Posted on 10/10/2007 9:18:03 AM PDT by traviskicks
If Rep. Ron Paul had his way, a lot of things would change. Abortion would be illegal. There would be no federal income tax, nor even an IRS.
The United States would be out of the United Nations. The U.S. Supreme Court wouldn’t be messing with state law. The Federal Reserve and World Bank would disappear. And there would no longer be background checks to buy handguns.
And should the Texas Republican win the White House, as he’s trying to do now, the war in Iraq would end, as would the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Pain Relief.” Iran would be safe from U.S. attack. The Patriot Act would be history. Federal spending would fall dramatically as government bureaucracy (including the Pentagon) was slashed.
And that’s just for starters.
Paul’s quixotic quest for the Republican presidential nomination, and his mix of old-school libertarianism and populism, has failed to attract much support in national polls.
He’s largely dismissed by the mainstream press and Beltway establishment as a gadfly, or an also-ran, who has no chance of winning.
And his policy positions don’t attract the same kind of analysis given to those of the leading contenders of either party, such as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) or former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R).
But Paul’s staunch opposition to the Iraq war (he has refused to support any military action against Iraq going back to 1998) and a rabid following on the Internet helped him raise $5.1 million during the last quarter, nearly as much as the much-higher-profile Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and more than Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), both of whom get far more coverage than Paul does.
Paul has also impressed some viewers during the Republican presidential debates. He has repeatedly railed that the GOP has “lost its way,” that the war in Iraq is wrong and must be ended, and that federal spending, which soared under President Bush and during Republican control of Congress, has to be reined in.
Along the way he has attracted a legion of fans for whom his call for “moral clarity” and repeated references to the virtues of the Founding Fathers are refreshing, rather than empty clichés.
Paul’s prescription for what is wrong with America, and how he would fix it, is laid out in an extensive series of articles and speeches that he has published during the past decade, since he returned to Congress as the representative from the 14th District in Texas after a failed run for the Senate and the White House.
Paul is also the author of several books, including “Freedom Under Siege,” “Challenge to Liberty,” “The Case for Gold” and “A Republic, If You Can Keep It.”
A survey of the bills that he has introduced during the past several years and public statements he has made show that the congressman believes “freedom,” defined in a quasi-libertarian vein, is the key to continued American prosperity and success, and the federal government is the biggest obstacle to achieving that goal.
He calls himself the “leading advocate for freedom in our nation’s capital,” boldly declaring he “never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution.”
To Paul, freedom “is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference,” and any government involvement in a citizen’s life is “inherently coercive.”
Asked to list Paul’s legislative highlights, Rachel Mills, spokeswoman for his congressional office, points to a few signature moments:
His collaboration in 2000 with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) in having a lake returned to the control of Texas from the federal government; a 2002 amendment to the State Department reauthorization barring the International Criminal Court from having jurisdiction over members of the U.S. military; a 2005 measure banning U.S. compliance with any U.N. “global tax”; an amendment to the 2006 Patriot Act reauthorization banning surveillance on any U.S. citizen engaged in activities protected under the First Amendment, such as peaceful protest; and a long-running battle to prevent the issuing of medical identification numbers to Americans.
Mills also points to Paul’s work as part of the Congressional Liberty Caucus as another way he “has affected the debate” on Capitol Hill.
Paul incorporates the concept of freedom directly into many of the legislative proposals he introduces, although few, if any, of those ever get a vote on the House floor, much less get signed into law.
The list of bills unveiled by Paul this year alone (largely similar to previous legislative proposals in past years) include the Voter Freedom Act, TV Consumer Freedom Act, Health Freedom Protection Act, Agriculture Education Freedom Act, Seniors’ Health Care Freedom Act, Taxpayers’ Freedom of Conscience Act and Family Education Freedom Act, among others.
Paul also wants the U.S. government to stop treating Americans like children. He even said so explicitly in the preamble to one of the bills he introduced this year, the Freedom to Bank Act:
“To sunset federal laws and regulations which treat the American people like children by denying them the opportunity to make their own decision regarding control of their bank accounts and what type of information they wish to receive from their banks, and for other purposes.”
An obstetrician who has delivered more than 4,000 babies, Paul sees a litany of enemies to personal freedom lurking everywhere:
The Food and Drug Administration, “supranational organizations” like the U.N., the International Criminal Court and the World Trade Organization, “illegal immigrants,” “wasteful agencies, lobbyists, corporations on welfare and governments collecting foreign aid,” manufacturers of genetically modified foods and pesticides, “globalists,” opponents of home schooling, abortion providers, insurance companies, drug makers, federal bureaucrats and gun-control advocates, to name but a few.
