by Ron Paul

Congressional hearings, White House damage control, endless op-eds, accusations, and defensive denials. Controversy over the events in Benghazi last September took center stage in Washington and elsewhere last week. However, the whole discussion is again more of a sideshow. Each side seeks to score political points instead of asking the real questions about the attack on the US facility, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Republicans smell a political opportunity over evidence that the Administration heavily edited initial intelligence community talking points about the attack to remove or soften anything that might reflect badly on the president or the State Department.

Are we are supposed to be shocked by such behavior? Are we supposed to forget that this kind of whitewashing of facts is standard operating procedure when it comes to the US government?

Democrats in Congress have offered the even less convincing explanation for Benghazi, that somehow the attack occurred due to Republican sponsored cuts in the security budget at facilities overseas. With a one trillion dollar military budget, it is hard to take this seriously.

It appears that the Administration scrubbed initial intelligence reports of references to extremist Islamist involvement in the attacks, preferring to craft a lie that the demonstrations were a spontaneous response to an anti-Islamic video that developed into a full-out attack on the US outpost.

Who can blame the administration for wanting to shift the focus? The Islamic radicals who attacked Benghazi were the same people let loose by the US-led attack on Libya. They were the rebels on whose behalf the US overthrew the Libyan government. Ambassador Stevens was slain by the same Islamic radicals he personally assisted just over one year earlier.

But the Republicans in Congress also want to shift the blame. They supported the Obama Administration’s policy of bombing Libya and overthrowing its government. They also repeated the same manufactured claims that Gaddafi was “killing his own people” and was about to commit mass genocide if he were not stopped. Republicans want to draw attention to the President’s editing talking points in hopes no one will notice that if the attack on Libya they supported had not taken place, Ambassador Stevens would be alive today.

Neither side wants to talk about the real lesson of Benghazi: interventionism always carries with it unintended consequences. The US attack on Libya led to the unleashing of Islamist radicals in Libya. These radicals have destroyed the country, murdered thousands, and killed the US ambassador. Some of these then turned their attention to Mali which required another intervention by the US and France.

Previously secure weapons in Libya flooded the region after the US attack, with many of them going to Islamist radicals who make up the majority of those fighting to overthrow the government in Syria. The US government has intervened in the Syrian conflict on behalf of the same rebels it assisted in the Libya conflict, likely helping with the weapons transfers. With word out that these rebels are mostly affiliated with al Qaeda, the US is now intervening to persuade some factions of the Syrian rebels to kill other factions before completing the task of ousting the Syrian government. It is the dizzying cycle of interventionism.

The real lesson of Benghazi will not be learned because neither Republicans nor Democrats want to hear it. But it is our interventionist foreign policy and its unintended consequences that have created these problems, including the attack and murder of Ambassador Stevens. The disputed talking points and White House whitewashing are just a sideshow.

by Ron Paul

Last week at its regular policy-setting meeting, the Federal Reserve announced it would double down on the policies that have failed to produce anything but a stagnant economy. It was a disappointing, but not surprising, move.

The Fed affirmed that it is prepared to increase its monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities if things don’t start looking up. But actually the Fed has already been buying more than the announced $85 billion per month. Between February and March, the Fed’s securities holdings increased $95 billion. From March to April, they increased $100 billion. In all, the Fed has pumped more than a half trillion dollars into the economy since announcing its latest round of “quantitative easing” (QE3) in September 2012.

Although many were up in arms when the Fed said it would buy $600 billion in government debt outright for the previous round, QE2, all seems quiet about the magnitude of QE3 because it doesn’t come with huge up-front total price tag. But by year’s end the Fed’s balance sheet could hit $4 trillion.

With no recovery in sight, where’s all this money going? It is creating bubbles. Bubbles in the housing sector, the stock market, and government debt. The national debt is fast approaching $17 trillion, with the Fed monetizing most of the newly issued debt. The stock market has been hitting record highs for the past two months as investors seek to capitalize on the Fed’s easy money. After all, as long as the Fed keeps the spigot open, nominal profits are there for the taking. But this is a house of cards. Eventually, just like in 2008-2009, the market will discipline the bad actions of the Fed and seek to find the real normal.

In the meantime, real families are suffering. While Wall Street and the government take advantage of access to the Fed’s new “free” money, the Fed claims there is no inflation. But who hasn’t paid higher prices at the grocery store, the gas pump, for tuition, for insurance? It’s bad enough that household incomes have stagnated, but real purchasing power has declined so much that one in seven Americans, 47.3 million people, are on food stamps. Five million are collecting unemployment insurance with 21.5 million afflicted by unemployment according to the government’s own figures. That’s 13.9 percent — close to double the 7.5 percent unemployment number reported last week.

We are certainly not in a recovery. We don’t see the long unemployment and soup kitchen lines like in the Great Depression, but that’s just because the lines are electronic now.

It is not surprising the Fed has decided to hand the American people more of the same failed policies. But it is disappointing. We know what the real solution is: allow the marketplace to work. Allow entrepreneurs the chance to create instead of stifling innovation with arbitrary regulations. Allow interest rates to rise to equal the risks in the economy. Allow bad debts to be liquidated so we can build on a firm foundation. Stop printing money to benefit the government and big banks. Restore sound money to the economy and the American people. Sound money is the bedrock for prosperity and the best check on big government and crony capitalism.

Transcript

Neil Cavuto: This is Neil Cavuto, and whether President Obama ends up sending troops or just some well-placed tomahawks, the President is in a very tough placed now. He’s already warned Syria that if he ever got proof it used chemical weapons on its people, there would be hell to pay, even if we can’t pay for that hell. Dr. Ron Paul says, the truth is, consequences costs, so quit offering ultimatums we can’t pay for, even if we did have the money to pay for them. The Congressman and former presidential candidate joins us right now. Congressman, you would just say, “Don’t even get involved, let the Syrians do whatever they want”?

Ron Paul: Yes, pretty much that way, because it’s not our business, our national security isn’t threatened, and it smells a little bit like the argument going into Iraq: weapons of mass destruction, poisonous gasses, and all that. He drew the line in the sand, or whatever he called it, but for him to worry about going over that line, I don’t know where the evidence is. No, they don’t have evidence, I think he overstated that in the first place, and he shouldn’t be in a dilemma, he should just stay out of it.

Neil Cavuto: What if they did have unequivocal evidence that Bashar al-Assad is using these weapons routinely against his own people, Congressman, more than the former President Bush had on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Ron Paul: Well, look how many hundreds of millions of people were killed in the 20th century by bad regimes? I would say that the likelihood of that happening is slim, so I would still argue the case for staying out of it, unless they were using it against us and affecting our national security. But they couldn’t possibly use it against us if we weren’t in their backyard. I mean, we’re in Jordan, and I’m sure we have plenty of CIA agents already in Syria. We support the Syrian rebels, so we’re already very much involved. So whether you’re machine-gunned, or you’re gassed or a drone missile kills you, it’s still very, very dangerous. But I think we’re looking for trouble by being there. And to answer your questions, no, just because there’s evidence that they do have a weapon, I would say that is not a justification to send our young people over there to get killed.

