CPAC Transcript of Speech Needed

Congressman Ron Paul's address to the 35th annual Conservative Political Action Conference 08 February 2008

(Transcript of RonPaulCPACSpeech020708.mp3, retrieved on 12 February 2008 from http://www.ronpaulaudio.c.... Duration 27 min 26 sec.)

[Bob Barr] ...The fact is, there is only one candidate in this race on either side of the political divide among the two major parties, who has never voted for a tax increase, who has always supported smaller government, who believes with every breath as he wakes up in the morning and as he goes to bed at night that we need to maximize individual liberty and minimize government power in all that we do. I want you to give a true American Conservative Union CPAC welcome to a man who is not a compassionate conservative, he's not a convenience conservative, he's not a big-government conservative—he is the Constitution's best friend, Doctor Ron Paul! (cheers and applause)

[Ron Paul] Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. (applause) Thank you, thank you. (cheers) Thank you very much. (applause)

'Sounds like the Constitution is alive and well; you encourage me!

You know, it shouldn't be that difficult to figure out what we should be doing, because we have a lot of problems: we have fiscal problems, we have foreign policy, we have monetary policies, we have deficit problems. And where do they come from? It's because we don't follow the rule of law; we don't follow the Constitution. If we knew and understood and read Article 1, Section 8, believe me this government would be much smaller, we would have a lot less taxes, and we could repeal the 16th amendment and get rid of the income tax. (cheers and applause)

Somewhere along the way though, we have drifted away from the Constitution. We as conservatives, especially the conservatives running the Republican party, we have drifted a long way from the positions that we used to hold of limited government. And this is what we have to talk about. We have to talk about what conservatives stand for and what they should be doing, because we're going in the wrong direction. There's not a whole lot of time left. Because if we continue what we're doing we're going to have a financial crisis, because you can't continue to spend too much. Because there's limit on how much you can tax, and we're taxed to the hilt. And then there's a limit to how much borrowing we can do, and we're borrowing to the hilt. We're dependent on China, and Saudi Arabia, and all these countries because we are the greatest debtor in the whole world today.

This is different than the 1970's when we had to pay for guns and butter. Today we're paying for guns and butter again, but today our good jobs are overseas, we owe 2.7 trillion dollars, the whole country is in debt and what do we do now when we need more government? We print more money.

What is the bailout package all about? Our side of the aisle proposes it and the Democrats want to increase it. 150 billion? No, let's up it 200 billion dollars. Where does it come from?—the government has no money. Well, can we tax people?—no, you can't tax anymore. What are they gonna do?—they're gonna print the money, devalue the dollar, and that's the problem we have. The dollar is low, prices are high, the people are suffering, the middle class is shrinking. So we offer the same old pabulum, the same old baloney, and then we turn around and say, "Well, why don't we ask the Federal Reserve to create more money? Nobody seems to have enough money. If we just had more money, maybe it would prop up the stock market." So we go to the Federal Reserve—the badge of the Federal Reserve and the market—and say we need more money. So they crank it out. They lower interest rates—you can't lower interest rates unless you print more money. So they lower interest rates dramatically, like never before. Stock market goes up 200 points. An hour later they realize it didn't do any good, and the stock market drops 200 points. So we're in a bind, we're in a fix, and I'll tell you what: we overspend. Everywhere! We spend too much everywhere. (applause) This means we spend too much money overseas, we spend too much domestically...and we don't produce like we used to.

Therefore the only answer is to be truly conservative, and to be truly conservative you have to truly take your oath of office seriously—that is, obey the Constitution. (applause) But we, as Republicans and conservatives, we finally got control of government. 1994, matter of fact, was an exciting year, because it was the year I thought I might like to go back to Congress. I'd been in for four terms in the 70's and early 80's. 'Was out and went back to medicine, delivered babies. And in 1994 I thought: this country's getting serious. We've changed the Congress. I'm going back and I'm going to help. So I got back in and was sworn in again in 1997 and was hopeful. The year 2000, again hopeful: the Senate, the House, and the Presidency. But what have we done? Have we lost our way or what? I mean, remember the old days? The old Reagan days when we used to say to get rid of the Department of Education! (cheers) That's what we ought to be doing. (applause) So when we got our chance, what did we do? We doubled the size of the Department of Education. We put No Child Left Behind. We did all these things. We've lost credibility, and now we're losing House seats. We've lost control of the House and Senate, and right now it looks like we're going to lose even more. It's not because we are not compassionate; it's because we're not CONSERVATIVE that we're losing. That's how we WON before.