Paul’s legislative proposals, which are short and to the point, would address the problems caused by these individuals and organizations by cutting back on the federal government’s power, adopting a “noninterventionist foreign policy” that includes ending the war in Iraq immediately, and a return to robust fiscal restraint.
But the congressman is clearly not interested in the compromises usually expected of members of Congress, which explains why his record of legislative achievement is so paltry compared with other lawmakers who have served in Congress for as long as he has.
For Paul, the principle is everything. Compromise is for those willing to sell out freedom. None of the bills or amendments that he has introduced during the first session of this 110th Congress has been voted on, either in committee or on the House floor.
The current political skirmish over the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, where President Bush and congressional Democrats are fighting over how many billions of dollars to spend on expanding the program, is another example of Paul’s different track.
SCHIP’s expansion is wrong, he says, because it is like universal mental health screening for schoolchildren. Since that program led to more kids being diagnosed with emotional problems, more drugs were administered to children to address those problems.
The only winner, in Paul’s view, is drug makers, since “pharmaceutical companies stand to increase their customer base even more,” according to a release he issued last month.
Congress, the White House and federal bureaucrats are impinging on Americans’ freedoms by enacting such programs, not helping combat a problem, he says.
“We don’t need a village, a bureaucrat or the pharmaceutical industry raising our children,” Paul declared. “That’s what parents need to be doing.”
L. Ron 2008—cause Pat Paulsen is dead and nobody can find Randee of the Redwoods.
To the Inhabitants of America
I should forfeit, even in my own opinion, the place I have so long held in yours, if I could be indifferent to your approbation, and silent on the motives which have induced me to join the King's arms.
A very few words, however, shall suffice upon a subject so personal; for to the thousands who suffer under the tyranny of the usurpers in the revolted provinces, as well as to the great multitude who have long wished for its subversion, this instance of my conduct can want no vindication; and as to the class of men who are criminally protracting the war from sinister views at the expence of the public interest, I prefer their enmity to their applause. I am, therefore, only concerned in this address, to explain, myself to such of my countrymen, as want abilities, or opportunities, to detect the artifices by which they are duped.
Having fought by your side when the love of our country animated our arms, I shall expect, from your justice and candour, what your deceivers, with more art and less honesty, will find it inconsistent with their own views to admit.
When I quitted domestic happiness for the perils of the field, I conceived the rights of my country in danger, and that duty and honour called me to her defence. A redress of grievances was my only object and aim; however, I acquiesced in a step which I thought preciptate, the declaration of independence: to justify this measure, many plausible reasons were urged, which could no longer exist, when Great Britain, the open arms of a parent, offered to embrace us as children, and grant the wished-for redress.
And now that her worst enemies are in her own bosom, I should change my principles, if I conspired with their designs; yourselves being judges, was the war the less just, because fellow subjects were considered as our foe? You have felt the torture in which we raised arms against a brother. God incline the guilty protectors of these unnatural dissentions to resign their ambition, and cease from their delusion, in compassion to kindred blood!
I anticipate your question, Was not the war a defensive one, until the French joined in the combination? I answer, that I thought so. You will add, Was it not afterwards necessary, till the separation of the British empire was complete? By no means; in contending for the welfare of my country, I am free to declare my opinion, that this end attained, all strife should have ceased.
I lamented, therefore, the impolicy, tyranny, and injustice, which, with a sovereign contempt of the people of America, studiously neglected to take their collective sentiments of the British proposals of peace, and to negociate, under a suspension of arms, for an adjustment of differences; I lamented it as a dangerous sacrifice of the great interests of this country to the partial views of a proud, ancient, and crafty foe. I had my suspicions of some imperfections in our councils, on proposals prior to the Parliamentary Commission of 1778; but having then less to do in the Cabinet than the field (I will not pronounce peremptorily, as some may, and perhaps justly, that Congress have veiled them from the public eye), I continued to be guided in the negligent confidence of a Soldier. But the whole world saw, and all America confessed, that the overtures of the second Commission exeeded our wishes and expectations; and if there was any suspicion of the national liberality, it arose from its excess.
Do any believe were at that time really entangled by an alliance with France? Unfortunate deception! they have been duped, by a virtuous credulity, in the incautious moments of intemperate passion, to give up their felicity to serve a nation wanting both the will and the power to protect us, and aiming at the destruction both of the mother country and the provinces. In the plainness of common sense, for I pretend to no casuistry, did the pretended treaty with the Court of Versailles, amount to more than an overture to America? Certainly not, because no authority had been given by the people to conclude it, nor to this very hour have they authorized its ratification. The articles of confederation remain still unsigned.
