Ron Paul speaks at O'Connell Center

Published: Monday, April 15, 2013 at 10:44 p.m. Last Modified: Monday, April 15, 2013 at 10:44 p.m.

Ron Paul brought his revolution to the Gator Nation Monday night, delivering a well-burnished message of expanding individual liberty and restricting government intrusion to about 3,000 fans at the OConnell Center.

Paul, 77, a 12-term congressman from Texas and a veteran of three presidential campaigns, plied his craft like the political pro he is, hitting familiar themes and delivering a string of folksy, populist slogans. The event was sponsored by Accent Speakers Bureau, which paid Paul $55,000 to come. The event was free to the public.

I am delighted so many young people are interested in the cause of liberty, he said to thunderous applause. Its not that complicated to defend liberty. The goal is to seek peace and prosperity with limited government intrusion in our lives and the affairs of other nations.

Paul would return to those themes, repeating them throughout his hour-long speech, offering simple solutions for complex problems. War? Stay out of it. Drugs? Let people be responsible for themselves. The economy? Let the free market do its thing.

This country was the freest and wealthiest nation. That is not the case anymore, he said, citing a $5.7 trillion debt to foreign nations, eliciting loud boos.

The fact that he gave his speech on April 15, the filing deadline for federal income tax returns, was not lost on Paul, who called it Bad News Day. We should get rid of the income tax, he said to cheers.

Noting that North Korea is in the news, he said that he was in high school in 1950 the first time the U.S. got involved in the Korean conflict, and we never left.

His solution: get out of Korea and let them resolve their differences and peace would come before you knew it.

He applied the same solution to military involvement in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Get out and let them work it out among themselves. If the U.S. was minding our own business we wouldnt be mixed up in all these countries and wars going on.

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Ron Paul speaks at O'Connell Center