Neil Cavuto: In other words, killing people is killing people, whether you’re doing it with chemical weapons or shooting them on the streets.

Ron Paul: Yes, you want to minimize that. The responsibility for an American public official should be to make sure Americans don’t get involved needlessly, don’t get involved in the internal affairs of other nations, and don’t set the stage for a lot of Americans being killed. So there’s a lot of responsibility there. But I think going in is the worst thing to do, especially under these circumstances, especially because it would take a lot of convincing to have the American people actually believe that Assad is a threat to us and he actually has weapons that we’re threatened by. They’ve been through those lies before, and they’re not going to buy into it this time, I think they’re healthily skeptical of this right now.

Neil Cavuto: And we’re a lot poor than we were when prior threats were made, right, so we don’t have the money. But we could put it, as we do with so much else, on the credit card, I guess. But your point is that whether we can afford this or not, we just dig a deeper whole every time we do it?

Ron Paul: Yes, and that’s part of the reason. But the first reason is we don’t have the moral imperative to go there, we don’t the legal authority to do it, it never works and it backfires on us. And to climax the whole argument, we don’t have any money. And this is what brings great nations down, they think they own the world and they spread themselves around too much. It brought the Soviets down and it’s going to bring us down. Because this is one place I think the American people from the Left and Right could come together and say, “Let’s not close down the airports, and let’s not take away child healthcare, but let’s quit fighting these wars. These wars overseas are costing us trillions of dollars a year, and we have nothing to show for it except more enemies. So to me, the logical place to cut is overseas. But we keep expanding it, and it’s a sacred cow and we can’t cut a nickel out of the military. This proposal, which was all fictitious about cutting FAA funds and closing some of the airports and causing great problems for the American people, why didn’t they just save twice that much from some of this nonsense overseas? But no, they never suggest that, it’s a sacred cow, the military-industrial complex controls things, and you’re not even allowed to criticize it and say too much money is being spent.

Neil Cavuto: And, bottom line, we haven’t found replacement cuts for the workers, so points well taken. Ron Paul, thank you very, very much.

Ron Paul: Sure thing.

Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.

These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law. The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.

What has been sadly forgotten in all the celebration of the capture of one suspect and the killing of his older brother is that the police state tactics in Boston did absolutely nothing to catch them. While the media crowed that the apprehension of the suspects was a triumph of the new surveillance state – and, predictably, many talking heads and Members of Congress called for even more government cameras pointed at the rest of us – the fact is none of this caught the suspect. Actually, it very nearly gave the suspect a chance to make a getaway.

The “shelter in place” command imposed by the governor of Massachusetts was lifted before the suspect was caught. Only after this police state move was ended did the owner of the boat go outside to check on his property, and in so doing discover the suspect.

No, the suspect was not discovered by the paramilitary troops terrorizing the public. He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.

As journalist Tim Carney wrote last week:

“Law enforcement in Boston used cameras to ID the bombing suspects, but not police cameras. Instead, authorities asked the public to submit all photos and videos of the finish-line area to the FBI, just in case any of them had relevant images. The surveillance videos the FBI posted online of the suspects came from private businesses that use surveillance to punish and deter crime on their property.”

Sadly, we have been conditioned to believe that the job of the government is to keep us safe, but in reality the job of the government is to protect our liberties. Once the government decides that its role is to keep us safe, whether economically or physically, they can only do so by taking away our liberties. That is what happened in Boston.

Three people were killed in Boston and that is tragic. But what of the fact that over 40 persons are killed in the United States each day, and sometimes ten persons can be killed in one city on any given weekend? These cities are not locked-down by paramilitary police riding in tanks and pointing automatic weapons at innocent citizens.

This is unprecedented and is very dangerous. We must educate ourselves and others about our precious civil liberties to ensure that we never accept demands that we give up our Constitution so that the government can pretend to protect us.

Transcript

Alex Jones: Alright, ladies and gentlemen, it’s Friday, I’m in “Big D” on a short family get-together. I just happen to be in the same building as Dick Cheney right now, I’ll tell you that story briefly later. We’ve got 5 presidents here in town now. Speaking of who I wish would be our President right now, Ron Paul is scheduled to be calling in any minute now and spend half-an-hour with us today, and I’m going to bring up a cornucopia of issues. And I have the guys come in and co-host even when I’m there, because I enjoy their ideas and banter and it’s thought-provoking, but Jakari Jackson and David Knight are riding shotgun out there also, in case we have any technical difficulties, as we are coming to you via the internet right now. The wonders of the internet. And we do have Congressman Ron Paul joining us today again. I’m on the road, so I have a couple of my infowars nightly news reporters riding shotgun with us over the next 30 minutes, so in case anything cuts out, they’ll be able to ask the former Congressman questions. It’s great to have you on with us today, sir.

Ron Paul: Thank you, it’s good to be with you.

Alex Jones: So much is happening, I want to get into your home-schooling curriculum, I hope to actually promote it later when you start that affiliate program, I think everybody should get involved in that. But, before we go there, what do you make of Boston and that whole martial law spectacle that we saw?

Ron Paul: Well, it’s rather scary. You know me, I always try to look on the positive side of things and think things can’t be quite as bad, but those pictures really concern me. That is such a visual image when you see these thousands and thousands of troops, and they weren’t your local friendly policemen that were involved. And it was accepted too easily. Can you imagine all these people being locked, they became prisoners. And the military police were allowed to march into any house at any time without a search warrant. It was martial law, so I think it was very, very scary. Let’s just hope it wakes up some people, but, unfortunately, we still hear comments like, “Well, the government has to do something to make us safe”. And I think that’s where the big disconnect is: about what is the purpose of government. Is it to give us perfect safety and perfect economic security, or is it there to allow us to run our own lives and protect our liberties?

Alex Jones: I want to expand on that, because we’re going into a break here in a moment. This is our short segment again, former Congressman Dr. Ron Paul joins us, and he’s very active in the defense of liberty. I want to expand into the next segment on the Boston issue, because some stations Judge Andrew Napolitano us then, and I want to get your full take on that. But clearly, any excuse that the power structure has to grab power, they do it, and it seems like that appetite is getting more and more intense. Why do you think that’s happening?

