 Our final speaker today needs no introduction, and he has a plane to catch as well, so we will introduce him without any further ado, Dr. Ron Paul. Thank you very much for that nice reception and my introduction, and Lou, good to see you back at the business of spreading the cause of liberty once again. I would like to also point out Bill Haynes' contribution, not only today, but too much of what we have done over the years and with the Mises Institute. I also want to introduce one individual who tends to help me a whole lot getting through some of these events and everything, and that's my wife Carol, who's sitting over here. But it is nice to be here. People ask me, why do you do this? Isn't this grueling? Isn't this really very tough? But it's a little bit selfish on my part because I get energized when I come to meet all you young people, you know, here. You know, and it is good. There's a spread of ages here today, but there's a lot of young people here, and Lou and I have talked about this, and there has been a change, a very favorable change, that there were many in this audience who helped and mentioned it even today. Well, I was looking at what you were doing back in the 80s and even in the 70s and doing the libertarian campaign. But there's a lot of young people here and say, oh yeah, you introduced me to these ideas. Like when I was 14, when I was in high school just a few years ago. And that's exciting to know that there is a transition. I've always worked on the thought that you can't ever get rid of the remnant. There's always a remnant that will hold things together. And one of my favorite people that did that was Leonard Reed when he, after World War II, had the Foundation for Economic Education in New York. And he provided a lot of information for me, books and things that, you know, I don't think we had an internet back then. So that was very helpful. But then others who hang on to the issues and they don't give up and they stick to principle, it's very, very important. But I think the most exciting message for me today and information is the fact that things are changing and they're changing dramatically. And I think very favorably, and it has a lot to do with all the contributions that some of you have already made. But the contribution that Lou has made and the Mises Institute has made and they deserve a lot of credit as well. Now it's not a total secret, but Lou at one time worked for the government. Of course he worked with me in Washington once. But then there's another individual who did the same thing later on and he's with us tonight. And that's Jeff. And Jeff, I think, is doing a fantastic job. But the one thing that early on that, whether it was Leonard Reed or Murray Rothbard or Lou Rock or myself, we always believe that politicians weren't worth very much. And they're very secondary. People frequently would ask me, wasn't it awfully frustrating? And what about when you read the statistics that I was very ineffective as a congressman because I didn't pass a lot of bills? I never intended to pass a lot of bills. So if you have different goals, you can feel good about what's happening in a different way. And the truth is, is that the attention that I got with some of my activities was way beyond anything I ever dreamed of because I was really, you know, trying to be as honest as I could with myself. First thing I told myself was, yeah, I want to run and talk about this horrible Federal Reserve and the breakdown of Bratton Woods and the runaway inflation, all things going on. And getting in office wasn't the goal. So when I told Carol I was going to run for office, she explained to me, this is a very dangerous thing to do because she said, you know, watch out, she said, you'll be elected. But I guaranteed her that wouldn't happen because my approach would be different. And the expectations were always very low. And that's what I tell people is they weren't you very frustrated with Washington? Well, if you keep your expectations, well, you don't have to worry about that. But the results really were beyond my imagination. And to me, I don't take the credit for this as much as being in certain positions and relaying information that others have done. You know, Mises always said that there are people that are qualified, there's probably quite a few in this room qualified to think out sound economic thinking and produce this for others to read. Then there are others who have a responsibility to take those ideas and make them so that the people can understand them. And I think that is the role that I see myself and so many others and the Mises Institute I think does both. But it is very important that we have majority support. Oh, no, we don't need majority support. If you had, if we were waiting for 51% of the population to vote and say, I am a true-blue libertarian, I agree with everything you say. Well, you'll lose your mind if you think that's going to happen because it's not going to happen. But there's never 51% who agrees with the ideology of a country. But you have to have the leadership of a country knowing what they believe into influence, government or whatever and the whole society. And that's where the tremendous progress is being made. So I think 7% or 8% of the population is the target. Certainly it was a small number like that that brought about the American Revolution. And the 51% is important, but it has to be, it has to be available to us to make sure that people respond. So if the majority endorses the ideas of liberty or if the majority endorses the idea of communism, socialism and fascism and all the other things, that's what you'll have in the country. But what I see happening today is a transition that we're involved in. And when I see all the young people who are just moving into this and excited about it, and they're just, you know, they're inheriting a mess when you think about what the older generation has given the younger generation. Of course we enticed