Tea Parties and the Role of Government

Show: Montel Across America
Date: 4/14/2009

Transcript:

Montel Williams: Representative of 14th District of Texas, south and southwest of Houston, including Hurricane-ravaged city of Galveston. He is a medical doctor. He has delivered over 4,000 babies. He ran for president and has a very, very strong base of support. As a matter of fact, on the December 16th, I think it was on 2007, raised $6 million in support of his presidential campaign and we should remember that the original tea party was on December 16th, 1773.

Ron Paul has made statements; he believes that rights belong to individuals, not groups. Properties should be owned by people, not government. All volunteer associations should be permissible, economic and social.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ron Paul to the show.

Ron Paul: Thank you.

Montel Williams: Yes, sir. Thank you very much, Congressman, for being with us this morning.

Ron Paul: Sure.

Montel Williams: You know, I wanted to ask you what you think about this tea party phenomenon. The re-invention of the tea party started with you, I think, and your movement back in 2007, and now it seems to have been, you know, kind of hijacked, if you will, by another group.

Ron Paul: Yeah. You know, in one way, it’s a mixed blessing because if you start something, you like to see it spreading. You like to see a lot of people join, but if the people who are joining are going to dilute it and change the message, then that wouldn’t be very good. So I think our job is to make sure that the people who are joining now and claiming that they are unhappy with the government, say the right things and do the right things and support the right positions.

But in a way, it’s very challenging because I think they see there’s a large number of people and I’m afraid some who are joining now would like to dilute our message.

Montel Williams: Not only dilute it, but, you know, if you look at some of the rhetoric that has been expoused in the last week or so, you have people that seem to be trying to push for a confrontation. I mean, you’re hearing that there are counter protest set up at… what’s the number now? We’re up to like 200 of these rallies around the country? 200, almost 300 of them and you can go up on a website and see little bubbles or little balloons that will show you where all the sites are, and now, they are putting up a counter protest.

Do you think that we’re trying to push for something that wasn’t necessarily going to happen? You know I’m saying? Are we looking for an incident right now and we need an answer?

Ron Paul: Well, I think that is a risk and, of course, when we originated this, we were pretty precise in our rules on what we had to do and that we wanted to avoid all violence and we actually used the slogan about non-violence in our demonstration, even resistance, but not to get it out of hand.

And generally, I think, that is true, but I don’t think there is any organization, especially political organization that doesn’t have somebody that creeps in who wants to stir the pot and cause a little trouble, and it’s what you have to put up with, but hopefully, it would never discredit what we are trying to do.

Montel Williams: And Congressman, you have tremendous amount of support around the country in a lot of different issues that you stand for. Let’s talk for just a second about what do you think of this current administration? Number 1, what do you think of, you know, I mean, it seems to be tackling, you know, multitudes of issues at the exact same time, all of which seem to have a pretty big price tag and when you stand for government should be owned by the people, you know, property should be owned by the people, not the government.

We have a government that, you know, is starting buying up a lot of our property, correct?

Ron Paul: Yeah. Well, the continuation of the Bush policy from last year.

Montel Williams: Right.

Ron Paul: I don’t see a whole lot of difference. I see a few signs of hope, especially when they said they might not have pre-conditions and that they are willing to talk to the Iranians, that doesn’t bother me. The fact that they are opening up maybe some trade and talk with Cuba, that is good.

But when it comes to buying up industries, the continuation of the Bush policy, I don’t like that. The continuation of the big spending and the deficits, you know, that is a big bother. But I don’t see a whole lot of difference between the two policies. I don’t think that actually the new administration will change a whole lot on the secrecy of how we run our some of our prison camps and other things, although Guantanamo is going to be closed.

There is some court positions that Obama has taken that doesn’t really jive with what he had talked about, but overall, I think that this administration is not going to do much to solve the problem, the economic problem, but I don’t blame Obama. I mean, he’s only been there a couple of months. I look at this bubble having been formed since 1971 and it has to do with our monetary system and no one administration did this.

It’s been building for a long time and the unwinding of this has a long way to go, but it’s not the fault of one individual, but what we do makes a big difference. If we perpetuate the same policies that created our trouble, hardly can it solve our problems.

Montel Williams: Well, you know, Congressman, I know you are limited for time, we really definitely get you back. I mean, if there’s one thing that we, as a nation, have to cling to as a sentiment, as a rally cry, what would it be? What do you think that rally cry should be right now, because I see us trying to separate and trying to tear apart and trying to make sure that lines are drawn in the sand, rather than trying to actually work together. What would be the rally cry that you could push of?

Ron Paul: Well, it is what should the role of the government would be? And I think it should be to protect liberty and that’s what I claim at all my rallies that we bring people together because everybody loves liberty for different reasons and we should rally behind that, and then have the confidence that the people can solve their problems and that our Constitution is a reasonably good document and it could solve a lot of our problems, because it was designed to restrain the government, never to restrain the people.

Montel Williams: There you go, well, Congressman, I got to take a little break.

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