Monday
Saturday
WHAT I THINK....HENRY LAMB
In modern times, third-party candidates have been little more than a curious distraction from the main event, often siphoning enough votes from one major party to ensure victory by the other. Al Gore, for example, is convinced that Ralph Nader's votes put George W. Bush in the White House.
Ron Paul was a third-party candidate in 1988. Running as a Libertarian, he finished last. In 2008, he is running as a Republican, and he is causing a curious distraction in the Republican congregation. Bill Kristol, Mr. "New Republican," to many, calls Ron Paul a "crackpot." But Paul's simple message is inspiring people on both sides of the political spectrum and recruiting thousands of young, previously disinterested voters.
The simplicity of Paul's message disarms his critics, who, like Kristol, rather than stand and debate, denigrate and discount the candidate. Though his message is simple and straight forward, his philosophy is way beyond the grasp of his critics.
Paul advocates abolishing the Internal Revenue Service. "Can't be done," say his critics. Paul advocates withdrawing from the United Nations. "Can't be done," say his critics. Paul advocates returning to commodity money. "Can't be done," say his critics. But a growing number of common people – the voters of America – are asking why it can't be done.
Ron Paul is not only a constitutional scholar; he has a grasp of free-market economics that few people can claim. When Paul calls for the abolition of the IRS, it is not simply to rid the people of the nuisance of unnecessary tax forms and the pain of escalating payments. He actually understands the economic forces at work, and how the removal of this bureaucratic and economic burden can fan the flames of prosperity for the entire nation.
Every American should set aside the time to listen to a speech by Ron Paul, in which he explains how his philosophy leads him to the policy proposals that cause heartburn in is critics. Rarely does a voter have an opportunity to see what's behind the sound-bite reports, or why the candidate takes a particular position. Bill Kristol, and others who give Ron Paul no respect, should listen to this speech, and learn more about freedom and the free market than is taught in any college.
Third-party campaigns have rarely been successful in American politics. They have, however, served to raise issues to national awareness. Ron Paul's Republican candidacy is given little or no chance by the pundits and pollsters. His supporters ignore the polls, and they continue to amaze the experts with record-setting "money bombs" and ferocious displays of enthusiasm on campus, in urban centers and in the hinterland.
Should Paul fail in his bid for the Republican nomination, his supporters will, no doubt, urge him to continue his effort as a third-party candidate. He has said that he has no intention of doing so, but he has not flatly ruled out the possibility.
Whether he wins or loses, as a Republican or as a third-party candidate, he has opened Pandora's box to the treasures of freedom to a generation from whom it was hidden by the public school system. The tremors being felt throughout the Republican Party could well be precursors of an upcoming upheaval in the Republican platform. The power of Ron Paul's message could erupt and spread the principles of freedom all over the Republican National Convention.
It is impossible to champion the principles of freedom, while at the same time, embracing the Law of the Sea Treaty – as far too many Republicans have done. Ron Paul rejects this, and other treaties that bring no benefit to the United States, while encumbering this nation with sovereignty-stealing, money-draining obligations to an international authority.
It is impossible to claim reverence for the U.S. Constitution, while at the same time embracing government policies that take private property from individual citizens – as far too many Democrats and Republicans have done. Ron Paul rejects the notion that government must control and direct the destiny of its citizens.
His philosophy describes a governmental system that exists to protect the "unalienable rights" of its citizens. He stands as a lonely defender against governmental mission-creep, inherent in all governments. He rejects the notion that government is omnipotent and, therefore, entitled to direct the lives of its subjects.
He makes no apology for standing on the same constitutional rock that launched the idea that "government is empowered by the consent of the governed." His message, and his appeal, is the determination to hammer this principle back into the machinery of government.
It is the appeal of his message that is spreading among the young and previously disinterested. Freedom is contagious. Even a glimpse of what could be – without the layers of government bureaucracy and international intrigue – is causing people to respond in ways that threaten the Republican establishment.
The message Ron Paul brings is neither a Republican, nor a Democratic message. It is a message of freedom for Americans. To many, it is a new message, and it is, indeed, most appealing.
Ron Paul was a third-party candidate in 1988. Running as a Libertarian, he finished last. In 2008, he is running as a Republican, and he is causing a curious distraction in the Republican congregation. Bill Kristol, Mr. "New Republican," to many, calls Ron Paul a "crackpot." But Paul's simple message is inspiring people on both sides of the political spectrum and recruiting thousands of young, previously disinterested voters.
The simplicity of Paul's message disarms his critics, who, like Kristol, rather than stand and debate, denigrate and discount the candidate. Though his message is simple and straight forward, his philosophy is way beyond the grasp of his critics.
Paul advocates abolishing the Internal Revenue Service. "Can't be done," say his critics. Paul advocates withdrawing from the United Nations. "Can't be done," say his critics. Paul advocates returning to commodity money. "Can't be done," say his critics. But a growing number of common people – the voters of America – are asking why it can't be done.
Ron Paul is not only a constitutional scholar; he has a grasp of free-market economics that few people can claim. When Paul calls for the abolition of the IRS, it is not simply to rid the people of the nuisance of unnecessary tax forms and the pain of escalating payments. He actually understands the economic forces at work, and how the removal of this bureaucratic and economic burden can fan the flames of prosperity for the entire nation.
Every American should set aside the time to listen to a speech by Ron Paul, in which he explains how his philosophy leads him to the policy proposals that cause heartburn in is critics. Rarely does a voter have an opportunity to see what's behind the sound-bite reports, or why the candidate takes a particular position. Bill Kristol, and others who give Ron Paul no respect, should listen to this speech, and learn more about freedom and the free market than is taught in any college.
Third-party campaigns have rarely been successful in American politics. They have, however, served to raise issues to national awareness. Ron Paul's Republican candidacy is given little or no chance by the pundits and pollsters. His supporters ignore the polls, and they continue to amaze the experts with record-setting "money bombs" and ferocious displays of enthusiasm on campus, in urban centers and in the hinterland.
Should Paul fail in his bid for the Republican nomination, his supporters will, no doubt, urge him to continue his effort as a third-party candidate. He has said that he has no intention of doing so, but he has not flatly ruled out the possibility.
Whether he wins or loses, as a Republican or as a third-party candidate, he has opened Pandora's box to the treasures of freedom to a generation from whom it was hidden by the public school system. The tremors being felt throughout the Republican Party could well be precursors of an upcoming upheaval in the Republican platform. The power of Ron Paul's message could erupt and spread the principles of freedom all over the Republican National Convention.
It is impossible to champion the principles of freedom, while at the same time, embracing the Law of the Sea Treaty – as far too many Republicans have done. Ron Paul rejects this, and other treaties that bring no benefit to the United States, while encumbering this nation with sovereignty-stealing, money-draining obligations to an international authority.
It is impossible to claim reverence for the U.S. Constitution, while at the same time embracing government policies that take private property from individual citizens – as far too many Democrats and Republicans have done. Ron Paul rejects the notion that government must control and direct the destiny of its citizens.
His philosophy describes a governmental system that exists to protect the "unalienable rights" of its citizens. He stands as a lonely defender against governmental mission-creep, inherent in all governments. He rejects the notion that government is omnipotent and, therefore, entitled to direct the lives of its subjects.
He makes no apology for standing on the same constitutional rock that launched the idea that "government is empowered by the consent of the governed." His message, and his appeal, is the determination to hammer this principle back into the machinery of government.
It is the appeal of his message that is spreading among the young and previously disinterested. Freedom is contagious. Even a glimpse of what could be – without the layers of government bureaucracy and international intrigue – is causing people to respond in ways that threaten the Republican establishment.
The message Ron Paul brings is neither a Republican, nor a Democratic message. It is a message of freedom for Americans. To many, it is a new message, and it is, indeed, most appealing.
Monday
RON PAUL MEETS THE PRESS
Dr. Paul, welcome to MEET THE PRESS.
REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): Thank you. Nice to be here.
MR. RUSSERT: Let's start right at the very top, the issues. This is what you have been saying on the campaign stump, "I'd like to get rid of the IRS. I want to get rid of the income tax." Abolish it.
REP. PAUL: That's a good idea. I like that idea.
MR. RUSSERT: What would happen to all those lost revenues? How would we fund our government?
REP. PAUL: We have to cut spending. You can't get rid of the income tax if you don't get rid of some spending. But, you know, if you got rid of the income tax today you'd have about as much revenue as, as we had 10 years ago, and the size of government wasn't all that bad 10 years ago. So there're sources of revenues other than the income tax. You know, you have, you have tariff, excise taxes, user fees, highway fees. So, so there's still a lot of money. But the real problem is spending. But, you know, we lived a long time in this country without an income tax. Up until 1913 we didn't have it.
MR. RUSSERT: But, but you eliminate the income tax, do you know how much lost revenue that would be?
REP. PAUL: A lot. But...