them into, you know, a good education, go to the fancy colleges, borrow $150,000 and then come out without a job, you know, that was really a great education. But there's a lot of people, a lot of people are waking up and realizing that's not such a good deal. But there was the attitude, matter of fact, it wasn't accidental, it wasn't just greed that did this, but it was a philosophy that played on greed. And to say, oh education should be free, I think there's somebody out there even talking about this even in this election, everything should be free. So they haven't quite figured that out there, there is no such thing, you know, as the free lunch. But anyway, it goes on and on and yet we're in this transition where the attitudes are changing. But the attitudes generally, you know, our views have been out there, but why are they more popular now? And I play this much role in it, but there's several things. There are more activities along the line of what the Mises Institute does, as well as the great need for it. You know, the students are waking up, I mean maybe they're questioning now the student loan program and housing programs and all these things. So they're questioning it because the evidence is clear. You know, in spite of the fancy news we get from the Wall Street people and the amount of money they're making, not too many people believe that because I think the people in this country know what's happening to the middle class. The middle class is being destroyed. And this is what they're realizing that we're living in a time that not only is very, very serious and very, very dangerous, we're living at a time where the system is going to come unglued. And essentially, I think we're in the middle of it in the early stages of a complete collapse and starting in 07 and 08. And although, you know, the financial markets are happy and they're making a lot of money, the prevailing attitude is still much closer to Paul Krugman, unfortunately, than to us because he's out there daily preaching the gospel of Keynesianism that spending is good and debt is good and people should borrow money and if you don't have enough, print the money. And that is still the prevailing attitude. But we're shifting. We're seeing the total failure and the coming ungluing of the Keynesian model as well as our foreign policy. Our foreign policy is doomed to fail. We will come home. Let me tell you, we will be home. Come home. But it won't be because we all of a sudden, you know, have a few more people giving talks about bringing the troops home. We're going to come home because we're flat out broke and that will be good. It will not be bad for us once we bring the troops home. Well, how do people get their viewpoint on this? Why do they think it might be failing? Because most there's a lot of people still as much as I brag about the young people and the college students responding to this. There's still a lot of college students out there that aren't too worried about what's going on in Afghanistan and they haven't really been introduced to these views. But occasionally it leaks out that there's some of this stuff is just insane. You know, just last week or so we had, the wisdom of our government had purposely bombed a hospital in Afghanistan because they had heard or claimed they had heard there was a rumor there were some bad guys in there. Of course, they had been totally warned. Most people knew there were physicians in there and personnel and patients. So they went through the process and they bombed it and killed a lot of people and destroyed a hospital. But then the excuse was later on. They come out and they checked out and they said, well, the government officials in Afghanistan said, come in, we need your help. They're bagging us in there bombed that place. So here we create the government and then we use them to give the excuse for us doing something monstrous. You know, just yesterday, though, there was more news out there. So tragic and this anybody with, you know, a half of a mind, a half of a heart would have to be concerned because it was said that not everybody was killed instantaneously. There were patients and personnel started running out and trying to get away from the bombing of this hospital and our airplanes shot them. They killed them as they were trying to run away. I mean, this is monstrous. And this should wake people up on the other side of this. And one thing that I'm always so pleased with on talking to the young people on campuses is I talk about the horrors of our foreign policy and the horrors of our monetary policy and debt and how many problems we have. And yet most of the time afterwards, the individual who sort of see the light and they say, you know, this is right. This is terrible. And they thank me for being optimistic. And I thought, well, isn't that interesting? You know what I think happens is, I think what happens is it's sort of like a drug addict or an alcoholic. You know, there is a time when they have to say, hey, look, this is so bad. Let's give up on this. And that is the point where you turn and say, my life is going to change and they become optimistic. So you can't be optimistic when all you hear are lies from the government and this requirement that you believe nonsense. And I think what is happening now is there's more information getting out. The middle class is not going to be fooled. But the big challenge that we have now and for all of us, for out of our own self-interest in the interest of liberty and the interest of our country, is if it is true that we're in the midst of the end of an era of Keynesian economics as well as a foreign policy of intervention, the big question is what's going to replace it? And we now have, you know, available to us the information on what it should be replaced with. I think we have a better intellectual understanding about liberty and free markets and monetary policy and the preciseness of what a non-interventionist foreign policy should