I'm going to post news articles, speaches, and things from Paul's website here to maybe drum up some interest in a guy who is REALLY a great American.
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The Ron Paul FREEDOM PRINCIPLES

Rights belong to individuals, not groups.

Property should be owned by people, not government.

All voluntary associations should be permissible -- economic and social.

The government's monetary role is to maintain the integrity of the monetary unit, not participate in fraud.

Government exists to protect liberty, not to redistribute wealth or to grant special privileges.

The lives and actions of people are their own responsibility, not the government's

Hypocrisy in the Middle East


February 26, 2007

Hundreds of thousands of American troops already occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, a number that is rising as the military surge moves forward. The justification, given endlessly since September 11th, is that both support terrorism and thus pose a risk to the United States. Yet when we step back and examine the region as a whole, it’s obvious that these two impoverished countries, neither of which has any real military, pose very little threat to American national security when compared to other Middle Eastern nations. The decision to attack them, while treating some of region’s worst regimes as allies, shows the deadly hypocrisy of our foreign policy in the Middle East.

Consider Saudi Arabia, the native home of most of the September 11th hijackers. The Saudis, unlike the Iraqis, have proven connections to al Qaeda. Saudi charities have funneled money to Islamic terrorist groups. Yet the administration insists on calling Saudi Arabia a “good partner in the war on terror.” Why? Because the U.S. has a longstanding relationship with the Saudi royal family, and a long history of commercial interests relating to Saudi oil. So successive administrations continue to treat the Saudis as something they are not: a reliable and honest friend in the Middle East.

The same is true of Pakistan, where General Musharaf seized power by force in a 1999 coup. The Clinton administration quickly accepted his new leadership as legitimate, to the dismay of India and many Muslim Pakistanis. Since 9/11, we have showered Pakistan with millions in foreign aid, ostensibly in exchange for Musharaf’s allegiance against al Qaeda. Yet has our new ally rewarded our support? Hardly. The Pakistanis almost certainly have harbored bin Laden in their remote mountains, and show little interest in pursuing him or allowing anyone else to pursue him. Pakistan has signed peace agreements with Taliban leaders, and by some accounts bin Laden is a folk hero to many Pakistanis.

Furthermore, more members of al Qaeda probably live within Pakistan than any other country today. North Korea developed its nuclear capability with technology sold to them by the Pakistanis. Yet somehow we remain friends with Pakistan, while Saddam Hussein, who had no connection to bin Laden and no friends in the Islamic fundamentalist world, was made a scapegoat.

The tired assertion that America "supports democracy" in the Middle East is increasingly transparent. It was false 50 years ago, when we supported and funded the hated Shah of Iran to prevent nationalization of Iranian oil, and it’s false today when we back an unelected military dictator in Pakistan- just to name two examples. If honest democratic elections were held throughout the Middle East tomorrow, many countries would elect religious fundamentalist leaders hostile to the United States. Cliché or not, the Arab Street really doesn’t like America, so we should stop the charade about democracy and start pursuing a coherent foreign policy that serves America’s long-term interests.

A coherent foreign policy is based on the understanding that America is best served by not interfering in the deadly conflicts that define the Middle East. Yes, we need Middle Eastern oil, but we can reduce our need by exploring domestic sources. We should rid ourselves of the notion that we are at the mercy of the oil-producing countries- as the world’s largest oil consumer, their wealth depends on our business. We should stop the endless game of playing faction against faction, and recognize that buying allies doesn’t work. We should curtail the heavy militarization of the area by ending our disastrous foreign aid payments. We should stop propping up dictators and putting band-aids on festering problems. We should understand that our political and military involvement in the region creates far more problems that it solves. All Americans will benefit, both in terms of their safety and their pocketbooks, if we pursue a coherent, neutral foreign policy of non-interventionism, free trade, and self-determination in the Middle East.

Demographic Reality and the Entitlement State


November 13, 2006


The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, is an investigative arm of Congress charged with the thankless task of accounting for the money received and spent by the federal government. As you might imagine, people who spend all day examining the nitty-gritty realities of federal spending and deficits might not share the voters' enthusiasm for grand campaign promises.

David Walker, Comptroller General at GAO, has been on a speaking tour of the U.S recently-- and he pulls no punches when explaining just how precarious our nation's entitlement system really is.

He explains that Social Security and Medicare are headed for a train wreck because of demographic trends and rising health care costs. The number of younger taxpayers for each older retiree will continue to decline. The demand for "free" prescription drugs under Medicare will explode. If present trends continue, by 2040 the entire federal budget will be consumed by Social Security and Medicare. The only options for balancing the budget would be cutting total federal spending by about 60%, or doubling federal taxes.

Furthermore, Walker asserts, we cannot grow our way out of this problem. Faster economic growth can only delay the inevitable hard choices. To close the long-term entitlement gap, the U.S. economy would have to grow by double digits every year for the next 75 years.

In short, Mr. Walker is telling the political class that the status quo cannot be maintained. He is to be commended for his refreshing honesty and unwillingness to provide excuses for the two political parties, the administration, or the even the entitlement-minded American public.

I urge everyone interested to visit the GAO website at www.gao.gov, where you can view a report entitled: "Our Nation's Fiscal Outlook: The Federal Government's Long-Term Budget Imbalance." This report should be required reading for every politician in Washington.