MR. RUSSERT: Over a trillion dollars.
REP. PAUL: That's good. I mean, we--but we could save hundreds of billions of dollars if we had a sensible foreign policy.
MR. RUSSERT: Well...
REP. PAUL: And if you go--if you're going to be the policeman of the world, you need that. You need the income tax to police the world and run the welfare state. I want a constitutional-size government.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you replace the income tax with anything else?
REP. PAUL: Not if I could help it. You know, there are some proposals where probably almost anything would be better than income tax. But there's a lot of shortcomings with the, with the sales tax. But it would probably be slightly better than the income tax--it would be an improvement. But the goal is to cut the spending, get back to a sensible-size government.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you had a flat tax, 30 percent consumption tax, that would be very, very punishing to the poor and middle class.
REP. PAUL: Well, I know. That's why I don't want it.
MR. RUSSERT: So you have nothing?
REP. PAUL: I want to cut spending. I want to get a--use the Constitution as our guide, and you wouldn't need the income tax.
MR. RUSSERT: Let's talk about some of the ways you recommend. "I'd start bringing our troops home, not only from the Middle East but from Korea, Japan and Europe and save enough money to slash the deficit."
How much money would that save?
REP. PAUL: To operate our total foreign policy, when you add up everything, there's been a good study on this, it's nearly a trillion dollars a year. So I would think if you brought our troops home, you could save hundreds of billions of dollars. It's, you know, it's six months or one year or two year, but you can start saving immediately by changing the foreign policy and not be the policeman over the world. We should have the foreign policy that George Bush ran on. You know, no nation building, no policing of the world, a humble foreign policy. We don't need to be starting wars. That's my argument.
MR. RUSSERT: How many troops do we have overseas right now?
REP. PAUL: I don't know the exact number, but more than we need. We don't need any.
MR. RUSSERT: It's 572,000. And you'd bring them all home?
REP. PAUL: As quickly as possible. We--they will not serve our interests to be overseas. They get us into trouble. And we can defend this country without troops in Germany, troops in Japan. How do they help our national defense? Doesn't make any sense to me. Troops in Korea since I've been in high school?
MR. RUSSERT: What...
REP. PAUL: You know, it doesn't make any sense.
MR. RUSSERT: Under President Paul, if North Korea invaded South Korea, would we respond?
REP. PAUL: I don't--why should we unless the Congress declared war? I mean, why are we there? Could--South Korea, they're begging and pleading to unify their country, and we get in their way. They want to build bridges and go back and forth. Vietnam, we left under the worst of circumstances. The country is unified. They have become Westernized. We trade with them. Their president comes here. And Korea, we stayed there and look at the mess. I mean, the problem still exists, and it's drained trillion dollars over these last, you know, 50 years. So stop--we can't afford it anymore. We're going bankrupt. All empires end because the countries go bankrupt, and the, and the currency crashes. That's what happening. And we need to come out of this sensibly rather than waiting for a financial crisis.
MR. RUSSERT: So if Iran invaded Israel, what do we do?
REP. PAUL: Well, they're not going to. That is like saying "Iran is about to invade Mars." I mean, they have nothing. They don't have an army or navy or air force. And Israelis have 300 nuclear weapons. Nobody would touch them. But, no, if, if it were in our national security interests and Congress says, "You know, this is very, very important, we have to declare war." But presidents don't have the authority to go to war.
MR. RUSSERT: You...
REP. PAUL: You go to the Congress and find out if they want a war, do the people want the war. But it's totally unnecessary. I mean, that, that, to me, is an impossible situation...
MR. RUSSERT: If...
REP. PAUL: ...for the Iranians to invade Israel.
MR. RUSSERT: This is what you said about Israel. "Israel's dependent on us, you know, for economic means. We send them" "billions of dollars and they," then they "depend on us. They say, `Well, you know, we don't like Iran. You go fight our battles. You bomb Iran for us.' And they become dependent on us."
Who in Israel is saying "Go bomb Iran for us"?
REP. PAUL: Well, I don't know the individuals, but we know that their leaderships--you read it in the papers on a daily--a daily, you know, about Israel, the government of Israel encourages Americans to go into Iran, and the people--I don't think that's a--I don't think that's top secret that the government of Israel...
MR. RUSSERT: That the government of Israel wants us to bomb Iran?
REP. PAUL: I, I don't think there's a doubt about that, that they've encouraged us to do that. And of course the neoconservatives have been anxious to do that for a long time.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you cut off all foreign aid to Israel?
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. But remember, the Arabs would get cut off, too, and the Arabs get three times as much aid altogether than Israel. But why, why make Israel so dependent? Why do we--they give up their sovereignty. They can't defend their borders without coming to us. If they want a peace treaty, they have to ask us permission. They can't--we interfere when the Arab leagues make overtures to them. So I would say that we've made them second class citizens. I, I think they would take much better care of themselves. They would have their national sovereignty back, and I think they would be required then to have a stronger economy because they would have to pay their own bills.
MR. RUSSERT: You talked about September 11th in one of the Republican debates back in May, and this is what you said.
REP. PAUL: They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they, and they attack us because we're over there.
MR. RUSSERT: "Because we're over there." And then you added this on Tuesday: "But" al-Qaeda has "determination. The determination comes from being provoked."
How have we, the United States, provoked al-Qaeda?
REP. PAUL: Well, read what the lead--the ringleader says. Read what Osama bin Laden said. We had, we had a base, you know, in Saudi Arabia that was an affront to their religion, that was blasphemy as far as they were concerned. We were bombing Iraq for 10 years, we were--we've interfered in Iran since 1953. Our CIA's been involved in the overthrow of their governments. We're bought right now in the process of overthrowing that nation. We side more with Israel and Pakistan, and, and they get annoyed with this. How would we react if we were on their land--if they were on our land? We would be very annoyed, and we'd be fighting mad.
MR. RUSSERT: So under your doctrine, if we had--did not have troops in the Middle East, they would leave us alone.
REP. PAUL: Not, not immediately, because they'd have to believe us. But what would happen is the incentive for Osama bin Laden to recruit suicide terrorists would disappear. Once we left Lebanon in the early '80s, the French and the Americans and Israelis left Lebanon, suicide terrorism virtually stopped, just like that. But while we were there, that was suicide terrorism killed our Marines, because we were in Lebanon. So we have to understand that. We have to understand how we would react if some country did to us exactly what we do to them, and then we might have a better understanding of their motivation, why somebody would join the al-Qaeda. Since we've been over there al-Qaeda has more members now than they did before 9/11. They probably had a couple hundred before 9/11.
MR. RUSSERT: It sounds like you think that the problem is al-Qaeda--the problem is the United States, not al-Qaeda.
REP. PAUL: No, it's both. It's both--al-Qaeda becomes the violent. It's sort of like if you step in a snake pit and you get bit, you know, who caused the trouble? Because you stepped in the snake pit or because snakes bite you? So I think you have to understand both. But why, why produce the incentive for these violent, vicious thugs to want to come here and kill us.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you think there's an ideological struggle that Islamic fascists want to take over the world?
REP. PAUL: Oh, I think some, just like the West is wanting to do that all the time. Look at the way they look at us. I mean, we're in a, we're in a 130 countries. We have 700 bases. How do you think they proposed that to their people, saying "What does America want to do? Are they over here to be nice to us and teach us how to be good Democrats?"
MR. RUSSERT: So you see a moral equivalency between the West and Islamic fascism.
REP. PAUL: For some people, some radicals on each side that when we impose our will with force by a few number of people--not the American people--I'm talking the people who have hijacked our foreign policy, the people who took George Bush's foreign policy of a humble foreign policy and turned it into one of nation-building which he complained about.
MR. RUSSERT: The president himself?
REP. PAUL: The president himself has changed the policy. You know, I mean, he ran--I liked the program he ran on. That's what I defend. And--but all of a sudden--and it didn't change after 9/11, it changed the first meeting of the Cabinet according to Paul O'Neal. He says immediately it was on the table. When, when were we going to attack Iraq?
MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned September 11th, a former aide of yours, Eric Dondero said this. "When September 11th happened, he just completely changed," talking about you. "One of the first things he said was not how awful the tragedy was, it was, `Now we're going to get big government.'" Was that your reaction?
REP. PAUL: Well, I'm, I'm surprised somebody like that who's a disgruntled former employee who literally was put out. But, yes, thought...
MR. RUSSERT: He said he quit because he disagreed with you.