Ron Paul: Well, the problems are getting bigger. They say that the Congress isn’t doing the job because it’s broke, but it’s the whole system that’s broke, we’re financially broke. But those individuals in Washington, their mentality is different than so many people outside of Washington, because they’ve told me personally that they need to take care of people, and they need to regulate people’s lives, because they can’t trust it to themselves because they may hurt themselves or they may not take care of themselves. And I’ve asked them, “Why is that the case?” and they said, “Well, they’re too stupid”, and inferring, “We (the politicians) know what is best”. That is a mental status that they have and they cling to, and then they don’t do it like, “I’m Hitler, and I’m going to take over, and I’m going to take away liberty”. They feel, “I’m doing the Lord’s work, I care about people”. You’ve heard the liberals say that they care about people, and we don’t. But, of course, if you really care about people, you’ll protect liberty and there’ll be more production and more people taken care of, than the special interests taking over control of our government and the wrong people benefiting. But, anyway, that’s the mess that we have that’s continuing. So every time there’s an opportunity, they think, “If I enhance my power, I can do more good for the world”. Although there’re sinister reasons for us to be going about around the world, most of the people are complacent and they just go along to get along. And they think, “Well, we got to go and help those people, we got to get rid of the terrorists”.

Alex Jones: Absolutely, Congressman. Ron Paul is our guest, and I want to expand and flex that out when we come back, because that is so central. Please stay with us, Ron Paul is our guest.

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Alex Jones: I’m coming to you on the road up here in Dallas, Texas, visiting family. And Congressman Ron Paul joins us as well from Texas via the phone, and we have our reporters riding shotgun with us. And the former Congressman is just popping in with a news and analysis update here with us today, and he’s going to talk about the home-school curriculum he’s got coming out in September. It is truly a revolutionary idea that I’m fully behind. But first off, sir, seeing the images of the lockdown, saying it’s a prison, overriding the bill of rights, that is martial law by definition. Now they’re saying this is the new way in America, and we’ve got to have drones now domestically, and that basically America is a battlefield. We’ve known this centralization was coming along with economic collapse, what can you say about what Americans can do to reverse this, and what’s your take on what you saw in Boston?

Ron Paul: I think what Boston told me is it is a bigger issue and is more difficult to reverse than I might have hoped. I’m always hopeful, I always want to be positive, I get a lot of people who understand, but to overcome the power of the Department of Homeland Security, it looks like they’re going to have all the guns, at least they want to have all the guns. They’re buying up all the ammunition, and, of course, they said they would never use it against American citizens. And then when you witness what went on in Boston, if this is not martial law, I don’t know what martial law is going to look like. But the constitution has been trampled, the American people have to stand up any way they know how to do it, by spreading messages, reading, studying, getting involved in politics. Ultimately, though, it’s education and people have to understand why liberty provides the answers for us. But we’ve been conditioned probably for 30 or 40 years, and you hear it all the time from President: their job is to make us safe. The liberals say, “We want to make you economically safe and secure so nobody falls through the crack and we’re going to take care of everybody”. But then others say, “We want to make you physically safe”. And governments aren’t supposed to do that, governments are supposed to protect our liberties. Once they decide they’re going to make us safe economically and physically, they can only do this by taking away our liberties. And that’s where we are, we seek safety rather than liberty. We were warned about it, and I think we need to re-warn the American people that they have to know what the goals are in order to establish their priorities.

Alex Jones: Again, Dr. Ron Paul joins us. You’re talking about the bullets, we broke that story, www.drudgereport.com forced it into the mainstream media, and they said, “We’re not buying bullets”, and then they said, “Okay, we bought a billion”, and now it’s 2 billion. And then they come out and say, “It’s a hoax that we’re buying bullets, but we did buy bullets”. So their lies and their denials have gotten schizophrenic, where you’re reading a headline and they testify, “This is a hoax, but we did buy the bullets”. And now ‘big sis’ said before Congress today, “The DHS denies ammo-purchases aimed at civilians”, when the targets are of woman and children on record, and the army manuals say they’re training to take on domestic groups. That first document we got 4 years ago said Ron Paul, veterans, gun owners, libertarians, conservatives, Aaron Russo, film owners … it’s just bizarre. And now all that is mainline. So what do you say about the intensified lying, or do you disagree that they are not intensifying their lies?

Ron Paul: They have the major medias on their side, so they paint us as paranoid. And this is our job, whether it’s talk shows like yours or our internet programs or whatever we’re doing, we have to reverse this whole idea that we’re paranoid and just imagining these things. When she gives us an inch and says, “Oh yes, we did purchase them”, they have to pound here and figure out what are you going to do with them, what is the intent, how much money was spent? You think Congress should have more of a backbone to stand up and demand this, that’s their responsibility. But the Congress goes along with it, they give up their prerogatives to the executive branch so easily. And if we don’t do it, the people eventually have to do it. Members of Congress go along to get along, they’ve been doing that for years, and we only have a dozen or two up there that are trying. What we need to do is wake up more and more people to hound their congressman and say, “Find out why, and what are they up to”. Because it’s only information that they have that can wake the people up. If they don’t get the information, they’re going to be too complacent and then it will be too late. After Boston, I worry more on where we are. But, then again, when I go to the college campuses, I get good responses. All the young people are saying, “We know what you’re talking about, and we don’t like it. We’re going to be stuck with a big bill and we don’t have a job”. So there’s a receptive ear out there, so it’s a battle, it’s a battle for the hearts and minds of people to decide which they think is correct: are they going to go along with the status quo and the Federal Reserve and the income tax system and the government taking care of us and making us safe and secure, or are we going to say, “It’s time we defended our position, we want our freedoms back and just get the government out of the way”.

Alex Jones: As you said earlier, the government claims it’s here to help us, but everywhere government gets involved, it creates dependencies and a wrecked society. We’ve sent our reporters out not just in Texas, but also in California, and most people signed petitions to confiscate all the guns, to not just ban carbon dioxide, but hydrogen monoxide or water. And it seems like we’ve got two things happening, either people are getting more awake, or they’re getting even more dumbed down, and they’re saying, “Hey, we’re a democracy, if 51% vote to make the other 49% slaves, we’re going to do it”. In a republic, that actually works, but the federal government is moving forward like it’s a democracy and they can do whatever they want. Do you see a collision, a clash of civilizations, of informed, high-IQ productive, good people who haven’t succumbed to cultural collectivism and Marxism and globalism, versus the zombie hoards? This is getting bad, that’s my point.

