Ron Paul. Photo by David Carlyon

By Ron Paul

In addition to shredding civil liberties, launching a utopian global war for democracy, and going on a spending spree that would make LBJ blush, the so-called “conservative” Bush administration dramatically increased federal control over education via the “No Child Left Behind” act. During my time in Congress I heard nothing but complaints about this law from teachers, administrators, and, most importantly, students and parents. Most of the complaints concerned No Child Left Behind’s testing requirements, which encouraged educators to “teach to the test.”

Sadly, but not surprisingly, instead of improving education by repealing No Child Left Behind’s testing and other mandates, the Obama administration is increasing national control over schools via the “Common Core” initiative. Common Core is a new curriculum developed by a panel of so-called education experts. The administration is trying to turn Common Core into a national curriculum by offering states increased federal education funding if they impose Common Core’s curriculum on their public schools. This is yet another example of the government using money stolen from the people to bribe states into obeying federal dictates.

Critics of Common Core say it “dumbs down” education by replacing traditional English literature with “informational texts”. So students will read such inspiring materials as studies by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the EPA’s “Recommended Levels of Insulation,” and “Invasive Plant Inventory” by California’s Invasive Plant Council. It is doubtful that reading federal reports will teach students the habits of critical thinking and skepticism of government that the Founders considered essential to maintaining a free republic.

Like Obamacare, Common Core (now dubbed “ObamaCore” by some) has sparked a backlash in the states, leading some to propose legislation forbidding state participation in the scheme. I hope these efforts lead to states not just opting out of Common Core, but out of No Child Left Behind and all other federal education programs as well.

Parents can also effectively “opt out” of programs like Common Core by seeking alternatives to government education. It is no coincidence that, as federal control over education increases, the quality of public education has declined and more parents have chosen to homeschool.

To support these parents, I have established my own homeschool curriculum. Unlike Common Core, we do not dumb down any of our offerings. Instead, the goal is to provide students with a rigorous education in history, math, English, foreign languages, and other core subjects necessary to a well-rounded education. Unlike the top-down model of nationalized education, the homeschool curriculum is deigned to encourage maximum input from parents and students. While the curriculum will reflect my belief, and interest, in Austrian economics, libertarian political theory, and the history of the struggle against state power, the curriculum is being carefully designed to not show bias toward any one religion. I hope all parents of any faith—or no religious belief at all—will feel comfortable using the curriculum.

I believe it is important for those of us concerned with education and liberty to fight our battles locally. We must oppose further encroachment on the autonomy of local public schools and work to roll-back existing interference, while encouraging and supporting the growth of homeschooling and other alternative education movements. The key to restoring quality education is to replace the bureaucratic control of education with a free-market in education. Parents should have the freedom to select the type of education that best suits their child’s unique needs.

This week, as Americans were horrified by the attacks in Boston, both houses of Congress considered legislation undermining our liberty in the name of “safety.” Gun control continued to be the focus of the Senate, where an amendment expanding federal “background checks” to gun show sales and other private transfers dominated the debate. While the background check amendment failed to pass, proponents of gun control have made it clear they will continue their efforts to enact new restrictions on gun ownership into law.

While it did not receive nearly as much attention as the debate on gun control, the House of Representatives passed legislation with significant implications for individual liberty: the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). CISPA proponents claim that the legislation is necessary to protect Americans from foreign “cyber terrorists,” but the real effect of this bill will be to further erode Americans’ online privacy.

Under CISPA, Internet corporations are authorized to hand over the private information of American citizens to federal agents, as long as they can justify the violation of your privacy in the name of protecting “cyber security”. Among the items that may be shared are your e-mails, browsing history, and online transactions.

Like the PATRIOT Act, CISPA violates the fourth amendment by allowing federal agencies to obtain private information without first seeking a warrant from a federal judge. The law also allows federal agencies to pass your information along to other federal bureaucrats — again without obtaining a warrant. And the bill provides private companies with immunity from lawsuits regardless of the damage done to anyone whose personal information is shared with the government.

