All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 28, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
37:39
Dr Ron Paul

Ron Paul's address to the 2025 Ron Paul Institute DC Conference, Blueprint for Peace.

|

Time Text
Paul's Constitutional Stand 00:02:34
After Dr. Paul has finished, Daniel will be up to give, you know, the last few words.
But in the meantime, this will be it for me.
And I just want to give my heartfelt thanks to everyone that showed up here today.
I think it was a great success, and it's all because you're here with us that we could all enjoy it together.
When Dr. Paul was in Congress, the door was never open for lobbyists, corporations.
They just walked by because they knew there was nothing to buy there.
This guy, he will not vote in your direction.
He votes for the Constitution, period.
And there's just nothing to buy.
Go down to Lindsey Graham, and he'll listen to you.
The same applies to the Ron Paul Institute.
As you can see, we have no sponsored by Pfizer, sponsored by Raytheon.
So the Ron Paul Institute follows in the steps of the man you just heard there.
We are 100% by donations by people like you.
You pay my salary.
You pay for the signs behind me.
You pay for all of this.
So you are the Ron Paul Institute along with us.
If you like what you see, we'll do more of it, you know.
But we live on your donations, and that's how it's going to be.
Pfizer comes to us, we'll tell them to take their money and get lost.
So as I introduce Dr. Paul, please remember that, you know, there are Congress, think of all the thousands of people that have gone in and out of Congress.
You never know who they are.
You never know afterwards.
They come in, they get rich, and then they go live in the mansions.
Dr. Paul has been out for, what, 12, 13 years now, and he works every day on the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
We get tens of thousands of viewers every day.
When Elon Musk reposts us, we'll get up to a million.
He is making an impact.
He's out of Congress all this time.
And like Thomas Massey, you could say, well, what did he do?
Where's the legislation?
Show me.
That's not, you know, everything is not as it seems.
This is what he has done all these years later.
He can fill a room like this.
And believe me, we were all disappointed, but it was probably most disappointing for him because he bends over backwards for me as an employee.
He'll do anything.
The Peace Issue 00:16:14
So for him to have decided that he couldn't make this, I'm sure it was heart-wrenching for him.
But he would not leave anybody stranded, and that's why we're going to be able to see the great man today.
Please welcome Ron Paul.
Chris mentioned that we had a few family issues that prevented me from being there.
And it's very disheartening for me because this is the first one I've ever missed.
And we've been doing this a long time.
But I do see a lot of people out there interested in the cause of liberty and what we're trying to do.
And I think that is wonderful because that is where we should get our energy is the fact that people are interested in the very important issue of liberty.
And of course, you can't have much liberty if you don't have peace.
And we're today talking a lot about peace and how it should be brought about.
You know, in 1962, in October, we had an event that most people will remember or know about because the missiles in Cuba were placed there by the Soviet system.
And I was a resident at Header Ford Hospital.
And my fears that were established even before I started medical school, that I ought to think of the day will come when I will be drafted.
And lo and behold, That was the event because within a few days after the missiles were occurring, I got drafted and I ended up serving about five years in the military.
Now, the interesting thing about that, since we're talking about war and peace, during that time, I wasn't sitting around fretting that, oh, what's going to happen?
They're going to invade.
They're in Cuba sort of thing.
I either was totally ignorant or I was just passe about the whole thing.
And really, not much has happened with that.
So just think of all the times, World War I, World War II, and all the wars since then.
The troops didn't come marching.
They've come pretty close.
But, you know, in thinking about this war issue, I've decided that the war that I am most concerned about, that I do shake in my boots at time and figure what are we doing here and getting nervous about it because I am most, I get the most anxious when I think about what our own government is doing to us.
The war against ourselves is the war that we better pay a lot of attention to.
You know, the many, many problems that we have that we're doing war during we have to address.
And we could call it a war against this, a war against that.
And I started listing it, but it's a list, a long list.
But I think about, you know, like the war against drugs.
That was a wonderful war.
