Ron Paul

Your money has never been safe in the government's hands, and it never will be. Governments spend money; it's just their nature.

Once created, federal programs are nearly impossible to eliminate.

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.

No one talks about the real ethics disaster in Washington. It's that many members of Congress will listen to any argument against a bill except for two: that it's not moral or that it's not Constitutional.

September 11th does not justify ignoring the Constitution by creating broad new federal police powers. The rule of law is worthless if we ignore it whenever crises occur.

If I were in Congress in 1996, I would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress's constitutional authority to define what official state documents other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a 'same sex' marriage license issued in another state.

...[the federal] government [has no authority] to deliver a service,...and there's no evidence to show that government has ever been efficient [at] delivering...service.

You have to remember, rights don't come in groups we shouldn't have 'gay rights'; rights come as individuals, and we wouldn't have this major debate going on. It would be behavior that would count, not what person belongs to what group.

If you're really serious about protecting people's incomes, you've got to consider how you're going to protect the dollar. If you don't have the dollar maintaining its value, no matter where you put the money you're not going to have any value.

We're bankrupting our country and we have an empire that we're trying to defend which costs us $1 trillion a year. And the standard of living is going down today. It's going down and the middle class is hurting because of the monetary policy. When you destroy a currency, the middle class gets wiped out.

Welfarism and excessive spending and deficits and socialism divide us, because everybody has to go to Washington. Those who have the biggest clout, whose who are the best lobbyists, those who go and they grab. And whether it's the medical industrial complex, or the banking industry, or the military industrial complex, that's who ends up controlling our government.

As bank customers, we tend to believe that we can have both perfect security for our money, drawing on it whenever we want and never expecting it not to be there, while still earning a regular rate of return. In a true free market, however, there tends to be a tradeoff: you can enjoy a money warehouse or you can hope for a return on your investment. You can't usually have both. The Fed, however, by backing up this fractional-reserve system with a promise of endless bailouts and money creation, attempts to keep the illu

Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country.

This much is true: you have been lied to.

The Federal Reserve System is nothing more than legalized counterfeit.

We'd love it if we could all just come home and not worry about the rest of the world. But the problem is, they attacked us on 9/11. We were here; they attacked us.

By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so called 'diversity' actually perpetuate racism. Their obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist...

Young people are not raw material to be employed by the political class on behalf of whatever fashionable political, military, or social cause catches its fancy. In a free society, their lives are not the playthings of government.

Only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions.

With the exception of the military industrial complex, we all want a more peaceful world.

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

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.

And yet even among the friends of liberty, many people are deceived into believing that government can make them safe from all harm, provide fairly distributed economic security, and improve individual moral behavior. If the government is granted a monopoly on the use of force to achieve these goals, history shows that power is always abused. Every single time.

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.

Both sides of the political spectrum must one day realize that limitless government intrusion in the economy, in our personal lives, and in the affairs of other nations cannot serve the best interests of America.

Too many members of Congress believe they can solve all economic problems, cure all social ills, and bring about worldwide peace and prosperity simply by creating new federal programs.

There is no reason, in a free society, that farmers shouldn't be allowed to raise hemp. Hemp is a good product.

It's not like I'm just trying to win and get elected. I'm trying to change the course of history.

If you give up on your principles I don't think that's being pragmatic... Doing the wrong thing, even partially, isn't being practical...if you have the right ideas and are forceful enough...I think you can get the support you need.

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