department of transportation as opposed to independence and outside the department, the group inside would not have woke up with the people, but i think is fair that having that would open and up to politics. anti-israel rapidly spreading concept that people don't like. on the other hand, if it was done on the outside and there were not a lot of government

and therefore maybe come up with projects that are very good. because any project is very good

for somebody somewhere, but not necessarily in the order of, you know a national priority list. and i think we're revealing here with that kind of discipline, simply because of the lack of money even with you participating. >> i think there are people on both sides whether to have a separate entity or house it. i think we're open to different solutions. we're not dogmatic. a couple of ways in our thinking, one, can you create that truly independent entity that is somehow completely detached from all political and geographic considerations? i think it's a question mark if you look at the history of some of our efforts to do that. i think for us also there was a pragmatic consideration. we've been running the program since 1999.

we do have a number of career experts and financial experts and project delivery experts and experts in all off offices around the country. we thought just in terms of technical capacity getting the program up and running it made sense to house it in an agency that has the expertise to help do the analysis. i think it doesn't mean at some point, and we structured it in a way we have members of our cone sill from other cabinet agencies that we would expand it to other types of infrastruckschur and spin it off at some point. i think we feel we've done a good job of picking projects. that's a judgment that all the members here will have to make and see whether we've done right or not in that regard.

so that people can feel very good that it was very much merit based can be very important because there will be more projects that are interested in using resources from a national infrastructure bank than there will be funds going to those projects. a matter of making it transparent and taking politics out of that as much as possible. >> i think it should be independent. i think it should be independent. it gives much more credibility to the private sector.

my investors who will make the actual equity investment in the transaction to know that this is an independent organization. that has determined this is a credit worthy loan. so i have equity investor more attracted to. i would say however that it is important that they do have some sort of congressional ore oversight as much as it would have to be reporting about what sort of loans are done to establish this idea that it's going across the country. it is also critical to understand that this is a supplement to other forms of financing. this is not replacing grants. this is a supplement too. and certain projects, maybe they would be ones which other departments within the government and the federal agencies would do them and merit worthy of a grant.

>> don't really have an opinion to tell you the truth. not an expert in this field. if i have an opportunity here, just to remind everyone that i've heard significant comments today about the risk of the money that's associated with this project. but there are other risks that are involved here, particularly the human risk and the safety issues associated with this project. i would ask the senator to assure that the legislation and whatever type of investment situation we would eventually settle upon maintains that's the primary interest of the american people and the responsibility of the government, is to ensure the people who use these projects when they're eventually completed do not suffer the consequences of cost cutting because profit is threatened. we've seen this in great britain with their project. of course their runs, the private entity to cut back on

some of the maintenance and the significant safety problem. any time that occurs it's a failure of a government in my opinion. and i would urge you to consider that and keep that foremost in your mind in this piece of legislation. >> thank you, sir. >> mr. chairman, i would echo the need for absolute transparency, no matter which vehicle is chosen to house the bank. i think that is crucial to success of this. >> is that you saying mr. o.m.b. shouldn't be doing that? >> i think to the outside world you're going to have to apply to the actual contracts that are reached between the entities. all that has to be out in the open which has been experienced around the countries where people have not have access, a lot of rumors take place as to what the real deal with the margins are. but if it's transparent, open to

the public, i think you can solve a lot of that. and i would like to add a footnote to the discussion that the senator initiated a moment ago and you started touching on it. one of the other benefits i see from an infrastructure bank that has come out of the whole p.p.p. experience in the last 20 years is there has been a tremendous amount of invasion in the project management, the delivery systems on as you were referring to on budget, on time. and i see the projects being right, these kind of funding situations from the bank. so i think that will be an additional benefit aside, the profit and the access the capital that the nation would gain by doing a whole idea. >> all right. i cannot thank you enough. again, i'm shocked that we didn't have this 10 years ago. but can't help that.

you've introduced a fundamentally important concept to deal with our national infrastructure. one of my observations about the congress as a whole is that inspite of the theological statements, that people back home really care about infrastructure and they're really aware. i mean i'm thinking in my own mind of when i drive to our farm in west virginia of all the one lane bridges, 30 years ago as opposed to none new and what that means that had to be paid for by somebody. and you magnify that by large projects and small projects throughout the country. you made a very, very important contribution in this, our first ever hearing on the subject. so i thank you and this hearing is adjourned.

