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not admitting the truth to themselves that all their money ’ s been spent. I think it all came out of bad economic teaching of the Depression. In the early ’ 30s when we had our Depression it was taught that capitalism and the gold standard caused all the problems, and therefore, you had to have government bailout programs and safety nets and they ushered in the whole age of welfarism, Social Security, and the government had to take care of us. At the same time, they had been taught ever since World War I that it is our obligation and responsibility morally to spread our values around the world. We have to have a war to spread democracy throughout. This whole generation accepted this but it was fallacious. It ’ s based not on principles of liberty and self -
reliance. It ’ s based on the fact that, “ well, we do need government to take care of us, ” and they never ask the question, you know,
“ Who ’ s going to pay for it? ”
We have dropped this moral constitutional approach to what we do, and yet a whole generation if not two or three have c11.indd 155
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Interviews
accepted this idea because we ’ ve been so wealthy and we ’ re still doing pretty well on the surface. People seem to be doing pretty well. The tragedy is, it is all on borrowed money now. The fi nances are in such disastrous shape because we can ’ t survive without borrowing $ 2.5 billion every day from overseas because of the current account defi cit, and a country can ’ t continue to do that. They can ’ t continue to borrow from overseas and print money. They will come up short, and they can ’ t just print the money — it just won ’ t work. Eventually that ends up in big economic problems.
Q: Back in the mid - to late ‘ 90s, you were one of the only people who was blowing the whistle and speaking up against Dr. Greenspan and the Fed. What does it feel like personally to be out there on your own? Do you ever feel that you wish you weren ’ t sometimes the only person in Washington to vote against the bill of “ Let ’ s save ” ?
Ron Paul : It is a lonely position, but I came with full knowledge that I expected to be in that situation, and I guess I looked always to the positive if I ’ m lonely here in Washington. When I leave Washington, I ’ m not quite so lonely. When I ’ m back in my district or talking around the country, all of a sudden there ’ s a lot of support. There ’ s a lot of grassroots support for my position about getting rid of the income tax and privatizing Social Security and letting the young people get out of it. There ’ s a lot of support by a lot of people that understand the danger of a central bank, and they understand it when I say, “ Let ’ s just get rid of the central bank. We didn ’ t have it before 1913, we don ’ t have to have one. ”
I make up for it by looking for allies outside of Washington, but I also have a nucleus of people here in the Congress who would, behind the scenes, agree with me, and a lot of times they ’ ll say, “ Well, I would vote with you more often, except I ’ d have more trouble explaining it back home. ” They are afraid that the conventional wisdom at home is such that it might hinder their reelection. But I have found that it ’ s a political benefi t to try to talk about these diffi cult issues.
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Q: Can you talk for a moment about your candidacy for president?
How would you defi ne a successful campaign? Would it be winning the election, would it be winning a nomination, or would it perhaps be that your ideas that you ’ re fi ghting for win and take hold and take place?
Ron Paul : If you enter a race and say, “ Well I ’ m not in it to win, and I ’ m just going to go out and make a couple points, ” it ’ s not a very good campaign, either for yourself or for your supporters. So you