Paul: No federal funds for TTC

FORT BEND HERALD-COASTER ^ | 31 JANUARY 2008 | Stephen Palkot

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Ron Paul, Republican congressman from Lake Jackson who is running a long-shot bid for president, has filed a bill in the House of Representatives to prevent the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor from receiving federal dollars.

The TTC is a large transportation network championed by Gov. Rick Perry and the Texas Department of Transportation that would carve a wide swath out of central Texas to add highway lanes, rail lines and other infrastructure to major trade routes in the state.

Paul, who represents District 14, has long opposed the concept. Among the goals of the TTC are improving trade between the U.S. and its North American neighbors. Paul, who opposes U.S. membership in the United Nations, has said the TTC is part of a broader effort to form a North American organization that could supplant aspects of U.S. law and policy.

Paul has further stated his opposition to the superhighway being built by private companies, who would control aspects of the corridors and would charge fees for its use.

“I am particularly concerned about the use of eminent domain to take private land for the construction of this highway,” said Paul, “and this bill would prevent the federal government from participating in this heinous practice.”

Thus far, planning is under way for two major routes of the corridor: TTC-35 (to run along I-35 in Central Texas) and TTC-69 (to run along the path of the future I-69 along the Gulf Coast).

The corridor proposal has run into much criticism. In January, TxDOT officials travelled the state for a series of “town hall meetings,” which were intended to foster discussion about the TTC and what state leaders say are its benefits. The meetings, including one in Rosenberg, brought out large numbers of opponents.

Paul's district includes western and northern Fort Bend County, including Simonton, Fulshear and Cinco Ranch. He faces two primary opponents in his District 14 re-election bid, and is a candidate in the Republican presidential primary.

[cva66snipe]

I think, for the most part, is that we did our jobs over there. AQ's #3 leader just got smoked today. We have killed thousands and thousands of terrorists.

The troops have done a great job no doubt about it. I just don't think we can ever change the conditions which AQ's flourish in except to make it uninhabitable for them. Second best is to sit back and let them go at it with each other. Some of the fault has to lie with the Iraqi's themselves though for letting tyrants take hold to start with. The bad part is we as a nation are headed down the same path it seems. I do think persons underestimate what Ron Paul would do if we had to go to war. It would be over said and done with the prejudice required.

Looking back on all the great battlefield commanders from the American Revolution through WW2, how many would have put up with this? My guess is very few.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

And we should let Petraeus (I think of him as The Master) finish; the impression I get is that RP won’t let him, however screwed up Iraq still is.

[plain talk]

Ron Paul talks about foreign policy like Bush did in 2000

Wrong. No George Bush never supported complete isolationism. George Bush never said all foreign intervention in the last 60 years was wrong. George Bush never said we were responsible for terrorism. Hillary Clinton is a stalwart on foreign policy compared to the naivete of Ron Paul.

[lmr]

VOTE FOR RON PAUL! (Warning: Profanity)

[plain talk]

unless we all start steering in the same direction, we’ll never make it to shore.

I think this is a key point. It takes teams to win. The dems are a mature and disciplined machine (relatively speaking). They have had years of herding cats into a big tent. And they are inching the socialist ball along. So our side needs to grow up and find a way to unite the Party better. The key to doing that is better organization and recruitment of strong Republican candidates that can lead and unite. This begins in the States.

[plain talk]

Well no candidate except Ron Paul is for isolationism, deserting Israel, pulling out of Korea and tossing Taiwan aside. That includes Hillary who is strong on foreign policy compared to Ron Paul. Even Hillary is not a 9/11 truther.

[Eric Blair 2084]

I’m sorry that I ever started paying attention to politics.

Paul is not a serious candidate. He’s just a Quixotic figure who is the only public serpent left running who wants to leave me the Hell alone.

I’m voting for him.*

*If I actually thought he had a snowballs chance in Hell of winning, I wouldn’t. I value my life. Then again, people like Paul, Hillary, and Osama make the islamofascists less likely to bomb us just by their very existence. The terrorists don’t want to accidentally hit friendly targets.

[enuf]

The Republican party says it’s for lower taxes. It isn’t. It passed
the largest federal budget in history, and even after it controlled
the White House and both houses of Congress, it failed to make a
dent in the federal tax burden.

The Republican party says it’s for limited government. It isn’t.
Not only has it failed to reduce the already ridiculous size and
power of government, it has drastically increased it.

