Speech 2002 RP , too inspiring to leave it buried

[Guest guest]

Attached below, are the incredibly insightful words of Ron Paul, when

he was literally fighting for his political life in 2002, after

having made a dramatic nationally-televised call for reduction in

government - and in response received scathing threats to his elected

office by a multitude of national organizations weaned on the largesse of

the federal govt.

The ferocity with which he held his beliefs then, are even MORE

inspirational now, 6 yrs later !

This man Never quits - Never gives up !

Let us hold these inspiring words close now, and pass along to

others, THIS MESSAGE OF HOPE to those millions of Americans abused by the

banal tyranny of oppressive govt.

Americans who, even this very day, toil unknowing & not realizing

that there is a leader with the TENACITY & WILL to see us back to our

freedoms.

(April 29, 2002)

“Keep Your Eye on the Target”

by

Congressman Ron Paul

The other day, I made a huge " gaffe " on national TV:

I told the truth about the crimes of the U.S. government.

As you can imagine, the ceiling fell in, and a couple of walls

too. Congressman are supposed to support the government, I was

told. Oh, it's okay to criticize around the edges, but there are

certain subjects a member of the House of Representatives is not

supposed to bring up. But I touched the real " third-rail "

of

American politics, and the sparks sure flew.

I was interviewed on C-SPAN's morning " Washington Journal,”

and I used the opportunity, as I do all such media appearances,

to point out how many of our liberties have been stolen

by the federal government. We must take them back.

The Constitution, after all, has a very limited role for Washington,

D.C.

If we stuck to the Constitution as written, we would have:

No federal meddling in our schools; no Federal Reserve; no U.S.

membership in the UN; no gun control; and no foreign aid.

We would have no welfare for big corporations; no

American troops in 100 foreign countries; no Nafta, Gatt, or

" fast-track " ; no arrogant federal judges usurping states

rights;

no attacks on private property; and no income tax.

We could get rid of most of the cabinet departments, most of

the agencies, and most of the budget. The government would be

small, frugal, and limited.

That system is called liberty. It's what the Founding Fathers

gave us. Under liberty, we built the greatest, freest, most

prosperous, most decent country on earth. It's no coincidence

that the monstrous growth of the federal government has been

accompanied by a sickening decline in living standards and

moral standards. The feds want us to be hamsters on a

treadmill

Working hard, all day long, to pay high taxes, but

otherwise entirely docile and controlled.

The huge, expensive, and out of control leviathan that we call the

federal government wants to run every single aspect of our

lives.

Well, I'm sorry, but that's not America. It's not what the

Founders gave us. It's not the country you believe in. It's not

the country I believe in. So, on that TV interview, I emphasized

not only the attacks on our property, but also the decline of

our civil liberties, at the hands of the federal police.

There are not supposed to be any federal police, according to

the Constitution.

Then I really went over the line. I talked about the Waco

massacre. Bill Clinton and Janet Reno claim those 81 church

members, including 19 children, burned down their own church

and killed themselves, and good riddance. So they put few

survivors on trial, and threw them in prison for 40 years.

We're not supposed to remember that the Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco, and Firearms talk about an unconstitutional

Agency rather than arrest David Koresh on his regular morning

jog, called in the TV stations for big publicity bonanza, and

sent a swat team in black masks and black uniforms to break down

his front door, guns blazing. They also sent in a helicopter

gunship, to shoot at the roof of a church full of innocents.

The Branch Davidians resisted, and after a heartless siege of

almost two months, and after cutting off food, water, and

electricity, and playing horrible rock and roll through huge

speakers 24 hours a day, the feds sent in the tanks to crush the

walls of the church, and inject poisonous CS gas.

Now, CS gas is banned under the Paris Convention on

Chemical Warfare. The U.S. could not use it in a war.

But it could and did use it against American civilians.

A new documentary Waco: The Rules of Engagement may show, through FLIR

infrared photography, FBI snipers killing

the Davidians by shooting through the back of the church, where

no media cameras were allowed. This film won a prize at the

famed Sundance Film Festival. It was made by people who took

the government's side, until they investigated.

