The other day, I made a huge "gaffe" on national TV:
I told the
truth about the crimes of the U.S. government
As you can imagine, the ceiling fell in, and a couple of walls too.
Congressmen are supposed to support
the government, I was told. Oh, it's okay to criticize around the edges,
but there are certain subjects a member
of the House of Representatives is not supposed to bring up. But I
touched the real "third-rail" of American
politics, and the sparks sure flew.
I was interviewed on C-SPAN's morning "Washington Journal," and I
used the opportunity, as I do all such
media appearances, to point out how many of our liberties have been
stolen by the federal government. We
must take them back. The Constitution, after all, has a very limited
role for Washington, D.C.
If we stuck to the Constitution as written, we would have: no
federal meddling in our schools; no Federal
Reserve; no U.S. membership in the UN; no gun control; and no foreign
aid. We would have no welfare for
big corporations, or the "poor"; no American troops in 100 foreign
countries; no Nafta, Gatt, or "fast-track"; no
arrogant federal judges usurping states rights; no attacks on private
property; and no income tax. We could
get rid of most of the cabinet departments, most of the agencies, and
most of the budget. The government
would be small, frugal, and limited.
That system is called liberty. It's what the Founding Fathers gave
us. Under liberty, we built the greatest,
freest, most prosperous, most decent country on earth. It's no
coincidence that the monstrous growth of the
federal government has been accompanied by a sickening decline in living
standards and moral standards.
The feds want us to be hamsters on a treadmill--working hard, all day
long, to pay high taxes, but otherwise
entirely docile and controlled. The huge, expensive, and out-of-control
leviathan that we call the federal
government wants to run every single aspect of our lives.
Well, I'm sorry, but that's not America. It's not what the Founders
gave us. It's not the country you believe
in. It's not the country I believe in. So, on that, TV interview, I
emphasized not only the attacks on our
property, but also the decline of our civil liberties, at the hands of
the federal police. There are not supposed
to be any federal police, according to the Constitution.
THE WACO MASSACRE
Then I really went over the line. I talked about the Waco massacre.
Bill Clinton and Janet Reno claim those
81 church members, including 19 children, burned down their own church
and killed themselves, and good
riddance. So they put the few survivors on trial, and threw them in
prison for 40 years.
We're not supposed to remember that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms--talk about an
unconstitutional agency--rather than arrest David Koresh on his regular
morning jog, called in the TV stations
for a big publicity bonanza, and sent a swat team in black masks and
black uniforms to break down his front
door, guns blazing. They also sent in a helicopter gunship, to shoot at
the roof of a church full of innocents.
The Branch Davidians resisted, and after a heartless siege of almost
two months, and after cutting off food,
water, and electricity, and playing horrible rock and roll through huge
speakers 24 hours a day, the feds sent
in the tanks to crush the walls of the church, and inject poisonous CS
gas.
Now, CS gas is banned under the Paris Convention on Chemical
Warfare. The U.S. could not use it in a
war. But it could and did use it against American civilians.
After the tanks did their work on the church, the place burst into
flame, and all 81 people--men, women,
children, and babies--were incinerated in a screaming horror. Did some
feds set the fire? Did the flammable
CS gas ignite, since without electricity, the parishioners were using
lanterns? Did a tank knock over a lantern,
striking one of the bales of hay being used against the thin walls as a
"defense" against bullets? Or did the
Davidians, as Clinton and Reno claim, kill themselves?
A new documentary--Waco: The Rules of Engagement--may show, through
FLIR infrared photography, FBI
snipers killing the Davidians by shooting through the back of the
church, where no media cameras were
allowed. This film won a prize at the famed Sundance Film Festival. It
was made by people who took the
government's side, until they investigated.
Whatever the truth, there's no question that an irresponsible
federal government has innocent blood on its
hands, and not only from Waco. And the refusal of corrupt and perverse
liberals to admit it means nothing.