In the firm persuasion, therefore, that the private judgement of an individual citizen of this country is as free from all conventional restraints, since as before the insidious offers of France, I preferred those from Great Britain; thinking it infinitely wiser and safer to cast my confidence upon her justice and generosity, than to trust a monarchy too feeble to establish your independency, so perilous to her distant dominions; the enemy of the Protestant faith and fraudulently avowing an affection for the liberties of mankind, while she holds her native sons in vassalage an chains.
I affect no disguise, and therefore frankly declare, that in these principles I had determined to retain my arms and command for an opportunity to surrender them to Great Britain; and in concerting the measures for a purpose, in my opinion, as grateful as it would have been beneficial to my country; I was only solicitous to accomplish an event of decisive importance, and to prevent as much as possible, in the execution of it, the effusion of blood.
With the highest satisfaction I bear testimony to my old fellow soldiers and citizens, that I find solid ground to rely upon the clemency of our Sovereign, and abundant conviction that it is the generous intention of Great Britain not only to leave the rights and privileges of the colonies unimpaired, together with their perpetual exemption from taxation, but to superadd such further benefits as may consist with the common prosperity of the empire. In short, I fought for much less than the parent country is as willing to grant to her colonies as they can be to receive or enjoy.
Some may think I continued in the struggle of these unhappy days too long, and others that I quitted it too soon-- To the first I reply, that I did not see with their eyes, nor perhaps had so favourable a situation to look from, and that to our common master I am willing to stand or fall. In behalf of the candid among the latter, some of whom I believe serve blindly but honestly--in the bands I have left, I pray God to give them all the lights requisite to their own safety before it is too late; and with respect to that herd of censurers, whose enmity to me originates in their hatred to the principles by which I am now led to devote my life to the re-union of the British empire, as the best and only means to dry up the streams of misery that have deluged this country, they may be assured, that concious of the rectitude of my intentions; I shall treat their malice and calumnies with contempt and neglect.
Well, at least Ron Paul wants to go to war against somebody — too bad that somebody is our federal gov’t”
Is this the same Ron Paul that yesterday said that IRAN is not a threat to the USA?????
My point is that the Founders were once referred to as traitors, nutjobs, and rebels by the British then.
Ron our freedoms are under siege by islamo fascists as well. What are you going to do about them?
< cricket ... cricket ... cricket >
Perhaps you are unaware of how the Federal government operates. They steal 50% (if you add it all up), of every cent you make, they indoctrinate our children, meddle with our healthcare, break apart families, regulate our businesses, lawsuit us to death, prevent freedom of contract, prevent freedom of speech, and on and on.
If I may make an inference, I respect your opinion that some stone age islamic ‘thugs’, are a greater threat, but I disagree.
You say that as if reducing the size and scope of FedGov were a BAD thing. Why is that?
George Washington and his forces risked their lives and fortunes to secure freedom for their country.
Comparing them is not only stupid, it is insulting to the intelligence of everyone on this board and worse, insulting to the memory of the actual patriots portrayed by Leutze.
I think Paul as a congresscritter can be more effective in furthering the cause of liberty and freedom than he could ever be as President. I only wish he was my congressman.
But as president George Washington was a big defender of the Federal government. So much so that he took command of the army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion.
I know how the Federal gov't operates and I know how Al Qaeda operates -- and the difference is the Federal gov't isn't trying to nuke my country.
He could have died during service as an Air Force flight surgeon just as easily as if he was engaged in actual combat.
and spends much of his time undermining the US soldiers who are fighting to guarantee his freedom.
He supported Reagan's military buildup during the Cold War and had the current WOT been formally declared by Congress he would have supported that too.
We give government the permission to use violence to enforce our laws.
Other than for defense against thieves and violent aggressors, he sees little or no need for violence, or the delegated violence of government.
Paul reminds us of fundamental principles. Good for him.
Why too bad? Your chances of being victimized by an Islamic terrorist? Infinitessimally small.
Your chances of being victimized by our own federal government? That's easy...100% Just look at all the money that's been stolen from your next paycheck
Well, he’s got that part right.
Why is that too bad ? Do you think it’s bad to oppose RINOs and libs/socialists ?
If he could get Congress to stop spending our tax dollars, I’d love it.
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