Ron Paul: I think there will be this collision, mainly because our country is bankrupt, but also because there are more and more people waking up, which I think is very good and beneficial. But one thing is, though, individuals like myself who want to look on the positive side of things, shouldn’t ever get so naïve as to think that we’re up against an enemy that’s a rather soft enemy. The worse things get, the harder they’ll work and the more they’ll do to cling to power under the pretence, of course, of always helping people. They’ve been powerful because they’ve always been able to get to the moral high ground, saying, “We’re doing good. When we go over to these countries, we only get rid of the bad dictators. Yes, we have deficits, but we take care of poor people”. But now they’re running out of money and they can’t do it and they make these false promises, so the only thing left for them, since their promises aren’t believed anymore, is they’re going to use power. And that’s why you see the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI invoking martial laws in a major city. So I think it’s going to get worse, I’ve always said it’s going to get worse before it gets better, because we haven’t even had the pre-economic crisis that I think is coming, and then you wonder how complacent the American people will be. So the more people we can alert to being prepared for this so they can handle some of the emergencies to get by, the better off we’ll be. We want everybody to be protected, as many as possible, so they don’t have to depend on the government. But when the government is broke, they have very little to promise except our might to try to restore order.

Alex Jones: Absolutely. So it’s a sign of their weakness that they’re trying to flex their muscles and using any excuse to try and take over and plant the flag of authoritarianism on our once great republic, b ecause they understand and they’re scared and they know they’ve mismanaged things. Now, shifting gears to a subject that so many callers in the last few days wanted me to ask you when they heard you were coming on. Just as a layman here, and talking about a gold and silver company like Midas Resources, they’re having trouble getting the gold that’s being bought so quick. Places are sold out everywhere, the Mint can’t even make enough, but they’re using paper money to drive down the price, while elites are buying it as fast as they can. What do you make of what’s happening with the war on gold?

Ron Paul: I think there is, and governments always have a war on gold, because they want their paper to last as long as possible. How much gold do you think we dumped in the 1950s and 1960s at $35/ounce trying to prove that point? Markets, though, eventually win out, though I think that they very well could be involved in all this dumping of gold. That one day the gold prices went down so much, there were 53,000 contracts sold by one individual. I’m just wondering how close the treasury department was to that. But the market number that best tells you about this disconnect, is the premium on the coin. You and I might hear, “Oh yes, gold prices are crashing, maybe we ought to buy some more”, so we go out to buy gold. Evidently there were more than just a couple of us doing that, quite a few people went out to buy gold, so the premium goes up, which is natural because that’s the way the market works. The prices are not supposed to be going up, because the prices are ‘fixed’ by these traders in the paper market. But the premium is part of the price, and I don’t know what the premium has done in the last day or two, but I know when the price of gold was going down rapidly, the premiums went up.

Alex Jones: Sure, but isn’t that like Nixonian price fixing, where you’re sure you can fix the price, but then you can’t find the things they fix the price on. What I’m saying is, I’m getting reports from everywhere that the people, the shops, can’t get the gold, that there’s a major shortage at this lower price. So doesn’t that right there prove that the market is saying that gold is really worth a lot more? And, as you said, they can’t suppress it forever. Shifting gears, what about bitcoin? I’ve been [weary] since day one, because if this wasn’t something globalists were involved in, they would have destroyed it. Now they’re not all-powerful, but I just have a bad feeling.

Ron Paul: I don’t know exactly what’s going on there, I have deep reservations about it, because my understanding of money is a little bit different than something that comes out of a computer. And I don’t understand how it’s calculated, and I don’t think anybody else does, either. But, if we have a truly free society, and the people are doing this and they’re not committing fraud and it actually becomes a means of exchange and people can transfer and measure things in a bitcoin, then I’m not going to object to that. But I don’t think that is the answer, I think money has to be something that has been established in the marketplace. And there’s been a pretty good test on gold and silver for thousands of years, so I’m very reluctant to get involved. Even with the bitcoin, when you make a sale or a purchase with the bitcoin, you have to do the mathematical changes and figure out how many dollars you’re getting. But, I hope it’s a method where they’re challenging, because that’s been one of my position: that if we would just have a legal competition with the Federal Reserve in place, that would be helpful. But I’m thinking more along the lines of somebody who’s out there using gold and silver as legal tender as advocated under the constitution. But you know what happens to people who do that, you can go to prison for that and you’re called a counterfeiter. But the Federal Reserve should be the one to be held responsible for counterfeiting.

Alex Jones: Alright, I want to get into home-schooling, and then let you get out of here, but the last question before we get to that. I want to bring up Boston again, because the government locked down the city and then couldn’t find the guy, and then as soon as they lifted the lockdown, which was totally illegal, then a citizen smoking a cigarette at the back of his house saw the guy was in a boat. Not only did this not protect us, it’s totally unconstitutional, but it’s just all a giant fraud. What would you do, now that you live in South Texas on the coast, if they said, “Don’t come out of your house today, or we’ll arrest you”? What would you do if you drove up and they had your family with their hands up? This is a big deal, they need to get in trouble. Do you have any ideas, as a constitutionalist and a pretty smart guy, how we can take action against this precedent-setting garbage?

Ron Paul: That’s a tough one, because they’re the ones who are using violence illegally against the people. And if you resist it, of course, that’s armed conflict, and it’s about how much of a stomach you have for the confrontation. But, what we have to do is intellectually argue against and expose those people who have these lockdowns and have martial law declared. Three people were killed, which was tragic, but I think every day there are about 48 murders, sometimes in a weekend there will be 10 murders in one city. They never lockdown a city. This is unprecedented, it’s very, very dangerous, and we have to expose them at every chance we get.

Alex Jones: Sure, they’ve had a lone gunman out all the time, you don’t lock down a whole city, and they said, “Hey, please stay in your homes in this block, we think he’s in one of your houses”. That would be a probable cause or something of reasonable suspicion. But if you’re all locked in your house and now they’re going to aim guns at you, they aimed guns at little kids in yards. I can’t wait to get you on in September, because this is a revolutionary idea to get after the government training camps. Spend a few minutes, sir, in the time we’ve got left here, telling us the best websites to visit, where we should go to find out about this, hopefully you’ll get your site www.ronpaul.com back soon. But what are the best sites to visit, and why have you launched this home-schooling initiative?

Ron Paul: Of course, home-schooling is something I’ve been very sympathetic with for many, many years, more so over this year, because I think the public educational system is deteriorating. I’ve talked about it before, but in Congress you can’t really do a whole lot. Even 20, 30 years ago I often thought to myself, “It would be neat to have a school when I’m out of Congress”, but I always thought about a brick-and-motor school. But technology has changed, and all of a sudden, there’s a much bigger opportunity to have more students at a much cheaper price, have good education, have it where it’s not very expensive. So I’ve had some help with this, Don Woods and Gary North have been working with me on this, and they are great at teaching, and we’re going to have math and science and history and English courses. And, also, the first 6 grades are going to be free, you can go in and get on there after September and get education up to the 6th grade for free. And for the later grades, there will but tuition charges. But one other unique thing that we’ve come up with on this … there are a lot of other home-schooling programs and a lot of them are very decent, but ours will be somewhat unique. But there’s going to be a lot of interplay between students and self-teaching, and also it means that the cost will go down because we’re not going to have people buying books. They can if they want, but [inaudible]. So if we have a course on the constitution, it’s going to be done by reading the constitution and the paper, and then having a teacher giving a lecture, and the students writing. So it would be a little bit different approach. We think we can give everybody a better education at a much better price than anything that’s out there right now.

