By Ron Paul
Last weekend several hundred of us gathered in Washington, DC, at the Ron Paul Institute conference to again proclaim our dedication to the cause of liberty and our opposition to constant US government assaults on that liberty. Our collaborators included old friends like Judge Andrew Napolitano, who explained that the Bill of Rights was not added to the Constitution to grant Americans liberties, but to recognize liberties already existing for all persons – regardless of nationality – by virtue of their humanity.
That is why the US government was purposely or unwittingly in the wrong when it tried to argue that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange did not have the privilege of our First Amendment protections because he is not American. He has these freedoms because he is human.
Our rights and liberties are granted to us by our nature or Creator, so how do we get the government to stop interfering with the intention of our Creator? As I told our crowd at the event, one thing we must do is educate ourselves. We must read, study, and listen to others so that we can better share the message of liberty with others. That is the reason my Institute for Peace and Prosperity puts on its regular conferences: to help people learn about these issues so that they may better pass them on. That is why even with current challenges, our movement keeps growing.
The good news, as I often say, is that it’s really not that complicated. As I told our group last weekend, one of the best ways of restoring liberty is simply to… End the Fed!
In many ways, the Federal Reserve is the greatest threat to our liberties. Politicians talk endlessly about the need to reduce inflation. They all recognize that it has become a serious problem and they each have their own plan to deal with it. But they ignore the true cause of inflation. The Fed is the engine of inflation! Ignoring this while claiming to fight inflation is just tinkering around the sidelines.
The Fed is the reason we have been able to be at war nearly constantly since 1913. Why are we constantly at war? Because the Fed was created to benefit the wealthy elites, and nothing enriches the wealthy elite more than constant war. The Fed prints the money for the wars and then its cronies pocket the money from the wars.
Does anyone really believe that the $200 billion we spent on Ukraine actually went to Ukraine? Of course not. It went to the well-connected, most of whom operate in a close radius to the DC Beltway.
The Fed creates divisions in our society. It pits the rich against the poor. Sure, the poor get food stamps, but the rich get much bigger food stamps through an evil called “corporatism.” And the poor being “helped” all those years with welfare from the Fed are now getting the bill. The bill comes in the form of inflation, which is a tax. If bread goes up 50 percent, the rich hardly notice. But the poor feel that increase very directly.
That is why adopting a “liberty platform” must first require these two important steps: understand the origin of our liberties and end the greatest threat to these liberties: the Federal Reserve!
