 What do you say about Ron Paul? A man of transparent goodness, honesty, and decency, which is really the bedrock, I think, of everything he's done. Even those who don't agree with him, even those who dislike his principles, respect him. That was even true in the House of Representatives. Although, I think it was something that helped Ron a lot to gain respect from even all the creeps in Congress was he was such a great athlete. So they knew him in the gym, and they knew what an impressive guy he was as an athlete. Still is, by the way. He still goes on tremendous bike rides and swims every single day. And that's also a bedrock of his personality. He's an athlete. He's an intellectual. He's a physician, of course. He's a scientist. He's a historian. He's an economist. He's a man who has never violated his principles, ever. As I can testify, I was never even tempted to violate his principles, no matter what might seem to have been the political benefit, no matter what the pressure I was honored to be in Ron's office when the incident of the Jeff describes when the White House called to have Reagan personally arm twist Ron. He learned, like everybody else in Washington, you can't twist Ron Paul's arm. He's got untwistable arms. And they never could do it. There was an incident in the House Republican caucus where one of these secret meetings that Congressman Massey was talking about where Newt Gingrich is giving some horrible orders to support a massive budget deficit, I believe it was. And he's telling everybody there's like a triple line whip. You will not. You must all vote. You're going to all vote and so forth. And then he said, of course what I'm saying doesn't apply to Ron Paul. He knew Ron Paul couldn't be threatened, couldn't be persuaded by all the emoluments and other gifts that could have been his had he been willing to sell out. So he has such tremendous moral stature. And his early support was essential to the flourishing of the early flourishing of the Mises Institute. We're so honored to have him on our board. We obviously are strong admirers of the Ron Paul Institute for peace and prosperity. And of all the work Ron has done his entire life for the cause of freedom, for the cause of prosperity, for the cause of peace. And as we live in a world today as has happened in the past, where maybe we're actually threatened by the chance of a full blown world war, how blessed we are to have him here today, how blessed we are all to have his voice speaking out through the Ron Paul Liberty Report and all the media appearances he does through his writings, calling for sanity, calling for decency, calling for the Prince of Peace to be listened to. Just one more story when Ron was talking to the Values Voters Summit which is the alleged Christian, Christian voters. And he told them that his foreign policy was based on his worship of the Prince of Peace. They told him when they, what they thought of that, they all almost seemed to me unanimously booed him, loudly booed him and I thought, you know what? So Christians booing the Prince of Peace, well I guess that's politics for you, but not Ron Paul. So please help me welcome really the greatest American, our leader, Dr. Ron Paul. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Well before I get started, I need to announce that we have somebody with us today who is the head of the Paul household. That is my wife Carol. And also it was mentioned that Lou and Daniel spent some time at the congressional office, but we also know that Norm Singleton spent some time there and he's the president of the campaign for Liberty. And also Jeff, I believe he spent some time there and they're all doing great things as soon as they got out of Washington and they continue. So it is wonderful. But it's also very nice to be able to visit with a friend, David Stockman. We knew each other early on and did some work in the Congress. But then he got busy and he went off for fortune and fame but just in recent years now we've become reacquainted and working together and David, it's been great to see you again and glad you came to visit with us today. But I want to welcome everybody to this metropolis of Lake Jackson. I mean, this is fantastic. And also, I'm very particular about our crowds. I go where the young people are and I am just so glad that here's another college crowd and young people are here so welcome to the program. But I do speak to young people but I assume we're all young people because Liberty is a young idea. It's really not something that has been around for thousands and thousands of years and the benefits of Liberty have just been rather recent I think of the Industrial Revolution as a consequence of an understanding about economic Liberty and the tremendous advancements that have existed with the Industrial Revolution. But I've always wondered, well, why don't we advance in the social revolution? If we learn how to build so many wonderful things in the standard of living, it goes up for so many people. We have all these luxuries. Why is it that we haven't figured it out how to stay out of killing each other? So at the same time, we've had all this advancement that helped us in technological things in the Industrial Revolution. We've had more killing than ever before. Just think of the 20th century with all that advancement. I can't help but think about my dad talking to me about when his dairy started, the family dairy started, he delivered milk in a horse and buggy, you know, horse and wagon and that was at the beginning of the last century. So it's so recent and yet we haven't very much, we haven't advanced very much in this social sphere of how do we get along with people? And I'm not the best because I believe we should be able to do that. And when you look at the history of mankind, it's really so very young, especially if you decide to figure what part of the existence of the universe, the solar system, have mankind existed? It's