"Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government... can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppressive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people." -- George Washington
With many Republicans excited about Paul Ryan's being selected as Mitt Romney's running mate, there is one Republican who is less than enthusiastic: Dr. Ron Paul.
Ron Paul's budget plan would balance the budget in three years and lower taxes.
In an interview Mid-March 2012, 2012 on Fox News, Dr. Ron Paul called Ryan's a timid plan that adds to warmongering and money the U.S. spends overseas and cuts social programs, like Medicare. He doesn't like that the Ryan plan might balance the budget in 30 years. Dr. Paul wants to cut overseas spending by first stopping "militarism" (policing the world), which he differentiates from national defense spending.
"In my program... I address that first [cutting overseas military spending] I want to get home so that you don't have to attack child health care or Medicare, even though those programs are bankrupt and you have to deal with them. But even in my first year of cutting a trillion dollars, I don't touch that stuff [child health care or Medicare]."
"I'm not going after the benefits the Medicare, I'm not doing that initially... I would cut the money that they are screaming about, this overseas militarism."
"I see people coming together... 67 percent people now want to come home from Afghanistan... I think the Republican lose the political argument immediately." The Republican plan is "We want more weapons but we are going to deny the elderly for their healthcare."
Rep. Paul has an excellent point.
Our liberty depends on two things, being informed and having virtue.
"Convinced that the people are the only safe depositories of their own liberty, and that they are not safe unless enlightened to a certain degree, I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson to Littleton Waller Tazewell, 1805.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin