom, peace, propaganda, government, state, Mises, Rothbard, Economics, Austrian School, war, anti-war, fed, federal reserve, policy, corruption, strategy

Id: wsIZviAPpuI

Length: 37min 42sec (2262 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 15 2019