REP. PAUL: Yeah, no. The point is, Randolph Bourne says war is a helpless state. I believe that statement. When you have war, whether it's a war against drugs, war against terrorism, war, war overseas, war--the mentality of the people change and they're more willing to sacrifice their liberties in order to be safe and secure. So, yes, right after 9/11 my reaction was, you know, it's going to be a lot tougher selling liberty. But I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm still in the business of selling liberty and the Constitution and there's still a lot of enthusiasm for it. So all the American people don't agree that we have to have the nanny state and have the government taking care of us. So I have been encouraged. I might have been too pessimistic immediately after 9/11 because, in a way, it has caused this reaction and this uprising in this country to say, "Enough is enough. We don't need more Patriot Acts, we don't need more surveillance of our people. We don't need national ID cards. We don't need the suspension of habeas corpus. What we need is more freedom." So in one way I was pessimistic, but in another way, now, I'm more encouraged with the reception I'm getting with this message.
MR. RUSSERT: And you actually go further. You said this. "Abolish the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency and dismantle every other agency except the Justice and Defense Departments." And then you went on. "If elected president, Paul says he would abolish public schools, welfare, Social Security and farm subsidies."
REP. PAUL: OK, you may have picked that up 20 or 30 years ago, it's not part of my platform. As a matter of fact, I'm the only one that really has an interim program. Technically, a lot of those functions aren't constitutional. But the point is I'm not against the FBI investigation in doing a proper role, but I'm against the FBI spying on people like Martin Luther King. I'm against the CIA fighting secret wars and overthrowing government and interfering...
MR. RUSSERT: Would you abolish them?
REP. PAUL: I would, I would not abolish all their functions, but I--the, the, the...
MR. RUSSERT: What about public schools? Are you still...
REP. PAUL: OK, but let's go, let's go with the CIA. They're, they're involved in, in, in torture. I would abolish that, yes. But I wouldn't abolish their right and our, our requirement to accumulate intelligence for national defense purposes.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you...
REP. PAUL: That's quite different.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you eliminate the income tax, you take away half the revenues for the federal government. What you're left with is the Defense Department, Social Security, Medicare and pensions. Everything else is gone. So you have to start making choices if you're going to keep...
REP. PAUL: All right. We can. The big one is overseas expenditure. You have to develop a transition. You have to start paying down the deficit, balance the budget. But you have to say I believe the most reasonable place to save is in foreign policy, hundreds of billions of dollars. Because it gets us into trouble, it ruins our national--our defense is poor now. Then the Department of Education, who--we elect conservatives to get rid of the Department of Education. We used to campaign on that. And what did we do? We doubled the size. I want to reverse that trend.
MR. RUSSERT: What about public schools?
REP. PAUL: That's what I'm trying to...
MR. RUSSERT: Are you still for...
REP. PAUL: No, I'm not--I've never, I've never taken the position--is it in my platform? And...
MR. RUSSERT: It was--when you ran for president in 1988, you called for the abolition of public schools.
REP. PAUL: I, I bet that's a misquote. I, I do not recall that. I'd like to know where that came from, because I went...
MR. RUSSERT: And Social Security? You're OK with Social Security now?
REP. PAUL: I think we need to get--give--offer the kids the chance to get out. But right now, if I don't--if we don't save the money, we can't take care of the other. For instance, Social Security, I never voted to spend one penny of Social Security money. So I'm the one that has saved it. Now, if I save the money in this military operation overseas, I say take that money--and, and I say this constantly--don't turn anybody out on the streets. People we have conditioned--yes, technically we shouldn't have them, and it'd be nice to get rid of them, but I would say take care of the people that are dependent on us. Let them--and the only way you can do that is cut spending. If we don't, they're all going to be out in the street. Because right now Social Security beneficiaries are getting 2 percent raises, their cost of living is going up 10 percent. A dollar crisis is going to wipe them all out. That's my point.
MR. RUSSERT: When I looked at your record, you talked about big government and how opposed you are to it, but you seem to have a different attitude about your own congressional district. For example, "Congress decided to send billions of dollars to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Guess how Ron Paul voted. `Is bailing out people" that choose--"that chose to live on the coastline a proper function of the federal government?' he asks." And you said no. And yet, this: "Paul's current district, which includes Galveston and reaches into" the "Brazoria County, draws a substantial amount of federal flood insurance payments." For your own congressional district. This is the Houston Chronicle: "Representative Ron Paul has long crusaded against a big central government. But he also" "represented a congressional district that's consistently among the top in Texas in its reliance on dollars from Washington. In the first nine months of the federal government's" fiscal "2006 fiscal year," "it received more than $4 billion." And they report, The Wall Street Journal, 65 earmark-targeted projects, $400 million that you have put into congressional bills for your district, which leads us to the Congressional Quarterly. "The Earmark Dossier of `Dr. No.' There isn't much that" Ron--Dr. "Ron Paul thinks the federal government should do. Apparently, though, earmarks" for his district "are OK. Paul is the sponsor of no fewer than 10 earmarks in the water resources bill," all benefiting his district. The Gulf Intercoastal Waterway: $32 million. The sunken ship you want to be moved from Freeport Harbor. The Bayou Navigation Channel. They talk about $8 million for shrimp fishermen.
REP. PAUL: You, you know...
MR. RUSSERT: Why, why would you load up...
REP. PAUL: You got it completely wrong. I've never voted for an earmark in my life.
MR. RUSSERT: No, but you put them in the bill.
REP. PAUL: I put it in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back. But it doesn't cut any spending to vote against an earmark. And the Congress has the responsibility to spend the money. Why leave the money in the executive branch and let them spend the money?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, that's like, that's like saying you voted for it before you voted against it.
REP. PAUL: Nah! Come on, Tim. That has nothing to do with that.
MR. RUSSERT: If, if, if you put it in the bill and get the headlight back home...
REP. PAUL: No, I, I make the request. They're not in the bills.
MR. RUSSERT: ...and then you, then you know it's going to pass Congress and so you, you don't refuse the money.
REP. PAUL: Well, no, of course not. It's like taking a tax credit. If you have a tax credit, I'm against the taxes but I take all my tax credits. I want to get...
MR. RUSSERT: But if you were true...
REP. PAUL: ...the money back for the people.
MR. RUSSERT: If you were true to your philosophy, you would say no pork spending in my district.
REP. PAUL: No, no, that's not it. They steal our money, that's like saying that people shouldn't take Social Security money.
MR. RUSSERT: For...
REP. PAUL: I don't advocate that.
MR. RUSSERT: All right, let me ask you this...
REP. PAUL: I'm trying to save the system, make the system work.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you this...
REP. PAUL: But no, I think you have it all mixed up. Now, you're confused.
MR. RUSSERT: All right. It's all facts.
REP. PAUL: You're confused.
MR. RUSSERT: This is The Wall Street Journal. You load up the bills with special projects...
REP. PAUL: I--no, no, no. No, you don't.
MR. RUSSERT: You do. You do. You deny that you have, you have...
REP. PAUL: How many of them ever got passed? But the whole point is, we have a right and an...
MR. RUSSERT: They pass. You vote against them, but you take the money.
REP. PAUL: You don't quite understand.
MR. RUSSERT: OK.
REP. PAUL: They take our money from us, and the Congress has the authority to appropriate, not the executive branch. And I'm saying that I represent my people. They have a request, it's like taking a tax credit, and I put it in--the whole process is corrupt so that I vote against everything.
MR. RUSSERT: All right, let me ask you this. But if...
REP. PAUL: I vote against it, so I don't endorse the system.
MR. RUSSERT: But when it passes overwhelmingly, you take the money back home.
REP. PAUL: I don't take it. That's the system.
MR. RUSSERT: The system.
REP. PAUL: I'm trying to change that system. To turn it around and say I'm supporting this system, I find it...
MR. RUSSERT: Well. Well...
REP. PAUL: ...rather ironic and entertaining.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, when you stop taking earmarks or putting earmarks in the, in the spending bills, then I think you'll be consistent.
Let me ask you about this...
REP. PAUL: Turn--you...
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask this. Term limits. You ran on term limits. "I think we should have term limits for our elected leaders." You've been in Congress 18 years.
REP. PAUL: But I never ran on voluntary term limits. There's a big difference. I didn't sign a pledge for a voluntary term limit. Matter of fact, some of the best people that I worked with, who were the most principled, came in on voluntary term limits. Some of them broke their promises, and some didn't, and they were very good people. So some of the good people left. And it's true, I, I didn't run on that, Tim, you're wrong on that. I support term limits. You know, I, I, and I voted all--we had 16 votes one time on term limits, and I voted yes for them.
MR. RUSSERT: Yeah.
REP. PAUL: But voluntary term limits is a lot different than compulsory term limits. It's good to have a turnover, but that isn't the solution either. It's the philosophy of government that counts. It's only...
MR. RUSSERT: But if you believe in the philosophy of term limits, why wouldn't you voluntarily...
REP. PAUL: Well, it's, it's one of those, it's one of those things that's not on--I mean, you don't see that out I'm campaigning on that. I mean, I don't think it's--I don't think it's the solution. Philosophy is the solution. What the role of government ought to be, so if you have a turnover and the same people come in and they believe in big government, nothing good is going to come of it.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about immigration because that's a big issue here, and there has been a profound change. Back when you ran for president, 1988, libertarian, you said, "As in our country's first 150 years, there shouldn't be any immigration policy at all. We should welcome everyone who wants to come here and work." You've changed your view.
