Ron Paul --
The Modern Cincinnatus
 I write to you today, to tell
you we are ready for the fight. And we need you and your prancing
horse to lead the way
Nelson Hultberg
nelshultberg@aol.com
Jul 21, 2003
"What
will you do for freedom? Will you fight?"
Times of great
crisis in history are usually the crucible from which nations
form new leaders and new visions. Such leaders seem to just suddenly
appear often out of nowhere to alter the national path pursued,
to cleanse the old ways, and stake out a saner, more just means
of living and governing.
Is it God,
destiny, fate that are somehow at work to bring about a saving
metamorphosis in which some visionary soul rises to the occasion
to stir the passions of the people and bring about a righting
of the ship? Whatever the force may be, our country is in dire
need of its power today.
If such a force
is at work in history, I pray that it is exerting some heady
pressure upon the one politician in Washington who has never
been a politician. That man is Congressman Ron Paul from the
14th District in Texas who has always been a throwback to the
original "citizen statesman" that the Founders promoted
as the ideal type of leader for the Republic they had formed.
It is said
that the Founders modeled their "citizen statesman"
after the example of Cincinnatus of Rome. In the early days of
the Roman Republic around 450 BC, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
was a private farmer who left his plough to lead his countrymen
in battle against enemy invaders, then returned to his pastoral
life, only to be called again later to lead the Republic as Consul
in a time of political crisis. Cincinnatus has, thus, been handed
down over the centuries as a prime example of the citizen statesman
who does not seek office and political power as a lifetime career,
but gives service to his country by his leadership when called.
Well, we have
a modern day Cincinnatus right now among us. Off and on over
the past three decades, he has been serving the Republic that
the Founding Fathers gave us, rather than the unlimited Democracy
into which the socialists have transformed us. He bills himself
as the "Taxpayers Best Friend," and he backs it up
with a myriad of brave cost cutting measures. This Texan has
the cattle to go with his hat: He is a physician, a scholar,
a statesman, a leader of impeccable integrity and right reason.
In a world that no longer values the guiding benevolence of the
Constitution, Ron Paul makes it his revered compass as he was
commissioned by the Founders to do. In a Washington dominated
by unctuous Machiavellians who build their lives upon Faustian
bargains and ruthless careerism,
Ron Paul stands
like a majestic oak of clarity and sanity in defense of the American
ideal. His watchword is "steadfast adherence to principle."
Compromise if need be on the means of implementation. But never
on the principle itself. Never on the Constitution. Never on
the rights of man.
Listen to what
Congressman Paul had to say a few years ago upon being called
back from private life to Washington: "The Feds want us
to be hamsters on a treadmill -- working hard, all day long,
to pay high taxes, but otherwise entirely docile and controlled.
The huge, expensive, and out-of-control leviathan that we call
the Federal Government wants to run every single aspect of our
lives. I'm in Congress to cut the government: its taxes, its
bureaucrats, its spending, and every single unconstitutional
action it takes."
The beautiful
thing about this non-politician is that he does not pay lip service
like all the rest of the humbugs that gather on the Potomac every
two years to strut and preen with our tax dollars. This man has
the mettle to back up his campaign rhetoric with action. This
man fulfills his promises. Imagine that in this day and age --
a politician who does precisely what he says he will do! When
big government advocates smear him as a "right-wing extremist,"
Paul calmly replies, "Isn't that what George III called
Thomas Jefferson?" You can almost hear an ingenuous Jimmy
Stewart talking to reporters on the Capitol steps in Mr. Smith
Goes To Washington. Frank Capra would have loved this guy.
Background and Accomplishments
Dr. Ron Paul
was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, attended Gettysburg
College and Duke University School of Medicine, served as a flight
surgeon in the U.S. Air Force during the 1960's, and first went
to Washington as a Congressman in 1976. He served from then until
1984 when he voluntarily gave up his seat to return to private
life and his medical practice. While in Washington, he was quick
to stake out a reputation as our nation's premier defender of
the Constitution. From the start, he championed sound monetary
policy that pushed for a return to a gold standard. He served
on the House Banking committee and steadfastly opposed the Federal
Reserve and its relentless inflation of the money supply. Truly
a man ahead of his time, this wise contrarian could see that
President Nixon had given the Fed an ominous tool with which
to wreck the economy when he closed the gold window in 1971.
In addition
to his stalwart efforts to defend sound money, Congressman Paul
voted time and again to reduce and/or abolish income taxes, regulatory
nonsense, and the encroachment of mushrooming federal bureaucracies.
In 1982, Dr.
Paul co-authored with Lewis Lehrman The
Case For Gold,
which was a monetary history of money and banking in America.
Magisterial in its scope, the book brilliantly lays out the reasons
why a commodity money such as gold is mandatory if freedom and
economic stability are to be our goals.