But now, now we have a candidate running for President, who's leading the charge. One of his best friends is Feingold, campaign finance reform. (boo) Another good friend of this leading candidate, his name, his good friend's name is Kennedy—on immigration (BOO) and then also his old-time friend—he's not in the Senate right now—Senator Daschle used to be his good friend on taxes: to INCREASE taxes not lower taxes. We need lower taxes. So... (applause) And now our leading candidate, guess whose position he holds on global warming? Al Gore. He supports the Al Gore bill on global warming. (boo) So if you think we can lead this country back to conservative principles, fiscal soundness, and a decent-sized government, you have another thought coming, because it's not going to happen.

Therefore we have to start thinking like conservatives thought, once again. That is what we have to do: we have to know what conservatives think about. You know on the right-to-life issue. I believe—I'm a real stickler for civil liberties. I believe that liberty is the most important thing, because if we have our liberties, we have our freedoms, we can have our lives. (applause) But it's academic to talk about civil liberties if you don't talk about the true protection of all life. So if you're going to protect liberty, you have to protect the life of the unborn just as well. (applause and cheers) Now I have a bill in Congress which I would certainly promote and push as President. But it's been ignored, basically, by the right-to-life community. My bill is called the sanctity of life amendment or bill. And what it would do is it would establish the principle that life begins at conception. And somebody says, "Oh why are you saying that?" And I say, "Well, that's not a political statement, that's a scientific statement that I'm making." (applause) But something we could have done—and I know we're all interested in a better court system, and amending the Constitution to protect life—but sometimes I think that is dismissing the way we can handle this much quicker. My bill, what it does, it removes the jurisdiction of the federal courts from the issue of abortion. If a state law says "no abortion," it doesn't go to the Supreme Court to be ruled out of order.

I have, since the very first time I ran for Congress in the 1970s, expressed a great deal of concern about the monetary issue, something that has been ignored. This is the first time in over a hundred years that monetary policy has been discussed in a Presidential campaign. On the universities, where I get large crowds, we get a large number of young people coming out, interested in the money issue. We had over 4,000 show up the other night at the University of Minnesota. The issue of money is one of the most interesting subjects for these young people, because when I talk about the monetizing of debt, the printing of money, the endless devaluation of our currency and how important it is, it gets one of the loudest applauses because young people understand that money is a very important issue; they understand that the Constitution is explicit. The Constitution says: no emitting bills of credit, no paper money, only gold and silver can be legal tender. And today we allow big government to grow. Whether it's on the conservative side or the liberal side, if they want something, they usually have a compromise—spend it on both. Then they resort to printing money, and that is where our trouble is coming from, and that's the crisis we're facing. All great nations and great empires end for fiscal, financial reasons. That's how the Soviet system was defeated. We didn't have to invade them; we didn't have to fight them. Their system collapsed. And that is what's happening today, the middle class is getting wiped out, the middle class is getting poor, endlessly, because they can't keep up with the cost of living. And the solution isn't printing more money, and spending more money, and allowing the Federal Reserve to pretend they can solve the problem. The answer is found in fiscal conservatism: live within our means, is what we have to do. (applause)

As long as a government can stir up fear, sometimes real and sometimes not real, the people are expected to do one thing: sacrifice their liberty. If you're fearful, the government, the people who believe in big government, big-government conservatives or big-government liberals, they like fear to be out there. Sometimes fear is normal and natural and real, and we have to deal with it. But at other times it's concocted. In times of war, whether it was the civil war, the first World War, the second World War—just think of the violations of civil liberties during the period of war when people are frightened. The one conclusion I have come to since 9/11 is that there is absolutely never a need to sacrifice any of your personal liberties to be safe! (cheers and applause) That means we do not have to accept the notion that we can have warrantless searches, a total loss of our privacy. We don't need a National ID card. Believe me, we do not need it! (applause) The analogy that I like to use about the National ID card and what happened on 9/11: Guns are dangerous, and when criminals have them they can commit crimes, and we want to regulate that. We want to take the guns from the criminals and put the criminals in jail. But we as conservatives and Constitutionalists know that you don't take the guns away from law-abiding citizens. (cheers and applause) And when we deal with this issue of taking care of the people and protecting the people—you don't have to register the American people to make us safe, you have to deal with the problem much more directly.