REP. PAUL: And, and during that campaign, I remember I got into trouble with Libertarians because I said there may well be a time when immigration is like an invasion and we have to treat it differently. And I think, in one sense, with the welfare state out of control--see, my approach to immigration is somewhat different than the others. Mine is you deal with it economically. We're in worse shape now because we subsidize immigration. We give food stamps, Social Security, free medical care, free education and amnesty. So you subsidize it, and you have a mess. Our hospitals are being closed. Conditions have changed. And I think that we should have--and, and 9/11 has occurred. Why shouldn't we be looking at people coming in? So there's--this, this means that we should look at immigration differently. It's an economic issue more than anything. If our economy was in good health, I--believe me, I don't think there'd be an immigration problem. We'd be looking for workers and we would be very generous.
MR. RUSSERT: You say you're a strict constructionist of the Constitution, and yet you want to amend the Constitution to say that children born here should not automatically be U.S. citizens.
REP. PAUL: Well, amending the Constitution is constitutional. What's a--what's the contradiction there?
MR. RUSSERT: So in the Constitution as written, you want to amend?
REP. PAUL: Well, that's constitutional, to do it. Besides, it was the 14th Amendment. It wasn't in the original Constitution. And there's a, there's a confusion on interpretation. In the early years, it was never interpreted that way, and it's still confusing because people--individuals are supposed to have birthright citizenship if they're under the jurisdiction of the government. And somebody who illegally comes in this country as a drug dealer, is he under the jurisdiction and their children deserve citizenship? I think it's awfully, awfully confusing, and, and I, I--matter of fact, I have a bill to change that as well as a Constitutional amendment to clarify it.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about drugs and go back again to your '90--'88 campaign and see where you stand today. "All drugs should be decriminalized. Drugs should be distributed by any adult to other adults. There should be no controls on production, supply or purchase for adults." Is that still your position?
REP. PAUL: Yeah. It's sort of like alcohol. Alcohol's a deadly drug, kills more people than anything else. And today the absurdity on this war on drugs, Tim, has just been horrible. We now, the federal government, takes over and rules--overrules state laws where state laws permit medicinal marijuana for people dying of cancer. The federal government goes in and arrests these people, put them in prison with mandatory, sometimes life sentences. This war on drugs is totally out of control. If you want to regulate cigarettes and alcohol and drugs, it should be at the state level. That's been my position, and that's where I stand on it. But the federal government has no, no prerogatives on this. They--when they wanted to outlaw alcohol, they had enough respect for the Constitution to amend the Constitution. Today we have all these laws and abuse, and they don't even care about the Constitution. I'm defending the Constitution on this issue. I think drugs are horrible. I teach my kids not to use them, my grandchildren, in my medical practice. Prescription drugs are a greater danger than, than hard drugs.
MR. RUSSERT: But you would decriminalize it?
REP. PAUL: I, I, I would, at the federal level. I don't have control over the states. And that's what the Constitution's there.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about race, because I, I read a speech you gave in 2004, the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. And you said this: "Contrary to the claims of" "supporters of the Civil Rights Act of" '64, "the act did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of" '64 "increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty." That act gave equal rights to African-Americans to vote, to live, to go to lunch counters, and you seem to be criticizing it.
REP. PAUL: Well, we should do, we should do this at a federal level, at a federal lunch counter it'd be OK or for the military. Just think of how the government, you know, caused all the segregation in the military until after World War II. But when it comes, Tim, you're, you're, you're not compelled in your house to invade strangers that you don't like. So it's a property rights issue. And this idea that all private property is under the domain of the federal government I think is wrong. So this--I think even Barry Goldwater opposed that bill on the same property rights position, and that--and now this thing is totally out of control. If you happen to like to smoke a cigar, you know, the federal government's going to come down and say you're not allowed to do this.
MR. RUSSERT: But you would vote against...
REP. PAUL: So it's...
MR. RUSSERT: You would vote against the Civil Rights Act if, if it was today?
REP. PAUL: If it were written the same way, where the federal government's taken over property--has nothing to do with race relations. It just happens, Tim, that I get more support from black people today than any other Republican candidate, according to some statistics. And I have a great appeal to people who care about personal liberties and to those individuals who would like to get us out of wars. So it has nothing to do with racism, it has to do with the Constitution and private property rights.
MR. RUSSERT: I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln. "According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery."
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war. No, he shouldn't have gone, gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic. I mean, it was the--that iron, iron fist..
MR. RUSSERT: We'd still have slavery.
REP. PAUL: Oh, come on, Tim. Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world. And the way I'm advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did. You, you buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years? I mean, the hatred and all that existed. So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war. I mean, that doesn't sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.
MR. RUSSERT: You're running as a Republican. In your--on your Web site, in your brochures, you make this claim: "Principled Leadership. Ron was also one of only four Republican Congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan for president against Gerald Ford in" '76. There's a photograph of you, Ronald Reagan on the right, heralding your support of Ronald Reagan. And yet you divorced yourself from Ronald Reagan. You said this: "Although he was once an ardent supporter of President Reagan, Paul now speaks of him as a traitor leading the country into debt and conflicts around the world. "I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration." And you go on to The Dallas Morning News: "Paul now calls Reagan a `dramatic failure.'"
REP. PAUL: Well, I'll bet you any money I didn't use the word traitor. I'll bet you that's somebody else, so I think that's misleading. But a failure, yes, in, in many ways. The government didn't shrink. Ultimately, after he got in office, he said, "All I want to do is reduce the rate of increase in size of government." That's not my goal. My goal is to reduce our government to a constitutional size. Completely different. I think that--matter of fact, he admitted in his memoirs that he had a total failure in Lebanon, and he said he relearned the Middle East because of that failure. And so there--he--you know, he...
MR. RUSSERT: But if he's a total failure, why are you using, using his picture in your brochure?
REP. PAUL: Well, because he, he ran on a good program, and his, his idea was a limited government. Get rid of the Department of Education, a strong national defense.
MR. RUSSERT: George Herbert Walker Bush, this is according to Ron Paul: "`Bush is a bum,' Paul wrote in" "November" 15th, "1992 issue of his newsletter, the `Ron Paul Political Report.'" And asked about the current President Bush, whether he voted for him in 2004: "Paul says no: `He misled us in 2000.'" Asked if he voted for Bush in 2000. No, "`I didn't vote for him then, either. I wasn't convinced he was a conservative.'" And actually, in 1987, you submitted a letter of resignation to the Republican Party: "I therefore resign my membership in the Republican Party and enclose my membership card." If Reagan's a failure, Bush 41 is a bum, and you didn't vote for Bush 41--41's a bum and 43 you didn't vote for, and you resigned from the Republican Party, why you running as a Republican candidate for president?
REP. PAUL: Because I represent what Republicanism used to be. I represent the group that wanted to get rid of the Department of Education, the part, that part of the Republican Party that used to be non-interventionists overseas. That was the tradition, the Robert/Taft wing of the party. There was a time when the Republicans defended individual liberty and the Constitution and decreased spending. So the radicals, the ones who really don't belong in the Republican Party and why the Republican Party is shrinking, why the base is so small, is because they don't stand for these ideals any more. So I stand for the ideals of the Republican Party. I've been elected 10 times as Republican. I've been a Republican all my life except for that one year that I ran as a Libertarian. But, no, I represent the Republican ideals, I think, much more so that the individuals running for the party right now.
MR. RUSSERT: If, if you do not win the Republican nomination for president, will you run as an independent in 2008?
REP. PAUL: I have no intention to do that.
MR. RUSSERT: Absolute promise.
REP. PAUL: I have no intention of doing that.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, but no intention's a wiggle word.
REP. PAUL: Well, OK, I deserve one wiggle now and then, Tim. I mean, what the devil...
MR. RUSSERT: So no--so no Shermanesque statement.
REP. PAUL: You know, I...
MR. RUSSERT: "I will not sun as an independent."
REP. PAUL: Well, I can be pretty darned sure that I have no intention, no plans of doing it, and that's about 99.9 percent. I don't like people who are such absolutists, "I will never do this, or I will win, I'm going to come in first." I don't like those absolutists terms in politics.
MR. RUSSERT: But the door's open a little bit.
REP. PAUL: Not very much. It really isn't. I, I don't--Tim, we just raised $10 million in two days. We haven't even had a race, we have February 5th coming up. We have a campaign to run. Why--do you ask all the other--how many other candidates have you asked, "Are you going to run as a third party candidate if you don't win?" Have you asked John McCain that?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, if someone has a history of running as a third party candidate, sure. You ran in '88 as a Libertarian.
REP. PAUL: Yeah, well, I know...