In 1988, while
back in the private sector, Dr. Paul led the Libertarian Party
as their presidential candidate to help promote the cause of
returning America to her roots of limited constitutional govenment
and a free-market. Along the way, he has authored several other
books such as Challenge to Liberty and A Republic If You Can
Keep It. Scholarly, resolute, and ever probing for the truth,
Dr. Paul has garnered numerous awards from the National Taxpayers'
Union, Citizens Against Waste, and Young Americans for Freedom,
etc.
In 1996 with
his children now grown, Dr. Paul and his wife Carol decided that
the Republic could best be served by returning to Washington
again. A time of crisis was looming that called for his wisened
voice of reason on money, taxes, and freedom. He successfully
won the seat from the 14th Congressional district of Texas. In
the seven years since then, he has reasserted himself as America's
foremost patriot-constitutionalist and advocate of a return to
the Founders' vision of limited government.
Since 1997,
he has written a weekly news column called "Texas
Straight Talk"
that articulates hard hitting viewpoints on the salient political
issues of our time. See his website. He has personally
sponsored over 40 legislative bills designed to reduce government,
strengthen the bulwarks of freedom, and restore sound monetary
policy to the country. Some of his notable legislative bills
are:
1) H.J. RES.
15: To abolish personal income, estate, and gift taxes.
2) H.R. 220:
To ban the Federal Government from use of National ID numbers
for citizens.
3) H.R. 1146:
To end membership of the United States in the United Nations.
4) H.R. 1547:
To restore first amendment protections of religion and religious
speech.
He has voted
repeatedly for term limits. He has pushed for a repeal of the
withholding tax function of the Federal Government. He has sought
to get the U.S. to leave the phony World Trade Organization.
He was one of only 67 who voted against the USA Patriot Act.
He doggedly assails the Orwellian Greenspan upon his every visit
to Capitol Hill. And about four years ago, he organized 20 of
his colleagues in Congress into The Liberty Committee to fight the authoritarians
on all fronts -- legislative, educational, and activist.
The "Neo-Conned"
Speech
On July 10,
2003, Dr. Paul gave perhaps the most
important speech
of his political life to the House of Representatives. "The
modern-day, limited-government movement has been co-opted,"
he stated in his opening. "The conservatives have failed
in their effort to shrink the size of government. There has not
been, nor will there soon be, a conservative revolution in Washington.
Political party control of the federal government has changed,
but the inexorable growth in the size and scope of government
has continued unabated."
Following this
opening salvo, Paul then proceeds to put forth a blistering expose
of the political-intellectual movement called "neoconservatism,"
its sinister goals, its former socialist members, and how it
has taken over Washington politics along with Big Media to further
the desecration of the Constitution and the vision of a free
and ordered Republic.
We have come
to our present deteriorated state of affairs, he asserts, "because
ideas ... have consequences. Bad ideas have bad consequences,
and even the best of intentions have unintended consequences..."
"Since
9-11, protection of privacy, whether medical, personal or financial,
has vanished. Free speech and the fourth Amendment have been
under constant attack. Higher welfare expenditures are endorsed
by the leadership of both parties. Policing the world and nation-building
issues are...now standard operating procedures..."
"None
of this happened by accident or coincidence. Precise philosophic
ideas prompted certain individuals to gain influence to implement
these plans. The neoconservatives -- a name they gave themselves
-- diligently worked their way into positions of power and influence...They
were not and are not conservatives dedicated to limited, constitutional
government."
The neoconservatives
are collectivist wolves in the sheep's clothing of freedom. They
are the new age Orwellians -- clever, ruthless, scholarly, and
horrifyingly authoritarian. A long list of prominent pundits
and power brokers such as Michael Ledeen, William Kristol, Robert
Kagan, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Max Boot, Bill Bennett,
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and numerous others make up their
movement. Their goal is to further centralize our government
in Washington and to achieve what they call "benevolent
world hegemony." This is euphemistic code for achieving
imperialistic control over as many regions of the world as possible,
through whatever means are necessary (including preemptive war).
"Neoconservatism
is not the philosophy of free markets and a wise foreign policy,"
states Paul. "Instead, it represents big-government welfare
at home and a program of using our military might to spread their
version of American values throughout the world."
In this gutsy,
provocative speech, Dr. Ron Paul has established himself as the
ultimate standard bearer for genuine political-philosophical
reform in America. He carves out clearly the difference between
his limited government conservatism and the big government conservatism
of George Bush and the neocons. "Preserving the state is
their goal," he asserts, "even if the personal liberty
of all individuals has to be suspended or canceled."
Dr. Paul ends
his compelling oration with the following: "Spending, borrowing
and printing money cannot be the road to prosperity ... It's
never worked anytime throughout history. A point is always reached
where government planning, spending and inflation run out of
steam. Instead of these old tools reviving an economy ... they
eventually become the problem. 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. This is not a conservative
problem, nor is it a liberal problem -- it's a government intrusion
problem that comes from both groups."
