Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Republican, got the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) crowd’s biggest and most animated reaction of any speaker at the event – and took the stage saying: “I’m glad to see the revolution is continuing.” Paul applauded new House freshmen GOP members for blocking the extension of the PATRIOT Act.
“The PATRIOT Act is literally destruction of Fourth Amendment,” Paul said. “In Washington, they don’t know what’s going on in grassroots America because they assumed everybody loved the PATRIOT Act.”
Paul called for an immediate end to all foreign aid, because “we just flat out don’t have the money,” and because the United States government “shouldn’t prop up dictators” because the U.S. wouldn’t like it if another country did so here.
“Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country,” Paul said. “There’s nothing wrong with staying out of the internal affairs of foreign countries when it’s none of our business.”
Paul said the U.S. government’s “failed foreign policy” has contributed to crises around the world, especially in the Middle East and in Egypt. He compared the situation with now former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to what happened during in Iran with the Shah and the Ayatollah.
Paul called for ending the Federal Reserve, and said that auditing the Fed is the first step in doing so. He said the American people shouldn’t be down on themselves from here on out, and that they must continue fighting.
“We should not have long faces,” Paul said. “We do not know exactly what tomorrow will bring, but I do know that the effort is worth fighting and I do know that we can have a lot of fun defending liberty.”