be like. The founders had great statements about non-entangling alliances and a lot of other things. But, you know, they were no angels in the early history. They were immediately going much too far and throughout our history. So they, we've never had, you know, the integrity of our leaders to really resist the temptation to tell other people, you know, what to do. You know, in looking at this and thinking about what type of government we should have, a lot of people have different approaches. There are some that, you know, are rather arrogant and they say this is the way it should be and they're bombastic and they argue the case and they use demagoguery. And to me that is just using the emotions to play on people prejudices and get them to go along with things. And I think that is rather dangerous. I'd like to think there's a place and time and place and it doesn't, it isn't a weak philosophy but some people claim it is. And that is to have a policy based on humility, a little bit of humility. You know, I think libertarianism is based on humility. And that is that we admit we can't know what is best for the people. You know, the people who knows all the answer, they know what's best for you. And they're there all over the place. They're in politics usually. But the recognition that we can't know what is best for somebody else and that we shouldn't even try. Do you think, you know, I imagine I'll know the answer. Do you think Janet Yellen knows what the interest rate should be? She doesn't know, but none of them know. They've been manipulating interest rates, the most important price in a free market economy for decades. And they got us into this jumble. So there's a lot of things they can't know. And then there are a lot of things they shouldn't do. So when you have somebody saying I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to do this other for you. Well, they shouldn't be doing it even if they try to make the case that they should. Because there are sometimes people aren't spending their money right and some people their social habits aren't right. But those are the things that we as libertarians should say we shouldn't be doing this. Sometimes we don't know and sometimes we just should say we don't do this for basic reasons. We don't know. We're not that smart. Matter of fact, I think except in this is a requirement that we hit our wiser and have a bit of wisdom. Rather than saying to the person that wants to take charge that they're so smart. Oh, we want somebody smart and powerful to tell us what to do. And the other tragedy is that over history, there's a lot of people out there that want to be taken care of. You know, they think that's the government's responsibility and it's turned into entitlements and rights. And see that has to change now that has not changed over history. But I don't know why we can't assume that this can be changed again, you know, in a positive way. I think foreign policy can be changed, you know, from hundreds if not thousands of years that we have to have governments telling us to do. I am absolutely convinced and I write in my books that I believe the people really want peace and they don't want war. But it's the politicians that want war and they control the strings of the propagandists and they convert the people into believing this. So what should we do? We should have tried to use what the founders did. They've tried to put restraints in the Constitution. The king can't declare war. Well, that obviously hasn't worked at all. They used to declare war on occasion, even when they shouldn't have, but they did. But no, they don't even bother doing this. But if you can't rely on the president, what about the Congress? Why shouldn't the Congress stand up and resist the president when he does wrong? You know, they don't. They capitulate and go along with it. There's no resistance. And so it falls back really on the people. So the people should resist. But how many of the people are they resisting? No. So what are our chances of keeping the bad guys out of government? Right now it's pretty slim and it's pretty slim that the Congress is going to resist them whether it's economic planning or running the world. So the whole thing is, I think ultimately the only solution for this is to get the majority of the American people to think that the size of government, the size of the executive branch of government has to change. My very modest suggestion on this is having an executive branch of government like exists in Switzerland. You know what's so wonderful about Switzerland? Even I doubt if there's anybody in this room because I can't name today the president of Switzerland. I think that's great. And I understand the people of Switzerland can't name the president. So that is fine. So there are different systems that are more advanced than what most of the world puts up with. But you know for so long we've had technology advance and so most of the time when technology advances, whether it's nuclear technology or whatever has been used to build more powerful weapons than using killing each other. I don't know why we can't entertain a delightful idea that why shouldn't we have technology held in the hands of the people for one purpose and that is to promote the cause of peace and keep it out of the hands of the government. But that means we have to have a different form of government and the people have to support that. But it requires that 8% of people, you're part of the 8%. And somehow or another get the influence but the opportunity is before us because this is going to come unglued and there will be people who will say I want to take care of you and I was sort of surprised that in this day and age going to the same campus that I went to and had a good reception that you can go to the same campuses and say I'm a socialist I want to tell you what to do with everything and get good crowds out. So we have a long way to go but I'll tell you what, we've advanced a whole