MR. RUSSERT: It's a logical question.
REP. PAUL: ...but there are independents. So I--ask them, too.
MR. RUSSERT: I will.
Before you go, Mike Huckabee, Republican candidate for president, ran this commercial for Christmas and many thought that the shelf in the back looked like a cross. You were asked about it on CNN and this is what you said.
REP. PAUL: It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once says. He said when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.
MR. RUSSERT: What does that mean?
REP. PAUL: What? Fascism or the definition of fascism?
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Mike Huckabee is...
REP. PAUL: Oh, I didn't say that. I said it reminded me--as a matter of fact they caught me completely cold on that. I had not seen the ad, and they just said there was a cross there. And, you know, it was an instantaneous reflex because I knew of Sinclair Lewis about being cautious, because, you know, I--what prompts this is things like the Patriot Act. You know...
MR. RUSSERT: Let me go back...
REP. PAUL: No, no. If you're not a patriot...
MR. RUSSERT: But let me go back to this ad. You do not believe that Mike Huckabee, that ad commercial represents the potential of fascism in the form of a cross.
REP. PAUL: No. But I think this country, a movement in the last 100 years, is moving toward fascism. Fascism today, the softer term, because people have different definition of fascism, is corporatism when the military industrial complex runs the show, when the--in the name of security pay--pass the Patriot Act. You don't vote for it, you know, you're not patriotic America. If you don't support the troops and you don't support--if you don't support the war you don't support the troops. It's that kind of antagonism. But we have more corporatism and more abuse of our civil liberties, more loss of our privacy, national ID cards, all this stuff coming has a fascist tone to it. And the country's moving in that direction. That's what I'm thinking about. This was not personalized. I never even used my opponents names if you, if you notice.
MR. RUSSERT: So you think we're close to fascism?
REP. PAUL: I think we're approaching it very close. One--there's one, there's one documentary that's been put out recently that has generated a lot of interest called "Freedom to Fascism." And we're moving in that direction. Were not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we're moving toward a softer fascism. Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military industrial complex, you have the medical industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars. That's where the control is. I call that a soft form of fascism, something that is very dangerous.
MR. RUSSERT: For the record, the Sinclair Lewis Society said that Mr. Lewis never uttered that quote.
REP. PAUL: But others refuted that and put them down and said that--and they found the exact quote where it came from.
MR. RUSSERT: To be continued. Dr. Ron Paul, be safe on the campaign trail. Thanks for sharing your views.
REP. PAUL: Thank you. Nice to be here.
REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): Thank you. Nice to be here.
MR. RUSSERT: Let's start right at the very top, the issues. This is what you have been saying on the campaign stump, "I'd like to get rid of the IRS. I want to get rid of the income tax." Abolish it.
REP. PAUL: That's a good idea. I like that idea.
MR. RUSSERT: What would happen to all those lost revenues? How would we fund our government?
REP. PAUL: We have to cut spending. You can't get rid of the income tax if you don't get rid of some spending. But, you know, if you got rid of the income tax today you'd have about as much revenue as, as we had 10 years ago, and the size of government wasn't all that bad 10 years ago. So there're sources of revenues other than the income tax. You know, you have, you have tariff, excise taxes, user fees, highway fees. So, so there's still a lot of money. But the real problem is spending. But, you know, we lived a long time in this country without an income tax. Up until 1913 we didn't have it.
MR. RUSSERT: But, but you eliminate the income tax, do you know how much lost revenue that would be?
REP. PAUL: A lot. But...
MR. RUSSERT: Over a trillion dollars.
REP. PAUL: That's good. I mean, we--but we could save hundreds of billions of dollars if we had a sensible foreign policy.
MR. RUSSERT: Well...
REP. PAUL: And if you go--if you're going to be the policeman of the world, you need that. You need the income tax to police the world and run the welfare state. I want a constitutional-size government.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you replace the income tax with anything else?
REP. PAUL: Not if I could help it. You know, there are some proposals where probably almost anything would be better than income tax. But there's a lot of shortcomings with the, with the sales tax. But it would probably be slightly better than the income tax--it would be an improvement. But the goal is to cut the spending, get back to a sensible-size government.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you had a flat tax, 30 percent consumption tax, that would be very, very punishing to the poor and middle class.
REP. PAUL: Well, I know. That's why I don't want it.
MR. RUSSERT: So you have nothing?
REP. PAUL: I want to cut spending. I want to get a--use the Constitution as our guide, and you wouldn't need the income tax.
MR. RUSSERT: Let's talk about some of the ways you recommend. "I'd start bringing our troops home, not only from the Middle East but from Korea, Japan and Europe and save enough money to slash the deficit."
How much money would that save?
REP. PAUL: To operate our total foreign policy, when you add up everything, there's been a good study on this, it's nearly a trillion dollars a year. So I would think if you brought our troops home, you could save hundreds of billions of dollars. It's, you know, it's six months or one year or two year, but you can start saving immediately by changing the foreign policy and not be the policeman over the world. We should have the foreign policy that George Bush ran on. You know, no nation building, no policing of the world, a humble foreign policy. We don't need to be starting wars. That's my argument.
MR. RUSSERT: How many troops do we have overseas right now?
REP. PAUL: I don't know the exact number, but more than we need. We don't need any.
MR. RUSSERT: It's 572,000. And you'd bring them all home?
REP. PAUL: As quickly as possible. We--they will not serve our interests to be overseas. They get us into trouble. And we can defend this country without troops in Germany, troops in Japan. How do they help our national defense? Doesn't make any sense to me. Troops in Korea since I've been in high school?
MR. RUSSERT: What...
REP. PAUL: You know, it doesn't make any sense.
MR. RUSSERT: Under President Paul, if North Korea invaded South Korea, would we respond?
REP. PAUL: I don't--why should we unless the Congress declared war? I mean, why are we there? Could--South Korea, they're begging and pleading to unify their country, and we get in their way. They want to build bridges and go back and forth. Vietnam, we left under the worst of circumstances. The country is unified. They have become Westernized. We trade with them. Their president comes here. And Korea, we stayed there and look at the mess. I mean, the problem still exists, and it's drained trillion dollars over these last, you know, 50 years. So stop--we can't afford it anymore. We're going bankrupt. All empires end because the countries go bankrupt, and the, and the currency crashes. That's what happening. And we need to come out of this sensibly rather than waiting for a financial crisis.
MR. RUSSERT: So if Iran invaded Israel, what do we do?
REP. PAUL: Well, they're not going to. That is like saying "Iran is about to invade Mars." I mean, they have nothing. They don't have an army or navy or air force. And Israelis have 300 nuclear weapons. Nobody would touch them. But, no, if, if it were in our national security interests and Congress says, "You know, this is very, very important, we have to declare war." But presidents don't have the authority to go to war.
MR. RUSSERT: You...
REP. PAUL: You go to the Congress and find out if they want a war, do the people want the war. But it's totally unnecessary. I mean, that, that, to me, is an impossible situation...
MR. RUSSERT: If...
REP. PAUL: ...for the Iranians to invade Israel.
MR. RUSSERT: This is what you said about Israel. "Israel's dependent on us, you know, for economic means. We send them" "billions of dollars and they," then they "depend on us. They say, `Well, you know, we don't like Iran. You go fight our battles. You bomb Iran for us.' And they become dependent on us."
Who in Israel is saying "Go bomb Iran for us"?
REP. PAUL: Well, I don't know the individuals, but we know that their leaderships--you read it in the papers on a daily--a daily, you know, about Israel, the government of Israel encourages Americans to go into Iran, and the people--I don't think that's a--I don't think that's top secret that the government of Israel...
MR. RUSSERT: That the government of Israel wants us to bomb Iran?
REP. PAUL: I, I don't think there's a doubt about that, that they've encouraged us to do that. And of course the neoconservatives have been anxious to do that for a long time.
MR. RUSSERT: Would you cut off all foreign aid to Israel?
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. But remember, the Arabs would get cut off, too, and the Arabs get three times as much aid altogether than Israel. But why, why make Israel so dependent? Why do we--they give up their sovereignty. They can't defend their borders without coming to us. If they want a peace treaty, they have to ask us permission. They can't--we interfere when the Arab leagues make overtures to them. So I would say that we've made them second class citizens. I, I think they would take much better care of themselves. They would have their national sovereignty back, and I think they would be required then to have a stronger economy because they would have to pay their own bills.
MR. RUSSERT: You talked about September 11th in one of the Republican debates back in May, and this is what you said.
REP. PAUL: They don't come here to attack us because we're rich and we're free. They come and they, and they attack us because we're over there.
MR. RUSSERT: "Because we're over there." And then you added this on Tuesday: "But" al-Qaeda has "determination. The determination comes from being provoked."
How have we, the United States, provoked al-Qaeda?
