Ron Paul in Speech at 2008 CPAC conference
On Abortion:
Define life at conception in law, as scientific statement
On the right-to-life issue, I believe, I’m a real stickler for civil liberties. It’s academic to talk about civil liberties if you don’t talk about the true protection of all life. So if you are going to protect liberty, you have to protect the life of
the unborn just as well.I have a Bill in congress I certainly would promote and push as president, called the Sanctity of Life Amendment. We establish the principle that life begins at conception. And someone says, ‘oh why are you saying that?’ and
I say, ‘well, that’s not a political statement -- that’s a scientific statement that I’m making!“
I know we’re all interested in a better court system and amending the constitution to protect life. But sometimes
I think that is dismissing the way we can handle this much quicker, and my bill removes the jurisdiction of the federal courts from the issue of abortion, if a state law says no abortion, it doesn’t go to the supreme court to be ruled out of order
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Abortion:
Protecting the life of the unborn is protecting liberty
Liberty is the most important thing, because if we have our liberties, we have our freedoms, we can have our lives. But it’s academic to talk about civil liberties if you don’t talk about the true protection of all life. So if you’re going to protect
liberty, you have to protect the life of the unborn just as well. I have a bill in Congress which I would certainly promote and push as President. But it’s been ignored by the right-to-life community. My bill is called the Sanctity of Life bill. What it
would do is it would establish the principle that life begins at conception. That’s not a political statement, but a scientific statement that I’m making. We’re all interested in a better court system, and amending the Constitution to protect life--but
sometimes that is dismissing the way we can handle this much quicker. My bill removes the jurisdiction of the federal courts from the issue of abortion. If a state law says “no abortion,” it doesn’t go to the Supreme Court to be ruled out of order.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Budget & Economy:
There’s payback for guns and butter
There’s payback for guns and butter. In the ‘70s when I was motivated first to run for Congress, I realized it wasn’t going to last because that is when the gold standard finally lost its last wing. We ushered in the ‘70s and they were tough. High
unemployment rates, interest rates of 21%, high inflation rates. But we did pay back. We paid back for all the spending of the Democrats in the ‘60s...guns and butter. Now we are starting to pay for the guns and butter and we don’t even see an end to it.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Budget & Economy:
Great nations and empires end for financial reasons
The Constitution says: no emitting bills of credit, no paper money, only gold and silver can be legal tender. And today we allow big government to grow. Whether it’s on the conservative side or the liberal side, if they want something, they usually have
compromise--spend it on both. Then they resort to printing money, and that is where our trouble is coming from, and that’s the crisis we’re facing. All great nations and great empires end for fiscal, financial reasons. That’s how the Soviet system was
defeated. We didn’t have to invade them; we didn’t have to fight them. Their system collapsed. And that is what’s happening today, the middle class is getting wiped out, the middle class is getting poor, endlessly, because they can’t keep up with the cos
of living. And the solution isn’t printing more money, and spending more money, and allowing the Federal Reserve to pretend they can solve the problem. The answer is found in fiscal conservatism: live within our means, is what we have to do.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Budget & Economy:
Live within our means and start paying down the deficit now
We’re told that this war is going to go on for a long, long time. That means that the next generation--the burden is being placed on these young people. That is why the college kids are coming out. Because they’re getting ripped off.
We have undermined their liberties, we’re giving them a foreign policy where it’s their lives on the line, the threat of a draft is coming for men and women as this war is likely to spread--and what are they inheriting? Less freedom and a lot of debt!
Entitlements up to 60 trillion dollars and they can’t pay it. A group of young people going into the work force which is smaller than the ones who are in retirement. The baby boomers are retiring and they’re going to demand what they put
into the system and it’s just not there. What we need to do is not only live within our means, but start paying down the deficit, and offer an opportunity at least for the next generation to get out.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Budget & Economy:
All bets are off if a cataclysmic dollar devaluation occurs
The welfare programs will end overnight if you have a cataclysmic devaluation of the dollar, and all bets are off on what will happen under those conditions, if you look at history. There’s no reason why we have to pay for the defense of Japan, Korea, an
Europe--we’re going broke! And if we do that, if we do that, we literally can take care of our people and work our way out of this. If we had our freedoms, and we had the responsibility to care for ourselves, and we had sound money, within a year or two
we’d be back on our feet again. But the most important issue is to make sure that we have our liberties. Understanding what private property means, understanding what sound money is all about, and also understanding what national sovereignty means.
Once again we ought to be protecting our borders and not allowing this North American Union to come into effect.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Budget & Economy:
We owe foreigners $2.7 trillion and more printing won’t do
We as conservatives have drifted a long way from the positions that we used to hold of limited government. We have to talk about what conservatives stand for and should be doing, because we’re going in the wrong direction.
There’s not a whole lot of time left. If we continue what we’re doing we’re going to have a financial crisis, because you can’t continue to spend too much. Because there’s limit on how much you can tax, and we’re taxed to the hilt.
