A member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a doctor with an M.D. from the School of Medicine at Duke, Paul is one of the leading advocates for limited constitutional government in Washington D.C. today. His consistent record of voting against all bills that contain unconstitutional federal spending or initiatives has earned him a unique honor: the nickname “Dr. No.” 1
Paul was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The third of five sons, Ron began his first job at only age five, when he would watch his uncle wash bottles and put them on a conveyer belt. Little Ron would receive a penny for every dirty bottle he spotted. Paul later picked up various jobs, including mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, painting and delivering furniture, laundry, and even mail during the Christmas holidays. Ron also worked at a drug store during high school; according to his wife, “his brothers said he worked there so he could eat ice cream when he wanted it.”
While in high school, Paul served as president of the student council and was on the wrestling team. He also was something of a track star in high school, winning state in the 220-yard dash as a junior while taking second in the 440. In fact, Paul was offered a full college scholarship for track and field, but turned it down after suffering a major knee injury.
Paul graduated from Gettysburg College and the Duke University School of Medicine before serving as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force during the 1960s. According to information provided on his website, Dr. Paul has delivered over 4,000 babies during his years as an obstetrician-gynecologist! An article in the Houston Chronicle noted that Paul “occasionally delivers [these] babies for free.”
Ron first became involved in politics when he became a delegate to the Texas state Republican convention in 1974. Later that same year, he unsuccessfully ran for election to Congress against Robert Casey, a liberal Democrat. However, Casey was soon appointed head of the Federal Maritime Commission by President Gerald Ford, and a special election was held in April of 1976 to replace him. Paul won that election, but then lost to Robert Gammage in a general election that came only six months later. In 1978, Paul again faced Gammage, and this time Paul was the winner. Ron went on to be re-elected in 1980 and 1982 before he voluntarily gave up his House seat and returned to his medical practice.
Paul was one of the first people to advocate term limits for Congress. While in Congress, he served on the House Banking Committtee and was also a member of the Gold Commission, which advocated a return to a gold standard for our nation’s currency instead of our current paper money system.
Ron made a brief return to politics in the late 1980’s, when he ran as the Libertarian candidate for U.S. President in ’88. He placed third behind George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, winning only 0.3% of the popular vote.
Paul made another return to Washington in 1996, when he was again elected to the House as a Republican. He faced considerable opposition from the Republican Party in both the ’96 election and his subsequent re-election in 1998, before he and the Republican congressional leadership reached a compromise: Paul would vote with the Republican Party on “procedural matters” in exchange for committee assignments someone of Paul’s seniority would normally receive, but that Ron had not. Paul was overwhelmingly re-elected in 2000 and 2002, and ran unopposed in 2004.
In his second stint in Congress, Paul has served on the House of Representatives Financial Committee (where he serves as the vice-chairman of the Oversight and Investigations subcommittee), and the International Relations Committeee.
Although a Republican congressman and a member of the Republican Liberty Caucus, Paul has not renounced his status as a lifetime Libertarian Party member, and even addressed the party’s national convention in 2004. He remains arguably Congress’ most conservative member. Firmly opposed to the war in Iraq and attacks on civil liberties made by the government since September 11, Paul favors the abolishment of numerous government programs, along with the Federal Reserve and the income tax. He champions conservative positions on issues ranging from gun rights to abortion, and believes the U.S. should resign from the United Nations. Paul once referred to the I.R.S. as the Gestapo, and his 2004 campaign was “The Taxpayers’ Best Friend!”
Lew Rockwell, the founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, has even gone so far as to call Ron “the 20th century’s Thomas Jefferson.”
Paul has written several books, including Challenge to Liberty, The Case for Gold, and A Republic, If You Can Keep It. He has been a distinguished counselor to the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and has received numerous awards and honors from organizations such as the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste, and Young Americans for Freedom.
—Derek Wallace
1. “Dr. No” is both the title of the first James Bond film (1962), and the name of the movie’s villain.