not even hardly a drop in the bucket or the drop in the ocean, it's such a short period of time. And most of the advancement has been in the last 300 years and there are some significant events that have occurred there, especially with our revolution. There was an emphasis on individual liberty and there were changes, but there's something that comes up short on why we don't do a better job in avoiding the wars. Besides, I have a conviction about what we're talking about and that is peace. And I think peace is popular, very popular, not just among us, but I think with all people. But then the big question is if peace is popular and people really want it, why are there so many wars? And that's really is a serious question about what is going on, especially when I go to the campuses and talk to the young people, they're not saying, yeah, let's have another war. We like to go off and get exposed to the killing and we want all the debt to deal with and we want to deal with inflation. No, that group of individuals generally are less pro-war than the rest. I can remember one time when I made a charge that this particular piece of legislation was pro-war and it was on the side of the Republicans that were promoting this piece of legislation. And boy, I had one ex-military official come up to me. He was so annoyed. He said, I am not pro-war. You know, it really, they don't see themselves that way. And yet they are pro-war. But if I had to look back and guess on the number of people I've met throughout my lifetime, you know, from grade school on up and the many people I've met in the last 15 or 20 years in politics, tens of thousands and exposed to hundreds of thousands of people. And I would say that 90% of the people that I come into contact with are really pro-peace and peace is what they want. Then why is it if 90% of the people really want to live in peace, why don't we live in peace? 10% of the bad people have a greater influence than the 90% and in some ways that is the case. Our problem is not so much the people become supportive of war or promote the war. Some, too many of them are very episodic and complacent and they go along. But the big problem is that the people, the citizens, the people who suffer from the war don't start the war. The real problem is that we have to understand it's the government and government policies that causes the war and that's what we have to restrain. So I think what happens, governments have been around for a long time is that people who have psychopathic personalities and aggressive personalities and enjoy telling other people how to live, whether it's in a social sense, economic sense or in a military sense, they like power and they, there's an opening and people don't, the people themselves don't have a resistance and governments tend to have over the centuries always assumed a lot more power and this just opens up the door for the people who want power and even those who go with good intentions to Washington, they are consumed with this attitude and before you know it, they're part of the system. There have been so many individuals that I've seen over the years who had very good intentions about going to Washington and they believed basically like we do but they didn't maintain that position. They're not like the few that stick to their principles. So they go and then they're influenced and all of a sudden, the whole system is political. For them to do good and promote our views they have to be in a position of power and influence in Washington. So they succumb to become more moderate and say well I have to give in. The one term I don't like is moderation in politics because I think that is a sacrifice of principles. What I like to think about in politics as far as making corrections because there's so much imperfections is to work with coalitions and that is there are a lot of people that might not be true libertarians but they have set up principles that they'd like to see a lot less killing and a lot less war and there's no reason in the world we can't be talking as I do to the Dennis Cassinages of the world and others who will stand up for peace and this to me I think is real the answer. Moderates when they come together they have to sacrifice what they believe in. Let's say you have a liberal in the negative sense and conservatives in the negative sense but each having some positive things and they come together but they have to give up their beliefs so they sacrifice their true conviction. Now when I think of the relationship I've had with Dennis Cassinages we never ask each other to sacrifice anything. We ignore the things that we disagree with and we come together on the issues that we do agree with and we work in that capacity but that helps a little bit but why is it that we still keep losing the battle? Well the one thing is is I am convinced the libertarian principle can solve a lot of problems. If we would adapt to the principle of non-aggression not initiating any force against each other and we had people really accept this it can solve so many problems social problems, economic problems, peace problems and everything else but if we do that the big problem is as soon as they get into government the government doesn't have to obey the same rules and we can't with the libertarian principle although I have such strong positive feeling about this principle that one thing you can't solve is a problem of good and evil. Adam said that, you know, we the founders have given you a republic if you can keep it and he said that the moral standings of the people will make the difference when the people become immoral the system just doesn't work and yet at the same time if the people who are immoral the problem is is they're getting government so our job is first if we can't solve the problem of good and evil but some people call me naive because I'm too optimistic about how people should act if they would just accept a few principles but I think