What Needs to be Done
Scintillating words from a
bold contrarian in a corrupt and conformist world. I would say
that here is the man we need to truly challenge the Demopublicans,
to gather all the disparate third parties under one umbrella
and lead the cause of restoring the Republic. Here is the man
our country needs for President! Here is our modern Cincinnatus!
Let this then
be an open plea to Congressman Ron Paul. The past 27 years of
your life have resulted in a profound and immensely accomplished
career of service to the noblest ideals of Western civilization.
Yet as great as they have been, they are but a prologue
to your real destiny. I believe the force that I spoke of earlier
in this article, that works through history, has been preparing
you for the final denouement of your real destiny. And that is
to lead a great enduring crusade to reinstill the principles
of the Founding Fathers into the public forum. It will be a dramatic
first step toward the salvation of the Republic in these first
tumultuous decades of the 21st century.
This first
dramatic step is for you to launch a viable third party challenge
to the tyrannical Demopublican establishment. No man is better
suited for this endeavor than you. But it cannot be a conventional
third party challenge as we have seen over the years from the
likes of the Libertarian Party, the Independence Party, and the
Reform Party. It must be a radical new kind of Third Party that
will have impact. I have written about the strategy of just such
a challenge in an article titled, "Gold Money and Equal
Tax Rates." It can be accessed here.
In the 1850's,
the political history of America was dramatically altered when
the Republican Party came into being to bring about the demise
of the old Whig Party. The times we live in today dictate the
necessity of an equivalent political shift. The question is,
can such a shift be brought about through a third party movement,
or is the conventional wisdom correct in claiming that third
parties are ineffectual endeavors that no longer have meaning
to the modern world of politics?
The answer
to this can best be stated with a quote from the 19th century
novelist Victor Hugo: "Greater than the tread of armies
is an idea whose time has come." The idea of a third party
challenge will always be ineffectual until those precise periods
of history when its "time has come." When the ruling
political forces have become so corrupted and so out of touch
that a dramatic new allignment of policy needs to be enacted,
then is when the third party approach (previously an exercise
in futility) suddenly becomes a powerful effective tool. This
becomes especially so in times of great crisis. It should be
quite apparent that we as a nation are about to enter a severe
crisis period, and it should also be apparent that the present
ruling forces (the Demopublicans) have become inexcuseably corrupted.
No third party
challenge will succeed, however, if it follows the conventional
path. My essay, "Gold Money and Equal Tax Rates," outlines a
RADICAL NEW STRATEGY for the third party approach that eliminates
the two damaging errors that all contemporary third parties make,
errors that doom them to defeat.
Dr. Paul, I
urge you to read what I have written in the above referrenced
article and seriously consider adopting its strategy in the upcoming
years. America today is in peril as you well know. Cincinnatus
helped to save the Roman Republic in his day. You are his modern
likeness.
Only you can unify the divergent factions in the freedom movement to
make it a cohesive power strong enough to actually have an impact.
We Americans who have been your loyal supporters over the years
urge you to rise to this occasion. The Republic will surely perish
without a heroic effort from all of us.
The stirring
words of the patriot William Wallace come always to my mind in
times like these:
"What
will you do for freedom? Will you fight?"
Such was his
trumpet call to rally his followers for battle with the dreaded
English juggernaut seven centuries ago. Back and forth in front
of his troops, Wallace rode on his prancing horse exhorting a
reluctant army of Scottish rebels until they rose up to drive
the English from their land. "What will you do for freedom?
Will you fight," he repeatedly asked? Your life's work,
Dr. Paul, has been in essence the posing of those two questions
to all Americans. I write to you today, to tell you we are ready
for the fight. And we need you and your prancing horse to lead
the way.
Nelson Hultberg
July 21, 2003
Email: nelshultberg@aol.com
Military Art
picture credit: William
Wallace Before the Battle of Stirling Bridge by Mark
Churms
With Edward I absent from Scotland the land soon slips once
more into open insurrection. Though not of noble birth, William
Wallace, by brutally slaying the Sheriff of Lanark in vengeance
for the murder of Wallace's new bride and her servants, soon
comes to embody the Scottish Nationalist cause. Through his popularity
and military skill, he is able to rapidly unify the rebellious
bands into a single, cohesive fighting force. An English army
is sent north to defeat the Scots and capture Wallace and the
only noble to come to Wallace's assistance, is his friend Andrew
Murray. Other Scottish landowners are too timid and fear the
consequences.
 Nelson Hultberg is
a freelance writer in Dallas, Texas. His articles have appeared
in such publications as The Dallas Morning News, the San
Antonio Express-News, Insight, Liberty, The Social Critic, Ideas
On Liberty, and The AIER Report.
He is the author
of Why We Must Abolish The Income Tax And The IRS (laissezfairebooks.com
and amazon.com), and is presently finishing a book on political-economic
philosophy entitled Reality's Golden Mean: The Case for Libertarian
Politics and Conservative Values.
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