Tampa, U.S.A. — The following are remarks as prepared for delivery by the Hon. Rand Paul, U.S. Senator, Kentucky, at the 2012 Republican National Convention:

When the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, the first words out of my mouth were: I still think it is unconstitutional!

The leftwing blogs were merciless. Even my wife said — can’t you pleeeease count to ten before you speak?

So, I’ve had time now to count to ten and, you know what? I still think it’s unconstitutional!

Do you think Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas have changed their minds?

I think if James Madison himself — the father of the Constitution — were here today he would agree with me: The whole damn thing is still unconstitutional!

This debate is not new and it’s not over. Hamilton and Madison fought from the beginning about how government would be limited by the enumerated powers.

Madison was unequivocal. The powers of the federal government are few and defined. The power to tax and spend is restricted by the enumerated powers.

So, how do we fix this travesty of justice? There’s only one option left.

We have to have a new president!

When I heard the current president say, “You didn’t build that,” I was first insulted, then I was angered, then I was saddened that anyone in our country, much less the president of the United States, believes that roads create business success and not the other way around.

Anyone who so fundamentally misunderstands American greatness is uniquely unqualified to lead this great nation.

The great and abiding lesson of American history, particularly the Cold War, is that the engine of capitalism — the individual — is mightier than any collective.

American inventiveness and desire to build developed because we were guaranteed the right to own our success. For most of our history, no one dared tell Americans: “You didn’t build that.”

In Bowling Green, Kentucky, the Taing family owns the Great American Donut shop. Their family fled war-torn Cambodia to come to this country. My kids and I love to eat doughnuts, so we go there frequently.

The Taings work long hours. Mrs. Taing told us that the family works through the night to make doughnuts. The Taing children have become valedictorians and National Merit Scholars.

The Taings from Cambodia are an American success story so, Mr. President, don’t you go telling the Taings: “You didn’t build that.”

When you say they didn’t build it, you insult each and every American who ever got up at the crack of dawn. You insult any American who ever put on overalls or a suit.

You insult any American who ever studied late into the night to become a doctor or a lawyer. You insult the dishwasher, the cook, the waitress.

You insult anyone who has ever dragged themselves out of bed to strive for something better for themselves or their children.

My great grandfather, like many, came to this country in search of the American Dream. No sooner had he stepped off the boat than his father died.

He arrived in Pittsburgh as a teenager with nothing, not a penny. He found the American Dream: not great wealth, but a bit of property in a new land that gave him hope for his children.

In America, as opposed to the old country, success was based on merit. Probably America’s greatest asset was that for the first time success was not based on who you were, but on what you did.

My grandfather would live to see his children become doctors, ministers, accountants and professors. He would even live to see one of his sons, a certain congressman from Texas, run for president of the United States of America.

Immigrants have flocked to our shores seeking freedom. Our forbearers came full of hopes and dreams. So consistent and prevalent were these aspirations that they crystallized into a national yearning we call the American Dream.

No other country has a Dream so inextricably associated with the spirit of its people.

In 1982, an American sailor, John Mooney, wrote a letter to his parents that captures the essence of the American Dream:

“Dear Mom and Dad, today we spotted a boat in the water, and we rendered assistance. We picked up 65 Vietnamese refugees.  As they approached the ship, they were all waving and trying as best they could to say, ‘Hello America sailor! Hello Freedom man!’ It’s hard to see a boat full of people like that and not get a lump somewhere between chin and bellybutton. And it really makes one proud and glad to be an American. It reminds us all of what America has always been — a place a man or woman can come to for freedom.”

Hung and Thuan Tringh are brothers and friends of mine. They came to America on one of those leaky, overcrowded boats. They were attacked at sea by pirates. Their family’s wealth was stolen. Thuan spent a year on a South Pacific island existing on one cup of rice and water each day until he was allowed to come to America. Now both of these men and their families are proud Americans. Hung owns his own business and Thuan manages a large company. They are the American Dream.

So, Mr. President, don’t go telling the Tringh family: “You didn’t build that.”

When the president says, “You didn’t build that,” he is flat out wrong. Businessmen and women did build that. Businessmen and women did earn their success. Without the success of American business, we wouldn’t have any roads, or bridges, or schools.

Mr. President, you say the rich must pay their fair share. When you seek to punish the rich, the jobs that are lost are those of the poor and middle class.

When you seek to punish Mr. Exxon Mobil, you punish the secretary who owns Exxon Mobil stock.

When you block the Keystone Pipeline, you punish the welder who works on the pipeline.

Our nation faces a crisis. America wavers. Unfortunately, we are one of a select group of countries whose debt equals their gross domestic product.

The republic of Washington and Jefferson is now in danger of becoming the democracy of debt and despair. Our great nation is coming apart at the seams and the president seems to point fingers and blame others.