lot. I think there's a better understanding and more enthusiasm and like I said when I come here it's sort of very helpful to me to sense the enthusiasm especially with so many young people because that's where it is and we don't know the timing of this but you know this whole event of the end of an era could come rather quickly. Randolph-Born had an interesting statement about war is the health of the state and there's no doubt about that and that of course is why I argued for the case for peace because I think peace is the friend of liberty and prosperity. Just think of how different it would be if we had the peaceful motives rather than scaremongering people in saying that Saddam Hussein will be launching nuclear weapons next Thursday and then we have to go in there and kill 500,000 to a million Iraqis and then people wonder why they'd want to kill us because we're so good and then they read stories of bombing hospitals and killing people trying to save their lives and this American exceptionalism, you know to talk about it, I've been on receiving and well you're on patriotic, you're on American, you don't even like the troops you want to just bring the troops home, don't you? Yeah, I do, I'm going to bring them all home. My statement was not complex in the debates, I said you just marched in why don't we just march home, that's all I would take and they worry about how you would do it. Well then they say well if you have all that you want to do on economics and the military and all, who's going to have to sacrifice because you have to, there's a lot of people who are dependent. I said well the people who are getting bailed out, they don't deserve anything let them worry about it but what if we had an introduction of a libertarian society tomorrow? Yes, there would be some financial adjustment but what if we could come and say you know tomorrow what we have in store for you is first off there will be no income tax ever again in the United States and we will take our current chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and all those in the past and relegate them to the pages of history and never have them have any influence whatsoever. Then we will declare a rule that says the government cannot commit any crime that they punish the American people for. So if stealing is bad for us why in the world do we let the government do the stealing for everybody else and then they call it entitlement and they get elected for it. You know this is one comment I get frequently when somebody said you know I was over here and I came over and it was exciting to hear this and I said what made you change your mind? He says common sense because it is common sense. I mean does it make any sense whatsoever that people in secret can sit in a room and decide what interest rates should be and what the money supply should be and have the economy and the middle class just dissipating and think it's good policy and then they'll come back and they've been doing it since the Depression. Well what we need is more spending and more debt and more printing press money we need more wars because there's a bunch of people washing it still believe that war is the way you end bad economies. It's absolutely insane so I put a lot of blame on us. People like us who believe in this that we haven't done a better job because logic is on our side, morality is on our side and for the most part the constitution is on our side and the finances you know the benefits of the people it's all on our side and we're not winning but we're going to have one new thing the people are starting to suffer and you know and they may be I claim that economics has a lot to do with the voting because if people think they can get a free lunch unfortunately everybody's looking to win the lottery and that's an attitude they just think that that'll be forever because at the beginning of this monstrosity that we have things didn't get bad overnight you know there was a lot of wealth in this country there's still a lot of wealth in this country but it's being consumed productivity is crashing and companies are moving overseas but you can't solve that by just you know enforcing people to do something where you have to change the culture and the nature of what we have and this to me is available to us and it takes a lot of work and so many have come up to me okay what do you want me to do and you know my answer is just do whatever you want to do you know Lou had to do something and he did something once a few years ago how many years ago that? 5-10 years ago? 1980-81 he decided he'd do something he started the Mises Institute Leonard Reed did the same thing and the magnificent thing about that is you never know how much good you might do hopefully we don't have to worry about any harm that we do but we don't know how much good we do because I meet people all the time around the country and they will have heard the message of liberty and found something to do and so they're out there and I think they're multiplying I think the internet is helpful when we landed yesterday here at the airport two individuals came up to talk to me and get a picture both were black both had accents and both said they were from Africa they weren't together one was here and one was done there but they had heard the message of liberty over the internet and they had been following me since 2008 and they were very excited about that so how would I ever know that how could it ever be that a couple young teenagers in Africa would care a lick about what I ever said or did last week I was also down in Mexico City there's a good libertarian group there and they try to model themselves they know all about the Mises Institute and when I was talking they said well the audience is not hardcore libertarians we believe in reaching out to people so they said but we want you to mention one issue and that is talk about the insanity on the war on drugs and of course that was not difficult for me to do that