Today is the 90th birthday of a great man—my friend, Ron Paul.
During my 30 years in the U.S. House, I served with almost 1500 other members. To me, Ron Paul was the best.
He was a man of great courage and conviction. He never wavered. Every speech he made, every vote he cast, was based on his core beliefs in freedom, liberty and peace.
For many years, I had hanging on a wall in my Knoxville office a guote I learned from Bill Kauffman, the great columnist and author. It is from a 1930 novel called “The Lions Den” by Janet Ayer Fairbank about a fictional Congressman named Zimmer.
“No matter how the espousal of a lost cause might hurt his prestige in the House, Zimmer never hesitated to identify himself with it if it seemed to him to be right. He knew only two ways: the right one and the wrong, and if he made a mistake, it was never one of honor. He voted as he believed he should, and although sometimes his voice was raised alone on one side of a question, it was never stilled.”
Those words fit Ron Paul more closely than any other member with whom I served.
Many on the far Left seem to be filled with so much pride and arrogance that they simply cannot believe that anyone could oppose what they want. They are often very hateful and very quick to accuse people on the Right of hate. Yet this is the epitome of the pot calling the kettle black.
Ron Paul was always kind even to people who were sometimes very rude to him. He was not a shouter. He simply quietly and persistently expressed his philosophy and in the process inspired millions.
Once, when he was running for President, I had the fun of introducing him to the students at George Washington University where I went to law school. More than 6,000 turned out to hear this man with whom they probably thought they disagreed on practically everything.
Boy, were they shocked. Instead of the mean, hateful right-wing kook they had been brainwashed to expect, they found a candidate who was kind and thoughtful and who very intelligently answered every question and every challenge.
Ron served three different stints in Congress, all in the House. He was there from 1976 to 1977, 1979 to 1985, and finally from 1997 to 2013. I was there for his 16-year stay.
Our voting records were almost identical, usually in the minority and often in a very small minority. We usually voted 500 to 600 times a year, or sometimes even more, so there probably would have been 9,000 to 10,000 floor votes during his 16 years in the House.
We both voted against going war in Iraq, against the Wall Street bailout, and against creating the Department of Homeland Security. We voted to bring the troops home from Afghanistan many years before the disastrous pullout. We voted to audit the Federal Reserve, and we certainly did not vote to give the Pentagon, the CIA, the UN, the Israel Lobby, and Big Government contractors everything they wanted.
I got to work with Ron when he was still in his prime. Now, naturally and normally, age has taken its toll. He is not as strong in body or voice as he was when we served together.
But he is still on the frontlines every day fighting for liberty and freedom through his Liberty Report, his columns, and especially the work of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. I am proud that I was there for the founding of this Institute and that I still serve on its Advisory Board.
I hope that Ron Paul has many more birthdays and that he keeps fighting his good fight for many years to come.
Reprinted with author’s permission.