Ron Paul Quotations | Page 2

I wish I could say I was shocked at the reports the NSA is secretly spying on the private phone calls of millions of Verizon customers. However, this is a predictable result of a government that continues to erode our liberties while promising some glimmering hope of security.

I'm not against the FBI investigation in doing a proper role, but I'm against the FBI spying on people like Martin Luther King. I'm against the CIA fighting secret wars and overthrowing government.

The catch-all phrase "the war on terrorism", in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against "criminal gangsterism". Terrorism is a tactic. You can't have a war against a tactic. It's deliberately vague and non-definable in order to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere and under any circumstance.

The federal government overrules state laws where state laws permit medicinal marijuana for people dying of cancer. The federal government goes in and arrests these people, put them in prison with mandatory, sometimes life sentences. This war on drugs is totally out of control. If you want to regulate cigarettes and alcohol and drugs, it should be at the state level.

The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified.

Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed,

Governments, whether they're dictatorships or democracies, reflect the people. When the people get fed up, they throw them out.

Why is it that some people, you know, think we should obey the Constitution sometimes and not other times.

Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy.

I have come to one firm conviction after these many years of trying to figure out the plain truth of things. The best chance for achieving peace and prosperity, for the maximum number of people worldwide, is to pursue the cause of liberty. If you find this to be a worthwhile message, spread it throughout the land.

Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.

My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy.

Could America exist without an income tax? The idea seems radical, yet in truth America did just fine without a federal income tax for the first 126 years of her history.

The original American patriots were those individuals brave enough to resist with force the oppressive power of King George...Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security.

Right now, nobody legalized paper money. Where did that come from.

By the way, when I say cut taxes, I don't mean fiddle with the code. I mean abolish the income tax and the IRS, and replace them with nothing.

If you ever can bring about revolutionary changes, two things would be required: young people would have to be involved and you would need music.

If people won't spend any money, the government has this moral obligation to do it.

When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we, in essence, accept that the state owns our bodies.

It is true that liberty is not free, nor is it easy. But tyranny - even varying degrees of it - is much more difficult, and much more expensive. The time has come to rein in the federal government, put it on a crash diet, and let the people keep their money and their liberty.

Banning guns because of their misuse is like banning the First Amendment because one might libel or slander.

Once you get the government involved in agriculture you'll have nothing but problems and expenses.

Unskilled and inexperienced workers are the ones most often deprived of employment opportunities by increases in the minimum wage.

We in the Congress have a moral and constitutional obligation to protect the value of the dollar and to understand why it is so important to the economy that a central bank not be given the unbelievable power of inflating a currency at will and pretending that it knows how to fine-tune an economy through this counterfeit system of money.

If global warming is because of weather changes - which a lot of people believe - there's not much we can do to change the weather pattern.

Sanctions are not diplomacy. They are a precursor to war and an embarrassment to a country that pays lip service to free trade.

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.

When people become frightened, they look for things of real value. They will go to monetary metals, gold and silver, and they will buy other things, such as buying property. But no matter what we have, whether we have our gold coins or we have our property, if we have an authoritarian government, that is our greatest threat. So, I would like to think that there is no perfect protection, other than shrinking the size and scope and power of government, so that we can be left alone and take care of ourselves.

I'm not sure what Al Gore did for peace. I don't think he have been high on my list for the Nobel Peace Prize.

My message is simple - freedom works a lot better than the authoritarian style of government.

Amend Constitution to remove aliens' birthright citizenship.

First reason is, it's not authorized in the Constitution, it's an illegal institution. The second reason, it's an immoral institution, because we have delivered to a secretive body the privilege of creating money out of thin air; if you or I did it, we'd be called counterfeiters, so why have we legalized counterfeiting? But the economic reasons are overwhelming: the Federal Reserve is the creature that destroys value.

We should have a strong president. Strong enough to resist the temptation of taking power that a president shouldn't have.

Contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

We can achieve much more in peace than we can ever achieve in these needless, unconstitutional, undeclared wars.