I'm against all those wars but interestingly enough you know just a couple days later this was a coincidence because the Supreme Court in Mexico just made a ruling which was favorable to the legalization of marijuana so it's out there I think we have the libertarian movement has had tremendous success in changing attitudes about the war on drugs and we're going to win that because it makes common sense that we end that ridiculous war so I think that I think the Federal Reserve before the collapse in 08 and 09 the Federal Reserve was never on anybody's radar you know it was I was so annoyed because you know the Federal Reserve is I always got credit when we had a boom and then there was a bust but they always got put in charge to correct the bust and they would take credit if there was an economy that came back but that's not happening anymore people are very leery of the Federal Reserve and I think that is of course very very good and people right now are very very leery of all politicians I think it's neat what are there six or seven I think there are six or seven governors that are trying to get the Republican nomination even recording that wasn't like that 10-15 years ago so the American people waking up but there's still a vacuum out there and that's why our job is tremendously important that's why the Mises Institute has to continue to do what they're doing and there has to be more and more and everybody has a different way to do it you know some people will get in politics and some people will do pure education or teaching there's so much but the whole thing is the defense of liberty and the understanding of liberty and why that is so important to have peace and prosperity and it's based around liberty but liberty is not, most important thing is not a collective thing it's an individual thing and this was always the most disgusting thing in politics it's endless that you hear the candidates go and they talk to this group this group they're all of one ethnic group okay what are you gonna do for our group what are we gonna do for this group what are you gonna do for this sexual group and there are more sexual groups all the time I can't even keep up with them but we have the answer we have the answer we don't have to know and we don't know we know everybody is an individual and he has to follow a rule a basic rule of no aggression against anybody else but that's had some roadblocks in the past and I think we're getting over some of those that is the lack of tolerance I consider those from the far left I think they're very intolerant people first they're two pro-gun they believe the government should use guns for anything they want to force us to do what they want and then they also use guns overseas and support all the wars overseas as well but we need to be a little more aggressive on these issues because this is something that will require the efforts on our part but we will see the conclusion really rather soon I see liberty as being so important that you have to get people to understand the issue of tolerance because conservatives traditionally have been less tolerant of people who aren't acting socially that you think is good behavior and believe me I have distaste for that too but I also recognize that if they're not hurting me and they don't bug me and there's no affirmative action to make me deal with them I don't have to deal with that I can just totally ignore them and as long as they follow that one rule the same way with economic policy if we could just get the liberals if they could only give up their guns that the liberals need to be a little bit more tolerant about your hard work and effort where did they get this authority to think that they own our lives and they own what we produce and they can tell us how to spend our money and tell us how we can deal with every contract in economics and it leads to a disaster I was thinking the other day about the debate on the minimum wage law and there are some jobs and this was coming up because the waiters and waiters weren't getting enough money and how much tips they were supposed to get and I was thinking what if there's a job in a minimum wage category whether it's a fancy restaurant or on a golf course or something where the tips are fantastic that if the market worked and you could make a lot of money if you did a real good job serving people you're paying for that job you know and say okay this is a private institution we'll do it, that's not likely to happen but it's actually a value instead we have the government propping up the prices and they say okay $7, we'll adjust this a little bit we'll take it to $15 we used to ridicule people when they say we're going to move the minimum wage from $6 to $7 well if that's a good idea why don't you take it to $15 so they went and did it and I tell you what they're losing the intellectual fight they're losing the practical fight they're losing the moral fight the constitutional fight and all we have to do is galvanize the people to stand behind these laws getting these laws repealed one personal reason why I think a free society and a concentration on liberty is that two important things for me in life would be free to work for excellence in virtue which is a very very personal thing and religious values and all these things but if you turn that over to government to say that we're going to make you an excellent person in the world you know an excellent we're going to spread American goodness around the world and we're going to teach you how to be virtuous well they've been doing that for probably thousands of years so it's time for us to say we want our liberty back and we'll take our own chances with developing our own excellence in virtue and we will obey the laws we will not aggress against any other person and if we mess up we'll bear the responsibility for us doing a bad job that doesn't sound too complicated to me so let's all go to work and preserve the cause of liberty thank you very much