CISPA represents a troubling form of corporatism, where large companies cede their responsibility to protect their property to the federal government, at the expense of their customers’ privacy and liberty. In this respect, CISPA can be thought of as an electronic version of the Transportation Security Administration, which has usurped the authority over airline security from private airlines. However, CISPA will prove to be far more invasive than even the most robust TSA screening.

CISPA and the gun control bill are only the most recent examples of politicians manipulating fear to con the people into giving up their liberties. Of course, the people are told the legislation is for “limited purposes,” but authority granted to government is rarely, if ever, used solely for the purpose for which it is granted. For example, the American people were promised that the extraordinary powers granted the government by the PATRIOT Act would only be used against terrorism. Yet soon after the bill became law, reports surfaced that it was being used for non-terrorism purposes. In fact, according to data compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union, 76 percent of the uses of the controversial “sneak-and-peak” warrants where related to the war on drugs!

Sadly, I expect this week’s tragic attacks in Boston to be used to justify new restrictions on liberty. Within 48 hours of the attack in Boston, at least one Congressman was calling for increased use of surveillance cameras to expand the government’s ability to monitor our actions, while another Senator called for a federal law mandating background checks before Americans can buy “explosive powder.”

I would not be surprised if the Transportation Security Administration uses this tragedy to claim new authority to “screen” Americans before they can attend sporting or other public events. The Boston attack may also be used as another justification for creating a National ID Card tied to a federal database with “biometric” information. The only thing that will stop them is if the American people rediscover the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin that you cannot achieve security by allowing government to take their liberties.

Read more by Rep. Ron Paul

• Why Can’t We All Travel To Cuba? – April 15th, 2013
• Neo-Con War Addiction Threatens Our Future – March 24th, 2013
• Congress, Drones, and The Imperial Presidency – March 10th, 2013
• The Drone Threat – February 18th, 2013
• Beware The Consequences of Pre-Emptive War – February 10th, 2013

Ron Paul brought his revolution to the Gator Nation Monday night, delivering a well-burnished message of expanding individual liberty and restricting government intrusion to about 3,000 fans at the O’Connell Center.

Paul, 77, a 12-term congressman from Texas and a veteran of three presidential campaigns, plied his craft like the political pro he is, hitting familiar themes and delivering a string of folksy, populist slogans. The event was sponsored by Accent Speaker’s Bureau, which paid Paul $55,000 to come. The event was free to the public.

“I am delighted so many young people are interested in the cause of liberty,” he said to thunderous applause. “It’s not that complicated to defend liberty. The goal is to seek peace and prosperity with limited government intrusion in our lives and the affairs of other nations.”

Paul would return to those themes, repeating them throughout his hour-long speech, offering simple solutions for complex problems. War? Stay out of it. Drugs? Let people be responsible for themselves. The economy? Let the free market do its thing.

“This country was the freest and wealthiest nation. That is not the case anymore,” he said, citing a $5.7 trillion debt to foreign nations, eliciting loud boos.

The fact that he gave his speech on April 15, the filing deadline for federal income tax returns, was not lost on Paul, who called it Bad News Day. “We should get rid of the income tax,” he said to cheers.

Noting that North Korea is in the news, he said that he was in high school in 1950 the first time the U.S. got involved in the Korean conflict, “and we never left.”

His solution: get out of Korea and let them resolve their differences and peace would come before you knew it.

He applied the same solution to military involvement in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Get out and let them work it out among themselves. If the U.S. was “minding our own business we wouldn’t be mixed up in all these countries and wars going on.”

Paul criticized the Federal Reserve, eliciting a chorus of boos. “You don’t need the Federal Reserve. Get rid of it.” Cheers erupted from the crowd.

Paul said the U.S. needs to return to the gold standard. He later said during a Q-and-A period that the very reason he got into politics was because President Richard Nixon in 1971 took the U.S. off the gold standard.

The U.S. wouldn’t have so much debt if not for the War on Drugs. It doesn’t work, and it trampled on civil liberties, he said. He also said he didn’t believe in government programs that help people who have drug problems or have gotten themselves into other messes because of bad decision making.

He criticized the Patriot Act and government surveillance. He lambasted President Obama’s drone program, the same program Paul’s son, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., spent 13 hours filibustering last month. Paul railed against a presidential hit list of U.S. citizens, which got more boos.