>> next, a speech by texas congressman ron paul. live at 7:00 a.m., your calls and comments on "washington journal."

on news makers, as american children head back to school, education secretary arnie duncan talks about the state of the u.s. education system. as well as waivers from the no child left behind law and other education issues. today at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. texas republican congressman and presidential candidate ron paul was the keynote speaker friday night at the florida liberty summit in orlando. he talked about the current tax system and the federal reserve monetary policy. the summit is hosted by the group campaign for liberty. congressman paul finished in second place in last week's iowa republican party straw poll, one percentage point behind the winner. this is just over 45 minutes.

>> thank you, thank you very much. i want to thank jack for his introduction and mark for all his hard work. mark has something to do with this. he has good organization skills and he has a lot of people to work with. thank you very much for helping out. [cheers and applause] this year i particularly wanted to make sure i made this meeting because you know we had that little straw vote last week. and i wanted to make sure you knew about the results. you might not have heard about it. i wanted to come and let you know how things came out. [cheers and applause] some day when this momentum continues, which it is. the crowds are getting bigger, the enthusiasm is getting louder, the country is coming our way. pretty soon we'll get some of

those big interviews on sunday morning. who knows? [cheers and applause] but it is great to be here. i would like to talk about what i talk about all the time, which is liberty. but i want to address it in a certain way. generally speaking, i am sure you have been challenged, as i have been through many years and continue to be. and that is the acquisition that we who have these particular beliefs who believe sincerely in the constitution, their strange ideas, their hours of mainstream, there's something odd about them. but i'd like to talk about what's been going on in this country because i think the odd balls have been in control of this country way too long. [cheers and applause]

think about how often now this idea of commodity money and gold and the constitution, how silly it was. the other day i read something i found rather entertaining. i was by my self and had to laugh a little bit. the person who wrote it said yes, ron paul has interesting ideas about monetary policy but it's preindustrial. and i got to thinking, does he realize where this country is moving? what has happened in the last 40 years? we've been de-industrialized by this run away paper standard. it is only honest money that promotes the industrialized world and money is very important. monetary policy is key. key for those who believe in the

entitlement system because you have to finance keys for those individuals that will finance wars overseas. when you think about what has happened over the last hundred years, i have to check every morning how much we've lost. it's about 98.5%-99% of the dollar we have lost. and they want to say this is a good system purposefully, devalue in the currency? i would say after a hundred years, it's time we re-evaluated and we should come to the conclusion, and that is we don't need a central bank and we need to get rid of the federal reserve system as well. [cheers and applause]

when they tell you that it's a silly idea to think about gold, how could anything be sillier than taking pieces of paper and writing numbers on that and have value? i think grade school kids can be taught something about money that they don't understand in washington. it's because they want it that way. they know it serves a special interest. they know it serves the interest of big government. it serves the interest of big corporations. the military industrial complex, the financers, the bankers, they know they can make a lot of money getting ahod of that money first. they also know when they control the money and they can control the ability to inflate at will, they also can bail themselves out when necessary. that has to come to an end. we need to do a lot more concerned about our middle class. [cheers and applause]

but it's pretty bad when the congress goes and inflates and has the stimulus programs, billion dollars here, billion dollars there soon. it's up to a trillion collars. a lot of money. but it's minor compared to what the fed does. the fed actually believes they should be able to and allowed to do it in secret. if we don't get rid of the fed soon we better at least get to audit the fed and find out exactly what they've been doing. [cheers and applause] but just think they've been pumping around $15 trillion these last four years. a third of it went to the foreign banks. foreign central banks and foreign governments. this is such an outrage. when the people hear it they become outraged and more and more people are hearing it. the truth is i'm very surprised,