The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch - Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference - that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars.

Expect the rapidly expanding homeschool movement to play a significant role in the revolutionary reforms needed to rebuild a free society with constitutional protections.

What we need is a strong defense, but right now there is zero chance of an invasion by another country and right now we have more firepower than all other countries put together.

The sad thing is, our foreign policy WILL change eventually, as Rome's did, when all budgetary and monetary tricks to fund it are exhausted.

The number one responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow.

I do not have much confidence in the political system and never did. My goal has always been to change people's minds because as long as people demand more government, they will get it.

We need a smaller and elite military, as [Donald]Rumsfeld said - and also a smaller and elite foreign policy.

Each of us should choose which course of action we must take; education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes, but let it not be said that we did nothing.

Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we ought to challenge that concept.

Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

Outsourcing is a reflection of a bad economic environment domestically. If you fix that, you fix outsourcing. Our primary export is paper money, and that should change if you change the monetary policy.

If you can’t protect life, then how can you protect liberty?

I would absolutely never use the federal government to enforce the law of using marijuana

Do they think if we destroy our freedoms for the terrorists they will no longer have a reason to attack us?

Sexually-transmitted diseases is caused by sexual activity and promiscuity it spreads diseases. That's been known, you know, about 400 or 500 years, that somehow these diseases are spread. If fault comes with people because of their personal behavior but it isn't to be placed on a burden on other people, innocent people, why should they have to pay for the consequences?

May future generations look back on our work and say that these were men and women who, in a moment of great crisis, stood up to their politicians, the opinion-makers, and the establishment, and saved their country.

After years spent in Washington, I have become more aware than ever of the government's ineptness and the likelihood of its making mistakes. I no longer trust the U.S. government to invoke and carry out a death sentence under any conditions.

The president and other government officials denounce school violence, yet still advocate for endless undeclared wars abroad and easy abortion at home. U.S. drone strikes kill thousands, but nobody in America holds vigils or devotes much news coverage to those victims, many of which are children, albeit, of a different color.

General welfare is a general condition - maybe sound currency is general welfare, maybe markets, maybe judicial system, maybe a national defense, but this is specific welfare. This justifies the whole welfare state - the military industrial complex, the welfare to foreigners, the welfare state that imprisons our people and impoverishes our people and gives us our recession.

We have a lot of goodness in this country. And we should promote it, but never through the barrel of a gun. We should do it by setting good standards, motivating people and have them want to emulate us. But you can't enforce our goodness, like the neocons preach, with an armed force. It doesn't work.

The most sinister of all taxes is the inflation tax and it is the most regressive. It hits the poor and the middle class. When you destroy a currency by creating money out of thin air to pay the bills, the value of the dollar goes down, and people get hit with a higher cost of living. It’s the middle class that’s being wiped out. It is most evil of all taxes.

In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats.

We're being taxed to blow up bridges in Iraq and rebuild them, while ours at home are falling down

People should not be able to vote to take away the rights of others.

We have to restore confidence that the marketplace can deliver services as well as it can goods.

I never would force the Justice Department to go to California and arrest people getting medical marijuana, when that's the law there.

I think Israel should be treated as an independent nation and not a puppet of our state.

Prices are going up. Unemployment is continue to go up. And we have not had the necessary correction for the financial bubble created by our Federal Reserve system.

When one person can initiate war, by its definition, a republic no longer exists.

The ultimate goal of the anti-religious elites is to transform America into a completely secular nation, a nation that is legally and culturally biased against Christianity.

We must remember, elections are short-term efforts. Revolutions are long-term projects.

I lean toward a flat tax. But I want to make it real flat, like ZERO.

The ultimate solution is not in the hands of the government. The solution falls on each and every individual, with guidance from family, friends and community. The #1 responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow. This is of greater importance than working on changing the government; that is secondary to promoting a virtuous society. If we can achieve this, then the government will change.