At times Paul fell into the rhythm of a stand-up comic, delivering a string of crowd-pleasing one-liners that followed a pattern of government bad, individuals good:

“Before you know it the federal government won’t even let you drink raw milk,” Paul said.

And “Before you know it the federal government won’t let you raise hemp.” He said he didn’t know much about it, but heard that it would take a “joint the size of a phone pole” to get you high.

“Before you know it some authoritarian will tell you how big a Coke you’re allowed to drink,” he said, garnering an eruption of applause for his poke at New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to regulate the size of soft drinks sold in The Big Apple.

Paul said the U.S. should lift the trade embargo and travel restrictions on Cuba. He said people should define for themselves what marriage is.

He also criticized the federal government for bailing out the bankers and Wall Street brokers who helped bring about the economic collapse that led to the Great Recession, and blamed those investors for bringing about the demise of the middle class.

But he didn’t really offer any solution to restoring the middle class or reigning in the excesses of Washington, other than returning to his theme: “If we have liberty we will have peace and prosperity.”

Paul continually warned against letting government get too big and turning over problems to the government.

“The bigger the government, the bigger the lies,” he said.

But he said he was encouraged that people were beginning to question the notion that big government was necessary, that a new generation of young adults was questioning the status quo. “If you turn it over to the government, there will be nothing left of our liberties,” Paul said. “But if you invest in the cause of liberty we will have a great country for it.”

Stephen Haskell, a freshman at UF, said Paul surpassed his expectations. “I believe in free commerce, doing away with the debt credit system and returning to gold-backing,” he said.

Katje Janisch, a UF alumna who brought her 17-year-old son along, said she didn’t agree with everything Paul said, but believed he was an honest politician who meant what he said.

“I believe our country should stay out of other countries’ business and mind our own,” she said.

Former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul recently announced on his weekly news broadcast (audio below) and on Facebook that he would be launching his own home schooling program, reports DailyCaller.com.

When Paul was running for president, he called for ending five federal government departments, including the Department of Education, reported CNSNews.com.

“I am pleased to announce my new website: RonPaulCurriculum.com which will feature an online home school curriculum for students K-12…. be sure to tell your family and friends!” Paul wrote on his Facebook page.

Paul lists the following courses on his website: “Liberty vs. coercion in Western History, How to defend the Freedom Philosophy, What it takes for success in college and How to start a home business.”

“Students also learn the basics of American history, the United States Constitution, and American geography.” the site also states. “They get two courses on free market economics. They get two courses on government, including a how-to course on reclaiming America, one county at a time.”

Paul slammed public education in his audio address.

“A common feature of authoritarian regimes is the criminalization of alternatives to government-controlled education,” claimed Paul. “Dictators recognize the danger that free thought poses to their rule, and few things promote the thinking of ‘unapproved’ thoughts like an education controlled by parents instead of the state… Children do better when their education is controlled by those who know their unique needs best, rather than by a federal bureaucrat.”

Sources: DailyCaller.com, CNSNews.com, RonPaulCurriculum.com

Ron Paul

By Ron Paul — (February 25, 2013)

While I oppose most gun control proposals, there is one group of Americans I do believe should be disarmed: federal agents. The use of force by federal agents to enforce unjust and unconstitutional laws is one of the major, albeit overlooked, threats to liberty. Too often Americans are victimized by government force simply for engaging in commercial transactions disproved of by Congress and the federal bureaucracy.

For example, the offices of Rawesome Foods in Venice, California, have been repeatedly raided by armed federal and state agents, and Rawesome’s founder, 65-year old James Stewart, has been imprisoned. What heinous crime justified this action? Rawesome sold unpasteurized (raw) milk and cheese to willing customers – in a state where raw milk is legal! You cannot even drink milk from a cow without a federal permit!

This is hardly the only case of federal agents using force against those who would dare meet consumer demand for raw milk. In 2011 armed agents of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raided the business of Pennsylvanian Amish farmer Dan Allgyer. Federal agents wasted a whole year and who knows how many millions of our tax dollars posing as customers in order to stop Allgyer from selling his raw milk to willing customers.

The use of force against individuals making choices not approved of by the political elite does not just stop with raw milk. The Natural News website has documented numerous accounts of federal persecution, including armed raids, of health food stores and alternative medical practitioners.

