RON PAUL TRIUMPHANT
By
Attorney Jonathan Emord
Author of "The
Rise of Tyranny" and
"Global
Censorship of Health Information" and
"Restore
The Republic"
July 30, 2012
NewsWithViews.com
That tireless defender of civil liberties, limited government, and the Constitution, Dr. Ron Paul of Texas, is about to end his quarter century congressional career at the age of 77. No one in Congress has been more committed to our founding principles than Ron Paul. His imminent departure from Congress is therefore an incalculable loss for the United States and the world. On the eve of his departure, just when the pundits thought him incapable of achieving a political gain, he proved them wrong, the capstone to a career marked by independence from Republican sell-outs to big government and Democratic advocates of big government. On July 25, an astonishing 327 members of Congress voted in favor of his Audit the Fed bill, causing it to pass with the two-thirds majority required during the House’s suspension of its normal rules. Although the bill is one Harry Reid despises and will not let come to a floor vote in the Democratic Senate, the promise of a future when the Federal Reserve will be more transparent in its decision making appears brighter today than at any other time in American history. Senator Rand Paul, Ron Paul’s son, has pending S. 202, which is the Senate version of the House Audit the Fed bill.
Under Dr. Paul’s bill, the Government Accountability Office is authorized to examine the previously closed-door discussions of monetary policy performed at the central bank. Federal Reserve financials are already reviewed by an outside audit firm with results published by the central bank. The GAO also audits the Federal Reserve’s financials, but to date deliberations on policy decisions governing monetary policy have been shrouded in secrecy. Dr. Paul’s bill would force those secret deliberations into the light by eliminating the statutory exemption that has shielded them from GAO audits. “I think when people talk about independence and having this privacy of the central bank,” said Dr. Paul in the July 24 floor debate on the bill, “they want secrecy, and secrecy is not good. We should have privacy for the individual, but we should have openness of government all the time, and we’ve drifted a long way from that.”
Since he was first elected to the House in 1976, Dr. Paul has incessantly advocated against central banking in favor of a return to the gold standard, positions well explained in his 2009 book, End the Fed. As part of his argument against the Federal Reserve, Dr. Paul has severely criticized banking interests that established the federal funds rate at levels below market (contributing mightily to the sub-prime mortgage crisis through a gross expansion of easy credit). In discussing the need for transparency in Fed monetary policy decision making, Dr. Paul explained “the whole idea that [the Fed] can deal in trillions of dollars and know that nobody is allowed to ask them a question is a moral hazard.” His Audit the Fed bill, he said, “removes that moral hazard.”
Before July 22, Dr. Paul had never met with the House GOP leadership’s whip team (the lawmakers who make sure a bill introduced on the floor has enough votes to pass). The consummate Washington outsider who has rejected compromise of principle for over three decades, Dr. Paul quipped that his presence at the meeting was evidence he had finally become a congressional insider; and that, he said, was proof that it was time for him to leave Capitol Hill.
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Dr. Paul has always been a faithful believer in America’s founding principles. “Politicians don’t amount to much,” Dr. Paul famously said, “but ideas do.” Indeed, Dr. Paul’s resuscitation of the ideals of the founding became a remarkable distinction during his presidential campaigns. While pundits scoffed at the notion that Dr. Paul’s thinking could gain currency, he leaves Congress having amassed an army of supporters that are so numerous that they, indeed, have moved Dr. Paul’s concepts from what was once labeled the fringe to the mainstream. No single candidate has energized the youth as Dr. Paul has. He has inspired an entire generation to believe in the founding ideals. He has so transformed public perception fundamentally, laying the foundation for national media to feature prominently the libertarian thinking of intellectuals like Jon Stossel and Judge Andrew Napolitano, among others.
For those of us who love the Constitution and long for its return from exile, Dr. Paul will long be remembered as an indispensable and indefatigable warrior who battled valiantly for freedom at a time when almost all with power in government have obliterated the power limiting constitutional doctrines responsible for protecting individual liberty. Thank you, Dr. Paul. You will be sorely missed. Your legacy will live on, and the record of your words and deeds will remain a focal point for those who love liberty for generations to come.
� 2012 Jonathan W. Emord - All Rights Reserved
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