pleasantly so that we are this far along on delivering this message. four, five years ago, before the last campaign, i didn't know, nobody knew how many people like you were out there that had already thought about it and knew about it. and here there were thousands and thousands. i believe there are millions and millions of people who are now aware of what's going on. [cheers and applause] so here we take a monetary system. they argue the case that printing money is real. we should do it in secret and bailout all the special interest. at the same time, they mock the notion that we should follow the institution. the institution said only gold and silver can be legal tender. you cannot miss bills and credit which is money. how do they protect their system? by force.

they use the force of government and they say with the legal tender laws you must settle all of your contracts and use the only money which is paper money. and if you are so eager, i mean and so bold to think that you have the right because of the institution that you have the right to use gold and silver coins, even those that were admitted by our government and the institution says legal tender, they can be arrested and put in prison for this. charged with counterfeiting to use american hard money is counterfeiting. the counterfeitings are over the federal reserve! so an absolute economic fact that by duplicating units of money with nothing behind the

currency, but just to duplicate paper money, there is no additional wealth put into the economy. none. all it does is delute wealth. redistributes wealth. it is very well known in the study of monetary history, and they've been doing this for century. when they do it, it wipes out the middle class. just think in recent history, mexico's gone through and run away inflation, germany did it. south american countries have done it. and it's been done so many times. and yes, inevtibly the only way to restore confidence is to go back with real money. of course when you do and when we will do that people have to believe the individual's doing it. because if they announce tomorrow, they said we'll make

the gold and we will honor that. but we won't change our foreign policy. won't change our spending habits. we won't change our deficits. who would believe it? nobody would believe that. we have one example in our history we did that. and the people had a little bit more conviction about the country and what the government said. that was after the savel war. they quit printing green backs and they withdrew some and we didn't have a well fair state, we didn't have an empire. the price of gold went down dramatically down to 20 and it was a nonevent. but today it's so different. so to deal with the monetary issue you have to deal with something else that is very important. that is the role of government. and then the more important thing is to have people in government from the presidency on down, individuals you can trust and understand and won't lie to you.

[cheers and applause] now as bad as it is in washington from top down and as bad as it is that we are suffering from the consequences of decades of teaching by socialist and inflationists, it's really it's much the people at fault as anybody because we're not in the challenge now. we were in an audience like this, we're sick and tired of it all. we know what has to be done. but we're still probably in minority because more than half the people in the country have become dependent on the government. and therefore any attempt to do it will make people very angry. we've seen this already. we've seen it happen in the states and tried to correct things. we're very upset about what's happening and they don't quite understand because prices of food are going up. they don't know the world

economic system and the monetary is manipulated by so much money. they're reacting to prices going up and therefore they act out. and they're capable of doing it in this country and have already shown it around the country as well. but do people have an appetite for big government? we have a large number of people, i mean i meet them on the stages when i have debates. they don't think we have enough wars going on. they think we need more wars going on. but thank goodness we're breaking through on that. the people are with us on that. when you get a former secretary of defense robert gates and coming home and finally getting out of that business and saying anybody who thinks they need another war needs their head examined, and i agree. [cheers and applause]

but if we allow those who find special reasons for wanting to keep our presence around the world so many bases in so many countries with no real effort to bring these troops home, there is an announcement today that we're working now in agreement with the afghan government to be able to stay because they're inviting us to stay until 2024. sure. sure. and the odds of us leaving iraq, what do you think the odds are of leaving iraq? i think they're slim to none. until they're broke. unless we get somebody in office who changes the policy! [cheers and applause] you know sometimes little items