REP. PAUL: Well, read what the lead--the ringleader says. Read what Osama bin Laden said. We had, we had a base, you know, in Saudi Arabia that was an affront to their religion, that was blasphemy as far as they were concerned. We were bombing Iraq for 10 years, we were--we've interfered in Iran since 1953. Our CIA's been involved in the overthrow of their governments. We're bought right now in the process of overthrowing that nation. We side more with Israel and Pakistan, and, and they get annoyed with this. How would we react if we were on their land--if they were on our land? We would be very annoyed, and we'd be fighting mad.
MR. RUSSERT: So under your doctrine, if we had--did not have troops in the Middle East, they would leave us alone.
REP. PAUL: Not, not immediately, because they'd have to believe us. But what would happen is the incentive for Osama bin Laden to recruit suicide terrorists would disappear. Once we left Lebanon in the early '80s, the French and the Americans and Israelis left Lebanon, suicide terrorism virtually stopped, just like that. But while we were there, that was suicide terrorism killed our Marines, because we were in Lebanon. So we have to understand that. We have to understand how we would react if some country did to us exactly what we do to them, and then we might have a better understanding of their motivation, why somebody would join the al-Qaeda. Since we've been over there al-Qaeda has more members now than they did before 9/11. They probably had a couple hundred before 9/11.
MR. RUSSERT: It sounds like you think that the problem is al-Qaeda--the problem is the United States, not al-Qaeda.
REP. PAUL: No, it's both. It's both--al-Qaeda becomes the violent. It's sort of like if you step in a snake pit and you get bit, you know, who caused the trouble? Because you stepped in the snake pit or because snakes bite you? So I think you have to understand both. But why, why produce the incentive for these violent, vicious thugs to want to come here and kill us.
MR. RUSSERT: Do you think there's an ideological struggle that Islamic fascists want to take over the world?
REP. PAUL: Oh, I think some, just like the West is wanting to do that all the time. Look at the way they look at us. I mean, we're in a, we're in a 130 countries. We have 700 bases. How do you think they proposed that to their people, saying "What does America want to do? Are they over here to be nice to us and teach us how to be good Democrats?"
MR. RUSSERT: So you see a moral equivalency between the West and Islamic fascism.
REP. PAUL: For some people, some radicals on each side that when we impose our will with force by a few number of people--not the American people--I'm talking the people who have hijacked our foreign policy, the people who took George Bush's foreign policy of a humble foreign policy and turned it into one of nation-building which he complained about.
MR. RUSSERT: The president himself?
REP. PAUL: The president himself has changed the policy. You know, I mean, he ran--I liked the program he ran on. That's what I defend. And--but all of a sudden--and it didn't change after 9/11, it changed the first meeting of the Cabinet according to Paul O'Neal. He says immediately it was on the table. When, when were we going to attack Iraq?
MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned September 11th, a former aide of yours, Eric Dondero said this. "When September 11th happened, he just completely changed," talking about you. "One of the first things he said was not how awful the tragedy was, it was, `Now we're going to get big government.'" Was that your reaction?
REP. PAUL: Well, I'm, I'm surprised somebody like that who's a disgruntled former employee who literally was put out. But, yes, thought...
MR. RUSSERT: He said he quit because he disagreed with you.
REP. PAUL: Yeah, no. The point is, Randolph Bourne says war is a helpless state. I believe that statement. When you have war, whether it's a war against drugs, war against terrorism, war, war overseas, war--the mentality of the people change and they're more willing to sacrifice their liberties in order to be safe and secure. So, yes, right after 9/11 my reaction was, you know, it's going to be a lot tougher selling liberty. But I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm still in the business of selling liberty and the Constitution and there's still a lot of enthusiasm for it. So all the American people don't agree that we have to have the nanny state and have the government taking care of us. So I have been encouraged. I might have been too pessimistic immediately after 9/11 because, in a way, it has caused this reaction and this uprising in this country to say, "Enough is enough. We don't need more Patriot Acts, we don't need more surveillance of our people. We don't need national ID cards. We don't need the suspension of habeas corpus. What we need is more freedom." So in one way I was pessimistic, but in another way, now, I'm more encouraged with the reception I'm getting with this message.
MR. RUSSERT: And you actually go further. You said this. "Abolish the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency and dismantle every other agency except the Justice and Defense Departments." And then you went on. "If elected president, Paul says he would abolish public schools, welfare, Social Security and farm subsidies."
REP. PAUL: OK, you may have picked that up 20 or 30 years ago, it's not part of my platform. As a matter of fact, I'm the only one that really has an interim program. Technically, a lot of those functions aren't constitutional. But the point is I'm not against the FBI investigation in doing a proper role, but I'm against the FBI spying on people like Martin Luther King. I'm against the CIA fighting secret wars and overthrowing government and interfering...
MR. RUSSERT: Would you abolish them?
REP. PAUL: I would, I would not abolish all their functions, but I--the, the, the...
MR. RUSSERT: What about public schools? Are you still...
REP. PAUL: OK, but let's go, let's go with the CIA. They're, they're involved in, in, in torture. I would abolish that, yes. But I wouldn't abolish their right and our, our requirement to accumulate intelligence for national defense purposes.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you...
REP. PAUL: That's quite different.
MR. RUSSERT: But if you eliminate the income tax, you take away half the revenues for the federal government. What you're left with is the Defense Department, Social Security, Medicare and pensions. Everything else is gone. So you have to start making choices if you're going to keep...
REP. PAUL: All right. We can. The big one is overseas expenditure. You have to develop a transition. You have to start paying down the deficit, balance the budget. But you have to say I believe the most reasonable place to save is in foreign policy, hundreds of billions of dollars. Because it gets us into trouble, it ruins our national--our defense is poor now. Then the Department of Education, who--we elect conservatives to get rid of the Department of Education. We used to campaign on that. And what did we do? We doubled the size. I want to reverse that trend.
MR. RUSSERT: What about public schools?
REP. PAUL: That's what I'm trying to...
MR. RUSSERT: Are you still for...
REP. PAUL: No, I'm not--I've never, I've never taken the position--is it in my platform? And...
MR. RUSSERT: It was--when you ran for president in 1988, you called for the abolition of public schools.
REP. PAUL: I, I bet that's a misquote. I, I do not recall that. I'd like to know where that came from, because I went...
MR. RUSSERT: And Social Security? You're OK with Social Security now?
REP. PAUL: I think we need to get--give--offer the kids the chance to get out. But right now, if I don't--if we don't save the money, we can't take care of the other. For instance, Social Security, I never voted to spend one penny of Social Security money. So I'm the one that has saved it. Now, if I save the money in this military operation overseas, I say take that money--and, and I say this constantly--don't turn anybody out on the streets. People we have conditioned--yes, technically we shouldn't have them, and it'd be nice to get rid of them, but I would say take care of the people that are dependent on us. Let them--and the only way you can do that is cut spending. If we don't, they're all going to be out in the street. Because right now Social Security beneficiaries are getting 2 percent raises, their cost of living is going up 10 percent. A dollar crisis is going to wipe them all out. That's my point.
MR. RUSSERT: When I looked at your record, you talked about big government and how opposed you are to it, but you seem to have a different attitude about your own congressional district. For example, "Congress decided to send billions of dollars to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Guess how Ron Paul voted. `Is bailing out people" that choose--"that chose to live on the coastline a proper function of the federal government?' he asks." And you said no. And yet, this: "Paul's current district, which includes Galveston and reaches into" the "Brazoria County, draws a substantial amount of federal flood insurance payments." For your own congressional district. This is the Houston Chronicle: "Representative Ron Paul has long crusaded against a big central government. But he also" "represented a congressional district that's consistently among the top in Texas in its reliance on dollars from Washington. In the first nine months of the federal government's" fiscal "2006 fiscal year," "it received more than $4 billion." And they report, The Wall Street Journal, 65 earmark-targeted projects, $400 million that you have put into congressional bills for your district, which leads us to the Congressional Quarterly. "The Earmark Dossier of `Dr. No.' There isn't much that" Ron--Dr. "Ron Paul thinks the federal government should do. Apparently, though, earmarks" for his district "are OK. Paul is the sponsor of no fewer than 10 earmarks in the water resources bill," all benefiting his district. The Gulf Intercoastal Waterway: $32 million. The sunken ship you want to be moved from Freeport Harbor. The Bayou Navigation Channel. They talk about $8 million for shrimp fishermen.
REP. PAUL: You, you know...
MR. RUSSERT: Why, why would you load up...
REP. PAUL: You got it completely wrong. I've never voted for an earmark in my life.
MR. RUSSERT: No, but you put them in the bill.
REP. PAUL: I put it in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back. But it doesn't cut any spending to vote against an earmark. And the Congress has the responsibility to spend the money. Why leave the money in the executive branch and let them spend the money?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, that's like, that's like saying you voted for it before you voted against it.
REP. PAUL: Nah! Come on, Tim. That has nothing to do with that.