I mean, they cured the problems.
They did it, the war against alcohol.
They even changed the Constitution for that.
Sure, they solved a lot of problems.
But now we're fighting another war, and this is a serious war, and that's on fentanyl.
Well, it is serious.
It's a deadly, deadly drug that people die from smaller overdoses.
But guess what?
It is more than twice as deadly killing people than alcohol is now.
But nobody's saying let's go back to alcohol.
But we are building this whole effort to establish these military operations at the border.
They could go a long way because they're always talking about the drug cortels.
And that to me is just unnecessary because I believe that we who supported getting rid of the war on drugs when it was even marijuana are a little bit hesitant.
And I remain hesitant because it's such a horrible, deadly drug.
But there are so many horrible, deadly things.
What if I came up here and said, you know, I have proof that sugar is more deadly than fentanyl and alcohol?
Well, you know, that is true.
We have a lot of problems, but we have a system now today that no matter what problem it is, and with our lack of confidence in freedom and understanding it, we immediately go, what is the government going to do about it?
And that, I think, is the effort that we have to look at.
That is a war on the people that we go to, at least to the federal government, so often.
Oh, if it's war against poverty, war against terrorism, on and on it goes, and we have to do something.
Guess what it does?
It justifies in the people's mind because one of the ways you can get the governments to act and either take away our liberties or take away our liberties and take away our money and enhance the power of the state, they're going to do it.
So they need a war on everything.
I guess a war on illiteracy.
Oh, well, we've already have a pretty good inroad to the schools.
The progressive have taken care of that, and we don't have to worry about it.
But still, we go and we do it and we add it because the only way we can address the subject with the crowd that's running the country right now is by just treating it like a drug.
I mean, the dependency on government is so bad that if we withdraw anything, like we didn't even withdraw anything since the new administration has come in.
And just think, just think of how active the people who want the spending have been.
And they were able to turn the thing off.
So it's a lot bigger than that because it's a whole system that we have come up with dependency.
Now, how do you take care of this and what feeds into this, whether it's an argument for more war, go to the Middle East, go to Ukraine, go around the world, build up an empire?
Can you do that on a nickel and dime?
Can we tax the people?
No, not openly, but they discovered a long time ago and it's historic, but we really have experienced this in recent years, and that is we steal the money through inflation, a devaluation of the dollar, which is a tax.
And this is why people just say, well, do it.
And they have no doubts about it.
You know, there's a lot of people that would argue the case that they have to cut.
But when it comes to cutting something they're getting, they're not for it.
So I'm very pessimistic on saying that all we need are a few more Thomas Masseys in there, and all of a sudden the Congress is going to react.
No, we're beyond that.
It's automatic.
They can't cut because the damage has already been done.
But that doesn't mean that we should quit.
That means we ought to work harder.
And we talk about the chaos in the streets.
Well, you know, that was participated in by the Marxists.
They want chaos because they want to destroy the remnants of what we have so that they can usher in the golden age of socialism, welfarism, corporatism, and all the mess.
So they like that.
But I think that's coming and it's on its way.
There is chaos.
And that ought to be an opportunity for all of us who believe in liberty to say, well, we have an answer.
And the answer is not too complex.
When I've talked to many of the college kids during the presidential race, they say, Ron, yeah, we agree with you.
So what should we do?
How can we do it?
I said, well, you could start by raising up a generation that might believe in the Constitution.
Look for some of our answers in the Constitution.
Well, right now, the invisible tax is the most threatening, and that is the inflation tax, the devaluation of the currency.
And they really don't even talk about it very much because here we had this magnificent election and fancy speeches and goals to reduce spending.
And I was encouraged when they said USAID is going to get a cut.
Nothing got cut.
And one of my arguments is if you want to cut and work on this terrible thing, that what we should do is cut the military.
The military is part of that complex.
And that's one war that we have to deal with.
Because if we're not against that and make sure we cut on that, I don't know what's going to happen.