Alex Jones: Again, what are the best sits, other than www.CampaignForLiberty.org, for people to visit right now to find out everything about Ron Paul?

Ron Paul: One in particular is www.ronpaulcurriculum.com/ and there’s a preliminary course you can sign up for $25 to help you get into preparing for high school. But the curriculum really gets started in September. But there is a webpage now that gives you some information, and it will keep you up-to-date. There is a question-and-answer section there where people call in and ask their questions.

Alex Jones: It’s excellent. Let me just say this, and then I’ll let you get out of here as you got to go. When I first talked to you before you went live on air, we were talking about promoting it and how important it is, and you were talking about how it’s free for the first 6 grades, and then almost apologizing for selling it. Listen, we have gotten the liberty movement to fund each other and to vote with our dollars, and we’ll take the economy back, as you know, through markets. It’s time. The media and the establishment, that lives off our tax money and corporate welfare, attacks us, that if you sell a book or I sell a film. Ladies or gentlemen, you either spend your money with websites like www.drudgereport.com by clicking on the sponsors, Ron Paul’s sites, my sites. You spread the word about us, or we’re done. Okay, this is war bonds, Ron Paul lives in a modest house and can set off in the sunset, he’s 76 years old, fighting everyday because he has a passion for liberty against the authoritarians. And this is a revolutionary act of taking our kids back from these scums. So, sir, I’m going to get behind your curriculum, and I salute you. When it comes out in September, everybody should buy it and give it to their family members if they won’t buy it. Everybody should support this 110%, Congressman.

Ron Paul: Wonderful, and it’s good being with you today.

Alex Jones: Thank you so much, and we’ll talk to you soon.

Ron Paul: Thank you.

Alex Jones: Alright, there is goes, ladies and gentlemen. Bottom line, I’m ready to die for freedom, I’m in the globalist’ faces saying, “I want you going down 110%”. I’ll tell you why I like the oblivion so much, because that’s what it’s all about, that archetype of giving your life up for liberty. And I don’t want to die, because I love liberty so much, I’m not afraid of them, even though I know how horrible they are and I know the things they can do. Every time I look at my children, I know they can come after them, and they threaten my family. I just look at them and I commit. I’m a slob on air half the time, I’m burned out, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot unplug. I dream about this stuff, I can’t play or go fishing with my kids. All I’m thinking about is the news and the new world order, and then I do so much research, I get on air and I can’t even talk about it all, because I just know too much. It’s like the Gnarles Barkley song, I want to come back and have a break with our guests: I’m not crazy because I know enough, it is because I know too much. And I was just talking to Ron Paul during the break and he was like, “Yes, we’re selling it because we have to pay for it and everything”. And I said, “Man, don’t apologize because you’re selling it”. The globalists have taken over the control and issuance of currency and credit, we’re doing this because we love liberty and we want to be free. And then they create this idea like he said that they have the moral authority, like they can sell stuff, they can make us give them our money, to then use it against us, and that’s moral. I had the Austin police chief in, and he said, “Oh, Alex Jones is selling stuff, Alex Jones has got a 50 caliber riffle”. Yea, and I’ll sell my house, and a little bit of real estate I’ve got and all my guns if I ever have to, to keep www.infowars.com going. I will live in a rat-infested trailer before I ever stop spending my money on fighting the New World Order. But yes, I like nice things, I like being comfortable, but that’s not my God. My God is God, is liberty, is life, and is freedom. That’s why I take the money you give us by buying the great products we promote, and hire more reporters and get better equipment and build studios. I have dream to bring these people down. I’m a builder, I want to build things, I want to construct things, I want to build an architecture of freedom, I want to lead the way out of this, with you right beside me and in front of me and behind me. I have a dream of liberty, I have a dream of freedom, I have a dream of my children not being slaves. And I am sick of the globalist having the moral high ground, while they use our tax money against us that we’re not allowed to sell stuff. I skipped this network commercial, you know how much money that costs the network? There’s nothing they can do, because I just won’t be on the network if they try to stop me, and it’s bad that I do it. I don’t even plug products on here like I should by saying, “Buy everything at www.infowarsstore.com, buy the water filters, buy the seeds, buy that t-shirts, buy the videos. It’s all about warfare against evil, warfare against death. We’re about life, period! That’s what we stand for. I have a dream: life, enlightenment, liberty, freedom.

Transcript

Geraldo Rivera: I’m very delighted to welcome back to the program the former Congressman from Texas, the former candidate for president of the United States, the father of someone who is talked about as a future candidate for president of the United States. The son is Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, the father is Ron Paul. How are you doing, Congressman, how’s life?

Ron Paul: Geraldo, I’m doing well, thank you.

Geraldo Rivera: I’ve read, with great interest, a couple of hours ago, that you have endorsed the candidacy of Mark Sanford, the former Governor of South Carolina, who is embattled in his race for the congressional seat in Charleston, South Carolina. What’s up?

Ron Paul: Well, he’s a good friend, I’ve known him for years, he was a good voter, and I thought he was the best candidate, so I decided to help him out while everybody else is piling on him.

Geraldo Rivera: So do you think he’s personal transgressions are irrelevant?

Ron Paul: No, I think they’re very relevant, I think some people will vote against him for that, and that’s okay. But if we always look for perfection in our candidates, we’d have a tough time finding them. I think he’s obviously the best candidate, and he certainly has his shortcomings, but I imagine all of us have some shortcomings somewhere along the way.

Geraldo Rivera: Well, everyone in this radio broadcast facility can say, “Yes, that’s true”. But it seems to me that you have set yourself up in some ways to be the anti-GOP Establishment. They forsake and cut off Mark Sanford after he got caught walking in his ex-wife’s backyard or something, and then you embrace him. Are you doing that to tweak the Karl Roves of the world?

Ron Paul: Not really, because I actually sent him the endorsement before that last story broke. And, technically speaking, I would have had to reverse it and take it away, but I decided not to, especially after having made a commitment. I think the only thing that we did was we delayed it one week so it wouldn’t be lost in all the other news. But, no, I don’t think I’m taking on anybody as much as it seems like the party takes on us who want to be a little bit determined about limiting the government and cutting spending and having a different attitude towards civil liberties, and maybe having a foreign policy more like Robert Taft. So I think they take us on as much as we take them on, I think they’re on the wrong side of many of these issues.

