Last month, Ron Paul spoke to a capacity crowd at Brown University.

Olivia Conetta of the Brown Spectator has the story.

Ron Paul: “It’s the cause of liberty that I stand for”

Former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) championed the cause of liberty in front of a packed and enthusiastic crowd in Salomon 101 at Brown April 16. Hosted by the Brown Lecture Board, Paul touched upon foreign policy, the drug war, the military-industrial complex, and the gold standard, among other topics.

The first part of Paul’s lecture focused on foreign policy. He criticized the U.S. for spending money to keep North and South Korea divided. In his view, the U.S. government used crises like the North Koreans’ attainment of nuclear weapons as an excuse to drum up “constant agitation” among the populace and thus be able to spend more money on the military-industrial complex. He supported national defense, but argued that the U.S. should be less involved in other countries’ affairs.

“I vote for trying to achieve with peace” the changes the country wants to see around the world instead of “preemptive war” to mitigate potential threats, Paul said. In the meantime, the U.S. is “wasting our time and money” in Afghanistan, he added.

Paul was also critical of the Obama administration’s drone war and decried Democrats’ support of it. He noted the immorality of the drone war: For each suspect killed, 50 civilians are killed as well. He found it unbelievable that Americans wonder why other countries are against us when our government’s policies kill innocent people abroad.

The former contender for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination highlighted the problems awaiting the U.S. as a result of its high government spending. Now, other countries buy our debt, Paul said, but we will someday have to pay back those debts. Instead, the U.S. should live within its means. His solution for scaling back is to “stop all the wars and bring the troops home,” a policy prescription that was met with applause from the crowd.