MR. RUSSERT: If, if, if you put it in the bill and get the headlight back home...
REP. PAUL: No, I, I make the request. They're not in the bills.
MR. RUSSERT: ...and then you, then you know it's going to pass Congress and so you, you don't refuse the money.
REP. PAUL: Well, no, of course not. It's like taking a tax credit. If you have a tax credit, I'm against the taxes but I take all my tax credits. I want to get...
MR. RUSSERT: But if you were true...
REP. PAUL: ...the money back for the people.
MR. RUSSERT: If you were true to your philosophy, you would say no pork spending in my district.
REP. PAUL: No, no, that's not it. They steal our money, that's like saying that people shouldn't take Social Security money.
MR. RUSSERT: For...
REP. PAUL: I don't advocate that.
MR. RUSSERT: All right, let me ask you this...
REP. PAUL: I'm trying to save the system, make the system work.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you this...
REP. PAUL: But no, I think you have it all mixed up. Now, you're confused.
MR. RUSSERT: All right. It's all facts.
REP. PAUL: You're confused.
MR. RUSSERT: This is The Wall Street Journal. You load up the bills with special projects...
REP. PAUL: I--no, no, no. No, you don't.
MR. RUSSERT: You do. You do. You deny that you have, you have...
REP. PAUL: How many of them ever got passed? But the whole point is, we have a right and an...
MR. RUSSERT: They pass. You vote against them, but you take the money.
REP. PAUL: You don't quite understand.
MR. RUSSERT: OK.
REP. PAUL: They take our money from us, and the Congress has the authority to appropriate, not the executive branch. And I'm saying that I represent my people. They have a request, it's like taking a tax credit, and I put it in--the whole process is corrupt so that I vote against everything.
MR. RUSSERT: All right, let me ask you this. But if...
REP. PAUL: I vote against it, so I don't endorse the system.
MR. RUSSERT: But when it passes overwhelmingly, you take the money back home.
REP. PAUL: I don't take it. That's the system.
MR. RUSSERT: The system.
REP. PAUL: I'm trying to change that system. To turn it around and say I'm supporting this system, I find it...
MR. RUSSERT: Well. Well...
REP. PAUL: ...rather ironic and entertaining.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, when you stop taking earmarks or putting earmarks in the, in the spending bills, then I think you'll be consistent.
Let me ask you about this...
REP. PAUL: Turn--you...
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask this. Term limits. You ran on term limits. "I think we should have term limits for our elected leaders." You've been in Congress 18 years.
REP. PAUL: But I never ran on voluntary term limits. There's a big difference. I didn't sign a pledge for a voluntary term limit. Matter of fact, some of the best people that I worked with, who were the most principled, came in on voluntary term limits. Some of them broke their promises, and some didn't, and they were very good people. So some of the good people left. And it's true, I, I didn't run on that, Tim, you're wrong on that. I support term limits. You know, I, I, and I voted all--we had 16 votes one time on term limits, and I voted yes for them.
MR. RUSSERT: Yeah.
REP. PAUL: But voluntary term limits is a lot different than compulsory term limits. It's good to have a turnover, but that isn't the solution either. It's the philosophy of government that counts. It's only...
MR. RUSSERT: But if you believe in the philosophy of term limits, why wouldn't you voluntarily...
REP. PAUL: Well, it's, it's one of those, it's one of those things that's not on--I mean, you don't see that out I'm campaigning on that. I mean, I don't think it's--I don't think it's the solution. Philosophy is the solution. What the role of government ought to be, so if you have a turnover and the same people come in and they believe in big government, nothing good is going to come of it.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about immigration because that's a big issue here, and there has been a profound change. Back when you ran for president, 1988, libertarian, you said, "As in our country's first 150 years, there shouldn't be any immigration policy at all. We should welcome everyone who wants to come here and work." You've changed your view.
REP. PAUL: And, and during that campaign, I remember I got into trouble with Libertarians because I said there may well be a time when immigration is like an invasion and we have to treat it differently. And I think, in one sense, with the welfare state out of control--see, my approach to immigration is somewhat different than the others. Mine is you deal with it economically. We're in worse shape now because we subsidize immigration. We give food stamps, Social Security, free medical care, free education and amnesty. So you subsidize it, and you have a mess. Our hospitals are being closed. Conditions have changed. And I think that we should have--and, and 9/11 has occurred. Why shouldn't we be looking at people coming in? So there's--this, this means that we should look at immigration differently. It's an economic issue more than anything. If our economy was in good health, I--believe me, I don't think there'd be an immigration problem. We'd be looking for workers and we would be very generous.
MR. RUSSERT: You say you're a strict constructionist of the Constitution, and yet you want to amend the Constitution to say that children born here should not automatically be U.S. citizens.
REP. PAUL: Well, amending the Constitution is constitutional. What's a--what's the contradiction there?
MR. RUSSERT: So in the Constitution as written, you want to amend?
REP. PAUL: Well, that's constitutional, to do it. Besides, it was the 14th Amendment. It wasn't in the original Constitution. And there's a, there's a confusion on interpretation. In the early years, it was never interpreted that way, and it's still confusing because people--individuals are supposed to have birthright citizenship if they're under the jurisdiction of the government. And somebody who illegally comes in this country as a drug dealer, is he under the jurisdiction and their children deserve citizenship? I think it's awfully, awfully confusing, and, and I, I--matter of fact, I have a bill to change that as well as a Constitutional amendment to clarify it.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about drugs and go back again to your '90--'88 campaign and see where you stand today. "All drugs should be decriminalized. Drugs should be distributed by any adult to other adults. There should be no controls on production, supply or purchase for adults." Is that still your position?
REP. PAUL: Yeah. It's sort of like alcohol. Alcohol's a deadly drug, kills more people than anything else. And today the absurdity on this war on drugs, Tim, has just been horrible. We now, the federal government, takes over and rules--overrules state laws where state laws permit medicinal marijuana for people dying of cancer. The federal government goes in and arrests these people, put them in prison with mandatory, sometimes life sentences. This war on drugs is totally out of control. If you want to regulate cigarettes and alcohol and drugs, it should be at the state level. That's been my position, and that's where I stand on it. But the federal government has no, no prerogatives on this. They--when they wanted to outlaw alcohol, they had enough respect for the Constitution to amend the Constitution. Today we have all these laws and abuse, and they don't even care about the Constitution. I'm defending the Constitution on this issue. I think drugs are horrible. I teach my kids not to use them, my grandchildren, in my medical practice. Prescription drugs are a greater danger than, than hard drugs.
MR. RUSSERT: But you would decriminalize it?
REP. PAUL: I, I, I would, at the federal level. I don't have control over the states. And that's what the Constitution's there.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me ask you about race, because I, I read a speech you gave in 2004, the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. And you said this: "Contrary to the claims of" "supporters of the Civil Rights Act of" '64, "the act did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of" '64 "increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty." That act gave equal rights to African-Americans to vote, to live, to go to lunch counters, and you seem to be criticizing it.
REP. PAUL: Well, we should do, we should do this at a federal level, at a federal lunch counter it'd be OK or for the military. Just think of how the government, you know, caused all the segregation in the military until after World War II. But when it comes, Tim, you're, you're, you're not compelled in your house to invade strangers that you don't like. So it's a property rights issue. And this idea that all private property is under the domain of the federal government I think is wrong. So this--I think even Barry Goldwater opposed that bill on the same property rights position, and that--and now this thing is totally out of control. If you happen to like to smoke a cigar, you know, the federal government's going to come down and say you're not allowed to do this.
MR. RUSSERT: But you would vote against...
REP. PAUL: So it's...
MR. RUSSERT: You would vote against the Civil Rights Act if, if it was today?
REP. PAUL: If it were written the same way, where the federal government's taken over property--has nothing to do with race relations. It just happens, Tim, that I get more support from black people today than any other Republican candidate, according to some statistics. And I have a great appeal to people who care about personal liberties and to those individuals who would like to get us out of wars. So it has nothing to do with racism, it has to do with the Constitution and private property rights.
MR. RUSSERT: I was intrigued by your comments about Abe Lincoln. "According to Paul, Abe Lincoln should never have gone to war; there were better ways of getting rid of slavery."
REP. PAUL: Absolutely. Six hundred thousand Americans died in a senseless civil war. No, he shouldn't have gone, gone to war. He did this just to enhance and get rid of the original intent of the republic. I mean, it was the--that iron, iron fist..
MR. RUSSERT: We'd still have slavery.
REP. PAUL: Oh, come on, Tim. Slavery was phased out in every other country of the world. And the way I'm advising that it should have been done is do like the British empire did. You, you buy the slaves and release them. How much would that cost compared to killing 600,000 Americans and where it lingered for 100 years? I mean, the hatred and all that existed. So every other major country in the world got rid of slavery without a civil war. I mean, that doesn't sound too radical to me. That sounds like a pretty reasonable approach.