President Obama’s administration will add nearly $6 trillion to our national debt in just one term.

This explosion of debt is unconscionable and unsustainable. Mr. President, we will not let you bankrupt this great nation!

Republicans and Democrats alike must slay their sacred cows. Republicans must acknowledge that not every dollar spent on the military is necessary or well-spent, and Democrats must admit that domestic welfare and entitlements must be reformed.

Republicans and Democrats must replace fear with confidence, confidence that no terrorist, and no country, will ever conquer us if we remain steadfast to the principles of our Founding documents.

We have nothing to fear except our own unwillingness to defend what is naturally ours, our God-given rights. We have nothing to fear that should cause us to forget or relinquish our rights as free men and women.

To thrive we must believe in ourselves again, and we must never — never — trade our liberty for any fleeting promise of security.

Author Paul Kengor writes of a brisk evening in small-town Illinois. Returning home from a basketball game at the YMCA, an 11 year old boy is stunned by the sight of his father sprawled out in the snow on the front porch. “He was drunk,” his son later remembered. “Dead to the world, crucified.” The dad’s hair was soaked with melted snow, matted unevenly against the side of his reddened face.

The boy stood over his father for a minute or two. He simply wanted to let himself in the door and pretend his dad wasn’t there. Instead, he grabbed a fistful of overcoat and heaved his dad to the bedroom, away from the weather’s harm and neighbors’ attention.

This young boy became the man – Ronald Reagan – whose sunny optimism and charisma shined so brightly that it cured the malaise of the late seventies, a confidence that beamed so broadly that it pulled us through a serious recession, and a faith that tugged so happily at all hearts that a generation of Democrats became Republicans.

The American Dream is that any among us could become the next Thomas Edison, the next Henry Ford, the next Ronald Reagan.

To lead us forward, away from the looming debt crisis, it will take someone who believes in America’s greatness, who believes in and can articulate the American dream, someone who has created jobs, someone who understands and appreciates what makes America great, someone who will lead our party and our nation forward.

I believe that someone is our nominee: Governor Mitt Romney.

As Reagan said, our freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction. If our freedom is taken, the American Dream will wither and die.

To lead, we must transform the coldness of austerity into the warm, vibrant embrace of prosperity.

To overcome the current crisis, we must appreciate and applaud American success. We must step forward, unabashedly and proclaim: You did build that. You earned that. You worked hard. You studied. You labored. You did build that. And you deserve America’s undying gratitude. For you, the individual, are the engine of America’s greatness.

Thank you.

Image Courtesy of  Gage Skidmore

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The Pauls are back in the political scene. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, has been announced as a speaker in the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Ron Paul was not taken into account in the Republican Convention four years ago, but in the last four years the Pauls have increased their visibility. So this time, the Pauls haven’t been overlooked by the Republicans and Sen. Rand Paul will have the opportunity to speak in the Convention.

Sen. Rand Paul is a Doctor by profession; he attended Baylor University and graduated from Duke Medical School in 1988.  He is the third of five children born to Carol and Ron Paul. His father is also a Doctor who graduated from Gettysburg College and the Duke University School of Medicine.

Rand Paul’s official webpage explains that “Rand is a hard-working, dedicated physician, not a career politician. His entrance into politics is indicative of his life’s work: a desire to diagnose problems and provide practical solutions.”

Senator Rand Paul has recently criticized the Democrats’ Tax Hike plan. He stated: “It boggles the mind to think that now, during an economic recession; Senate Democrats put forth a plan to raise taxes on nearly a million business owners, farmers, ranchers, and families. Their idea of a tax plan includes damaging tax increases that would severely hurt small businesses and hike the estate tax from 35 percent to 55 percent. Fortunately for the American people, this tax bill is dead upon arrival, as our Constitution requires that all tax bills originate in the House of Representatives, and this one did not.”

Sean Sullivan, writer for the Washington Post blog The Fix, said that “Rand Paul will be a candidate for president — whether in 2016 or 2020— so he’ll want to use this national platform to boost his visibility outside of those people already devoted to his cause.”

Sen. Rand Paul’s father, Ron Paul, decided to enter politics in 1971. He started as a delegate to the Texas Republican Convention and then attempted to enter Congress but was defeated in 1974. In 1976 he won a special election to finally enter Congress when Congressman Robert Casey was given a presidential appointment, but lost it in the general election by less than 0.2%. He regained the seat in 1978 and was reelected in 1980 and 1982. In 1984 he attempted to enter the Senate but he failed, so he returned to his medical practice.