The Republic party says it’s for individual liberties. It isn’t. It
created the biggest federal bureaucracy in history, and gave it all
sorts of new powers to spy on, detain, silence, and otherwise
harass Americans.

The Republican party says it believes in the Constitution. It
doesn’t. It has done absolutely nothing to try to correct the
mangling of the “commerce clause” to allow the federal government
to stick its nose in everyone’s business.

And when someone came along who really IS for lower taxes, limited
government, individual liberty, and a return to the Constitution,
how did the Republican establishment respond? By smearing,
demonizing, demeaning, marginalizing, and insulting him, and trying
to silence him. Even though that man is a Republican.

My question is, just how stupid are Republican voters? Just how
badly and how often do you need to be betrayed by the totalitarians
in the GOP (masquerading as “limited government” advocates) before
you stop SUPPORTING their collectivist crap?

“But the Democrats are even worse!”

No, they aren’t. They are IDENTICAL. The only difference is in
their rhetoric: the Republicans pander to those who want limited
government, and the Democrats pander to those who want the nanny
state to control and take care of everything. But in action, the
two are THE SAME. They are two faces of ONE group of power-happy,
war-mongering, fear-mongering, liberty-destroying
nationalist/socialists. The suggestion that THOSE are your only
choices is a classic tyrant trick. Unfortunately, almost all
Americans still fall for it.

Personally, I don’t believe in “limited government” any more than I
believe in “limited murder,” “limited rape,” or “limited armed
robbery.” But for those “limited statists” out there who still
believe in the Constitution, stop supporting its demise! If you
must vote, and Ron Paul loses the Republican primary—which the
Republican establishment is going to great lengths to ensure—vote
for him anyway. I don’t care whether he runs or not. Write in his
name. If instead you hold your nose and vote for the establishment-
appointed collectivist, YOU are the problem.

Yes, I am telling you to intentionally destroy the Republican
party, because it is an absolute fraud. Of course, the Democratic
power machine is equally fraudulent and evil, but by supporting
either of them—instead of telling them BOTH to go to hell—you are
ENABLING your own enslavement. Quit bickering over which crook is
worse, and just STOP SUPPORTING CROOKS. “But then the OTHER guy
will win!” So what? I would wager that NO ONE could tell, based
only on the legislation passed during the Clinton administration as
compared to that passed during the Bush administration, who was on
the “left” and who was on the “right.” The result is always the
same: more power for them, less freedom for you. By supporting
EITHER party, you prolong the lie, and assist in your own
subjugation.

There is only one person running for President who actually
believes in the Constitution, and look how hard his “own” party is
trying to silence him. And look who they have running AGAINST him:
several left-leaning, tax-and-spend socialists (Huckabee, Romney,
McCain and Giuliani). Every one of them is far left of JFK! Is that
really what “conseravtives” want? Who exactly is the Republican
party “representing”?

Anyone with their eyes open can see that the Republican
establishment doesn’t CARE what Republican VOTERS want. They are
still trying to milk the reputation of Ronald Reagan, while
viciously slandering anyone who sounds anything like him. They are
just as elitist as the Democrats, having nothing but contempt for
your freedom and what YOU want. When thousands of you said “We want
Ron Paul!” what did the Republican establishment say? “To hell with
you!” Well, it’s high time to return the compliment. Maybe the best
thing to come out of a Ron Paul presidential run will be a long
overdue unmasking and discrediting of the totalitarian elitists
club calling itself the Republican party.

[rb22982]

George Bush said no scattering troops all over the globe and NO NATION BUILDING NUMEROUS times. Don’t try to re-write history. Anti-war was big with Republicans in 2000 after Yugoslavia and all the other shenanigans that Clintoon got us into.

[cva66snipe]

Well no candidate except Ron Paul is for isolationism, deserting Israel, pulling out of Korea and tossing Taiwan aside. That includes Hillary who is strong on foreign policy compared to Ron Paul. Even Hillary is not a 9/11 truther.

Fine then vote for Hillary if thats what makes you happy. You are way off base on what she supports. Our troops would wear U.N. Blues under U.N. command understand? Paul has a lot of validity. We supported a lot of rotten eggs in the M.E. Now you tell me is Ron Paul trying to force feed Israel a UnHoly peace treaty with Syria or the Pali's? Well is he? I don't think so. If we can't be Israel's friend which we are stabbing them in the back by giving aid and comfort to her enemies at this point in time. The next best thing is to stay out of Israel's affairs rather than be enablers to her enemies like GW Bush has made us into.