We have a responsibility in the Constitution, one of the most explicit responsibilities, of course: protecting liberties, having a judicial system, having sound money, and providing for a strong national defense. None of us should argue about that. We do debate on how we get the strongest national defense. I don't think we're doing very well. Our military is not in good shape. A lot of equipment is down; our Air National Guard, our Army National Guard, they're drained; our reserves are overseas. We have men that are going back a third and fourth and fifth time, they've been in five years, they get out, they get recalled, we have a de facto draft, there's a danger of this war spreading and there's no end in sight. McCain says we should stay there for 100 years if necessary; (boo) I say there's no need to do that!

One thing that is very conservative and very Constitutional—if we had followed this, we would have stayed out of a lot of trouble since World War II. You cannot be a conservative and believe that we can go to war under the direction of a single person, without Congressional approval and without a declaration of war. That's what we should always have. (applause) Because I am not anxious to go to war unless it's necessary, and dictated by the people through the Congress. People say, "Oh, that means you're weak on the military; that means you're weak on the troops." Well, let me tell you something about where we get our support, and make you reconsider, if that is what you believe. We did some statistical studies about where the money comes into the campaign, and I know that you recognize that we can, and have, raised a lot of money. But if you look at where it comes from and where the active military personnel send their money... We in the last quarter received more money from the military—active-duty personnel—than ALL the other Republicans and Democrat candidates put together! (cheers)

Providing for the national defense is very, very important. As I said, understanding it, I don't think we have any disagreement there. But understanding why we might be threatened... One thing that we are not threatened by is a military operation. They're incapable—we have more weapons—we probably have twice as many weapons as all the other countries put together. Nobody's going to invade us. We are not weak, and we shouldn't act like we are weak. But here we are, we are frightened by what might happen, and of course we have to deal with the issue of terrorism. When the terrorist attack occurred, I voted for the authority and the funding to go after the Al Qaeda. But Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden who used to be our ally, is still free. We chased him over into Pakistan; we dropped the ball at Tora Bora... So what did we do?—we taxed the American people, or we borrowed the money from China, took another ten billion dollars, and hired a military dictatorship by the name of Musharref to go after Osama bin Laden, which he did not do, and now we still have a mess. Now we're doing exactly what we condemned Clinton for. We won in the year 2000 by campaigning for a humble foreign policy: no policing of the world, no intervening! (applause) And now we are doing the very same thing. We're doing the very same thing, and things have not gotten better.

Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no Al Qaeda there. (sustained applause) (cheers) (chanting: "Ron Paul!") It is the policy of intervention that I object to so strongly. One time they're our friends, the next time they're our enemy. Osama bin Laden was a freedom fighter when we gave him weapons and equipment to fight the Russians and the Soviets. Saddam Hussein, we propped him up and got him into power and he was our friend and we encouraged him to invade Iran. But it's this on-again-off-again stuff that continues to haunt us and keep coming back. But you know what?—the truth of the matter is that Osama bin Laden likes our foreign policy. He likes our foreign policy because it's a tremendous incentive for him to raise, his group of Al Qaeda to join. Because he has been explicit. He says: We are going to do to you, the United States, exactly what you and us, together, did to the Soviets. We are going to drain you; we are going to humiliate you. And therefore we don't even need to come over here. So we have fallen into the trap, we have victimized ourselves, we have encouraged him. And we have done this by not following our Constitution that gives us no authority to be the policemen of the world. (applause) But the limiting factor, the limiting factor will be financial. As I said, all great nations end for financial reasons, and that is what's happening today. We can't afford it any longer. Sure we need to get rid of the Department of Education—but we spend a trillion dollars a year maintaining an empire. The Founders said: Be friends; trade with people; mix with people; don't fight with people; don't tell them what to do; practice diplomacy. But now we are in this endless streak of interfering, involving, and dictating. We have two choices: we go to a country and we say "Do it our way...or we'll bomb you." And then if they do it our way, we give them money. But we're broke. We're broke and we just can't continue to do this. That's what the dollar is telling us. The debt is too high, the dollar is weakening, the middle class is being wiped out, the international debt is so big, and we're dependent on others, our good jobs are overseas. So, who's going to pick up the pieces? Is it going to be the current crop of politicians that we have right now, or are we going to restore REAL, conservative, Constitutional values to our country? (applause, cheers)