Then there’s a limit to how much borrowing we can do, and we’re borrowing to the hilt. We’re dependent on China, and Saudi Arabia, and all these countries because we are the greatest debtor in the whole world today. This is different than the 1970’s when
we had to pay for guns and butter. Today we’re paying for guns and butter again, but today our good jobs are overseas, we owe 2.7 trillion dollars, the whole country is in debt and what do we do now when we need more government? We print more money.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Budget & Economy:
Stimulus package means more printing & devaluing the dollar
What is the bailout package all about? Our side of the aisle proposes it and the Democrats want to increase it.$150 billion? No, let’s up it $200 billion! Where does it come from?--the government has no money. Well, can we tax people?--no, you can’t tax
anymore. What are they gonna do?--they’re gonna print the money, devalue the dollar, & that’s the problem we have. The dollar is low, prices are high, the people are suffering, the middle class is shrinking. So we offer the same old pabulum, the same old
baloney, and then we turn around and say, “Well, why don’t we ask the Federal Reserve to create more money? Nobody seems to have enough money. If we just had more money, maybe it would prop up the stock market.” So we go to the Federal Reserve and say we
need more money. So they crank it out. You can’t lower interest rates unless you print more money. So they lower interest rates dramatically, like never before. So we’re in a bind, we’re in a fix, and I’ll tell you what: we overspend. Everywhere!
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Civil Rights:
National ID card is part of fear-based government
As long as a government can stir up fear, sometimes real and sometimes not real, the people are expected to do one thing: sacrifice their liberty. If you’re fearful, the government, the people who believe in big government--big-government conservatives or
big-government liberals--they like fear to be out there. Sometimes fear is normal & natural & real, and we have to deal with it. At other times it’s concocted. In times of war, whether it was the civil war, WWI, WWII--just think of the violations of civil
liberties during the period of war when people are frightened. The one conclusion I have come to since 9/11 is that there is absolutely never a need to sacrifice any of your personal liberties to be safe! That means we do not have to accept the notion
that we can have warrantless searches, a total loss of our privacy. We don’t need a National ID card. You don’t have to register the American people to make us safe. You have to deal with the problem much more directly.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Foreign Policy:
Can’t spread our goodness through the barrel of a gun
Truly conservative in the sense of the words “to conserve our true values” means being serious about taking our oath of office to the Constitution. Limit the government’s size, the spending, the deficits, and the exposure around the world. If the
US is as great as I believe it should be and can be and has been, we will have influence around the world. We cannot spread our greatness and our goodness through the barrel of a gun. It fails because it destroys our goodness by doing it that way.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Government Reform:
Constitution defines much smaller government
It shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out what we should be doing, because we have a lot of problems. We have fiscal problems, we have foreign policy, we have deficit problems. And where do they come from?
It’s because we don’t follow the rule of law, we don’t follow the constitution. If we knew and understood and read article 1 section 8, believe me, this government would be much smaller, we would have a lot less taxes, and we could repeal the
16th Amendment and get rid of the income tax. Somewhere along the way though, we have drifted away from the constitution, and we as conservatives, especially conservatives running the Republican party, we have drifted a long way from
the positions that we used to hold about limited government. We’re going in the wrong direction, and if we continue to do what we are doing, we’re going to have a financial crisis, because you can’t continue to spend too much.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Government Reform:
Received the most campaign contributions from the military
One thing that is very conservative and very Constitutional--if we had followed this, we would have stayed out of a lot of trouble since World War II. You cannot be a conservative and believe that we can go to war under the direction of a single person,
without Congressional approval and without a declaration of war. That’s what we should always have. Because I am not anxious to go to war unless it’s necessary, and dictated by the people through the Congress.
People say, “Oh, that means you’re weak on the military; that means you’re weak on the troops.” We did some statistical studies about where the money comes into the campaign, and I know that you recognize that we can, and have, raised a lot of money.
But if you look at where it comes from and where the active military personnel send their money. We in the last quarter received more money from the military--active-duty personnel--than ALL the other Republicans and Democrat candidates put together!
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Homeland Security:
Military is not in good shape; we have a de facto draft
We debate on how we get the strongest national defense. I don’t think we’re doing very well. Our military is not in good shape. A lot of equipment is down; our National Guards are drained; our reserves are overseas. We have men going back a 3rd, 4th, and
5th time, they’ve been in five years; they get out; they get recalled. We have a de facto draft. There’s a danger of this war spreading and no end in sight. McCain says we should stay there for 100 years if necessary; I say there’s no need to do that!
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Homeland Security:
We’re broke and we just can’t continue to police the world
Our Constitution gives us no authority to be the policemen of the world. All great nations end for financial reasons, and that is what’s happening today. We can’t afford it any longer. We spend a trillion dollars a year maintaining an empire. The
Founders said: Be friends; trade with people; mix with people; don’t fight with people; don’t tell them what to do; practice diplomacy. But we are in this endless streak of interfering, involving, and dictating. We have two choices: we go to a country
and we say “Do it our way or we’ll bomb you.” Then if they do it our way, we give them money. But we’re broke. We’re broke and we just can’t continue to do this. That’s what the dollar is telling us. The debt is too high, the dollar is weakening, the
middle class is being wiped out, the international debt is so big, and we’re dependent on others, our good jobs are overseas. Who’s going to pick up the pieces? Are we going to restore REAL, conservative, Constitutional values to our country?