good and evil is gonna exist and the evil people are gonna be out there so the really the big challenge for us is of course to keep the evil people out of government you know that's where the problem comes from but I think the founders tried to do that they tried to set up the rules and yet there's always this temptation the temptation of power, power corrupting and they get in office and they give in and they move over and they sacrifice and so I think the founders basically failed if they had been successful our constitution would be a much more powerful instrument and it didn't take a long time to have some early erosion a matter of fact I think Jefferson realized that early on that there was an erosion and even those who said be careful about the Constitutional Convention and cautious about opening up the door to the growth of government and that has happened so the individuals sacrifice too much and allow governments to do this so how are we, if people were alert we would only send the very good people who would not be tempted to do bad things in Washington they wouldn't send the bad people and we wouldn't send people who would come to the temptation but that doesn't seem to have worked as well so it's back to the problem of how do we limit the government I think the key to it is to have a set of rules that are more binding but it has to be supported by the people what should the role of government be and that is the question I think the founders asked that and they tried to redefine it but I think we have to ask that question and try to define what should the role of government be I have a very complicated answer to what the role of government ought to be the role of government and the purpose of government should be to protect liberty that's it and that's what our goal should be so of course what would be the step there well we have to repeal 87% I just picked that out of the air 87% of what our federal government does because you wouldn't need all this stuff because what government does whether it's economic intervention running monetary policy regulatory things that are always supposed to help the people take care of the consumers or a foreign policy and making the world safe for democracy and spread American exceptionalism you know that can't work you have to have a system where the government is strictly limited what would it mean? It would mean that first off we should be able to absolutely have a position in a country like ours that a very powerful right and I put it in quotes and ability for the organization such as the states that are put together for our country they should always have the right to secede now does that mean we have to be for secession and every state has to leave? well right now it'd be hard for me to deny anybody's right to leave but you don't have to it's just the right to secede that is so important that would hold the federal government in check the government would have to be careful but even if they just had nullification which was a strong issue of Jefferson just so we as a people and the local people and local governments, the state governments if you didn't like what the feds were doing and if they're violating the constitution that you ought to be able to opt out and nullify it and that would hold a big check on the federal government as well and the neat part about this is it's coming because we are going to have chaos we're gonna have economic chaos we're gonna have the political fallout of our foreign interventionism the world will turn against us and we are going to have an opportunity for a lot of nullification it's already starting I think it's fantastic that the issue of the ridiculous war on drugs is coming to an end because the states and the people are nullifying these laws and they're saying stay away I hope that doesn't get reversed with this administration but at least we're making progress there and I think that is great and we have groups of people now and I just recently was out in Arizona because they're passing a bill out there and it's very popular trying to follow the constitution on the money issue because the directive is to the states the states are not allowed to use anything other than the gold and silver is legal tender so who broke the law? The government broke the law they were explicit in the constitution that you can't counterfeit you can't debase the currency and they were very explicit on this but we're not allowed to debase the currency but the government is and that is why this principle that if you and I can't do something the basic Bastia principle if you and I can't steal from people we can't debase the currency and we can't rob and kill and do all these things why in the world have we allowed our governments to do that? we have to curtail that power so if we just can't go out you know just killing people because it's against the law it's immoral why don't we allow our governments to do this constantly with bombs and missiles and threats and boycotts and all the things that we do we have to be able to apply these basic principles that have been understood but it's turned out that our governments did this to hold us in check to say you can't do this you can't do this and if you bend the rules we're gonna get you but they're exempt and this sucks into people who love that power and the people are too lackadaisical and they're too apathetic one of the signs during the campaign that I loved because they would put a sign up Ron Paul cured my apathy and and I took it as a compliment because I think that is what we need we need to get rid of the apathy we need to stand up and be engaged and a lot of people say well you know what should I do what should I do and I said do whatever you wanna do but just do something but Leonard Reed who was somebody that I admired at the foundation for economic education he says our first responsibility and I took this seriously in the 50s when I started looking at these issues he