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THE REVOLUTION
A MANIFESTO
[2008]
by
Ron Paul
[Candidate for the Presidency of the USA
in 2012]
[The purpose of showing
the work of Senator Ron Paul is that we applaud his mission
to Liberty and small government. Though the American
People have a written Constitution they have been for
decades witnessing the growth of BIG GOVERNMENT which
is threatening the true spirit of the original constitution.
The fight back by millions of Americans to stem or even
retard the intrusion of numerous government agencies is now
their biggest challenge. A message from Ron Paul on our
website gives his confident assurance that the tide of the
encroachment of Government can be turned around if all
who love LIBERTY join the FIGHT to regain control of our own
lives with the Government our SERVANTS and not as now in
America and England our MASTERS.]
*
THE REVOLUTION
I have heard it said that mankind does
not want freedom, that people are happy to be slaves as
long as they are entertained and well fed. I have
likewise heard it said that most Americans have bought
into the version of events they are given in the
main-stream media and are perfectly content to be told
what to think -what is good, what is bad, who is
politically acceptable.
I don't believe this for a second. For
one thing, our own American Revolution would be
impossible if this mentality had prevailed. Contrary to
what many Americans have been taught, a majority, not a
minority, of the colonists supported the fight for
liberty against Great Britain.*
* John Adams [2nd President of the United
States -1797-1801 ] is often misquoted as saying that one
third of Americans support the revolution, one third opposed
it, and one third were indifferent. Historians have repeated
this incorrect quotation time and time again. Adams was in
fact speaking of support for the French Revolution.
The fact is, liberty is not
given a fair chance in our society, neither in the media,
nor in politics, nor (especially) in education. I have
spoken to many young people during my career, some of whom
had never heard my ideas before. But as soon as I
explained the philosophy, their eyes lit up. here was
something they'd never heard before, but something that was
compelling and moving, and which appealed to their sense of
idealism. liberty had simply never been presented to
them as a choice.
We are engaged in a great battle of ideas
and the choices before us could not be clearer. I urge those
who agree with this important message to educate themselves
in the scholarship of LIBERTY. read some of the books
I recommend in my reading list. Learn from the Mises
Institute and www.Mises.org, the most heavily trafficked
economics Web site in the world. Visit
www.LewRockwell.com
an outstanding and crucially important Web site I visit
every day.
I have devoted this book to ideas that I
consider important, if typically neglected, if our country
[and England] is to restore its former self. How much
of my program could be accomplished in a presidential term,
or in a decade or two, I do not know. But a bare
minimum of what the successor to George W. Bush should seek
to achieve? I suggest the following.
FIRST, we need to rethink what the
role of government ought to be , and fast. If we
continue to think of government as the policeman of the
world and as the Great provider from cradle to the grave,
our problems will grow worse and worse and our downward
economic spiral, the first signs of which we are now
witnessing, will only accelerate. the role of world
policeman has made our country poorer and less safe.
THE WELFARE STATE likewise threatens our financial solvency
and has caused the once-robust institutions of civil society
- which are no longer needed when government performs all
functions - to atrophy.
Right now our government is borrowing $2.2
billion EVERY DAY, mainly from China and Japan, to pay for
our overseas empire. As our dollar continues to
decline, thanks to the Federal Reserve inflation, the
American debt instruments that these countries are holding
LOSE THEIR VALUE. We cannot expect these and other
countries to HOLD ON TO THEM FOREVER. And when they
decide that they no longer wish to, our FANTASY WORLD comes
crashing down on us. NO MORE EMPIRE, no more pledging
ever more TRILLIONS in new entitlements. REALITY WILL SET
IN, and IT WILL BE SEVERE.
Our present course, in short, is not
sustainable. Recall the statistics: in order to meet
our long-term entitlement obligations we would need double-diget
growth rates for 75 consecutive years. When was the
last time we had double-diget growth for even one year?
Our spendthrift ways are going to come to an end one way or
another. Politicians won't mention the issue, much
less face up to it. since the collapse is likely to
occur sometime beyond their typical two-to-four-year time
horizon. They hope and believe that the American
people are too foolish, uninformed, and short-sighted to be
concerned, and that the can be soothed with pleasant slogans
and empty promises of more and more loot.