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Principles & Values:
We lost because we’re neither compassionate nor conservative
The old Reagan days when we used to say to get rid of the Department of Education! That’s what we ought to be doing. So when we got our chance, what did we do? We doubled the size of the Department of Education. We put No Child Left Behind. We’ve
lost credibility, and now we’re losing House seats. We’ve lost control of the House and Senate, and right now it looks like we’re going to lose even more. It’s not because we are not compassionate; it’s because we’re not CONSERVATIVE that we’re losing.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Principles & Values:
Liberty promotes peace, and peace promotes prosperity
If you follow the Constitution, you will defend freedom. Freedom brings people together. It allows people to run their lives as they choose, it allows them to practice religion as they choose, it is not confrontational & not antagonistic. The welfare
state, the warfare state, & the socialist state, is exactly the opposite. It divides us, because they take away our wealth, they control it in Washington. What is happening today? Millions of dollars of campaign funds & PAC money, and lobbying efforts to
control the money that gravitates to Washington, DC. The pie is shrinking, and the people are getting angry, and we have forgotten what a free country is all about. We’ve lost our confidence, because we have to have safety nets here and safety nets here
and do all of these things. It’s coming to an end and there’s a wonderful, beautiful answer. It comes in our traditions and it comes in the principles of liberty. If you promote liberty, liberty promotes peace. And peace promotes prosperity.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Principles & Values:
Tyranny and inflation are ancient, Bill of Rights isn’t
Somewhere along the way in the campaign they coined the term “Ron Paul Revolution.” It has nothing to do with Ron Paul Revolution. It has to do with the continuation of the grand revolution that we have been blessed with and that we have benefited by.
But there’s no reason why we should give up on it. Some say, “You want to go back to old times, hundreds of years ago.” Well, age has nothing to do with that. The principle of habeas corpus is a lot older than that and we shouldn’t be giving up on that.
But going back & picking up on the principles in the Bill of Rights is not going back to ancient times. What is ancient, is the inflationary system. It has been known for thousands of years how that debased currency. But also, tyranny is what is ancient.
And now we’re getting total control of our lives and loss of our privacy and loss of our freedoms and loss of our economic benefits. That is old-fashioned. What is new today is something that is just restoration of what we had.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On Tax Reform:
Repeal 16th Amendment and get rid of the income tax
It shouldn’t be that difficult to figure out what we should be doing, because we have a lot of problems: we have fiscal and monetary policy problems, foreign policy problems, and deficit problems. Where do they come from? It’s because we don’t follow the
rule of law; we don’t follow the Constitution. If we knew and understood and read Article 1, Section 8, believe me this government would be much smaller, we would have a lot less taxes, and we could repeal the 16th amendment and get rid of the income tax.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On War & Peace:
Voted for going after Al Qaeda, not invading Iraq
We are not threatened by a military operation. They’re incapable--we have more weapons--we probably have twice as many weapons as all the other countries put together. Nobody’s going to invade us. We are not weak, and we shouldn’t act like we are weak.
But here we are, we are frightened by what might happen, and of course we have to deal with the issue of terrorism. When the terrorist attack occurred, I voted for the authority and the funding to go after the Al Qaeda. But bin Laden, who used to be our
ally, is still free. We chased him over into Pakistan; we dropped the ball at Tora Bora... So what did we do?--we taxed the American people, or we borrowed the money from China, took another ten billion dollars, and hired a military dictatorship by the
name of Musharraf to go after bin Laden, which he did not do, and now we still have a mess. We won in the year 2000 by campaigning for a humble foreign policy: no policing of the world, no intervening! And now we are doing the very same thing.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
On War & Peace:
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; Al Qaeda was not in Iraq
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. There were no WMDs, no Al Qaeda there. It is the policy of intervention that I object to so strongly. One time they’re our friends, the next time they’re our enemy. Bin Laden was a freedom fighter when we gave him weapon
and equipment to fight the Russians and the Soviets. Saddam Hussein, we propped him up & got him into power & he was our friend & we encouraged him to invade Iran. But it’s this on-again-off-again stuff that continues to haunt us and keep coming back.
But you know what? The truth of the matter is that bin Laden likes our foreign policy. He likes our foreign policy because it’s a tremendous incentive for him to raise, his group of Al Qaeda to join. He says: We are going to do to the
US, exactly what you and us, together, did to the Soviets. We are going to drain you; we are going to humiliate you. Therefore we don’t even need to come over here. We have fallen into the trap; we have victimized ourselves; we have encouraged him.
Source: Speeches to 2008 Conservative Political Action Conference
Feb 7, 2008
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