I’m no fan of politicians in the true sense of the word. If you’re a regular reader of Monetary Current, I doubt you’re surprised. Those that are more concerned about winning favor or retaining power than about defending liberty are, frankly, enemies in my book.
But there is one man in the political sphere that I hold in the highest esteem. That man is Ron Paul. Yesterday was his 87th birthday. But since I missed a shoutout yesterday, well, better late than never. Happy belated Birthday to the man.
I don’t remember exactly the first moment I learned about Ron Paul, but it was just after the turn of the millennium. It was a few years before his 2008 Presidential campaign, but it was only in print form where I had come across some of his writings on the internet, and only casually at that. I had not put a face to the name at that point, nor had he really stuck out to me. It wasn’t until that campaign when I saw the man on the debate stage — essentially in the pit of vipers — saying things that frankly no presidential candidate (or anyone for that matter) had ever said on television before. He was responding to every debate question with an actual, genuine answer. Unheard of, I know! And Paul’s responses weren’t sugar-coated excerpts from a 3rd-grade textbook like that of the others on stage. His responses were intelligent, hard-hitting explanations that struck a nerve. He was straight-up informing the public, caring not about currying favor. The debate moderators would treat him like garbage and even the audience would boo him at times. But that didn’t seem to faze him. He continued to say what needed to be said. It was one of those times in which you had to be there to really understand what you were witnessing in real time.
Here’s Fox News jerk, Carl Cameron, trying to embarrass Paul in front of the other plastic men on stage. Of course, Ron Paul knocked it out of the park.
Cameron: “Another question about electability … do you have any, sir?”
Paul: “… I’m the most conservative member here. I have voted, you know, against more spending and waste in government than anybody else. So, you’re suggesting that I’m not electable and the Republicans don’t want me because I’m a strict fiscal conservative, because I believe in civil liberties? Why should we not be defending civil liberties? And why should we not be talking about foreign policy … You’re saying now that we have to continue to borrow money from China to finance this empire that we can’t afford? Let me see if I get this right … we need to borrow $10 billion from China and then we give it to Musharraf, who’s a military dictator who overthrew an elected government, and then we go to war, we lose all these lives, promoting democracy in Iraq. I mean, what’s going on here? And you’re saying this is appealing to Republicans?! - January 10, 2008, South Carolina Fox News GOP Debate
Here he is telling the people that the government is stealthily stealing the purchasing power from their money:
“What’s happening is the transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class to the wealthy. This comes about because of the monetary system that we have. When you inflate a currency, or destroy a currency, the middle class gets wiped out. So, the people who get to use the money first — which is created by the Federal Reserve system — benefit. The money gravitates to the banks and to Wall Street. See, that’s why you have more billionaires than ever before.” … As long as we live beyond our means, we are destined to live beneath our means. … We’re depending on the creation of money out of thin air, which is nothing more than debasement of the currency. It’s counterfeit. And it is a natural, predictable consequence that you’re going to have people benefit from it and other people suffer. So if you want a healthy economy, you have to study monetary theory and figure out why it is that we’re suffering.” - MSNBC CNBC GOP Debate October 9, 2007
He’s the reason I drink my coffee out of this:
And here’s one more clip … “The Rudy Giuliani moment.” Paul — being the only one on stage opposing the Iraq war — tells the truth about what it was all about and receives nothing but scorn from the moderators and the audience.
Paul: “They attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years. … So right now we're building an embassy in Iraq that's bigger than the Vatican. We're building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.”
Goler (Moderator): “Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?”
Paul: “I'm suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it, and they are delighted that we're over there because Osama bin Laden has said, ‘I am glad you're over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.’ They have already now since that time have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don't think it was necessary.”
Giuliani: “That's an extraordinary statement of someone who lived through the attack of Sept. 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've ever heard that before and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11.
(CHEERS FROM THE CROUD)
I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that.”
Paul: “I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem. They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they attack us because we're over there. I mean, what would we think if we were — if other foreign countries were doing that to us?”
— University of South Carolina GOP Debate May 15, 2007
It’s obvious nowadays that Ron Paul was ahead the times. The conservative movement wasn’t ready for such talk. This was clearly evident from the boos Paul received when advocating the Golden Rule of all things. But the conservatives desperately needed to hear it. They had been captured by the neoconservative movement.
As a young kid, even into my late teens, I wasn’t a political person. I had little interest in history, unfortunately. Nor did I enjoy reading. I was a math guy. I loved numbers. It came easy for me and perhaps that’s why I gravitated toward it and away from books. But I wish I would’ve used those early years to learn about the world before me and the world around me. Because only now, I realize that is how you understand what is to come.
I’ve always had a simple philosophy in life, even as a kid (I still do). It was essentially, “don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff.” It just felt natural and frankly, that was (is) the way I tried to live my life. But it wasn’t a polished philosophy and I had little understanding of first principles. But then I came across Ron Paul. He opened another world to me, one I didn’t realize existed. He, among others, has helped to sharpen my original philosophy of “don’t hurt people and don’t take their stuff” into a more polished philosophy of respecting property rights (really the only true right), in which man (and of course, woman, to you wokesters out there) has a property in his own person … a philosophy in which all people interact freely in mutual, voluntary exchange so long as it does not interfere with the exercise of the rights of others. This, of course, invalidates every action of the State since it’s only mode of operation is based on force, threats, coercion, and theft. But, hey, that’s where logic takes you. That’s a discussion for another day.
As Ron Paul states in his book, Liberty Defined,
“To believe in liberty is not to believe in any particular social and economic outcome. It is to trust in the spontaneous order that emerges when the state does not intervene in human volition and human cooperation. It permits people to work out their problems for themselves, build lives for themselves, take risks and accept responsibility for the results, and make their own decisions.”
For those of you that are on the fence about how much liberty is too much liberty to embrace, I encourage you to read Liberty Defined. In this book, Ron Paul — ever the gentleman — offers genuine thoughts on controversial topics (literally A-to-Z) in an honest and polite manner that will certainly help ease your apprehension. You’ll be jumping that fence into liberty-land without looking back. Ron Paul doesn’t hold back. The first topic, after all, is “Abortion.” I must say, it’s pretty bold to start out page 1 of your book with arguably the most divisive, controversial topic of all time. But that’s how Ron Paul rolls.
Happy Birthday to the man.