I think that you could talk more and more so now because the American people are starting to wake up, that they might agree to some cuts, but there's not a stomach for it.
So that means that we have to prepare for it.
And that's one of the reasons we have RPI.
And Daniel worked so hard promoting this, because I find the answers in a philosophy of limited government.
And, well, how about our universities?
We send them a lot of money.
What are they teaching?
They're teaching Marxism and another system of government, which I think is so damaging because they are creating a system not of Marxism that's not on the media horizon and the communism and fascism and all.
But I think with this miss, whether it's been the foreign policy, whether it's been the domestic policy and a social policy, I think what we have committed to is a compromise because on one hand, we have people who are nihilists.
They don't even believe in truth and they don't even want you to pretend and work toward it.
And that locks in a bunch of people.
Then the other side are the people who want to say that the answer to this is seeking truth.
And where does the truth come?
Well, it's been around for a long time.
It sort of was established and invented, so to speak, back for the during the time of understanding natural law, which we understood 200,000 years before BC, before Christ.
That is, it's there.
The good and the evil is there, and it's always going to be there.
But I think we have to have more people understanding what we have now is we have the results of compromise of the worst kind.
They always compromise on the extremes of interventionism, spending, debt, and war.
And so if they have a project and somebody introduces it and it's a billion dollars and somebody says, well, let's cut it by 100 million.
And so they have a vote and they vote and they cut the budget 10%.
And they get excited about that.
That means they cut liberty 10%.
If they endorse something that is wrong, and you know what happens is they cut a little bit every time somewhere.
And over a period of time, they whittle away and there's not much liberty left.
And that's where we are today.
How about the monetary system?
We've been doing that forever.
And that is what I was introduced with into political discourse: the whole issue of the monetary policy.
I got fascinated with that many years ago, probably in the 60s.
And it was the prediction of the Misian branch of education and monetary policy that predicted that what we were doing in the 50s and the 60s would lead to a disaster.
And so I was very much attuned to this and looking at it carefully.
And I'll tell you what, I can remember the moment that Nixon gave his speech on Saturday, Saturday, Sunday evening.
And guess what?
Some people might have celebrated it yesterday.
It was August 15th of 1971.
So we're right at one of those days at 54 years we've had that thing.
And that was the declaration of bankruptcy.
Everybody knew we were technically bankrupt.
We'd never pay the bills.
But this said that we've had it.
You're not going to get any more gold from us by turning in your Federal Reserve notes, which we promised you.
So the whole thing came down and ushered in this age of inflation, which means that it really feeds into the spending and it feeds into the absolute disastrous opinion.
It doesn't matter.
Deficits don't matter, but they do.
And that's what we're facing.
And that's why we work so hard on economic policy.
And because I find that we got here by economic policy being deeply flawed.
And you had the Keynesians come in and teach of universities.
I think probably George Soros was as guilty as anybody because he put so much of his money in and corrupted our progress, our colleges.
But we did it too.
The voters did it too, because we've been pouring billions and billions of dollars into the universities, and they were the ones teaching us.
So it was a war against ourselves by teaching this.
But I think that's where I see some positive things happening.
People are starting to wake up.
There's a lot more people are understanding sound economic policies.
When I first went to Congress in the 70s, nobody ever heard that I ever talked to there, ever even heard of Austrian economics.
They thought it was crazy to talk about a gold standard and this sort of thing.
But today, it's in the daily news, and people are waking up.
People know what's going on, and the world is waking up.
Now there's a concerted effort against the dollar.
The BRIC nations are getting together.
So there's reason for people to be leery about what we're doing and starting to prepare because the government is not going to take care of us.
We should have as many people there to sound the warnings and the system.
But it's good.
But we have to think about what is the option?
How are you going to repair it?
If this thing comes down, like many people predict and I worry about, is a complete collapse of the financial system.
I think, yes, you can have some gold coins and you can have silver coins and you can have a few things out on a few acres and you should, should do it.
But I'll tell you, that's not going to solve the problem.