When we finally decide that drug prohibition has been no more successful than alcohol prohibition, the drug dealers will disappear.

The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free.

America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.

1913 wasn't a very good year. 1913 gave us the income tax, the 16th amendment and the IRS.

We don't think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.

Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals.

Unlike Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, I never voted to provide taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood.

We need to understand the more government spends, the more freedom is lost...Instead of simply debating spending levels, we ought to be debating whether the departments, agencies, and programs funded by the budget should exist at all.

We have depended on government for so much for so long that we as people have become less vigilant of our liberties. As long as the government provides largesse for the majority, the special interest lobbyists will succeed in continuing the redistribution of welfare programs that occupies most of Congress's legislative time.

Under the United States Constitution, the federal government has no authority to hold states "accountable" for their education performance...In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats.

Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.

It is a dangerous notion that we need a government to protect us from ourselves.

Ideas are very important to the shaping of society. In fact, they are more powerful than bombings or armies or guns. And this is because ideas are capable of spreading without limit. They are behind all the choices we make. They can transform the world in a way that governments and armies cannot. Fighting for liberty with ideas makes more sense to me than fighting with guns or politics or political power. With ideas, we can make real change that lasts.

I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights.

We should respect each other as rational beings by trying to achieve our goals through reason and persuasion rather than threats and coercion.

Terror is a tactic. We can not wage "war" against a tactic.

It's a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It's a total fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: the military-industrial complex, the bankers, the foreign dictators, it's totally out of control. [...] This idea that the government has services or goods that they can pass on is a complete farce. Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we ought to challenge that concept.

If we are not even free anymore to decide something as basic as what we wish to eat or drink, how much freedom do we really have left?

But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty.

A citizen walking through the airport today is bombarded with 1984-style propaganda messages that are designed to make us fear some amorphous threat and also be suspicious of others. The government designs these messages to make us feel dependent and heavily lorded over in every aspect of our lives. These messages are becoming ever more pervasive, hitting us even in grocery stores when we are shopping.

Demanding domestic security in times of war invites carelessness in preserving civil liberties and the right of privacy. Frequently the people are only too anxious for their freedoms to be sacrificed on the altar of authoritarianism thought to be necessary to remain safe and secure.

Al-Awlaki was born here, he is an American citizen. He was never tried or charged for any crimes. No one knows if he killed anybody. We know he might have been associated with the underwear bomber. But if the American people accept this blindly and casually that we now have an accepted practice of the president assassinating people who he thinks are bad guys, I think it's sad.

The Congress should not be creating money out of thin air, which is what Lincoln did when he created greenbacks. But it is a congressional responsibility to maintain gold and silver as a legal tender.

When it comes to the environment and global warming from emissions, it has to be dealt with in one of two ways - preemptive regulations, which I don't agree with, or with private property principles. Nobody has the right to pollute their neighbors' air or water or land.

I miss the closet. Homosexuals, not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, where you couldn't even see the noon sun in the sky, and that whole city was cleaned up without the federal government needing to be involved. I think we would have been much better served from the start if people would have better understood the principles of private property.

It would be virtually impossible to finance wars without taxing the people, and the welfare system would be limited because there wouldn't be enough money in the bank to sustain it as it is, and that would help prices stay under control.

Times of tragedy and war naturally bring out strong emotions... Sometimes people are only too anxious to sacrifice their constitutional liberties during a crisis, hoping to gain some measure of security. Yet nothing would please terrorists more than if we willingly gave up our cherished liberties because of their actions.

There's not much you can do about the bias of the media other than try to counteract it by putting the truth out best you can, and the Internet has been a great weapon for holding the media accountable.

I think the policy makers like the idea of being the boss. I mean people who like to boss other people around like to go into politics so they can become the boss.

It would help the poor people who need jobs. Minimum wage is a mandate. We're against mandates so why should we have it? It would be very beneficial.

It’s amazing that people don’t understand that the more the market is involved and the smaller the government, the lower the price, the better the distribution, and the higher the quality.