Ron Paul ran for President in 1988. His official webpage explains he did it as a “libertarian, more to spread the libertarian ideas than to actually win the office, then returned to his medical practice and co-owned a coin dealership.” In 1996 he won a congressional seat; he was reelected in 1998 and 2000. In 2008 he decided to run for President again but lost very early in the process, in 2010 he won his 12^th term in Congress with 80% of the votes. In 2012 he decided to run again in the Republican primaries but was defeated by Mitt Romney. Still, his popularity has been increasing year by year.

Ron Paul was not invited as a speaker to the 2008 Republican Convention after he lost in the Republican primaries against John McCain, but in recent years his popularity has increased, so he has been taken into account once more. It seems like his son Rand is the one that will fulfill all the dreams his fathers hasn’t been able to.

Many Republicans think that in the future, he has the potential to be a presidential candidate.  It’s obvious Ron and Rand have had their ups and downs in their political careers, but now they are in the best political position they have ever been, and is their time to consolidate themselves into the Republican Party.

Image Courtesy of  Gage Skidmore

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Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul yesterday raised eyebrows by calling for the abolition of the Federal Emergency Management Agency as the east coast prepared for the arrival of Hurricane Irene.

FEMA is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security that is responsible for coordinating responses to disasters whose impact is too great to be handled by local or state government.

“We should be like 1900. We should be like 1940, 1950, 1960,” he said at a campaign stop at Gilford, New Hampshire. “”I live on the Gulf Coast; we deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district.”

“There’s no magic about FEMA,” he continued. “They’re a great contribution to deficit financing and quite frankly they don’t have a penny in the bank. We should be coordinated but coordinated voluntarily with the states. A state can decide. We don’t need somebody in Washington.”

Earlier this year, Paul made a similar observation during an interview with CNN. “Why should somebody from the central part of the United States rebuild my house?” he asked. “Why shouldn’t I have to buy my own insurance and protect about the potential dangers? Well, the reason we don’t have market insurance is it’s too expensive. Well, why is it expensive? Because it’s dangerous.

Well, so why should – why should we take money from somebody else who don’t get the chance to live on the Gulf and make them pay to rebuild my house?”

When Hurricane Ike struck Texas in 2008, Paul voted against a bill to provide billions of dollars in aid to the area, even though it would have benefited his own district.

Paul has long made a name for himself as a critic of what he sees as ‘big government.’ In the past, much of his ire has been directed at the Federal Reserve. He claims that the Fed’s policies have devalued the dollar by increasing inflation and he has repeatedly introduced legislation to either do away with the Fed entirely or else subject it to an outside audit.

Paul has also repeatedly expressed his support for parallel currencies (such as gold-backed notes or digital gold currency) that would be used alongside Federal Reserve Notes.

So far there has been little reaction to Paul’s comments from his fellow presidential hopefuls. More than likely, they see him as a fringe candidate who does not need to be taken seriously and so they have little reason to take to the airwaves to criticize him.

Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com

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Previously it has been thought that Rep. Ron Paul from Texas would likely mount another presidential run.  He has a huge following and has won several recent straw polls including the one at CPAC this year.  However, some are now speculating that Rep. Paul’s son, Senator Rand Paul will be the candidate.  Oh the confusion.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had said that the odds are better than 50-50 that a Paul will run for president next year but it’s unclear who it would be.  One thing is for certain—there will not be two Pauls in the GOP primary.  The younger Paul has said he will not run if his father tries again.

The junior Senator and Tea Party favorite said that he has been encouraged to run by GOP leaders in an increasingly crowded GOP field, despite the fact that the Senator has only been in office a couple of months.  The Kentucky senator said he’s not ruling out a bid if his father decides against a repeat run.  “The biggest decision for me is whether my father runs or not,” the younger Paul told reporters last week.  Rand Paul also maintained that it sounded “pretty reasonable” that one of the Pauls would be in the race.  “I think there will be one on the ballot,” Paul told reporters after speaking to a Rotary club gathering in Louisville. “I think there’s a good chance of that.”

Meanwhile, the elder Paul was in the very important primary state of New Hampshire on Thursday. During a college campus stop, Ron Paul said he hasn’t ruled out running for president again but isn’t on the verge of making a decision.  Rep. Paul said his focus right now is on the nation’s economy and whether it worsens, signaling its course could influence his decision.  “If we get a reprieve and things just look great, I might not be as enthusiastic,” the elder Paul told reporters after a speech at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H. “But if it continues like right now, it makes it almost inevitable that somebody will have to start talking about what we need to do.”

Asked about father-and-son presidential prospects, Ron Paul said the matter hasn’t come up with his son.  “We’ve never discussed it,” he said.

Adding to the presidential mystery, Rand Paul is planning to visit Iowa, another crucial state in the primaries.  Early next month, he will speak at an Iowa Republican event dubbed “Night of the Rising Stars.”

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