Geraldo Rivera: You established the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, to kind of continue your philosophy, your public advocacy, of a non-interventionist foreign policy. A lot of people you know are saying that this was the worst thing that could have happened for your son’s potential national aspirations. They’re throwing the usual mud at you, that the people involved are or were anti-Semitic and all the rest of that. Do you take that with a grain of salt, do you worry that it might affect your son’s possibilities?

Ron Paul: I can’t worry about it because I can’t care too much about it and I can’t change my ways, and I’m not going to all of a sudden quit doing what I’ve been doing for 30 years because I have opportunities now to actually continue. I can get on the radio once in a while, I have an influence on you and others. So I would say no, I’ll keep doing it, but I’m aware of it. But, in a way, I don’t think it hurts him. We do have some differences and the approaches will be different, but that makes him his own person. Why should it be said that he’s a clone and he has to do everything and think exactly as I have. I think it’s an opportunity for him to show that he’s an independent minded, and he has different opinions.

Geraldo Rivera: You don’t want him to forsake his dad, do you? I would hate that if my son did that, if he went out in public and said, “My dad is one thing, I’m totally different”. Do you want the same thing?

Ron Paul: No, I don’t think he will, because we’re about 99% same.

Geraldo Rivera: Yes, that’s the way is strikes me, I like you both.

Ron Paul: I think there are people who want to drive wedges through that, that’s one reason why, if somebody calls up … if you would have called today and said, “Ron, all we’re going to talk about today is where you and Rand disagree on”, I would say, “I’m not interested in that subject so much”. Because it’s other people who want to do that, they want to dwell on the differences, and I don’t think that’s that important.

Geraldo Rivera: I’m almost out of time, and I hate that I put you in this shorter segment.

Ron Paul: I know you didn’t do that on purpose.

Geraldo Rivera: I know, you know we care deeply for you. But I’m just thinking, have we recovered from the Boston bombing, are we doing enough to investigate the origins?

Ron Paul: Well, probably not, but I don’t have the information on what they exactly have done. I think investigations, whether you’re investigating assassinations or whatever, most of the time cover up blames. It’s not so much that somebody conspired to do these things, but I think so often what they do is make sure nobody gets blamed. If somebody goofed up, then you won’t hear about it. So investigations are fine if they’re revealing the truth.

Geraldo Rivera: We got to leave you, Congressman, so sorry. I hear you.

Transcript

Neil Cavuto: With the threat rising almost as fast as the deficit itself: two guys in Boston accused of bombing the marathon, two guys in Canada accused of trying to bomb a train headed for New York, so those are two huge issues. The government is nearly 17 trillion dollars into collective debt hole, and there’s a new push to spend more to protect us despite that hole. So how do we deal with that? Former Texas Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul is on the phone. Congressman, they’re already saying we need to spend more to stop this, what do you say?

Ron Paul: Oh, keep doing it, bring it on, until we have to force ourselves into reality. It’s tragic, because we’re addicted. It is like a drug addiction, you can’t get off drugs, and the economy can’t get off spending. Just look at what they’re doing at the airports now with the pretending, they’re making little cuts, and then they emphasis it and amplify it by playing politics with it. So they’ll never cut spending, the Fed is there to monetize the debt, we’re going to continue to do this until there is a true economic crisis. So I don’t think what we had in 2008 and 2009 was very much, I think it’s going to get much worse, because we’re never lived in times quite like this when the whole world was inflating their currency and everybody had a paper currency and nobody is living within their means.

Neil Cavuto: That’s one thing, Congressman, if you think about it, for the Left to say, “If in doubt, spend more”. But now, for the Right to say we need to double our spending on security, sort of like we did during the Bush-years, because our lives are at risk”. Obviously you could scare anyone into thinking, “Well, I guess it’s well worth it”, just like these privacy invasions I was discussing with your son last night, Senator Rand Paul, are justified. Because we might get killed, but what’s the harm if they’re poking into our emails and taking heat images of us. I just think you got to draw the line somewhere.

Ron Paul: Well, I do too, and I think it should be to just follow the constitution, and we shouldn’t build up this fear. Either one side says there is fear from outside so we can’t ever cut a penny from the military, and we have to expand it when we run into trouble. And the other side says we have to have a safety net for everybody, and they compromise. They always complaint so often that we don’t have then compromise in Washington, but, quite frankly, I think there’s many a compromise. And it wasn’t so bad when we were a growing country and we were so wealthy. But we’re not as wealthy as we used to be. matter of fact, we’re a debtor nation, we’re not producing as much, so, therefore, the compromise is only to continue the spending which is the wrong thing to do. They should come to the other and say, “Maybe we don’t need to be the policeman of the world, maybe we don’t have to have food stamps for 48 million people, maybe our policies are wrong, maybe Keynesian economics doesn’t work, maybe the Fed is the culprit, maybe we ought to know what the Fed is doing.

Neil Cavuto: Congressman, you raise a lot of brilliant points, as you always do, but here’s my fear. We’re bitching (pardon my French), the way we are now at these lines at airports, and blaming it on what were the tiniest of cuts in the scheme of things, and that’s creating the rage right now, with even some Republican senators saying, “Enough, maybe we have to delay these layoffs”. We will never address a fraction of the issues you are talking about.

Neil Cavuto: Well, that’s my working assumption, that it’s not going to happen. And the next question will be, “Why do you even try to change people’s mind?”, because I think it is important, I think we will have a crisis. And I’m actually encouraged because I talk to a lot of young people, they know it’s coming, and they want to hear something different. And something will have to replace it, and for that reason, there are a lot of people now assuming that there’s going to be no easy way out. We’re not going to get enough members of Congress to all of a sudden vote against the military-industrial complex and domestic welfare. No, that is well entrenched. Conservatives are military-Keynesians, because they say, “If you don’t build the F-35s, it hurts jobs”.

Neil Cavuto: Having said that, though, your son, Senator Paul, did say that to use this type of high that technology to go after bad guys is fine. He obviously doesn’t want it used recklessly on individuals, but he seemed to draw the line that to the degree you can track down bad guys, and we have that technology … I think I got the gist of what he said. What do you make of that?