Are ever growing entitlement and military expenditures really consistent with a free country? Do these expenditures, and the resulting deficits, make us more free or less free? Should the government or the marketplace provide medical care? Should younger taxpayers be expected to provide retirement security and health care even for affluent retirees? Should the U.S. military be used to remake whole nations? Are the programs, agencies, and departments funded by Congress each year constitutional? Are they effective? Could they operate with a smaller budget? Would the public even notice if certain programs were eliminated altogether? These are the kinds of questions the American people must ask, even though Congress lacks the courage to do so.

If we hope to avoid a calamitous financial future for our nation, we must address the hardest question of all: What is the proper role for government in our society? The answer to this question will determine how prosperous and free we remain in the decades to come.

Can Ron Paul Win?
by Murray Sabrin
March 14, 2007

On Monday morning March 12, Dr. Ron Paul, member of the House of Representatives from Texas, and no stranger to readers of this website, announced on C-SPAN that he will seek the Republican nomination for President. Now that he has moved from an "exploratory" candidacy to being a bona fide candidate, what are Rep. Paul’s chances of winning the GOP nomination?

I have known Ron for about 25 years. The last time I saw him was in mid-2004 when he spoke at a fundraiser for Rep. Scott Garrett in New Jersey. Scott was elected to Congress in 2002 and is a member of Ron’s Liberty Study Committee. During the question and answer period I stated that a Paul-Garrett ticket in 2008 would energize conservative Republicans and libertarians. Ron smiled and said, if I remember correctly, that a presidential run would be very unlikely. Well, here we are in 2007, and a Ron Paul presidential candidacy is a reality.

Ron and I first met at a 1982 monetary conference in Washington, DC. Two years later he invited me with other newsletter writers to tour the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In a Paul presidency, the downsizing of government would begin in earnest, two of the three institutions we toured nearly a quarter of century ago would be abolished, and the U.S. Treasury would probably be responsible for maintaining the integrity of a gold-backed dollar. In short, in a Paul presidency, Washington, DC would be less populated, the budget would shrink substantially, taxes would decline markedly, the dollar would be stronger and no American troops would be policing the world.

Soon after Ron announced his candidacy on C-SPAN, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel held a new conference in his home state of Nebraska to inform the press that he will not be a candidate for president at this time. In another development over the weekend, Fred Thompson, former U.S. senator from Tennessee and television actor, announced that he may seek the GOP nomination for president. On Monday evening I had the opportunity to view some of the news programs, and the political segments were about the possible candidacies of both Hagel and Thompson, while Ron Paul’s candidacy was ignored. Moreover, on Fox News Morton Kondracke commented on Senator Hagel’s announcement and said there is no anti-war candidate in the GOP field.

Clearly, the establishment media’s virtually blackout of Ron Paul’s candidacy is a magnificent case study in: media incompetence? bias? laziness? All of the above?

No matter how the media treat Ron in the months ahead, by this time next year both the Republican and Democrat presidential nominees should be all but selected, because so many primaries will be held next February and March. Thus, whoever raises substantial funds soon and has a message that resonates with voters for the next 12 months will be the overwhelming favorites to win their respective party’s nomination.

As of now, Dr. Paul has much in common with another (physician) presidential candidate, Howard Dean, who used the Internet so effectively in 2004 that the Democratic establishment sandbagged his campaign, because the Democrat bosses did not want to have, in their view, another McGovern (anti-war) candidacy. Ironically, Dean is one of the country’s leading hawks, when it comes to Iran.

Currently, the Internet is abuzz about Ron Paul. As the year unfolds, if more and more young Republicans people gravitate toward the Paul campaign just as young Democrats did for Dean in 2004, the GOP establishment will be apoplectic.

For Ron to become one of the "top tier" GOP candidates he has to have one quality that he does not have now – a media-anointed celebrity status. Currently, the top tier candidates are "celebrities" – Rudy, McCain, Romney, and Newt (even though he has not announced his candidacy). Ron can become a top tier candidate and a serious contender for the nomination if he can raise more funds than his own advisors, I suspect, think is possible by December 31, 2007.

According to many pundits, each of the leading candidates in both parties could raise as much as $100 million by the time the primaries are over. So, for the media to characterize anyone a top tier candidate throughout the year, he or she should be on track to raise at least $50 million or more. Could any of the presidential candidates that are currently in the back of the pack raise anywhere near that daunting amount?

If $50 million is the minimum that a candidate will have to raise to be taken seriously by the media, then every lesser-known candidate needs 50,000 individuals to make an average contribution of $1,000 to give him a $50 million war chest. (The maximum individual contribution is $2,300 per primary and general election.)

Ron’s political base is fiscal conservatives, anti-tax citizens, anti-war Republicans, Democrats and Independents, constitutionalists, hard-money advocates, small business owners, civil libertarians, anti-universal healthcare physicians, pro-lifers, parents who home school, and anyone else who considers himself a real patriot. In other words, if Ron’s substantial base provides him with volunteers, contributions and votes, he would be a very competitive candidate.

In the final analysis, about 50,000 to 100.000 Americans could determine the next presidential nominees of both parties. In the GOP presidential primary, if Ron Paul, Sam Brownback, Duncan Hunter, Tommy Thompson, or any other lesser known candidate excites GOP voters for the next 12 months, then Rudy, McCain and Romney will prove that in a marathon it is not who leads the pack that counts but who is the turtle in the race.


Murray Sabrin, Ph.D. [send him mail], is professor of finance in the Anisfield School of Business, Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he is executive director of the Center for Business and Public Policy. He is the author of Tax Free 2000: The Rebirth of American Liberty.
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