stand out bigger than the trillion of dollars. it's hard to comprehend the trillions and the hundreds of billions. one thing that went on iraq i think you can remember and it makes them look silly. why are they doing this? and that is they decided after we conquered iraq. you know they had everything over there and we had to conquer them. but we conquered them and we started having the green zone but we build an embassy in the green zone. as big as the vatican. just recently in the d.o.d. budget they put authority authorization and funding for 17,000 people to be employed in the embassy in iraq. do you think they're planning on coming home. i would say the suggest be that if you're going to save that $1 billion, what we should do is save the billion, put habit to the deficit reduction and put it into some program here at home that you can help some people

who have learned unfortunately to be so dependent on the government just to stay alive. i think that is a solution. it takes people out of here and take those 17,000 jobs and make sure there are jobs here at home and not overseas. [cheers and applause] the president shouldn't go to war without this congress approval and have a deck clation. but one thing the president can do, and i would do is that i can end the wars that are undeclared and unconstitutional. [cheers and applause] the commander in chief is in

charge of the military. he can direct the military. we can bring them home. and they say well you want to bring them home too fast we don't have enough time. when they want to send them over they get them together and ship them off rather fast. why can't we ship them home just as fast? [cheers and applause] now it's not just in the war zones in the middle east but it's in the occupation of countries that we don't need to be occupying. that is south korea and japan and germany and all these countries in the nearly 900 bases that we have. close them down, bring them home, and very quickly. i mean if we pursue that, we will organize a military some day but you don't do that the first week. just get them home. think how many people would be spending their wages in home

rather than the germany economy or the japanese economy. bring that back, that will be like a stimulus. [cheers and applause] the big issue in the campaign has been the economy and the jobs. and the interviews have been pretty good. you get a chance to answer them. if you get 30 seconds or 60 seconds, what are you going to do to turn the economy around. you're going to answer in 40 seconds. they took 40 years to mess this up and you're supposed to answer in 60 seconds how to correct it. [cheers and applause] but i can lift a few things in 60 seconds that could help a whole lot. get rid of regulation, reduce the taxes, bring our troops home and change our foreign policy.

and low and behold that could be very, very helpful. but the most important thing you have to do to turn it around is you have to get rid of the mistakes that have been made. pricing in the free market is crucial. way back in 1912 said socialism can't work because they don't have a free market pricing structure and it's impossible to work. and he was right. but what we have today, we fix the prices on one half of it. we fix the prices and altered the value of the dollar and fixed the interest rate. and this causes all the distortion. you can't get back to growth until you get rid of the distortion. so you have to liquid date debt and get rid of the investment. and politically that's

difficult. people don't want to do it. because they're frightened. when the prices came in 2008 it was announced if we don't bailout the banks, everybody will suffer. there will be a depression. so what did we do? we spent trillions and trillions of dollars bailing out the people making the money, and the people lost their homes. that didn't work. we still have the debt on the books. it was just shifted from the wealthy to the poor and the middle class because it's on our books, on our monetary system and our treasury. so that has to change. so what we should have been doing in 2008 which has been said by many is when the crisis comes and somebody bankrupt, you have stricter regulations, not weaker regulations. and the strict regulations, you've messed up, you go bankrupt and wipe that debt off the books. you don't go to the people. [cheers and applause]

but in many ways leaf lost confidence in how free markets worked. we've been always talked into saying there's always going to be people that will need help and therefore we have to help or they'll fall through the crack. well, when you do it their way, the way the have done it, the cracks get bigger and more people fall through them. you say well we also get charged with saying well, if you don't help those kind of people then you don't care. you have no humanitarian concerns. but i've come to the conclusion that if we do have humanitarian concerns, which i have and i'm sure you do, the best way to take care of human needs is to have a free society and free markets and sound money. that will take care of the maximum number of people. [cheers and applause]

they're always saying and charging us with this not caring. but if you sacrifice a little bit of liberty, let's say you do say well we have to help those in need. the reason i think that is wrong is because at first it's not morally right to steal from one group to give it to another, regardless of what their needs are, economically it doesn't work and it fails, it's not constitutionally authorized. but, when you help a little bit, a few people, you've sacrificed 100% of the principal. you've endorsed redistribution of wealth and we're bound to grow. like saying the income tax isn't so bad if it's 1%, which it started out. but it has endorsed the principle that the government say they've blown all their income and allow you to keep a