says you gotta understand the issues you gotta know how to explain these things the best you can do and I feel like I keep trying to do better and explaining all the issues and he said then what do I do he says don't worry about it his answer to the crowds would be then don't worry about it if you know the issues and you wanna be involved and he says somebody will find you fortunately we found Lou Rockwell and he started the Mises Institute I mean this is what we need and somebody else must have been awfully bored he says I'm going to do something I'm going to vote for Ron Paul no matter why and Bill Green actually did he gave us a vote ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha so no everybody has a responsibility and I've often talked about the responsibility of us as individuals because I consider this an exceptional audience I think that we need 8% of the population to really change the world not 51%, 8% to lead the charge and I think in a group like this you all belong to that 8% so that is the goal is for the 8% to be identified right now there's an 8% and they're in charge and that's our big problem and they just are running roughshod over us but I see a lot of positive things happening I see it on the campuses believe me I do not believe that Bernie Sanders owns the campuses he might own the professors and a few other people who are preaching all this you know Marxism, cultural Marxism and they're present but that's a different story I meet too many young people on the campuses that are very much involved take for instance the young Americans for Liberty was an outgrowth of our first presidential campaign they have over 900 chapters of YAL chapters in colleges around the country now Thomas Massie he left here earlier because he's on his way to Denver to talk to a YAL chapter so and they're enthusiastic and they're very good so there's a lot of things the ideas have to change first and people keep thinking well how are we going to campaign well how are we going to change the Republican Party it's totally irrelevant you know and it's totally irrelevant for that matter for the Libertarian Party and it's irrelevant with the Democratic Party it doesn't even count what really counts is what is the understanding what have they learned what is liberty all about and that's where the progress is because I think that we have an institute like the Mises Institute but there are others out there there's a bunch of people doing this and the attitudes are changing I think it's somewhat like it was in the 1930s you know Roosevelt if we were living and voting in 1932 you know I think a lot of us would have been tempted to vote for Roosevelt he was for the gold standard balanced budget, low taxes and the whole thing is but he must have been very knowledgeable by fake news and fake stories because he was lying through his teeth especially when he was going to keep us out of war but behind the scenes the universities where they were introducing the Keynesian philosophy we're not going to advocate ruthless communism but Mises was very clear he said that socialism the whole principle of socialism in government controls will fail and of course he did he wouldn't have been a bit surprised about 89 and 90 to see the collapse of communism so he also had an opinion about interventionism interventionism is a term I like to use a lot because I don't want the government to intervene in your personal life as long as you don't hurt anybody it's your business what religion you have or if you don't have a religion and that is why libertarianism sort of bring all kinds of people together with different views religion doesn't matter bring them together and one form of government that I like the least is the theocracies and I'm a religious person but I don't want a theocracy and certainly we don't want our governments telling other countries what to do even when they're imperfect one time we had this debate it was an anti-China discussion even 10, 15 years ago and they wanted to punish well we can't do that until they prove they're not violating civil liberties in China I said what about how about protecting civil liberties here at home you know that's our responsibility so there there's a lot of good things happening and I think in the 30s guess what the old right there were a few they grew even more as time went on and fortunately there was a group that held it together through the late 30s and the 40s and in the 50s but you know the interventionists they won out cold they took over the universities they took over the media and it was a way that they could get power the same type of individual you know the psychopathic personality that feels like they are the elitist and they know how to run the world they won and but right now I believe it's been reversed I think there's more and more people now advancing to this other newer stage where libertarian ideas are so attractive and the chaos is going to be so bad that there's going to be an opening for us and that is why all of us have a responsibility I am convinced in my own mind is it very personal that because you are more knowledgeable and more understanding and more anxious to help you come to events like this you help the Mises Institute you help the Ron Paul Institute and you promote these causes and you're well educated in this field I think you have a greater moral responsibility if you look at it because you know the masses out there they're apathetic and it's hard to stir them we just need to get them apathetic enough so they won't resist us and we get 51% to endorse us is what we want you do need their endorsement the masses have to endorse the ideas but I think it's I think it's just fantastic what is really happening but the responsibility you say still say what do I do well figure it out there's something to do and like Leonard Reid said we have to be well informed self-informed know what's going on and keep studying and try to answer the