Ron Paul’s 80th Birthday Speech: The Future of Liberty & American Prosperity (Audio)

Dr. Ron Paul turned 80 years old last week, and the Mises Institute threw a birthday party for him. Tom Woods and Judge Napolitano introduced Dr. Paul with stirring speeches, reminding us of how pivotal Ron Paul has been to the libertarian and free-market movements.

Dr. Paul delivered a resounding inspirational talk directed at those who strive to spread the message of free markets and a free society. While he reminded us of the terrible effects of an overreaching federal government and central bank, his message is primarily one of hope.

Argue the case for liberty. Then you are going to argue the case for the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people, the largest middle class. Then we have a society where if the goal is to seek excellence in virtue, you can do it. It’s all your responsibility… If you accept the notion that the government should protect us in a moral way and tell us what our habits should be, or we need the government to redistribute wealth, it can’t be done without the taking away of liberty.”

Lew Rockwell originally published this address on his podcast, and SchiffGold has compiled it into a YouTube video for you to enjoy.

Highlights from Dr. Ron Paul’s speech:

“I was motivated by a particular day in history. Guess what day that was? 8-15-71. August 15th, 1971, which is the anniversary today, and that was of course, the breakdown of the Bretton Woods agreement, which was a pseudo-gold standard which was doomed to fail. Austrian, free-market economists predicted it would fail and it did. For that reason, I thought I would speak out on economic issues. So it was a driving force on economic issues, believing that we were in for some bad times. I recall the event on Monday morning, because the announcement came on Sunday night. It was a disastrous announcement. It was severing gold from the dollar, which meant more inflation, and they were put on a huge tariff. All kinds of problems from that. So I thought this was negative, negative, negative. I attended a Chamber of Commerce meeting that morning afterwards… They were all enthused about this particular movement. The stock market went up most in one day up until that period of time. So the markets were saying this is good. The Chamber of Commerce likes it. I obviously believed there was something wrong. I thought, ‘We’re in for big trouble.’ It didn’t take long after the 1971 announcement for us to be ushered into the age of 1970s – a very bad decade. And of course, all the problems we’ve had ever since…

“All of a sudden I would go to a college campus and the crowds kept getting larger and larger. They started not just responding to my suggestions, but shouting out their suggestions. When I went to the University of Michigan, and I got into talking a little bit about monetary policy and I was easing my way in – because it was a liberal school – and all of a sudden they start shouting, ‘End the Fed! End the Fed!’ Then they started burning federal reserve notes, so I knew something big was going on in this country… On different campuses… I’d throw out the words ‘Austrian economics,’ and I’d get applause for Austrian economics on a college campus, a state run university. What’s going on? Then I would mention Mises’ name, and you could get an applause. I could get an applause for ‘Murray Rothbard.’ What really shocked me is one time I mentioned Lew Rockwell, and I got an applause! I knew the world was changing, and it was changing in a proper fashion…

“There has been a prevailing attitude for at least a hundred years, the attitude has been anti-liberty. Consistently anti-liberty, especially since the turn of the last century when you had Woodrow Wilson. We had a bad year in 1913, when you think about the introduction of the Federal Reserve and the income tax. That was a bad year for us. But also it was that period of time when our foreign policy was changing dramatically from a more independent nature to one of seeking an empire and going around the world, which has gotten much worse. But the prevailing attitude is still predominantly anti-liberty when you go to the universities. But it’s changing. It’s subtly changing. If you get the right people in the right places, then the majority will go along…

“We have more structural unemployment today than ever before. The welfare is really for the wealthy, but the principle is endorsed by the poor… They endorse the idea that the government is supposed to take care of us, and make us safe and secure. So they give the principle to the government, then the people who really want to be taken care of get behind the control of these principles, and they can’t take care of themselves. That’s why you have the bankers writing the banking regulations. You have the drug companies writing the drug regulations. You have the insurance company writing the medical regulations, and capitalizing on this. At the same time, medical care goes down and costs go up. This is the reason it is the principle that counts. But you have to convince people that it is in their interest. I’m convinced people vote from their bellies. They don’t vote from their heart or their brain. They vote from their bellies, because they vote for what they think is in their best economic interest. So far, they’ve been getting away with it. We’ve got the reserve currency of the world. We keep getting wealthy. We keep printing money. People will keep loaning us money forever. It seems like everybody is being helped. But they are starting to realize we are getting into worse shape every single day…

“If you did the right things economically in 2008 and 2009 – what should have been done is the liquidation of all the mistakes and all the bad debt, all the malinvestment. Just let it go. Let the bankruptcies flow, and probably in a year we would have gotten over it. Eventually, that will happen under worse conditions…

“It is important that we understand exactly what liberty means. I am so enthused about the reception on college campuses, trying explain what personal liberty is all about. It’s not personal liberty for some people and their personal habits and some people for their personal liberties on the economic system. Liberty is liberty. As the Judge stated so clearly, liberty is individual. It comes from our creator. That means you have a right to your life. You have a right to your liberty. And you have the right to the fruits of your labor, and you get to use it as you see fit…

“I would say that it’s an argument that we should never lose. Argue the case for liberty. Then you are going to argue the case for the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people, the largest middle class, and then we have a society where if the goal in society is to seek excellence in virtue, then you can do it. It’s all your responsibility, because that should be the responsibility of individuals… If you accept the notion that the government should protect us in a moral way and tell us what our habits should be, or we need the government to redistribute wealth, it can’t be done without the taking away of liberty. That is what’s been happening. The greatest threat to our country today is not ISIS. It’s the United States government and our court system…”

Get Peter Schiff’s latest gold market analysis – click here – for a free subscription to his exclusive weekly email updates.
Interested in learning more about physical gold and silver?
Call 1-888-GOLD-160 and speak with a Precious Metals Specialist today!