What's going to solve the problem is if we can find our remnant, which is very difficult, the remnant who held some of these ideas together and are willing to stand up for the return to a constitutional government.
And that's the thing.
I think if we're having different wars against different things, I would say the war against the Constitution has been pretty successful.
War Against the Constitution 00:05:56
And that's bad.
But we have to have a war against them who have destroyed our Constitution.
Because if we had followed the Constitution on the money issue, none of this would have happened.
We wouldn't have had a runaway welfare state.
We wouldn't have had an empire to deal with.
We wouldn't have had hundreds of thousands of people that we killed and so many Americans.
And just because now the American soldier isn't dying in relationship to it.
But what is our money doing?
And where does the money come?
It's stolen from the people.
Directly, do we send the policeman to go in their house and steal it?
No, we have control.
The government has control of debasing the currency, which is fraudulent.
It's evil.
And all of a sudden, if your dollar is worth 50 cents, somebody took it from you.
But they don't even have to march into our house.
They still do that because they have an IRS will do that.
But they still do it.
They do it through this fraudulent thing.
So I think natural law should be thought about more often.
Our founders understood it because under natural law, without the bureaucrats or government, you shouldn't have no lying, no cheating, no stealing, and no killing.
Well, I think probably most people in this audience would say, well, we don't believe in any of that.
And most people in the country would argue, oh, we don't believe in lying, cheating, stealing, and killing, but our government does.
And we don't say very much about it because it's been holier than thou.
The government's supposed to do this.
They've been granted this authority and they use it too.
And this is the reason why the conditions are so dangerous.
And this is why you can't do it.
You can't change it by nickel and diming it and getting five more new members of Congress.
You should do that because we need more voices.
But it's only going to change when we get a control of the educational system.
The control I'm talking about is getting the government out of running and let the control go back to the parents of the United States so they can dictate to their people what to do.
The whole thing on the foreign policy, once again, the foreign policy is not ingrained in our Constitution.
And the founders certainly warned against entangling alliances.
Well, yeah, we have a couple.
And right now, some people run against NATO, and then they use NATO.
And just think of all the stuff done.
I mean, we're in a war against Ukraine, but most Americans don't realize it's NATO against Russia.
They say, no, America and Ukraine invaded Russia.
And that's what most people believe.
So, but the one thing is, is, you know, I have a lot of complaints at the internet because I'm clumsy with it, but I find out that the internet has allowed me to reach more people and reach out by the different vehicles.
And I think if the only excuse now or the only reason now that we don't reach more people is because we might be lackadaisical.
And it doesn't take 51% of the people to start talking about these things.
We just want the leadership who know and understand what it is and use the tools that we have.
They've been around.
There's always been a remnant.
And it's out there.
I think that many people feel like they're part of it.
But I think the ideas of liberty and sound money are very alive and very acceptable.
You know, the one thing that people would frequently say to me is, well, yeah, you practically want to get rid of government.
Yeah, maybe practically, but some people even want to get rid of it all.
But if we get rid of a lot of the government, what are you going to substitute it with?
And it has to be substitute with the principle of self-ownership.
Individuals are supposed to be in charge with their life.
It's not supposed to be in charge by governments all the way up and down.
And we've drifted over into this system of accepting the principles That are handed to us on a platter, DEI and ESG, all the rules and regulation.
And there's now an healthy attack on those, but they're still there and they're going to be there a long time unless we're prepared because this system is coming down.
I think that there's no doubt about it.
We cannot continue to manage this dollar system.
And they're already ganging up because all empires end with spending too much money and all empires end by extending themselves too far around the world.
And just look at it.
I don't think very many Americans can say how many countries that we have troops in because I can't give you the exact number, but maybe 120, 140, way too many.
You know, one thing that I, when we had one of the early votes when I was first went to Congress, it had to do with the Coast Guard.
We had an appropriation for the Coast Guard.
I happen to believe there's a role to play for the Coast Guard.
But then during the debate, it came up, well, we have to do this and replace the Coast Guard vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.