To the contrary, more and more intelligent
Americans are waking up to the reality of our situation
every day. Now we can face the problem like adults and
transition our way out of a financially impossible situation
gradually and with foresight, with due care for those who
have been taught to rely of government assistance. In
the short run, this approach would continue the major
federal programs on which Americans have been taught to be
dependent, but in accordance with our Constitution it would
eventually leave STATES, localities, and extended families
to devise workable solutions for themselves. or we can
wait for the inevitable collapse and try to sort things out
in the midst of unprecedented economic chaos. I KNOW WHICH
OPTION I PREFER.
www.house/gov.paul
SENATOR
RON PAUL-PATRIOT
[Candidate for the Presidency of the USA in 2012] *
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MARCH-2009 |
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THE
REVOLUTION
A MANIFESTO
by
RON PAUL
*
Civil Liberties and personal Freedom
[EXTRACT]
TORTURE by rogue American troops or agents puts ALL
Americans AT RISK.
Judge Andrew Napolitano recently asked, " Why should
government agents spy on us? They work for us . How about we spy
on them?. On cops when they arrest and interrogate people or contemplate
suspending freedom; on prosecutors when they decide whom to prosecute
and what evidence to use; on judges when they rationalize away
guaranteed rights; and on members of Congress whenever they meet with a
lobbyist, maek up a piece of legislation, or conspire to assault our
liberties or our pocketbooks."
For a patriotic American, there is nothing radical
about this attitude at all. This is how the Founding fathers thought.
If our critics want to repudiate the Founding Fathers, let them go
ahead and do it. If they won't be honest enough to do so, they should at
least refrain from condemning those of us who still believe in the
wisdom they left for posterity.
Much more is at stake here than privacy violations or
unconstitutional searches, important and dangerous as those are.
For example, the president has made clear, in one of his signing
statements, that he retains the power to engage in torture regardless of
congressional statutes to the contrary. Defense Department memoranda say
the same thing.
First of all , legal issues aside, the American people
and Government should never abide the use of TORTURE by our military or
INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES. A decent society never accepts or justifies
TORTURE. It dehumanizes both torturer and victim, yet seldom produces
reliable intelligence. TORTURE by rogue American troops or agents puts
ALL Americans AT RISK especially our rank-and- file soldiers stationed
in dozens of dangerous places around the globe. It is not
difficult to imagine American soldiers or travelers being taken hostage
and tortured as some kind of sick retaliation for Abu Ghraib.
Beyond that is the threat posed by unchecked EXECUTIVE
POWER. Executive branch lawyers claim that the PRESIDENT'S
COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF powers override FEDERAL LAWS prohibiting TORTURE,
But the argument for extraordinary wartime executive powers has been
made time and again, always with bad results and a LOSS of our LIBERTIES
. War has been used by presidents to excuse the imprisonment of American
citizens of Japanese descent, to SILENCE SPEECH, to suspend HABEAS
CORPUS, and even to CONTROL entire private industries. That's why
it is precisely during times of relative crisis that we should adhere
most closely to the CONSTITUTION, and NOT ABANDON IT. The Founders
were especially concerned about the consolidation of power during times
of WAR and NATIONAL EMERGENCES. WAR does NOT JUSTIFY the SUSPENSION of
MURDER LAWS, the SUSPENSION of DUE PROCESS, or the SUSPENSION of the
SECOND AMENDMENT.
The hallowed right of habeas corpus has also been a
casualty of WAR ON TERROR. the Military Commissions Act of 2006 gives
the PRESIDENT the power to detain people indefinitely and to deny the
accused any real opportunity to answer the charges against them.
It is anti-American at its core. The name of the Act can give the
misleading impression that anyone targeted under it can at least bring
his case before a MILITARY COMMISSION. THAT IS NOT SO. If the
PRESIDENT wants to punish an accused "enemy combatant," he may bring him
before such a COMMISSION. BUT HE NEED NOT, and if he'd rather that the
person remain in prison FOREVER, HE IS FREE TO ADOPT THAT COURSE
INSTEAD....
*
www.house/gov.paul
SENATOR
RON PAUL
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MARCH-2009 |
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