Whatever the truth, there's no question that an irresponsible

federal government has innocent blood on its hands, and not only

from Waco. And the refusal of corrupt and perverse liberals &

neocons to admit it means nothing.

In my interview, in answer to a caller's question, I pointed

out that Waco, and the federal murders at Ruby Ridge

especially the FBI sniper's shot that blasted apart the head

of a young mother holding her baby caused many Americans to

live in fear of federal power.

Then I uttered the sentiment that caused the media hysteria:

I said that a lot of Americans fear that they too might

be attacked by federal swat teams for exercising their

constitutional rights, or merely for wanting to be left alone.

WHOA! You've never seen anything like it. For days, in an

all out assault, I was attacked by Democrats, unions, big

business, establishment Republicans, and of course

the media, in Washington and my home state of Texas.

Newspapers foamed at the mouth, calling me a " right-wing

extremist. " (Say, isn't that what King George III called

Thomas Jefferson?)

I was even blamed for the Oklahoma City bombing! And by the way, I don't

believe we've gotten the full truth on that either.

All my many opponents were outraged that a Congressman would

criticize big government. " If you don't like Washington,

resign! " said a typical big-city newspaper editorial.

But the media, as usual, were all wet. (Do they ever get

anything right?) The average Congressman may go to

Washington to wallow in power, and line his pockets with a big

lobbying job for a special interest (so he can keep ripping off

the taxpayers).

But that's not why I'm in Congress. It's not why

I left my medical practice as a physician. It's not why I put up with all

the abuse. It's not why I refuse a plush Congressional pension.

I'm in this fight for a reason. I want to hand on to my

children and grandchildren, and to you and your family,

a great and free America, an America true to her Constitution,

an America worthy of her history.

I will not let the crooks and clowns and criminals have their way. I'm in

Congress to represent the ideas of liberty, the ideas that you and I

share, for the people of my district, for the people of Texas, for

the

people of America.

That's why I'm working to stop federal abuses, and to cut the government:

its taxes, its bureaucrats, its paramilitary police, its spending, its

meddling overseas, & every single unconstitutional action it takes.

 

And not with a pair of nail scissors, but with a hammer and

chisel.

Won't you help me do this work?

Not much of the federal leviathan would be left, if I had my

way. But you'd be able to keep the money you earn, your privacy

would be secure, your dollar would be sound, your local school would be

tops, and your kids wouldn't be sent off to some

useless or vicious foreign war to fight for the UN.

But Jefferson and the other Founders would recognize our

government, and our descendants would bless us. By the way,

when I say cut taxes, I don't mean fiddle with the code.

I mean abolish the income tax and the IRS, and replace them

with nothing.

Recently, I asked a famous Republican committee chairman

who's always talking about getting rid of IRS- why he engineered

a secret $580 million raise for the tax collectors. " They need

it for their computers, " this guy told me. So the IRS can't

extract enough from us as it is!

The National Taxpayers Union says I have the highest pro-taxpayer rating

in Congressional history, that I am the top " Taxpayer's Best

Friend. "

You know I won't play the Capitol Hill games with the Capitol Hill gang,

denouncing the IRS while giving the Gestapo more of your

money. Or figuring out some other federal tax for them to

squeeze out of you. I also want to abolish the Federal Reserve,

and send Alan Greenspan out to get a job.

The value of our dollar and the level of our interest rates are

not supposed to be manipulated by a few members of the power

elite meeting secretly in a marble palace. The Federal Reserve

is unconstitutional, pure and simple. The only Constitutional

money is gold and silver, not notes redeemable in them. Not fed

funny money.

Without the Federal Reserve, our money could not

be inflated at the behest of big government or big banks. Your

income and savings would not lose their value. Just as

important, we wouldn't have this endless string of booms and

busts, recessions and depressions, with each bust getting worse.

They aren't natural to the free market; they're caused by the

schemers at the Fed. President Andrew Jackson called the

19th century Fed " The Monster " because it was a vehicle for

inflation and all sorts of special interest corruption.