certain percentage according to their dictate. that's why the income tax is the worst type of tax on a free society. [cheers and applause] i think so much of what we've done in these last quite a few decades has been undermining this principle of our personal liberty. i had one member of congress, we were voting on something protecting the consumer or something, i said why do you feel compeled to vote for this? he said the people are too stupid to take care of themselves. those are the words he used, that's the attitude he had. and they believe that. but they don't recognize it.

we can't argue there wouldn't be any problems in a free society, but -- but what we have done though is we've underminded across the board the whole idea is the government as soon as their money, the governments money that it's your life. the basic principle of the draft that you can draft 18-year-olds to go off to war. i know there's not a draft any more, but young people have to register, just as a reminder, in case we need you, we'll ship you off. the most outrageous suggestion, there's a famous liberal

economist today now talking about and arguing the case that wars and depressions and recession. that is a criminal thought as well as it's absolutely wrong. this idea that the second world war. it was taught that the depression ended with the second world war. yeah, because they hauled off 16 million americans and put them in uniforms and the unemployment rate went down. they were getting shot at and killed. but prosperity came well after world war ii. it took 17 years. but this idea that when we get into trouble, that if you have a war that will stimulate the economy. it doesn't. it just redirects the investment. there will be war profits, but if you build a bomber that goes over and gets blown up and it didn't increase our standard of living whatsoever.

this is a very dangerous thought. based on facts that governments think they own us and control us. they do that with the assumption of foreign policy that they can use our young and send them off to fight these wars with no purpose. they do it in economics, assuming they have to regulate you to take care of you and tax you and assume that they own you. but what about the other sense? the other sense they are convinced that you can't protect yourself? but giving up liberty in order to gain protection from the government is fool-hearted and we should never have to deliver it, give up any of our freedom to provide security for ourselves. [cheers and applause] so in a persle that way this attack has been systemic for many, many years. been done with ill advised war

on drugs. i thought we had a pretty good test of prohobition back in the 1920's and we had to repeel it. right now everybody assumes, we've spent over a trillion dollars in the war on drugs. we haven't gotten rid of the drugs but have got rid of the liberties. people have swat teams going into the wrong houses and killing people. but it's time we recognize it's your life. yes, if you want to do something dumb, you're allowed to do it, but you can't allow the government to take care of you and do dumb things. [cheers and applause] our country is still pretty good in protecting religious freedom. i think there's less tolerance

than there used to be, but basically you have a right of no religion or any religion. and that seems to be fine. we protect intellectual freedoms pretty well. but when it comes to your own body and making your own decisions about what foods you eat, what you drink and what you smoke and what you do, and your personal habits, all of the sudden there's a bunch up there, liberals and conservatives saying the people are too dumb to protect themselves, they're always going to do harm to themselves and we know what's best for them and we will take care of them. so that is insidious in the culture and the belief that we need a nanny state to take care of us. it isn't an argument that's a perfect society. the society that i don't want is when the government controls us, whether financial control, religious control or control by forcing us into these wars. that's what we don't need. we need to stand up and demand

our freedoms. [cheers and applause] of course nobody will forget where they were on 9/11, that's 10 years ago. those were difficult times, especially for those of us who were trying to explain exactly what 9/11 was all about. but immediately after there was a bill that came to the floor that rectify these problems that existed wasn't to address

foreign policy or actually asking questions why do people commit suicide terrorism, where did these people actually come, certainly wasn't iraq. they didn't ask that. what they did was say we need to pass the patriot act. which makes no sense. i talked to one member of congress, why are you voting for it, you haven't had a chance to read it and it has some terrible stuff in there. how can i not vote for the patriot act under these circumstances? how could i go home and explain it? i said well that's what your job is. [laughter] [cheers and applause] but almost every bill in congress has a title to it which is exactly opposite of what it does.