Federal bureaucrats are also using force to crack down on the makers of gold coins for fear that people may use these coins as an alternative to the Federal Reserve’s fiat currency. Bernard von NotHaus, the founder of Liberty Dollars, is currently awaiting sentencing on federal counterfeiting charges — even though Mr. von NotHaus took steps to ensure his coins where not used as “legal tender.”

Yet, the federal government was so concerned over the possibility that Mr. von NotHaus’s customers might use his coins in regular day-to-day commerce they actually labeled Mr. von NotHaus a “terrorist.”

These type of police state tactics used against, among others, raw milk producers, alternative health providers, and gold coin dealers is justified by the paternalistic attitude common in Washington, D.C. A member of Congress actually once told me that, “The people need these types of laws because they do not know what is good for them.” This mindset fuels the growth of the nanny state and inevitably leads to what C.S. Lewis said may be the worst from of tyranny “…a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims.”

All Americans, even if they do not believe it is a wise choice to drink raw milk or use gold coins, should be concerned about the use of force to limit our choices. This is because there is no limiting principle to the idea that the government force is justified if used “for our own good.” Today it is those who sell raw milk who are being victimized by government force, tomorrow it could be those who sell soda pop or Styrofoam cups. Therefore, all Americans should speak out against these injustices.

Politics / US Politics Feb 25, 2013 – 01:07 PM GMT

By: Dr_Ron_Paul

When They Came for the Raw Milk Drinkers…

While I oppose most gun control proposals, there is one group of Americans I do believe should be disarmed: federal agents. The use of force by federal agents to enforce unjust and unconstitutional laws is one of the major, albeit overlooked, threats to liberty. Too often Americans are victimized by government force simply for engaging in commercial transactions disproved of by Congress and the federal bureaucracy.

For example, the offices of Rawesome Foods in Venice, California, have been repeatedly raided by armed federal and state agents, and Rawesome’s founder, 65-year old James Stewart, has been imprisoned. What heinous crime justified this action? Rawesome sold unpasteurized (raw) milk and cheese to willing customers – in a state where raw milk is legal! You cannot even drink milk from a cow without a federal permit!

This is hardly the only case of federal agents using force against those who would dare meet consumer demand for raw milk. In 2011 armed agents of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raided the business of Pennsylvanian Amish farmer Dan Allgyer. Federal agents wasted a whole year and who knows how many millions of our tax dollars posing as customers in order to stop Allgyer from selling his raw milk to willing customers.

The use of force against individuals making choices not approved of by the political elite does not just stop with raw milk. The Natural News website has documented numerous accounts of federal persecution, including armed raids, of health food stores and alternative medical practitioners.

Federal bureaucrats are also using force to crack down on the makers of gold coins for fear that people may use these coins as an alternative to the Federal Reserve’s fiat currency. Bernard von NotHaus, the founder of Liberty Dollars, is currently awaiting sentencing on federal counterfeiting charges — even though Mr. von NotHaus took steps to ensure his coins where not used as “legal tender.”

Yet, the federal government was so concerned over the possibility that Mr. von NotHaus’s customers might use his coins in regular day-to-day commerce they actually labeled Mr. von NotHaus a “terrorist.”

These type of police state tactics used against, among others, raw milk producers, alternative health providers, and gold coin dealers is justified by the paternalistic attitude common in Washington, D.C. A member of Congress actually once told me that, “The people need these types of laws because they do not know what is good for them.” This mindset fuels the growth of the nanny state and inevitably leads to what C.S. Lewis said may be the worst from of tyranny “…a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims.”

All Americans, even if they do not believe it is a wise choice to drink raw milk or use gold coins, should be concerned about the use of force to limit our choices. This is because there is no limiting principle to the idea that the government force is justified if used “for our own good.” Today it is those who sell raw milk who are being victimized by government force, tomorrow it could be those who sell soda pop or Styrofoam cups. Therefore, all Americans should speak out against these injustices.

Dr. Ron Paul
Project Freedom

Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. Dr. Paul is the leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives: Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the “one exception to the Gang of 535″ on Capitol Hill.

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