Liberty
If you obey the Constitution though, you'll be a freer person than if
you disobey it. If you allow the President to run wild and investigate
and spy on people and start wars that aren't declared, you could lose
your liberties.
The Colbert Report, Steven Colbert, Interview with Ron
Paul, June 13, 2007.
I'd rather be free and alive, and you can be. You do not have to give
up your liberties to be safe.
The Colbert Report, Steven Colbert, Interview with Ron
Paul, June 13, 2007.
If you believe in liberty, you want to reduce the size and the scope
of the state. So therefore you want to stamp out all wars and prevent
wars from starting. So whether it's the war on drugs, the war on Iraq,
and the war on poverty. All of these wars are just to scare the people
in order to give up their liberties and give up their money to the government
so they can solve all our problems.
The Colbert Report, Steven Colbert, Interview with Ron
Paul, June 13, 2007.
One of the major reasons we’ve drifted from the founders vision of liberty in the Constitution was the division of the concept of freedom into two parts. Instead of freedom being applied equally to social and economic transactions, it has come to be thought of as two different concepts. Some in Congress now protect economic liberty and market choices, but ignore personal liberty and private choices. Others defend personal liberty, but concede the realm of property and economic transactions to government control.
If we’re inclined to improve conditions, we should give serious consideration to the following policy reforms, reforms the American people who cherish liberty would enthusiastically support: 1. No more “No Child Left Behind” legislation; 2. No more prescription drug programs; 3. No more undeclared wars; 4. No more nation building; 5. No more acting as the world policemen; 6. No more deficits; 7. Cut spending—everywhere; 8. No more political and partisan resolutions designed to embarrass those who may well have legitimate and honest disagreements with current policy; 9. No inferences that disagreeing with policy is unpatriotic or disloyal to the country; 10. No more pretense of budget reform while ignoring off-budget spending and the ever-growing fourteen appropriations bills; 11. Cut funding for corporate welfare, foreign aid, international nongovernmental organizaions, defense contractors, the military-industrial complex, and rich corporate farmers before cutting welfare for the poor at home; 12. No more unconstitutional intrusions into the privacy of law-abiding American citizens; 13. Reconsider the hysterical demands for security over liberty by curtailing the ever-expanding and oppressive wars on drugs, tax violators, and gun ownership.
Liberty once again must become more important to us than the desire for security and material comfort. Personal safety and economic prosperity can only come as the consequence of liberty. They cannot be provided by an authoritarian government.... The foundation for a police state has been put in place, and it’s urgent we mobilize resistance before it's too late.... Central planning is intellectually bankrupt—and it has bankrupted our country and undermined our moral principles. Respect for individual liberty and dignity is the only answer to government force, force that serves the politically and economically powerful. Our planners and rulers are not geniuses, but rather demagogues and would-be dictators—always performing their tasks with a cover of humanitarian rhetoric.... The collapse of the Soviet system came swiftly and dramatically, without a bloody conflict.... It came as no surprise, however, to the devotees of freedom who have understood for decades that socialism was doomed to fail.... And so too will the welfare/warfare state fail.... A free society is based on the key principle that the government, the president, the Congress, the courts, and the bureaucrats are incapable of knowing what is best for each and every one of us.... A government as a referee is proper, but a government that uses arbitrary force to direct every aspect of society threatens freedom.... The time has come for a modern approach to achieving those values that all civilized societies seek. Only in a free society do individuals have the best chance to seek virtue, strive for excellence, improve their economic well-being, and achieve personal happiness.... The worthy goals of civilization can only be achieved by freedom-loving individuals. When government uses force, liberty is sacrificed and the goals are lost. It is freedom that is the source of all creative energy. If I am to be your president, these are the goals I would seek. I reject the notion that we need a president to run our lives, plan the economy, or police the world.... It is much more important to protect individual liberty and privacy than to make government even more secretive and powerful.