My argument has always been that if you follow the Constitution, you will defend freedom. Freedom brings people together. It allows people to run their lives as they choose, it allows them to practice religion as they choose, it is not confrontational, and it's not antagonistic. The welfare state, and the warfare state, and the socialist state, is exactly the opposite. It divides us, because they take away our wealth, they control it in Washington. What is happening today?—hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign funds, and PAC money, and lobbying efforts, to come to Washington to control the money that gravitates to Washington, D.C. And the pie is shrinking, and the people are getting angry, and we have forgotten what a free country is all about. We've lost our confidence, because now we have fallen into the trap and we act like Democrats, because we have to have safety nets here and safety nets here and do all of these things—But the whole story is, it's coming to an end and there's a wonderful, beautiful answer. It comes in our traditions and it comes in the principles of liberty. If you promote liberty, liberty promotes peace. And peace promotes prosperity. (applause)

So if we as conservatives are truly conservative in the sense of the words "to conserve our true values," it means we have to be serious about taking our oath of office to the Constitution. Limit the government's size. Limit the spending. Limit the deficits. Limit our exposure around the world. And believe me—if America is as great as I believe it should be and can be and has been—believe me, we will have influence around the world. We cannot take our greatness and spread our greatness and our goodness through the barrel of a gun. It fails because it destroys our goodness by doing it that way. (applause, cheers)

There's always payback. There's payback for guns and butter. In the '70s when I was motivated first to run for Congress, I realized it wasn't going to last because that is when the gold standard finally lost its last wing. We ushered in the '70s and they were tough. High unemployment rates, interest rates of 21%, high inflation rates. But we did pay back. We paid back for all the spending of the Democrats in the '60s...guns and butter. But we're acting too much like Democrats, and now we are starting to pay for the guns and butter and we don't even see an end to it. It is endless, it is endless, nobody knows—we're told that this war is going to go on for a long, long time. And that means that the next generation—the burden is being placed on these young people. And that is why the college kids are coming out. Because they're getting ripped off. We have undermined their liberties, we're giving them a foreign policy where it's their lives on the line, the threat of a draft is coming for men and women as this war is likely to spread—and what are they inheriting? Less freedom and a lot of debt! Entitlements up to 60 trillion dollars and they can't pay it. A group of young people going into the work force which is smaller than the ones who are in retirement. The baby boomers are retiring and they're going to demand what they put into the system and it's just not there. What we need to do is not only live within our means, but start paying down the deficit, and offer an opportunity at least for the next generation to get out. To get out to the point where they can take care of their medical needs by themselves, get out of the Social Security system, which is a fraud, as we know it. (cheers) At the same time, at the same time, if we use common sense we don't have to put anybody out on the street. Because a lot of people are dependent. And as conservative as I am, and as unconstitutional as I see many of these programs, you don't need to do it overnight. But it will end overnight if you have a cataclysmic devaluation of the dollar, and all bets are off on what will happen under those conditions, if you look at history.

But if we did the right things and cut where we can cut, there's no reason why we have to pay for the defense of Japan, Korea, and Europe—we're going broke! (applause) And if we do that, if we do that, we literally can take care of our people and work our way out of this. If we had our freedoms, and we had the responsibility to care for ourselves, and we had sound money, within a year or two we'd be back on our feet again. But the most important issue is to make sure that we have our liberties. Understanding what private property means, understanding what sound money is all about, and also understanding what national sovereignty means. Once again we ought to be protecting our borders and not allowing this North American Union to come into effect. (cheers, applause)

Somewhere along the way in the campaign they coined the term "Ron Paul Revolution." It has nothing to do with Ron Paul Revolution. It has to do with the continuation of the grand revolution that we have been blessed with and that we have benefited by. But there's no reason why we should give up on it. They say—I've had interviewers say, "You want to go back to old times, hundreds of years ago." Well, a hundred years ago—you know, if it's true, age has nothing to do with that. The principle of habeas corpus is a lot older than that and we shouldn't be giving up on that. (applause) But going back and picking up on the principles in the Bill of Rights is not going back to ancient times. What is ancient, which we've had before, that is the inflationary system. It has been known for thousands of years how that debased currency. But also, tyranny is what is ancient. And now we're getting total control of our lives and loss of our privacy and loss of our freedoms and loss of our economic benefits. That is old-fashioned. What is new today is something that is just restoration of what we had. We need to believe in ourselves, we need to understand how freedom works. If we do the right things, we can restore the greatness of this country. Thank you very much. (cheers, sustained applause)

anyone find it yet?