Some of Ron Paul's last words to Congress

"Freedom, private property, and enforceable voluntary contracts, generate wealth.

...the damage to the market economy, and the currency, has been insidious and steady. It took a long time to consume our wealth, destroy the currency and undermine productivity, and get our financial obligations to a point of no return. Confidence sometimes lasts longer than deserved. Most of our wealth today depends on debt.

The wealth that we enjoyed and seemed to be endless, allowed concern for the principle of a free society to be neglected. As long as most people believed the material abundance would last forever, worrying about protecting a competitive productive economy and individual liberty seemed unnecessary.

...The crisis arrived because the illusion that wealth and prosperity would last forever has ended. Since it was based on debt and a pretense that debt can be papered over by an out-of-control fiat monetary system, it was doomed to fail. We have ended up with a system that doesn’t produce enough even to finance the debt...

If this is not recognized, the recovery will linger for a long time. Bigger government, more spending, more debt, more poverty for the middle class, and a more intense scramble by the elite special interests will continue.

...If it’s not accepted that big government, fiat money, ignoring liberty, central economic planning, welfarism, and warfarism caused our crisis we can expect a continuous and dangerous march toward corporatism and even fascism with even more loss of our liberties. Prosperity for a large middle class though will become an abstract dream.

This continuous move is no different than what we have seen in how our financial crisis of 2008 was handled. Congress first directed, with bipartisan support, bailouts for the wealthy. Then it was the Federal Reserve with its endless quantitative easing. If at first it doesn’t succeed try again; QE1, QE2, and QE3 and with no results we try QE indefinitely—that is until it too fails. There’s a cost to all of this and let me assure you delaying the payment is no longer an option. The rules of the market will extract its pound of flesh and it won’t be pretty.

The current crisis elicits a lot of pessimism. And the pessimism adds to less confidence in the future. The two feed on themselves, making our situation worse.

If the underlying cause of the crisis is not understood we cannot solve our problems. The issues of warfare, welfare, deficits, inflationism, corporatism, bailouts and authoritarianism cannot be ignored. By only expanding these policies we cannot expect good results.

...we allowed our leaders to concentrate on the material abundance that freedom generates, while ignoring freedom itself. Now we have neither, but the door is open, out of necessity, for an answer. The answer available is based on the Constitution, individual liberty, and prohibiting the use of government force to provide privileges and benefits to all special interests.

...Today we face a dependency on government largesse for almost every need. Our liberties are restricted and government operates outside the rule of law, protecting and rewarding those who buy or coerce government into satisfying their demands.

Here are a few examples:

•Undeclared wars are commonplace.

•Debt is growing exponentially.

•Welfare for the rich and poor is considered an entitlement.

•Bailouts and guarantees for all kinds of misbehavior are routine.

•Supporters of sanctions, currency manipulation, and WTO trade retaliation, call the true free traders “isolationists.”

•Sanctions are used to punish countries that don’t follow our orders.

...Central economic planning through monetary policy, regulations, and legislative mandates has been an acceptable policy.

•The economy is overregulated, overtaxed, and grossly distorted by a deeply flawed monetary system.

•It’s now the law of the land that the military can arrest American citizens, hold them indefinitely, without charges or a trial.

...The drone warfare we are pursuing worldwide is destined to end badly for the U.S. as the hatred builds for innocent lives lost and the international laws flaunted.

...The Patriot Act and FISA legislation passed without much debate have resulted in a steady erosion of our 4th Amendment rights.

Questions

Excessive government has created such a mess it prompts many questions:

...Why are Americans not allowed to use gold and silver as legal tender as mandated by the Constitution?

•Why do our political leaders believe it’s unnecessary to thoroughly audit our own gold?

...Why is Germany concerned enough to consider repatriating their gold held by the FED for her in New York? Is it that the trust in the U.S. and dollar supremacy is beginning to wane?

...Why does changing the party in power never change policy? Could it be that the views of both parties are essentially the same?

•Why did the big banks, the large corporations, and foreign banks and foreign central banks get bailed out in 2008 and the middle class lost their jobs and their homes?

...Why do so many in the government and the federal officials believe that creating money out of thin air creates wealth?

...Why did we ever give the government a safe haven for initiating violence against the people?

•Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong.

...Why is there so little concern for the Executive Order that gives the President authority to establish a “kill including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination?

...Why do we allow the government and the Federal Reserve to disseminate false information dealing with both economic and foreign policy?

...Why does the use of religion to support a social gospel and preemptive wars, both of which requires authoritarians to use violence, or the threat of violence, go unchallenged?

•Is there any explanation for all the deception, the unhappiness, the fear of the future, the loss of confidence in our leaders, the distrust, the anger and frustration? Yes there is, and there’s a way to reverse these attitudes. The negative perceptions are logical and a consequence of bad policies bringing about our problems. Identification of the problems and recognizing the cause allow the proper changes to come easy."

Ron Paul