question the jobs will come along and to me it's amazing I go around the country and there's so many people have you know started different organization some run for office but I've not been overly enthusiastic about that they'll come and say all right you've convinced me so I want to go to Congress like you did I said he's they'll say what should I do and he's be you know college kid or something I said don't do it but that isn't that doesn't mean I'm not for it it's just I wanted to have them hone in because if the goal is set to go to Congress the whole ball game is over because then you'll go to the party and how do I raise money how do I organize how do I get along and how do I get on the committee how do I compromise to be able to promote the cause of liberty and it's all over so that shouldn't be the goal but if you're interested in and like it I think supporting candidates running for office winning elections I mean look to have Thomas Massey there I think is just great and he was somebody that both ran and I strongly supported before he ran so I think that's a very valuable but just to run to run and think that they're going to be if they're very weak as candidates and they they think that they can be a moderate president you know present their case in a moderate way that's not going to work the people want to hear the true story that's why it's very ripened very open for for this message and when we see the mess coming on I think that we need to be prepared not only intellectually and politically I think we have to be prepared in other ways too and that is why I don't think it's such a bad idea to own a little gold and silver that seems like a pretty good way to be prepared for what's coming you know they've ridiculed me a little bit on TV more than once but they'd ridicule me when I would come up with this gold and silver thing what are you talking about and they said yeah but you didn't point to me you didn't invest in the Dow Jones when it was skyrocketing look at all that money you could have made so yeah I'm looking how many people get lose the money too I said yeah I was rather foolish when I discovered what was going on the the moment of the confirmation of my suspicions occurred on August 15 1971 and that of course is when Bratton Woods Agreement just disintegrated so I thought even gold at that time was illegal I thought this is the time you buy gold you start buying yeah I tell them on the television I said yeah I said I was so foolish then I was so naive about this gold I started buying this gold at $35 an ounce but it was interesting how you bought gold back then and some of you may remember how you do it because it was illegal in Russia Soviet Union and United States you weren't allowed to buy gold people weren't allowed to order what was the first thing the tyrants wanted to do in our country give us an income tax establish a central bank get rid of the gold standard and look at you know what's happened and so the and that means the door is open when you have the central bank then the politicians are rewarded the more they spend and the more they buy the people's votes the more likely they are to get reelected and the payment will be some other time and then they still adapt to the Keynesian theory oh deficits don't matter they don't matter that isn't bad and they just keep doing this but in the 1970s what we had to do in order to not have to go to jail for buying a gold coin is that you could buy numismatic coins well there weren't that many and they were a lot more expensive than just regular gold but guess who came to our rescue the Mexican government the Mexican government started knitting a numismatic coin and they backdated it to 1947 it was enough years to be numismatic so you could go out and buy a bullion coin at a spot price and we never were fearful that we were going to get arrested you know for doing this terrible terrible thing of owning a gold coin so that generally I mean in reality and especially in the midst of a financial crisis I do think that the markets are more powerful than government they're more powerful than the central bank and I do believe the Fed is on its way out not because they're going to pass my legislation to abolish the Fed but because they will disintegrate they will self-destruct and they will become non-functional the only thing that counts is how are we going to rebuild what kind of a monetary system are we going to release that to the market to let the market determine it are we going to have a strict rule that governments are not are not allowed to initiate force they can't do anything that we can't do which is really why is necessary but even the war clause you know in the constitution now and members of Congress still take the oath every year it's 1945 they've never had a declaration of war and the people are apathetic we need to get rid of the apathy obviously but I think the opportunity is coming the opportunity for liberty the door is going to be wide open for us and we need to be energized and everybody in this room needs to get their 100 people lined up soon and get them involved one way the other and I love it when the young kids come and I was fascinated in the presidential campaigns because in the congressional office and David probably remembers the parents coming in with young kids for a civics lesson they bring them in and this is your congressman and the kids were like hey they weren't interested in a civics lesson but after the first campaign the parents were coming in with their kids but the kids were out in front dragging the parents in to meet me and they were really excited and they'd come in and they'd talk about monetary policy and they'd talk about the Federal Reserve and I'd look at them I'd say how old are you he said oh I'm 14 I said well you're way ahead of almost every congressman here you have a better understanding about monetary policy so so there's a lot of room out there but you can't get