this is the perfect example because i think if it had been properly named it would have been call repeel the 4th amendment act. [cheers and applause] and most likely they would have had a difficult time passing that piece of legislation. but how in the world in attacking these freedoms, search warrants, searches without search warrants all the way down which more or less established what we have to go through at airports, why we are suspected terrorists without probable cause and we're treated that way. why if you're involved in the monetary issue you might well be charged as a terrorist and it's just the term is thrown around. how in the world will passing the patriot act make us safer without an understanding of what's going on in the world? it's an attack on our personal liberties.

it is liberty that is the cause. that is why we continue to campaign for liberty. that's why this organization is so important. it's to change people's mind and to change the political situation in washington. work locally. i am astounded at what's happened since the last campaign, the last election period. the campaign for liberty going around the country. i meet people that ran for office. i don't think we've counted them all, the different offices they won in state legislators around the country, even here in florida. some run and won. that is where the encouragement comes from. because the ideas are alive and well. yes, we have terrible problem, yes they've undermind our liberty. but we still have some left. we're still in this room, we still have the opportunity to let different people in washington. right now we have a tremendous opportunity. because the evidence is crystal clear. but the views of the last

century almost, at least 70 years, 80 years on foreign policy, that evidence is in. they have failed! [cheers and applause] we must remember that armies cannot stop an idea. the time has come. i believe our ideas, our time has come. [cheers and applause] the country is waking up do to all the evidence we see, the political landscape is changing. they're december pratly struggling for that one single candidate that will capture all

of america can represent the status quo. it doesn't look like they're finding one very easy which opens up the door for us, i really believe it. [cheers and applause] but the great strides have been made at the grass roots, the tea party movement and the changes going on. this is all beneficial. there's a good reason why the tea party movement arose. it isn't so much that we know who's in the tea party and exactly what the beliefs are. there's no one tea party movement. i think i remember when i got started back in 2007. there was a necessity for groups of people to stand up and tell it the way it is.

and speak out against this party system that we have. we don't have a two-party system. we have a single party system. just think of how much doesn't change regardless of this party. medicare programs change with republicans versus democrats? does monetary policy change and entitlement system change? does foreign policy change? no, they endorse the same ideas. they've been taught by the same people. this standing up saying yes, we can get this attention but we don't have the opportunity to do it in a third party. i am always annoyed about the excuse used to go overseas which i think is a real stretch of their imagination. we're overseas to spread our goodness and spread democracy. at the point of a gun? [laughter] so we're going over, killing people, a lot of our people

getting killed and we're spreading democracy in the world. at the same time our democratic process, and not democracy, but our democratic process where we can elect and have different competing parties is virtually impossible. it's so difficult. i tried it once. i spent most of my money trying to get on balance and how many interviews you think i got? it doesn't happen. this is the reason. there was a need and there was a vacuum, something had to be done and that's when i think people finally got so insensed and they followed up with what was happening in 2007. there's been this spontaneous movement. of course i have admitted there have been a few that have joined from the tea party movement as well. but nevertheless, i think it's very, very healthy. we know and understand what

liberty means. we know that it means personal liberty. we know it means a different foreign policy and we know it means a different monetary policy and certainly it means a different economic policy. and we take the oath of office very seriously. but this is where the progress has been made. and at the universities, young people, a lot of times represent any significant change. if we had no young people and the campuses were dead and totally uninterested in what we were doing i would be very discouraged. yet today, this is the place where we get a lot of attention. young americans for liberty as an organization of out growth -- [cheers and applause] it's an outgrowth for the campaign and jeff has done a magnificent job and literally getting hundreds and hundreds of organized individuals around on the campuses. i believe that's very

significant. the people now have access to so much more information. i struggled when i decided that in the 1950's there was a lot i am not getting and i don't fully understand them looking for information. i was trying to figure out the plain truth of these things, and it wasn't that easy. i certainly didn't learn it in college. the desire to find it, keep looking. no internet, you didn't hear it on tv or get it from your politicians or the professors. so where do you get it? you had to get it elsewhere and it was in books. i give a lot of credit back in those years to how the foundation for economic education helped me. because that was back in the day when they were so few people trying to keep it together. but that was part of a remnant. if there's always a remnant in society that holds things together. and they were a part of it. we still don't know where and how big the remnant is.

