These remarks were delivered to the Save America Foundation Convention in Tampa, Florida, on Saturday, March 19, 2011.

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens,), the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.

“Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European Ambition, Rivalship, Interest, Humour or Caprice?”

These famous words of George Washington’s Farewell Message to America strike us today with remarkable precision and force. Our First President warned us against foreign influence and foreign entanglements — yet Americans have forgotten that message.

We have allowed ourselves to be stationed in military bases all over the world. We have endless entanglements dating back decades. We are in crushing debt in part because of it and seem to be in a state of perpetual war.

As Sun Tzu warned: “There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”

The security of our nation is threatened by this debt we now owe to foreigners. Our children now face what was warned against in the farewell address of President Dwight D. Eisenhower:

“We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

This was as he warned us of two dangers to society: control of America by a “military industrial complex” and of public policy being held captive by a “Scientific and technological elite”. He warned

“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.”

Yet here we stand.

- a bankrupt America with our children losing political and spiritual heritage to foreign entities.

-subject to the whims of a United Nations Security Council that appears to regard the U.S. Military as its personal ready response police force.

-Captive to a scientific and technological elite that control our domestic and foreign policy agenda.

-a deeply entrenched military industrial complex that is endangering our liberties and our democracy.

- A series of Presidents that have committed to unconstitutional acts of war in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and now Libya.

- A Congress that disregards its responsibility to the nation to declare war rarely and soberly — recognizing the deep financial impact on our citizens, dangers to our country and the many losses of liberty by individual Americans that accompany such a declaration.

Our founders established in the very constitution –the bedrock of our country — that only Congress should declare war. But now this is seen as anachronistic, inconvenient and somehow trite.

Well, here is something that our founders knew that our elected leaders have forgotten: Entering into War is supposed to be inconvenient. It is supposed to be difficult. It should require national unity and a solid economic footing. It should consider the actual effect on Americans and the real American interests at stake.

No such declaration will be forthcoming. America fired its first missiles (114) at air defense system in Libya today (3/19/2011) — an act of war at the behest of an unelected, unaccountable council of 15 leaders of mostly foreign governments. People who do not have the consent of the governed in America. Made of many foreign entities who seek an end to America and who are delighting in the continued over-extension of our country — at its continued descent into endless debt as its currency becomes even more worthless. An act of war by an America with an overextended military, currency in danger of collapse. A risky action in a powder-keg of a region that threatens to evolve into the first stop in a new world war.

How can this be stopped? What should we do? Do we wait for our politicians to do the right thing on their own? If so, we will wait a long time.

We are blessed now to live in a time of Miracles. A time when Americans are rising up in the millions to say no to an oversized government with domestic policies that are a danger to their liberties and to the political and spiritual heritage of our children. It is now time for these same millions to recognize that our government over decades has made similar and even more serious errors in its foreign policy.

With the hostile actions of U.S. Military forces today, the President is now required under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to report to Congress within 48 hours of this action. The Congress has 60 days to authorize continued military action.

It is time for the Tea Party and all Americans to tell our Congressman to vote no! No more wars of selection. No more wasted taxpayer dollars on foreign misadventures. No more blood of good American men and women spilled on foreign soil. No more foreign entanglements and call to action by an unelected United Nations that is not accountable to the American people. Talk about a foreign entanglement!

Over the next several days, there is likely to be launched an advocacy campaign among many tea party groups in Florida demanding that congress vote no on authorizing military force. I ask you to go to a website and sign up for an email action alert and be prepared to respond. I ask you to go to FLAlliance.com and register. That is FLALLIANCE.com. Get your members to go there. Get them to call their Congressmen and women and tell them: use all resources at your disposal to stop military action by the U.S. in Libya. Launch similar campaign by your tea party groups around the country and by any group that recognizes this to be an unwise act — a dangerous act for the security of America.

Many of the congressmen and Senators sent to Washington by the Tea Party are engaging in uninformed saber rattling. They are being drawn in by the power circles of Washington. They are being persuaded by foreign powers that we must get further entangled and must expend our treasure and our lives abroad.

It is time for Congress to tell the President to return American Military forces home. Close our foreign bases. End our military action. Grow Strong again America and then we will have true national security and no country or entity will lightly threaten the United States Again. They will remember these words from George Washington’s Farewell Address.

If we remain one People, under an efficient government, the period is not far off, when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or War, as our interest guided by justice shall Counsel.”

