Presidential hopeful campaigns in Fairfield

Presidential hopeful Ron Paul campaigned for personal and economic liberty Tuesday evening on the Fairfield square.

?My approach is different [from other candidates]. I don?t want to run your life. I know I can?t run the economy, and I don?t want to run the world either,? the Texas congressman declared before a cheering crowd.

During his speech, U.S. Rep. Paul criticized the nation for abandoning the gold standard.

?[Up until that time] there were restraints on the government printing money at will,? he said. ?If you don?t have restraints on printing money, then there are no restraints on the government spending money. ? They only have two places where they really mess up ? on the wars and the entitlements.?

Paul said the middle class is suffering under the current system and bailouts have to end.

?We ultimately want to get rid of the Federal Reserve System,? Paul said. ?They were involved in passing out $15 trillion during the crisis, and it didn?t help you. It didn?t help the average person. It didn?t help the mortgage holder. It helped the banks, and it helped Wall Street.?

He said Americans should be outraged one-third of that money bailed out banks overseas.

?People tell me that everybody has to suffer to get us out of this trouble. I don?t think that?s necessary,? Paul said. ?I want to reduce drastically all the regulations coming from federal government. I want to get rid of your income tax.

?We have to change the monetary system. We have to change the tax code, but we have to do something about these onerous regulations coming down,? he said, citing ?Obamacare? as an example.

Paul told his supporters a war economy doesn?t work.

?That money that is spent on weapons ? it doesn?t raise your standard of living. It doesn?t help your medical care. It doesn?t help your educational benefits. It doesn?t help jobs develop in the marketplace,? he said. ?It?s a distortion. It?s a misdirection of capital.?

Paul said the U.S. government claims to be making cuts, but trimming $2 trillion from a proposed $7 trillion increase in obligations is bad math.

One area where Paul sees the potential to cut spending is on foreign expenditures.

?We?re not winning these wars. We?re losing these wars,? he said. ?I have a very complex position on how we get out of this ? how we deal with extricating ourselves from all those conflicts. My answer to them is ? just come home and bring all the troops home.?

As president, Paul said he would bring all overseas troops home as soon as the ships could get there and back.

The government has strayed from the Constitution in multiple places, and ?that?s a problem,? Paul told the crowd.

He warned of the danger of allowing liberties to be lost and said everyone should have a right to make his or her own decisions.

?I don?t think the federal government has any business telling you what to do with your own body,? Paul said, speaking out against the war on drugs and medication. ?If we accept this notion that government should protect us against ourselves and our own habits, boy, we?re in big trouble.

?If we really restored liberty and private property rights and contract rights and sound money and freedom of association, I think we?d all be back on our feet in a very short time,? Paul said.