Let me tell you, things haven't changed a bit.

I also work to save our schools from D.C. interference.

Thanks to the feds, new curriculums not only smear the

Founders as " racist, slave-owning elitists, " they seek to

dumb down our students so they will all be equal.

" Look-say " reading and the abolition of phonics has the

same

purpose, and so does the new " fuzzy " math, in which there

are

no right and no wrong answers. That must be what they use

in the U.S. Treasury! It's certainly what they use in the U.S.

Congress.

But ever since the beginning of federal aid to education and

accelerating with the establishment of the rotten Department of

Education, SAT scores have been dropping. Schools, with few

exceptions, are getting worse every year. To save our kids, we

must get the sticky fingers of the feds off our local schools,

and let parents rule. That's what the Constitution says

And then there's my least favorite topic, the UN. World

government is obviously unconstitutional. It undermines our

country's sovereignty in the worst way possible. That's why I

want us out of the UN, and the UN itself taking a hike.

After all, the UN is socialist and corrupt (many votes can be

bought with a " blonde and a case of scotch, " one UN

ambassador

once said). It costs many billions, and it puts our soldiers in

UN uniforms under foreign commanders, and sends them off to

unconstitutional, undeclared wars. When Michael New, one of

the finest young men I've ever met, objected to wearing UN blue,

he was kicked out of the American Army. What an outrage! Not

one dime for the UN, and not one American soldier! Not in Haiti,

not in Bosnia, not in Somalia, not in Rwanda. I know it’s

radical, but how about devoting American military efforts to

defending America, and only America?

Such ideas, said one newspaper reporter, make me a

maverick who will never go far because he won't go along to get

along.

DARN RIGHT ! What does " go far " mean? Get a big government

 

job? To heck with that. And I won't sell my vote for pork

either.

When I walked through the U.S. Capitol this morning, I got

angry. The building is filled with statues and painting of

Jefferson, Madison, and the other Founders. Those great men

sacrificed everything to give us a free country, and a

Constitution to keep it that way.

When I was first elected, I placed my hand on the Bible and swore an

oath to uphold the Constitution. That's exactly what

I'm fighting for. But such ideas drive the Neo-Cons & Liberals

crazy.

That's why I badly need your help. I've been targeted nationally

for defeat. The Democrats, the AFL-CIO, the teachers union,

big business PACs, the trial lawyers, the big bankers, the

foreign-aid lobbyists, the big media, and the establishment

Republicans want to dance on my political grave.

The Fed, the Education Department, and the UN are anxious to join in.

They can't stand even one person telling the truth.

And they're terrified when that truth gains the people's

support.

Right now, four well-funded Democrats are competing to try to

beat me, and a Republican is rumored to have been offered

money at a secret meeting in Mexico(!) if he would try to knock

me off in a primary. Won't you help me stay up here to fight?

Frankly, I am in trouble if you don't. My Texas district has

22,000 square miles (not a misprint). I've got to travel all

over it, set up small offices to be manned by volunteers,

advertise, pay phone bills, and distribute video and audio tapes

to the people to get around the big-media lies.

As I know from my last election, which I won by the skin of my

teeth,

the media will carry any smear, repeat any libel, throw any

piece of mud, no matter how untrue. In fact, the less true,

the more they like it. They are determined to silence me.

But you can help me overcome all this.

Together, we can beat the bad guys arrayed against our country

and our freedom. We can support the Constitution. We can win.

Your generous contribution of $25 or $50 would be great ...

$100, $250, or even $500 or $1,000 would be magnificent.

Of course, any amount would help, and in return, I will keep you

up- to -date on this fight as a member of my " kitchen

cabinet. "

What great men founded this country! What great people have

carried on their fight!

That fight is not lost, not if you will join it.

Washington, D.C. is a loser, but among the people, our ideas are

gaining every single day.

Keep the tide turning in our direction. Please make your most

generous contribution. Join this fight for the Constitution, and

stop those who want to rip it up, and throw it in the Potomac.

Together, we can join the Founders' fight. Together, we can make

history. "