Marc Spiegal, senior

For a period, the American Revolution was only a war of taxes, boycotts, and political demonstrations, but the colonists were prepared for it to escalate: they had guns. The British didn’t like that, so on April 19, 1775, they decided to confiscate those guns. The colonists wouldn’t stand for this, and the Revolution began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Hitler used gun control against minority groups, and Stalin used it to tighten his grip on the Russian people. Throughout history it has been common for dictators to use gun control oppressively.

The founding fathers anticipated this and wrote the Second Amendment. They didn’t write it to ensure everyone can go hunting on the weekends. As it says, “a well regulated militia [is needed for] the security of a free state…” Our right to bear arms is for our own safety, whether safety from others or safety from government, should it become tyrannical.

Some may see guns themselves as they can be used for criminal purposes. Those people haven’t yet realized that nearly all shootings occur in “gun-free zones,” such as schools. These are the worst (and most well-known) because it’s easy for a few people with guns to control many people without guns. There’s a reason shootings never occur at gun shows or shooting ranges. Gun control only attempts to attack symptoms, not problems. happens at a gun show or shooting range. Gun control only attacks symptoms, not problems. As the Greek philosopher Plato said, “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people find a way around them.”

Adrian Carico, senior

Ron Paul may be the only hope left for America. Luckily, with more Americans finally waking up to the ideas and policies he has been preaching for over 30 years, there is still hope. His grassroots campaign often referred to as the “rEVOLution” is gaining momentum. College campuses around the U.S. are catching on and openly supporting Paul’s message, and his enthusiastic supporters will do just about anything to support the message of freedom. ‘Honest politician’ is an oxymoron, but Ron Paul is a rare exception. He is one of the last true statesmen.

If there is one word to describe Paul, it is consistent. His voting record in Congress has always followed the Constitution in protection of freedom and civil liberties. Paul believes that the Constitution grants American citizens the right to do “controversial things” as long as they do not hurt or defame other people and that the federal government should not infringe on those rights.

“Though President Barack Obama has spent trillions of dollars, the U.S. economy is stagnant, fewer people are employed than when he became president, the percentage of people unemployed for over a year has doubled since then, the poverty rate is the worst in two decades, and more than 40 million Americans – a record – are on food stamps,” says Jim Powell of Forbes.com. Haven’t we realized yet that spending more isn’t going to put our economy on the right track? Ron Paul has released a plan to restore America that would cut $1 trillion in his first year and have a fully balanced budget by year three. His plan would eliminate the income tax, slash several (useless) federal departments, and cut taxes to create jobs. We must stop this out-of-control government spending. It doesn’t work!

Gifford talked a bit a bout Paul not supporting anti-discrimination laws. Yes, he would not have supported those laws, but only because parts of the laws do not follow the amendments given to us by our founding fathers in the Constitution or because they infringe on our rights as citizens. Ron Paul would not have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. But you have to understand that segregation was created by government laws, Dr. Paul’s Libertarian stance would have been to repeal those segregation laws. As an example: In today’s society, anyone who would place a ‘whites only’ sign in front of their store would quickly be out of business.

Gifford said that Dr. Paul’s opposition to the Federal Reserve and his wish to return back to the gold standard “...would greatly harm our economy and destroy the middle class.” But he truth is the people who benefit most from the Fed printing money out of a thin air the people who get it first, usually the wealthy. This dilutes the value of money that someone of the middle or lower class may be holding or saving. “The characteristics of a country that depreciates its currency is one that’s destined to destroy its middle class” said Dr. Paul in and interview with Mike Maloney of goldsilver.com in late 2007. Can we really deny the words of our founding fathers who warned us of a central bank? Thomas Jefferson said, “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” See through the demagogues. Don’t join the “sheeple”. It is our future, and it’s time to take it back. “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.”

Jason Dreyzehner, senior

This project is a little difficult in a republic, but with a basic understanding of money, you should be able to finish in five to 10 years. Before you get started, you’ll need some politicians, a few “economists,” and quite a bit of gold.

Here’s the idea: money is anything that represents value. We use money because it is much easier to trade products for certain amounts of money than trying to find and barter with someone who has what you want and wants what you have. The largest and most wealthy civilizations almost always end up using gold as money, but some have done fairly well using pretty seashells, dried food, and even salt.

Banking has been around for a long time. Banks keep people’s money (whatever it is), and give them some sort of certificate to represent their deposit. Many people even choose to trade these certificates because it is much easier to carry and make change with pieces of paper or small coins than it is to carry and carefully divide bars of gold.

Step 1: Start a bank. Hold people’s gold and give them certificates of deposit, call them something innocent, like dollars, and print eagles, shields, national mottos, and other symbols to represent the country where you run the bank. Encourage people to deposit by telling them they’ll get a bit of money, “interest,” if they let you hold it.

Step 2: To increase your profits, you can lend money to people who need “loans” and have them pay it back with “interest.”

Now you might have noticed that you can make more money if you lend some of the people more dollars than you have in gold. Since they can’t tell how much gold you have, as long as they don’t come and withdraw it all at the same time, you can actually make “interest” on the money you don’t have. But those pesky “bank runs” are still a little worrying—too risky.

Step 3: Here’s the solution: Have your politicians write laws to slowly stop people from being able to change their dollars back into gold. To convince the public, line up a panel of expert “economists” to back up your scheme with a new school of economics, and have politicians in the major political parties sell it to their constituents as something to protect them from the failures of banks who lent a little too much (like you did). Tell people the failures were caused by the free market, and they need your politicians’ protection (wink).

Step 4: To complete your control, have your politicians use “counterfeit laws” to make it illegal to start another bank like yours (so people have to use you). Teach children in public schools that “counterfeiting” is only when people make copies of your dollars (so they don’t suspect it’s giving you a monopoly). The deception is complete: call your monster something that sounds like part of the government, like Bank of the United States or the Federal Reserve.

Step 5: Sit back, relax, and if the people start to understand your scheme, distract them. Start a war.