Ron Paul: When the courts approve, that will be fine, but it was never meant that we would have this gigantic police force from the federal government. We had martial law out there, the FBI and all these agencies come in closing things down and going into people’s houses. No, technology is fine, but it has to be guarded. And if there’s a question, you guard liberty before you say, “Well, if we catch a bad guy, that is good”. You don’t give up liberty for 9 people because you might find one person, so I’d be very, very cautious about that. The federal government is not supposed to be our police force, yet we have over a 100,000 federal officials who carry gun to enforce these laws, and they own Boston. It’s criminal that people tolerate this so much, that we tolerate this martial law and the total acceptance that they can come into our houses and we can’t even go out of the house. What if we want to go to the store and get a loaf of bread? Oh no, you can’t do that. And yes, it was serious, there was a crisis and there were three people killed. But we have 48 murders every single day, there are a lot of murderers out there. Do we close down cities because there’re 10 murders over the weekend in Chicago? We don’t do that. But here we close down a whole city, not even allow them to go to a baseball game. I mean, I think it’s very, very scary when I look at some of those pictures of what happened up at Boston.

Neil Cavuto: Ron Paul, you make people think, thank you very much, good hearing you.

Ron Paul: Good to talk to you.

Transcript

News Anchor: Are you concerned about this drop that we’ve seen in gold?

Ron Paul: I’m concerned about the erraticness of the dollar. The dollar goes up, the dollar goes down, we print a lot of dollar and the dollar gets devalued, that’s really the concern. If people think that the gold price going up and down is a reflection of something wrong with gold, then I say no, it’s something wrong with the dollar. Because people have been expressing a concern here in these last couple of month about gold, but compared to what? Compared to where gold went from when the Fed took over when it was $20/ounce, compared to what has happened in the past?

News Anchor: We have to talk about the stability here, to see the sharpest drop of gold in 30 years actually makes the dollar’s price activity recently look a little bit stable?

Ron Paul: Well, in a relative sense, that might be the case, but that’s the way markets work. I remember in the 1970s, when they finally allowed people to own gold, it went from $35/ounce up to $200/ounce rather rapidly, and then it lost 50%, and then it went up to $800/ounce. So to compare a couple of months or a couple of weeks and forget about a bull-market in the gold prices in relation to the dollar for 12 years, I would say the comparison is not an authentic comparison. What you have to look at is the inflation, inflation is when they increase the supply of money. And since 2008, they have quadrupled the supply of Federal Reserve credit, and they’re buying 85 billion dollars a month of treasury bills. And at the same time last week, they bought 60 billion dollars, that’s the inflation, that’s the distortion of the market, and that’s why we’re not getting economic growth.

News Anchor: We’re seeing the opposite of inflation right now.

Ron Paul: It depends on how you define it, inflation is when you increase the supply of money. Bond prices are going up, stocks are going up, housing prices are starting to go back up again, education costs are going up. But the gross distortion is the affect that the inflation of the money does on the price of money and the interest rates and how it causes economy problems and why you don’t get economic growth. So you have to look at the mal-investment and the destruction that occurs when you mess around with the price of money. So it’s not just the CPI, because the CPI isn’t reliable, the government fudges that as well, they change the way they measure it. The free market economists say the CPI is going up by about 8%, so there’s a lot of deception going on out there. And just talk to somebody on retirement getting Social Security, they are not happy with the purchasing power of the dollar, and you can’t tell them there’s no inflation.

News Anchor: Dr. Paul, let’s go back to gold for a moment. Talking about the prices, price stability helps to build confidence, confidence in paper money, and certainly confidence in hard assets. With all the speculative money that went into gold on the way up, and came out of gold on the recent plunge, how do you know what the real value of gold is?

Ron Paul: Nobody knows that, other than what is happening at that moment, because the supply and demand of gold is very important, that’s why it is money, because gold is used elsewhere and it is a commodity. But the supply and demand of money paper is the culprit, that’s the one that is causing all the trouble, but people ignore the supply and demand of paper money. Yes, paper money goes up and paper money goes down, but look at the long term purchasing power of the dollar, it’s been devastating. And believe me, at the rate they’re printing the money, you’re going to see a continual devastation of the value of the dollar, and you’re not going to see economic growth until you liquidate the debt and liquidate the mal-investment out there. Sure, you’re going to see housing go back up again, but you’re going to see more bubble-formation. Just because prices go up, that doesn’t mean there’s economic growth. So we’re a long way from the correction, mainly because they ignore the definition of inflation, and they ignore the need to liquidate debt and the need to liquidate and get rid of all the mal-investment. And by just watching the stock market … one good comparison would be to look at the price of stocks in gold. Although in the last couple of weeks it’s changed a bit, the stock market has crashed because you used to be able to buy the Dow with 44 ounces of gold, now it’s under 10 ounces of gold, and it’s probably going to go a lot lower.

News Anchor: Dr. Paul, how can we talk about the risk of a correction in financial assets – that’s what you were just discussing, the likelihood that the Fed may be creating a bubble for quantitative easing with low interest rates and priming the markets for a crash – when we’ve just seen something similar happen in gold. There was a correction in the gold price. We’re pressing you on this issue because we need you to reconcile the two, you see the characteristics, the [dual plan] of financial assets playing themselves out in hard assets, and it’s tough to understand. We want you to share your views with us.

Ron Paul: I think the way gold’s acting acts like a market does: you get ahead of yourself, and there has to be a correction. The amazing thing isn’t the correction, the amazing thing is the biggest bull-market of the century, when one commodity went up for 12 years straight. So you can’t ignore that. But to say there has to be an adjustment because prices are subjectively decided by many, many factors, so you can’t predict exactly where this money is going to go. Unfortunately, the money right now that the Fed creates goes into reserves, further distorting the market, further pumping up the prices of bonds, further building up a bubble that will burst, because our economic growth isn’t there and we’re in every bit as much trouble as Europe or Greece, so someday there will be a lack of confidence in our dollar, and then you’re going to see the correction in the paper a lot more severe than you see the correction in the dollar-gold ratio.

News Anchor: I’m curious, you don’t like the dollar, you don’t like Federal Reserve and other paper fiat currencies, what do you think about bitcoin, the virtual currency, that’s not backed by the governments or central banks?

Ron Paul: To tell you the truth, it’s a little bit too complicated. If it’s complicated to understand, and I’ve been studying the money for a long time, if I can’t put it in my pocket, I’d have some reservations about that. But it’s been designed in the free market, and if it’s a means of exchange, it would not ever be illegal, and you should not regulate it in the free market. But I don’t think it fits the definition of money which has been around for about 6,000 years. People want to see something that they can know what it is, they can define it, they can touch it, and they can put it in their pocket. And with the bitcoin, if you don’t have a computer, and somebody running the computer and the calculations, you don’t have it. So I am not a big supporter of that, but I’m not opposed it, and I admit I don’t fully understand exactly what’s going on.

News Anchor: So you’re sticking to the hard stuff. I’m just wondering if you’re looking at this price drop in gold as a buying opportunity. I know you also have your own portfolio of gold.

