 "Photo: Hannah Carroll / The Daily Gamecock")
Hundreds of seats in the Coliseum filled up Monday night with avid supporters and other curious locals to witness Congressman Ron Paul’s lecture, “The Politics of Tolerance.”
The speech highlighted specific topics, including the importance of civility and tolerance in politics and everyday life. The event was hosted by USC’s Honors College, Carolina Debate Union and Young Americans for Liberty.
Paul has been dubbed America’s leading voice for less constitutional government, lower taxes, free markets, and recovery of monetary policies, all of which Paul spoke very passionately about during his lecture.
“If we want to live in a free society, we should study Austrian economics,” Paul said.
In Washington, Paul is known for his willingness to go against the grain and speak out about controversial issues such as the health care reform bill. Paul’s opening statement included an extremely proud proclamation about his choice to vote against the bill that passed last week in Washington.
“We were scheduled to be off this whole week, but this little bill came up this weekend, and I had to sit in and vote against this disastrous bill. I have to tell you it did work out, but not to your benefit,” Paul said.
Though most of the audience cheered in agreement to his statement, there were some audience members that did not.
James Fant, a fourth-year finance student, didn’t go to the lecture as an avid follower but did keep an open mind,
“I found the lecture interesting. I’m not a Libertarian but I did like a lot of what he said,” Fant said. “But there were also some things that I didn’t agree with, and I feel that moderation is key, and I’m not sure if that is his goal here.”
Paul also referenced various monumental historic events for our country, such as the Cold War, that he said he does not wish to see repeat. He spoke about his thoughts on NATO at length.
“If we really wanted to see an end to the Cold War we would have disbanded NATO, now what do we need NATO for? Now we’re gathering up all the eastern European nations together — it really has no purpose to it,” Paul said.
The common theme throughout his speech was that a free market is where Americans will receive the greatest amount of prosperity.
“There are some basic principles of our society that are intolerable,” Paul said. “The whole idea of having limited government and personal responsibility means that you and others, everybody, has a right to their life, and their liberty and they should have a right to keep everything they own.”
Some students said they agreed with his message.
“He has great views and he’s one of the few honest politicians. I enjoyed hearing him speak,” Courtney Slocum, a first-year English student, said.
Paul’s close stayed on point with the rest of his message.
“Freedom does work,” Paul said. “We just have to trust it.”
15 comments
it should have read (for constitutional government, etc.As it reads in the article it say Ron Paul has been dubbed Americas leading voice for less constitutional government. (pretty dumb mistake and very misleading for those who do not know his record. Now that statement
would have been fine if applied to the majority of congress and the Bush/Obama presidencys.
And thanks John for pointing her mistake in this line- "Paul has been dubbed America’s leading voice for less constitutional government" - Ron Paul is the leading defender of the constitution. He believes the country would be better off if the government started following the laws that created them.
Please keep spreading your message, Dr. Paul! You are the lone voice of reason in a unbelievably large cesspool of insanity.