This is a great article, Derek! I became acquainted with Congressman Paul through the John Birch Society’s magazine, The New American. He is the only Congressman to consistently receive a 100% grading in their Conservative index, which measures how each member of Congress voted constitutionally. There are a few other Congressmen I support, such as our own Dr. Tom Coburn, but I have more confidence in Mr. Paul than anyone in the entire United States government. We need more like him. What a great subject for this publication!
Wait, how does opposing the war in Iraq make Ron Paul “the most conservative member of Congress”? It’s mainly liberals who are opposed to it.
There is a fairly sizable group of conservatives who object to the war in Iraq and who do not blindly follow Republican party leadership, etc.
Some of these conservatives include Pat Buchanan, Doug Bandow, Joe Sobran, Paul Schroeder, and Ron Paul (among others).
Not familiar with those names? You should be. ; )
Even William Buckley, who originally supported the war effort, has since publically expressed strong reservations about it.
It is extremely unfortunate that the “conservative” position today has become equated with pro-war fervor.
In a future article (perhaps as early as next issue) I hope to explain why opposing the war in Iraq is the truly conservative position while supporting it is, in fact, a much more liberal position.
If war is a “more liberal” position, why don’t more liberals support it? From the information George W. Bush had, he didn’t have much choice but to oust Saddam Hussein, and the only way to do that is through war. The reason Bush declared war was because he had reason to believe that Hussein had WMD. His intelligence agencies told him that, MI-5 told him that, and Bill Clinton seemed to believe it (maybe that should’ve given it away), otherwise he wouldnt’ve tried to bomb Iraq. Saddam even used some of those weapons in the past, not to mention wouldn’t cooperate with weapons inspectors. Contrary to popular belief, this is not the “War on Al-Qaeda” or the “War on Osama Bin Laden”, this is the “War on terror”, so Bush must fight anyone deemed as a terrorist.
I also believe we must look at this from a humanitarian angle. Is it “more conservative” to condone rape, torture, and mass murder, all things we now know Saddam was guilty of? And did you know many of the people over there have electricity and running water (among other things) for the first time? Also, are you a Christian or just a “conservative”? Don’t you realize that with Saddam Hussein out of power, it’s now easier for mission work to go on there?
As for those conservatives you listed as now opposing the war effort, it wouldn’t be the first time that conservatives had capitulated to liberal caterwauling. It’s too late to express reservation now; pulling out right now would only make things worse.
I will be covering all of the points you brought up in the article I plan on writing.
For now, let me just address your last claim: “Don’t you realize that with Saddam Hussein out of power, it’s now easier for mission work to go on there?”
This is, unfortunately, not necessarily true. The plight of Christians has gotten much worse since the U.S. invasion. Certainly, Christians suffered under Hussein’s rule, but they were generally tolerated and allowed to worship freely.
Since the invasion, Islamic fundamentalism (non-existent under Hussein’s secular regime) has become much more prominent. Islamic extremists have targeted churches, liquor stores, and the Christian owners of such stores. They harass Christian women who don’t shroud themselves in black.
In an interview on CNN, Father Arkan Yako complained that the Kurds deny jobs to Christians unless they first join a Kurdish party. He said that Christians “are third or fourth class citizens in our own country.”
As a result, thousands of Christians have fled Iraq, despite the fact that Hussein is no longer in power.
There are hundreds of examples I could share . . for now, let this excerpt from an article in National Review suffice:
“On Tuesday, according to the Catholic press outlet, Fides, Islamic fanatics broke into a Chaldean Catholic home near Mosul and killed a ten-year-old boy while shouting, “We’ve come to exterminate you. This is the end for you Christians!” In prior weeks, ChaldoAssyrian workers were murdered for “collaborating” with the United States. Three others were kidnapped and beheaded. Christian girls were assaulted with acid for not wearing the veil. A Chaldean Catholic priest was forced at gunpoint in his church to convert to Islam. Christian homes were targeted by mortar attacks that killed and injured children sleeping in their beds.”
One last thing. If you were to familiarize yourself with the people I mentioned above, you would find that these are not people who capitulate to liberal caterwauling on any issue.