Copyright © 2011 David McKalip

Ron Paul gives:

“Questions to consider:

1.  Do the American people deserve to know the truth regarding the ongoing war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

2.  Could a larger question be: how can an Army Private gain access to so much secret material?

3.  Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not our government’s failure to protect classified information?

4.  Are we getting our money’s worth from the $80 billion per year we spend on our intelligence agencies?

5.  Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths; lying us into war, or WikiLeaks’ revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

6.  If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information, that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the First Amendment and the independence of the internet?

7.  Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on WikiLeaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

8.  Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in the time of a declared war—which is treason—and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death, and corruption?

9.  Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it’s wrong?”

Read the full article here.

Ron Paul announces last night (Dec. 8, 2010) on Freedom Watch that Cong. Spencer Bachus has promised him the Chair of the House Sub-Committee on Domestic Monetary Policy.

Demagoguing the Mosque by Ron Paul.

We wear many hats in life, but often neglected is the Citizen Hat.

You remember the old story of Ben Franklin, when he came out of the Constitutional Convention?  A Mrs. Powel anxiously asked Franklin: “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

“A republic,” answered Franklin, “if you can keep it.

You keep the republic by wearing your hat, as a Citizen.

Many people, you included, see that our republic has come to the edge of the abyss and we are about to lose it.  We are desparate for the Hat of a Citizen so we can wear it and pull our republic back from the brink.

Suddenly, folks are grabbing their copies of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and Federalist Papers, feverishly reading, hoping these documents will tell them what to do as a Citizen.

Those documents will give you an idea of ‘how things ought to be’ but they are the job description of the government, not the job description of a citizen.  You need them to do your job, but where is the description of your job?

Government schools taught you civics, but not your job as a citizen.

Some folks aim to rally the citizenry by writing blogs and putting up websites.  They inform other citizens of things that need to be done.  These are important, but how can you tell if you are being rallied for another round of “hope and change”?  And how does blogging and participating in tea party rallys fit into the overall job of a citizen?

http://www.citizenhat.org is devoted to the description of your job as a citizen.  It’s not fancy and no interactive games, but if you put in 20 or 30 minutes, starting with the first link, you will begin to learn your job, starting with the definition of citizen.  It may be different than you think.

Only a citizenry wearing their Citizen Hat will keep the Republic.

(What’s the difference between a Republic and a Democracy, anyway?  See pages 13-17 of the Citizen Hat, first link at http://www.citizenhat.org )

Here’s the whole story:

Poll: Most Say “Ground Zero Mosque” Is Inappropriate – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.

Mainstream voters support Ron Paul 58% over Obama, while the Political Class support Obama by 95%.  Of course, the Political Class are voters who trust the government and politicians far more than your average citizen.

View the Rassmussen Report here.

Much has been made recently about the supposed economic recovery.  A few blips in a few statistics and many believe our troubles are all over.  Of course, they have to redefine recovery as “jobless” to account for the lack of improvement on Main Street.  But the banks have money, Wall Street is chugging along, and the administration would like to get on with other agendae.

They have even set up a commission to investigate the crisis as if it were all in the past.

The truth is that Americans are still losing jobs, the Fed is still inflating, and more regulations are in the works that will prevent jobs and productivity from coming back.  We are on this trajectory for the long haul.  The claim has been made many times that this administration has only had a year to clean up the mess of the last administration.  I wish they would at least get started!  Instead of reversing course, they are maintaining Bush’s policies full speed ahead.  They are even keeping the Bush-appointee in charge of the Federal Reserve!  They are not even making token efforts at change in economic policy.  And for all the talk of transparency, we hear that some powerful senators will do all they can to block a simple audit of the powerful and secretive Federal Reserve.

We have been on a disastrous course for a long time.  The money supply has doubled in the last year, our debt is unsustainable, the value of the dollar is going to continue its drop, and those Americans who understand where we are headed feel helpless and held hostage by foolish policy makers in Washington.  When the bills finally come due and the dollar stops working we are in for some real social, economic and political chaos.  That is, unless we take some major steps now to allow for a peaceful transition in the future.  These steps are laid out in my legislation to legalize competing currencies.

First of all, no one should be compelled by law to operate in Federal Reserve notes if they prefer an alternative.  We should repeal legal tender laws and allow Americans to conduct transactions in constitutional money.  Only gold and silver can constitutionally be legal tender, not paper money.  Instead, it is illegal to conduct business using gold and silver instead of Federal Reserve notes.  Simply legalizing the Constitution should be a no-brainer to anyone who took an oath of office.  Consequently, private mints should be allowed to mint gold and silver coins.  They would be subject to fraud and counterfeit laws, of course, and people would be free to use their coins or stay with Federal Reserve notes, as they see fit.  Finally, we should abolish taxes on gold and silver, which puts precious metals at a competitive disadvantage to paper money.

