Courtesy of Mish.
On Wednesday, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) delivered a 48-minute farewell address on the House floor after serving 30 years in Congress. His farewell speech is arguably the best in his career.
Time permitting, I strongly encourage everyone to play the video or at least read the full and complete text. For now …
Here are a few highlights.
Note: For ease in reading, I dispense with my normal blockquotes (indentation).
Paul Highlights
The major stumbling block to real change in Washington is the total resistance to admitting that the country is broke. This has made compromising, just to agree to increase spending, inevitable since neither side has any intention of cutting spending.
If liberty is what we claim it is- the principle that protects all personal, social and economic decisions necessary for maximum prosperity and the best chance for peace- it should be an easy sell. Yet, history has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled.
In the early part of the 20th century our politicians promoted the notion that the tax and monetary systems had to change if we were to involve ourselves in excessive domestic and military spending. That is why Congress gave us the Federal Reserve and the income tax. The majority of Americans and many government officials agreed that sacrificing some liberty was necessary to carry out what some claimed to be “progressive” ideas. They failed to recognized that what they were doing was exactly opposite of what the colonists were seeking when they broke away from the British.
We Need an Intellectual Awakening. Without an intellectual awakening, the turning point will be driven by economic law. A dollar crisis will bring the current out-of-control system to its knees.
If it’s not accepted that big government, fiat money, ignoring liberty, central economic planning, welfarism, and warfarism caused our crisis we can expect a continuous and dangerous march toward corporatism and even fascism with even more loss of our liberties. Prosperity for a large middle class though will become an abstract dream.
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