[rb22982]

Nation Building and the War in Iraq

During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush argued against nation building and foreign military entanglements. In the second presidential debate, he said: "I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.'"

The United States is currently involved in nation building in Iraq on a scale unseen since the years immediately following World War II.

During the 2000 election, Mr. Bush called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from the NATO peacekeeping mission in the Balkans. His administration now cites such missions as an example of how America must "stay the course."

Drawing on the advice of Gen. Colin L. Powell, widely viewed as a potential secretary of state in a Bush administration, Bush is far more tentative about committing American troops and rules out their use for what he dismisses as nation building. “There may be some moments when we use our troops as peacekeepers, but not often,” he said in the final presidential debate. In the second debate he suggested a broader philosophical disagreement with Mr. Gore: “I’m not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, ‘This is the way it’s got to be.’”

Gore, on the other hand, has repeatedly portrayed himself as a man who has come to believe in vigorous American intervention abroad

[rb22982]

Ron Paul would un-tie Israel’s hands. Taiwain, as much as I’d like to support them, has shown time and time again that they are not willing to break tie’s with mainland China. Isolationism is a paleo-conservative trait that belonged to the Republican Party until 2003.

[cva66snipe]

It was also Bush who said that he and Gore were not that far apart on most issues..

[rb22982]

During a debate with then-Vice President Al Gore on Oct. 11, 2000, in Winston-Salem, N.C., Bush said: “I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation-building. . . . I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I’m missing something here. I mean, we’re going to have a kind of nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not.”

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

And once you remove Saddam, who do you replace him with? Or do you leave it as a grab bag for Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Iranians, and Syrians?

[rb22982]

During that 2000 debate with Gore, Bush criticized the Clinton administration's intervention in Haiti in 1994, when Aristide was returned to power amid threats of US military action.

"I wouldn't have sent troops to Haiti," Bush said. "I didn't think it was a mission worthwhile. It was a nation-building mission. And it was not very successful. It cost us billions, a couple of billions of dollars, and I'm not so sure democracy is any better off in Haiti than it was before."

I could go on all night. Bush was the anti-war candidate in 2000. In the Republican primary AND in the general election.

[Eric Blair 2084]

That brilliant manifesto shouldn’t be an anonymous post on FR. It should be in every editorial page in America. Where is this fairness doctrine when you need it?

[rb22982]

Honestly, I don’t really care. If you destroy their infrastructure back 100 years and they want to kill themselves, let them. If we had politicians who put America first and actually allowed us to become energy indepedent, it would never have mattered in the first place as no one would have ever given 2 licks about the ME. At least Paul would give us that.

[Gondring]

All the issues people agree with Paul on, are Constitutionally Congress' role, not the Executive. The Executive's primary role is CIC of the Armed Forces and foreign policy.

Actually, the president's role is to "preside," and this includes all matters, foreign and domestic. It is the Executive branch, to execute the laws. Funny, isn't it, that the Bush Administration has chosen not to enforce the laws it has sworn to uphold (e.g., border fence construction).

Foreign policy resides in the Congress, too...and declaration of war is in the hands of the Congress. Note how President Jefferson notified (in his First Annual Message to Congress, on December 8, 1801*) the Legislative Branch of hostile action against our ships by the Barbary Pirates--pointing out that ships had defended themselves, but couldn't take offensive action without Congressional approval. Recall that the Enterprise released the disarmed pirate vessel and crew.*

Here's the snippet:


From p. 327 of A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents by James Daniel Richardson, ed., 1897

Of course, the big-government socialist types like to claim that the Empero President has unilateral power to attack, but even the SCOTUS decisions allowing limited Congressional declarations don't mean the POTUS is the instrument of foreign policy.

* Of course, there's the infamous sarcastic reply published in the New York Evening Post, mocking republican ideals.

"Our foreign policy should be 'defending this country.'" --Dr. Ron Paul

[Eric Blair 2084]

NO ONE could tell, based only on the legislation passed during the Clinton administration as compared to that passed during the Bush administration, who was on the “left” and who was on the “right.”

Bill Clinton was to the right of Juan McCain on free trade. BJ was to the right of George Bush and a "Republican" Congress in limiting the growth of the federal Government. Sad to say. If anybody wants charts and graphs to prove the point, just ask.

What the Hell is the difference between a conservative Democrat and a liberal Republican? I guess the same difference between partly cloudy and mostly sunny.