but i tell you what, i get to meet a few and it's a lot bigger than i ever dreamed it was. [cheers and applause] so there were a few of us and a few organizations but now they have blossomed. they have blossomed and actually invaded the universities, the conventional universities, getting into the colleges, associated with the institute and other free market organization. this is magnificent what's happening. this makes the big difference. and then, the dissemination of information, whether it's pure political information or educational information, it comes through the internet. it's magnificent! it's a real tool! [applause] so there's reason to be very

concerned. i am talking about and believe sincerely though i do not claim to be a proginostcator. i think the dollar is in trouble. it's pervasive, the biggest bubble ever. all other countries use dollars in their reserve. this is not going to be one country. it's not going to be just greece or just the united states. even putting money in the bank doesn't help because they're talking about charging you. a lot of paper money and money floating by but nobody has any confidence.

there will be a need for those things and that's what's happening. we have this opportunity to use all these issues, because the world is changing, the attitude is changing, the understanding is changing. and there's a lot of room to be very optimistic about our opportunities. but as bad as things are, it will not be easy. but, we're much better off than i say we were five or 10 years ago. many of us were concerned at that time. but the evidence wasn't in yet.

but the evidence is in now and they know that these problems are here. so we're being so much more better received because of this. but freedom is the answer, bringing people together i feel so emphatically positive about the benefits of liberty. and i don't shy away ever from somebody saying yes, i don't care about people. because it's only the free society that has carried about people. and that's what we have to convince people of. the magnificent thing about a free society, it's not judgmental. yes, on a personal basis you judge your own life, the life of your kids and your own family and you may be judgmental in the sense you know what's right and wrong. but it's not judgmental in the sense that we want to write laws and decide how you should spend your money.

and whether or not you can drink raw milk or something. i'm convinced it brings people together. i'm convincing it brings together people who claim they're progressives and those who consider themselves moderates and conservatives and libertarians.

how the world has lived most of all history. and that is people wanting to run other peoples lives and having dictators and zars and kings and all these authority figures that want to tell us what to do. we did have a good start. it was good compared to others. it introduced us into an age where we recognized private properties and sound money and contracts and self reliance and not a welfare state and a world empire. so we had this test and we became the most prosperous nation in the history of the world. we're still very wealthy. but our problem is we destroyed our production, we got careless about understanding what liberty was all about.

and now our prosperity is very, very fragile because we've destroyed the foundation and it's not going to take a whole lot to push the whole house down. because the foundation is gone. we need to restore the principles of liberty. when we became prosperous people became infatuated with the materialism and said well materialism is wonderful, and all we need is a government to help redistribute it and we forgot all about defending the principles that produced the wealth. now we are being pushed. if we think we can do this by spending and deficits and presenting money and not address the subject of repairing the foundation, we're kidding ourselves. we have this opportunity, we have the people now coming with us and right now, the evidence is so clear that it's failing. government is failing around the world. the only question is what will we be replaced with?

are we going backwards or continue a process that we had a taste for and allowed to be slipping away from us? can we restore that and get the people encouraged enough to say let's use the remaining freedoms we have to defend our liberties, and promote this great country of ours once again. thank you very much. [cheers and applause]

>> what was really smocking to me and to many other people were these assassinations were welcomed, were congratulated by many pakistanis. these are not terrorists, not al qaeda, not taliban, but order pakistanis who feel that their religion is threatened, that, that the country's becoming too secular. that the islamic values are under attack. and that blass femmey is something to be defended with your life. >> tonight on c-span qu & a.