Coast Guard Controversy 00:07:08
And I raised my hand.
I said, why is the Coast Guard in the Mediterranean Sea?
Why don't we have them guarded on our coast?
But they got the money and we guard everybody's coast.
But that is on autopilot.
And the other thing that's autopilot that they have to realize the war on the debt is not going well.
The debt is exploding.
It's faster.
It's automatic because you can't cut anything.
Anything that's in the budget that's fixed there, like Social Security, you can't cut any of that.
But you can cut.
You can make the effort and show how people would thrive.
But so where does the responsibility go for education?
Well, that's not hard.
How about the parents?
What about homeschooling?
What about private schooling?
And I think one of the most interesting stories I read when I had an article or a little booklet on the education of the founding fathers, it is unbelievable how well indicated they were educated.
And that is what's necessary.
So people say, well, I'm only one person, but I'll tell you what, I don't know who else is in the room today, but I know that everybody is interested.
I know that there must be several or a lot who have their own way of distributing literature and ideas.
And sometimes when I go on a radio station or a blog cast, you know, a blog and talk to a young person that got interested in these ideas when the campaigns were going on.
And I said, I would congratulate them.
I don't know.
Maybe they have a small number of people, but they don't even know.
Because if they had a thousand people, how do you know how many people they influence?
So fortunately, we have a free enough system that we can make a difference.
I think one good example of the ability of us to have an impact was on COVID.
COVID, all the smart doctors and the brilliant doctors told people to watch out.
This could be dangerous.
But some that were in between, they'd lose their jobs and they could lose their license and all these things.
But in spite of all the propaganda and all the statistics show how bad it is, there still are lingering people who believe in this.
But when COVID actually came down, it's when the parents woke up.
They woke up and went to these meetings and started talking about it.
And one person sometimes could convene a whole room.
Everybody can do that.
And I'm sure it happens all the time.
Because of that, I remain an optimist, believing this is a message that can't be stopped and a message whose time has come.
And that is something that I've strongly believed in: is that if you have an idea that has time has come, it can't be stopped even by armies.
And when you think about it, but the armies stopping it or changing it, that's a little bit risky.
Sometimes these things get changed slowly, but there's nothing wrong with believing that everybody has a role to play in trying to spread this message of liberty.
Because without that, you're not going to get it on a lot of the media.
And they will gang up.
And the trouble is, some of the TV and other things that are theoretically on our side aren't necessarily on our side.
And sometimes the politicians who run for office and speak our language and they're, I'm going to bounce the budget, I'm going to do all this.
I saw a lot of them come to Congress.
And after they got there, the influence of Congress is powerful because the new member will be told, look, you need our help.
We'll get you on this committee.
We're going to raise your money.
But you have to vote this way.
And they'll be hesitant.
And then they argue, you know, if you're not here, how can you help us?
So you have to cave in a little bit.
And that doesn't work.
And just think, just think of who got the most grief over not voting for the wonderful new budget.
And that was Massey.
He was politically crucified on it.
But guess what?
He's probably more popular in his district than he's ever been.
So that goes along with my closing remarks sometimes when I was campaigning.
I would say to try to simplify this: freedom is popular.
People just need to know about it.
And also what is popular is getting together.
I love to see crowds getting together.
They're like-minded.
Some come to learn.
Some come just to inquire and find out what it's all about.
But if you're not enjoying it and you say, well, the world's going to blow up tomorrow, well, you know, we don't know what tomorrow will bring or what kind of a tornado or hurricane will go.
But I'll tell you what, there's a lot of people who get together with various events that I've attended that seem to have a lot of fun, you know, talking about the issues in this planet and meeting new people.
I think that's the wonderful thing about the conferences.
People will meet some and they remain friends for a long time thereafter.
You know, the other thing that has influenced our foreign policy has been the obsession with our empire.
And some people will argue that we don't have an empire.
And I've argued also that along with the empire that we had, we also had a coup of our own government.
And I dated that November 22nd, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated.