Ron Paul: Oh yes, this is the time people buy. If you look at it these last few weeks, there were some pictures in the paper that were astounding. I think it was in Thailand or someplace, it was a jewelry gold shop, and they were lined up 6 rows deep, hundreds and hundreds of people buying. They were running out of silver coins right now. I recently brought two, because I don’t like to buy when there’s a lot of energy with pushing them up, I wanted to see a correction. And this is very healthy for the economy, because the speculators, the people who are in it and are trading from minute to minute, are weak holders of gold. They don’t believe in gold, but they believe in helping to set the market, and they have a function to play. But the people who really believe in it, are buying now, and literally it was the commodities market that shook this thing out, it wasn’t in the hard assets. There was one person that dumped 53,000 contracts in one sale, so there’s some finagling going on there, I believe.

News Anchor: Yes, the speculative flair. Well, Dr. Paul, you are a believer, always opinionative, I want you to stay with us from Clute, Texas today for your thoughts on a potential historic fix on our nation’s immigration laws and gun control on Market Makers on Bloomberg Television. We’ll be back in a few minutes.

In Washington right now, there is an intense renewed debate about a proposed overhaul of our nation’s immigration system. After the Boston Marathon bombings, in which the suspects were Chechen immigrants, some members of Congress say a proposed legislation needs another look. Ron Paul is back with us here on Market Makers, he’s the former Congressman from Texas and presidential hopeful. Do you think, Dr. Paul, this tragedy is an opportunity to fix our immigration system?

Dr. Paul: Well, there’s always an opportunity because there’s a need for it, but I don’t think they’re going to solve any problems at all, because they’re too big and they’re very complicated and they’re very much involved with economics. I don’t think you can deal with immigration unless you deal with the welfare state: both, with the incentive for some people here not to work, and an incentive for others to come and get some free services. And also I think it is more important that we look at our work permit for letting people come and work, and put aside this idea of how we’re going to give automatic citizenship. That becomes a political football, because everybody is lining up for who’s going to get the vote, one side says, “We’re going to get all the votes because we want them all to be legalized”. But I think you have to deal with the economic policy and really open up the opportunities for people to come back and forth and to work, but not to insist that everybody is going to become a citizen because I don’t think that’s going to work under these circumstances.

News Anchor: Dr. Paul, I want to ask you about what’s happening in the GOP right now. Your son, Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky, made himself even more famous than he already was with that fantastic filibuster, which was impressive at the very least, over the issue of drones. He has an opportunity to galvanize the Republican Party. But the old guard, with the help of people like Karl Rove, appears to be circling the wagons and try to keep the Tea Party up. Hows it going to end?

Ron Paul: Well, with a weakened Republican Party. Because we did fairly well in the presidential campaign, we had a lot of delegates, and they were excluded from the convention, and the rules have been written so it makes it even worse for anybody to challenge the status quo. The people who have been in charge don’t want their party to be broken up. So when the young people come in, they resist it. And it was the young people that were supporting me and my campaign to the tune of millions. People were very interested, but Republicans don’t come and ask me how we can get the young people interested, because I’d want them to change foreign policy, I’d want them to change economic policy, I’d want them to balance the budget, and I’d want them to talk about the Fed. And the establishment in both parties aren’t interested in talking about any of those issues, the young people are.

News Anchor: But if there’s no solidarity inside the Republican Party, Dr. Paul, how on earth does it win the next election?

Ron Paul: I think the solidarity is the same problem in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, it’s ongoing, there are always factions. And, of course, I want to unify everybody into believing in the cause of liberty, sound money, balanced budget, and the constitution. So I would say, yes, that’s a good way to unify them, but to unify for the sake of unity makes no sense whatsoever. Why should everybody give up on their beliefs? But yes, the old guard are losing their way, the party is getting smaller, it is splintered, and they will have to face up to the fact that if they talk about limited government and personal liberties, they have to actually believe in it and do something about it, because the young people won’t be fooled, and if this continues, the party will become smaller.

News Anchor: So, quickly, do you think your son should run for President in 2016, as he has perhaps hinted?

Ron Paul: You’ll have to ask him, I have no idea what he wants to do.

by Ron Paul

This week, as Americans were horrified by the attacks in Boston, both houses of Congress considered legislation undermining our liberty in the name of “safety.” Gun control continued to be the focus of the Senate, where an amendment expanding federal “background checks” to gun show sales and other private transfers dominated the debate. While the background check amendment failed to pass, proponents of gun control have made it clear they will continue their efforts to enact new restrictions on gun ownership into law.

While it did not receive nearly as much attention as the debate on gun control, the House of Representatives passed legislation with significant implications for individual liberty: the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). CISPA proponents claim that the legislation is necessary to protect Americans from foreign “cyber terrorists,” but the real effect of this bill will be to further erode Americans’ online privacy.

Under CISPA, Internet corporations are authorized to hand over the private information of American citizens to federal agents, as long as they can justify the violation of your privacy in the name of protecting “cyber security”. Among the items that may be shared are your e-mails, browsing history, and online transactions.

Like the PATRIOT Act, CISPA violates the fourth amendment by allowing federal agencies to obtain private information without first seeking a warrant from a federal judge. The law also allows federal agencies to pass your information along to other federal bureaucrats — again without obtaining a warrant. And the bill provides private companies with immunity from lawsuits regardless of the damage done to anyone whose personal information is shared with the government.

CISPA represents a troubling form of corporatism, where large companies cede their responsibility to protect their property to the federal government, at the expense of their customers’ privacy and liberty. In this respect, CISPA can be thought of as an electronic version of the Transportation Security Administration, which has usurped the authority over airline security from private airlines. However, CISPA will prove to be far more invasive than even the most robust TSA screening.

CISPA and the gun control bill are only the most recent examples of politicians manipulating fear to con the people into giving up their liberties. Of course, the people are told the legislation is for “limited purposes,” but authority granted to government is rarely, if ever, used solely for the purpose for which it is granted. For example, the American people were promised that the extraordinary powers granted the government by the PATRIOT Act would only be used against terrorism. Yet soon after the bill became law, reports surfaced that it was being used for non-terrorism purposes. In fact, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union, 76 percent of the uses of the controversial “sneak-and-peak” warrants where related to the war on drugs!

Sadly, I expect this week’s tragic attacks in Boston to be used to justify new restrictions on liberty. Within 48 hours of the attack in Boston, at least one Congressman was calling for increased use of surveillance cameras to expand the government’s ability to monitor our actions, while another Senator called for a federal law mandating background checks before Americans can buy “explosive powder.”

I would not be surprised if the Transportation Security Administration uses this tragedy to claim new authority to “screen” Americans before they can attend sporting or other public events. The Boston attack may also be used as another justification for creating a National ID Card tied to a federal database with “biometric” information. The only thing that will stop them is if the American people rediscover the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin that you cannot achieve security by allowing government to take their liberties.