discouraged because it seems overwhelming no it's it's not a numbers game it's a quality game a game that we play and you know and somebody argued that well we still think that Bernie Sanders has more supporters than you libertarians have yeah but he does his group doesn't have the quality as our group has it's quality of character and quality of education and understanding and you know we can be critical I do think that most people are going to be apathetic but look at it as a positive we just don't have to worry about them then but get the position out there and they will not fight if they think it's in their best interest so they have to be convinced it's in their best interest so we have to convince people that we don't need to go to war out of their best interest we don't have to go to war because the left has convinced us and the war markers have convinced us that we need to be involved out of our best interest our best interests are never served by war unless it's a desperate case for self-defense which doesn't come very often and also on economic policy they're going to have to realize that if you want to if you want to protect people from falling have a safety net and falling through the cracks well the only thing that government does is make the cracks bigger and they keep falling in and they say well we need more cracks you know or something but that's that's all going to be an opportunity for us and but I think I think the number of people that are waking up very very many and I think that is optimistic I think it's in the American tradition I think it's a moral morally correct position I think that it hasn't been truly tested I see this as something new and exciting when I look at history you know two, three hundred years and somebody said well you Rhonda that's pretty idealistic that's not going to happen this year or next year no it isn't it might take a while but there's no reason why we can't keep planting the seeds and moving in the direction but the most important thing is that we can describe what it should be like describe what government should be in this advanced stage of civilization so I think that civilization so far has been detrimental so one is to challenge the current understanding of the role of government the size of government and that has to be challenged and then we have to be very infatic that those governments that have us you know involve that we can disengage get out of it this is why I think what's happening in Europe is fantastic you know it's you know let it disintegrate let every country go back to its own I thought you know they say a lot of people criticize this for being you know defense secession well you mean to say you don't like the secession of Eastern Europe from the Soviet system that's great secession you mean you don't like the secession from the United States from the British Empire no that's what we want but we always want the right to secede and leave and we have larger associations they should always be voluntary but everything should be voluntary no use of force I think it solves the problem of immigration the whole work you know they we talk about immigration and migration and how difficult it is and if you don't have if you don't welcome 20 million people into your country and then tax one group to take care of them then you're a bigot and you hate people well think of it this way we can be very open-minded about migration and immigrants think of it this way if if there's somebody that knocks on your door or doesn't knock on your door and said the rules are we can come in here and stay here and they have a right to it well when they do that to a country I don't think they have a right to this to just come in the worst part is even especially on the migration thing people come in and they're you know of questionable character and then you're charged to take care of them they get thousands and thousands of dollars of bonuses so the system is not viable but I don't think I think the libertarian position if you had a libertarian free market economy you're going to be looking for workers you're going to want people to come in but you would have to it would have to be with the acceptance of of a free market system you know of freedom to set wages and prices and having sound money and limited government and and get rid of 99% of all the federal regulations there are and it would be so different in attitude but most of all I want to close with this even though I've already alluded to it and I think it's the most wonderful thing about liberty is it brings people together you know it doesn't divide us that is why people who have totally different viewpoints and religion or anything else and the other people who may be very religious some people have one idea and definition of marriage another person has a different definition and some people have a different definition on what the sign should be on our bathrooms and somebody else has other but if you were in strictly libertarian society you'd just let them do it but you can't force other people and you can't use tax money in order to force standards on other people so so with that I just want to close with the congratulations to the Mises Institute and all of you for coming and all the support you've given us and that in those those things look dire and we have a mess in our foreign policy it's been worse in our history it's been worse it's dangerous out there but once again I think what our job is is to define the goals that we have you can't just criticize what's going on you have to say well what would it be like what should the responsibility be and is it achievable and I would say yes it is we need to set the standards set the goals and yes it's an imperfect world but what the most important thing that we can do to allow this to work is put very very strict limitations on the power and the control of any and all governments over the people liberty is popular thank you very much