And then another Kennedy was assassinated.
And then Martin Luther King was assassinated.
And just look at our security system and our judicial system, which I think reflects the philosophy of people like Soros and other wild-eyed progressives.
And it's solid that they're solid into this.
But I do believe very strongly that we have an empire.
I don't think it's a Republican empire.
I don't think it's a Democratic empire.
I believe that it's a deep state.
It's out there.
It's been there.
Protecting Individual Rights 00:05:46
And the only thing I know that we can do, and all I can offer is a better idea because it should be easy.
You know, when I was thinking there about if I had to talk to or try to persuade or be engaged with that candidate up in New York who declares his loyalty to socialism, why can't somebody from the media go up to him and say, where do you live?
And I think somebody said he lives in a pretty nice house.
Well, if you believe in housing, you know, that we should do it.
Will you donate your house?
Will you do this?
But they never even get asked those questions.
It should be so easy.
And freedom is so popular.
And tyranny is so bad.
And empires come of this.
But our empire is going to end.
So I see it as a good move that the dollar is being challenged.
And one thing of it is that is being challenged and distortion of what's going on.
You don't get richer and you don't pay off the debt just by putting on tariffs on your own people.
You know, it's, you know, tariffs or a tax on us.
That's not going to pay off anything.
So terrorists, taxes.
The other thing that we'd have to address to make sure that people understand what we're talking about is that we already lost most of our control of our lives.
Because the first thing is your income is not your income under this system.
You say, oh, no, I get an income and I look at my deductions.
But the principle is, for the massive numbers of people, is the government owns everything you earn.
And then if you go and get a lobbying group, maybe you'll find out a spot where you can keep some of it.
So you only have the obligation to learn how to keep some of the things that was meant to be your own.
But the other thing that I think that shows that we don't have individual, you know, individual rights is the use of the military draft.
I mean, what right do they have to do this?
And when you look and listen to the stories about our military, what war was a holy war that we fought and spent all this money and killed all these people?
And they do this, but it's just horrible that that means the government owns our lives.
I mean, I was learning about what was going on in 1962, but believe me, it never crossed my mind that I was going to be a brave soul and, you know, not appear for swearing in.
Because one of the things that I remember clearly when I was in college, I hadn't declared my intent to go to medical school.
And one of the things that the wars that I was aware of, World War II, Korea War, Vietnam, and the rest, one thing I knew, I said to myself, I'll be drafted.
I'll be drafted.
So many people from our church at home on World War II in Korea, I had a teacher drafted for Korea.
He didn't come home.
It just had such an impact that I think that we should, you know, tell what it is.
It's in slavery.
They own us.
They could pick us up.
But the big debate, this may clarify everything, straighten this out so people find out the difference between genders.
They say, yes, but we don't want to register women.
We have to protect their rights.
So the whole thing is nonsense.
The answer to it is we're individuals.
We have individual rights.
They're God-given.
And we have a right to our life and our liberty.
And a government ought to butt out.
I think a consequence of all this coming together, liberals, conservatives, Republicans, and Democrats, we end up with a system that sounds like a compromise and very beneficial.
That is interventionism.
We want to absolutely show our government has the right to intervene in everything that we do.
And also, it invites, it has created corporatism.
We don't have this radical socialism.
I mean, I think that China shows that they know a little bit about capitalism, state capitalism.
So I think that's what it is.
We have a lot of corporatism and we have interventionism.
And we don't have extreme, you know, the communism of the Soviet system.
But I'll tell you what, it's not complicated.
It's individual liberty.
Our rights are our own.
They're God-given.
And we have to speak up for it.
Just as a few started speaking up against COVID and it spread and this message can spread.
You can't kill a great message by anything.
Armies can't stop it because a true message cannot be stopped.
And I want to thank the crowd.
And once again, apologize again, not being there and enjoying the atmosphere of the crowd.
But I appreciate very much that you're here at the function.
And thank you for coming and participating in RPI function.
Export Selection