The Federal Reserve is a government-sanctioned banking cartel that has held far too much power for far too long and is in the end stages of running the dollar into the ground, and our economy along with it.  The very least Congress can do, if they are not willing to abolish the Fed, and perhaps not even conduct a serious audit of it, is to allow citizens the freedom to defend themselves from being completely wiped out by their monopoly power.

Politician are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why if all politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices — 545 human beings out of 235 million — are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excused the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered by private central bank.

I exclude all of the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislators’ responsibility to determine how he votes.

Don’t you see the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O’Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.

Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses — provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

For nearly a century the Federal Reserve has operated in the shadows, away from the prying eyes of Congress, journalists and the American people. Created in 1913, the Fed was given enormous responsibility to protect the value of our currency. Yet in the last 96 years the U.S. dollar has lost more than 95% of its purchasing power. The Fed’s unprecedented actions over the past year in attempting to stabilize the financial system have now forced it into the spotlight, and caused millions of people around the country to question the opacity of the Fed’s financial transactions.

While the Fed is more transparent now than it was 20 or 30 years ago, there is still a long way to go. If the Fed were fully transparent, organizations such as Bloomberg and Fox News wouldn’t have to sue its board of governors to receive materials that should be available through Freedom of Information Act requests. These include information on which banks and companies received loans and for what amounts after the 2008 financial meltdown.

One puzzling assertion made by the Fed and its supporters is that the Federal Reserve has some sort of independence from the government and independence in undertaking monetary policy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Federal Reserve is a government-created banking monopoly, and its top decision makers are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. If they do not perform satisfactorily in the eyes of politicians, they will not be renominated.

The Fed has also, for the past three decades, been required to engage in monetary policy with the goal of maintaining stable prices and full employment. Since the natural trend over time is for prices to decrease, a mandate to maintain stable prices is a mandate to pursue an expansionary monetary policy and inflate the money supply to counteract the lower prices we would expect from increased productivity.

The Fed chairman is required to appear twice a year before Congress to explain the Fed’s actions, and how the Fed is complying with its mandates of stable prices and full employment. However, the idea that this constitutes any sort of oversight is laughable.

Each congressman who questions the chairman receives only a few minutes in which to ask questions and receive answers. Having been on the receiving end of Alan Greenspan’s notoriously obtuse “Greenspan-Speak” answers and Ben Bernanke’s similarly convoluted statements, we can assure you that the process is completely ineffective at getting any real answers.

No matter how direct the questions are, Fed chairmen answer with a vagueness common to bureaucrats. The whole process is window dressing for public consumption, not any sort of attempt to exercise oversight or gain any real insight into the Fed’s actions.

What is needed is a full audit of the Fed, something that has never happened. We need to know who the Fed is giving money to, what types of securities are being purchased and what backs those securities, how much money is being paid for those securities, etc.

While Rep. Mel Watt’s (D., N.C.) efforts to audit the new lending facilities authorized to bail out private firms such as AIG is a step in the right direction, it is still just a first step. These facilities have the same effect on the money supply as securities purchased through open market operations. Why should securities placed on one line of the Fed’s balance sheet be subject to audit while the exact same securities placed elsewhere on the balance sheet are not subject to audit? The loopholes need to be closed.

In coming weeks we plan to offer companion amendments to legislation already before the House and Senate that will open the Fed up to a complete audit. The amendments set a six-month time lag on the publication of previously unreleased audit data to address the Fed’s concerns that actions undertaken in support of monetary policy would immediately be politicized. The transcripts and minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meetings would continue to be made public at the Fed’s discretion, with unpublicized details of meetings not subject to any additional scrutiny. Finally, the amendments make clear that the purpose of the audits is not to interfere with or dictate monetary policy.

As strong opponents of government intervention into the economy, we do not want to see Congress directly dictate monetary policy. But while the Fed is involved so heavily in monetary policy and its actions so heavily influence the future of our economy, it is necessary that it be fully transparent. Interventions into the economy on the order of trillions of dollars cannot continue to escape public scrutiny. American taxpayers deserve better.

Mr. Paul is a Republican congressman from Texas. Mr. DeMint is a Republican senator from South Carolina.