In my interview, in answer to a caller's question, I pointed out
that Waco, and the federal murders at Ruby
Ridge--especially the FBI sniper's shot that blasted apart the head of a
young mother holding her
baby--caused many Americans to live in fear of federal power. Then I
uttered the sentiment that caused the
media hysteria: I said that a lot of Americans fear that they too might
be attacked by federal swat teams for
exercising their constitutional rights, or merely for wanting to be left
alone.
BLAME THE ONE WHO REPORTS
Whoa! You've never seen anything like it. For days, in an all-out
assault, I was attacked by Democrats,
unions, big business, establishment Republicans, and--of course--the
media, in Washington and my home
state of Texas. Newspapers foamed at the mouth, calling me a "right-wing
extremist." (Say, isn't that what
George III called Thomas Jefferson?)
I was even blamed for the Oklahoma City bombing! And by the way, I
don't believe we've gotten the full
truth on that either. All my many opponents were outraged that a
Congressman would criticize big
government. "If you don't like Washington, resign!" said a typical
big-city newspaper editorial.
But the media, as usual, were all wet. (Do they ever get anything
right?) The average Congressman may go
to Washington to wallow in power, and line his pockets with a big
lobbying job for a special interest (so he
can keep ripping-off the taxpayers). But that's not why I'm in Congress.
It's not why I left my medical practice
as a physician. It's not why I put up with all the abuse. It's not why I
refuse a plush Congressional pension.
The value of our dollar and the level of our interest rates are not
supposed to be manipulated by a few
members of the power elite meeting secretly in a marble palace. The
Federal Reserve is unconstitutional,
pure and simple. The only Constitutional money is gold and silver, and
notes redeemable in them. Not fed
funny money. Without the Federal Reserve, our money could not be
inflated at the behest of big government
or big banks. Your income and savings would not lose their value. Just
as important, we wouldn't have this
endless string of booms and busts, recessions and depressions, with each
bust getting worse. They aren't
natural to the free market; they're caused by the schemers at the Fed.
President Andrew Jackson called the
19th -century Fed "The Monster" because it was a vehicle for inflation
and all sorts of special-interest
corruption. Let me tell you, things haven't changed a bit. I also work
to save our schools from D.C.
interference. Thanks to the feds, new curriculums not only smear the
Founders as "racist, slave-owning
elitists," they seek to dumb down our students so they will all be
equal. "Look-say" reading and the abolition
of phonics has the same purpose, and so does the new "fuzzy" math, in
which there are no right and no
wrong answers. That must be what they use in the U.S. Treasury! It's
certainly what they use in the U.S.
Congress.
GET US OUT!
And then there's my least favorite foreign topic, the UN. World
government is obviously unconstitutional.
It undermines our country's sovereignty in the worst way possible.
That's why I want us out of the UN, and
the UN itself taking a hike. After all, the UN is socialist and corrupt
(many votes can be bought with a
"blonde and a case of scotch," one UN ambassador once said). It costs
many billions, and it puts our soldiers
in UN uniforms under foreign commanders, and sends them off to
unconstitutional, undeclared wars. When
Michael New, one of the finest young men I've ever met, objected to
wearing UN blue, he was kicked out of
the American Army. What an outrage! Not one dime for the UN, and not one
American soldier! Not in Haiti,
not in Bosnia, not in Somalia, not in Rwanda. I know its radical, but
how about devoting American military
efforts to defending America, and only America?
Such ideas, said one newspaper reporter, make me a maverick who will
never go far because he won't 'go
along to get along.'" Darn right! What does "go far" mean? Get a big
government job? To heck with that. And I
won't sell my vote for pork either. When I walked through the U.S.
Capitol this morning, I got angry. The
building is filled with statues and paintings of Jefferson, Madison, and
the other Founders. Those great men
sacrificed everything to give us a free country, and a Constitution to
keep it that way. When I was first
elected, I placed my hand on the Bible and swore an oath to uphold the
Constitution. That's exactly what I'm
fighting for.
Sincerely,
Ron Paul U.S. Congressman