MR. RUSSERT: You're running as a Republican. In your--on your Web site, in your brochures, you make this claim: "Principled Leadership. Ron was also one of only four Republican Congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan for president against Gerald Ford in" '76. There's a photograph of you, Ronald Reagan on the right, heralding your support of Ronald Reagan. And yet you divorced yourself from Ronald Reagan. You said this: "Although he was once an ardent supporter of President Reagan, Paul now speaks of him as a traitor leading the country into debt and conflicts around the world. "I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration." And you go on to The Dallas Morning News: "Paul now calls Reagan a `dramatic failure.'"
REP. PAUL: Well, I'll bet you any money I didn't use the word traitor. I'll bet you that's somebody else, so I think that's misleading. But a failure, yes, in, in many ways. The government didn't shrink. Ultimately, after he got in office, he said, "All I want to do is reduce the rate of increase in size of government." That's not my goal. My goal is to reduce our government to a constitutional size. Completely different. I think that--matter of fact, he admitted in his memoirs that he had a total failure in Lebanon, and he said he relearned the Middle East because of that failure. And so there--he--you know, he...
MR. RUSSERT: But if he's a total failure, why are you using, using his picture in your brochure?
REP. PAUL: Well, because he, he ran on a good program, and his, his idea was a limited government. Get rid of the Department of Education, a strong national defense.
MR. RUSSERT: George Herbert Walker Bush, this is according to Ron Paul: "`Bush is a bum,' Paul wrote in" "November" 15th, "1992 issue of his newsletter, the `Ron Paul Political Report.'" And asked about the current President Bush, whether he voted for him in 2004: "Paul says no: `He misled us in 2000.'" Asked if he voted for Bush in 2000. No, "`I didn't vote for him then, either. I wasn't convinced he was a conservative.'" And actually, in 1987, you submitted a letter of resignation to the Republican Party: "I therefore resign my membership in the Republican Party and enclose my membership card." If Reagan's a failure, Bush 41 is a bum, and you didn't vote for Bush 41--41's a bum and 43 you didn't vote for, and you resigned from the Republican Party, why you running as a Republican candidate for president?
REP. PAUL: Because I represent what Republicanism used to be. I represent the group that wanted to get rid of the Department of Education, the part, that part of the Republican Party that used to be non-interventionists overseas. That was the tradition, the Robert/Taft wing of the party. There was a time when the Republicans defended individual liberty and the Constitution and decreased spending. So the radicals, the ones who really don't belong in the Republican Party and why the Republican Party is shrinking, why the base is so small, is because they don't stand for these ideals any more. So I stand for the ideals of the Republican Party. I've been elected 10 times as Republican. I've been a Republican all my life except for that one year that I ran as a Libertarian. But, no, I represent the Republican ideals, I think, much more so that the individuals running for the party right now.
MR. RUSSERT: If, if you do not win the Republican nomination for president, will you run as an independent in 2008?
REP. PAUL: I have no intention to do that.
MR. RUSSERT: Absolute promise.
REP. PAUL: I have no intention of doing that.
MR. RUSSERT: Well, but no intention's a wiggle word.
REP. PAUL: Well, OK, I deserve one wiggle now and then, Tim. I mean, what the devil...
MR. RUSSERT: So no--so no Shermanesque statement.
REP. PAUL: You know, I...
MR. RUSSERT: "I will not sun as an independent."
REP. PAUL: Well, I can be pretty darned sure that I have no intention, no plans of doing it, and that's about 99.9 percent. I don't like people who are such absolutists, "I will never do this, or I will win, I'm going to come in first." I don't like those absolutists terms in politics.
MR. RUSSERT: But the door's open a little bit.
REP. PAUL: Not very much. It really isn't. I, I don't--Tim, we just raised $10 million in two days. We haven't even had a race, we have February 5th coming up. We have a campaign to run. Why--do you ask all the other--how many other candidates have you asked, "Are you going to run as a third party candidate if you don't win?" Have you asked John McCain that?
MR. RUSSERT: Well, if someone has a history of running as a third party candidate, sure. You ran in '88 as a Libertarian.
REP. PAUL: Yeah, well, I know...
MR. RUSSERT: It's a logical question.
REP. PAUL: ...but there are independents. So I--ask them, too.
MR. RUSSERT: I will.
Before you go, Mike Huckabee, Republican candidate for president, ran this commercial for Christmas and many thought that the shelf in the back looked like a cross. You were asked about it on CNN and this is what you said.
REP. PAUL: It reminds me of what Sinclair Lewis once says. He said when fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.
MR. RUSSERT: What does that mean?
REP. PAUL: What? Fascism or the definition of fascism?
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Mike Huckabee is...
REP. PAUL: Oh, I didn't say that. I said it reminded me--as a matter of fact they caught me completely cold on that. I had not seen the ad, and they just said there was a cross there. And, you know, it was an instantaneous reflex because I knew of Sinclair Lewis about being cautious, because, you know, I--what prompts this is things like the Patriot Act. You know...
MR. RUSSERT: Let me go back...
REP. PAUL: No, no. If you're not a patriot...
MR. RUSSERT: But let me go back to this ad. You do not believe that Mike Huckabee, that ad commercial represents the potential of fascism in the form of a cross.
REP. PAUL: No. But I think this country, a movement in the last 100 years, is moving toward fascism. Fascism today, the softer term, because people have different definition of fascism, is corporatism when the military industrial complex runs the show, when the--in the name of security pay--pass the Patriot Act. You don't vote for it, you know, you're not patriotic America. If you don't support the troops and you don't support--if you don't support the war you don't support the troops. It's that kind of antagonism. But we have more corporatism and more abuse of our civil liberties, more loss of our privacy, national ID cards, all this stuff coming has a fascist tone to it. And the country's moving in that direction. That's what I'm thinking about. This was not personalized. I never even used my opponents names if you, if you notice.
MR. RUSSERT: So you think we're close to fascism?
REP. PAUL: I think we're approaching it very close. One--there's one, there's one documentary that's been put out recently that has generated a lot of interest called "Freedom to Fascism." And we're moving in that direction. Were not moving toward Hitler-type fascism, but we're moving toward a softer fascism. Loss of civil liberties, corporations running the show, big government in bed with big business. So you have the military industrial complex, you have the medical industrial complex, you have the financial industry, you have the communications industry. They go to Washington and spend hundreds of millions of dollars. That's where the control is. I call that a soft form of fascism, something that is very dangerous.
MR. RUSSERT: For the record, the Sinclair Lewis Society said that Mr. Lewis never uttered that quote.
REP. PAUL: But others refuted that and put them down and said that--and they found the exact quote where it came from.
MR. RUSSERT: To be continued. Dr. Ron Paul, be safe on the campaign trail. Thanks for sharing your views.
REP. PAUL: Thank you. Nice to be here.
Thursday
WHAT I THINK....DEVVY KIDD
"Nature gave man two ends - one to sit on and one to think with. Ever since then, man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most." George R. Kirkpatrick (1867-1937) Lecturer
Not another Ron Paul column. Yes, because certain things need to get said and done because the clock is ticking.
For those who are undecided about a candidate, I invite you to visit my election special; updates on the individual files soon. For those of you who do support Congressman Paul, we must stay focused and recognize certain realities.
Enemy number one: Ron Paul is a target of the compromised "mainstream media" and that includes cable network propaganda machines like FAUX (FOX) News, MSNBC and CNN. This is a fact. They are powerful, they are rotten to the core. They cannot cast your vote. However, they can and do influence the herd who rely on someone else (Oprah Winfrey, Chuck Norris, et al) to tell them how they should vote. The attacks on Ron Paul will become more fallacious as we move along in the process. These buzzards who call themselves news anchors, commentators and fair and balanced have shown themselves to be just the opposite when it comes to one man's run for the White House. The standouts include: Carl Cameron, FOX news correspondent, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, shallow Sean Hannity and the smarmiest of all, Frank Luntz - major creep factor.
It has been reported that Willard Romney's business consortium is buying Clear Channel Communications. What better way to continue feeding the masses your propaganda than to buy a massive amount of radio stations? Flip Romney is a shrewd businessman, but he's bad for America.
On December 18, 2007, Glen Beck had Dr. Paul on his show for the full hour. I have a great deal of contempt for Glen Beck because of the way he has treated anyone asking reasonable questions about 911 - and that includes widows, mothers and loved ones of those killed. His vituperative remarks have been insulting to the families and to millions of Americans who seek only the truth. He has also attacked Ron Paul supporters in a most unprofessional way for quite some time. However, last night he actually did show some professional traits in that he treated Ron Paul with respect. Actually, I think once the interview began with this statesman, he was intimidated to a certain degree and decided to behave himself. The full transcript of that show is here. You can also view it on video here.
Ron Paul is not a good target for honest journalists, but he is for lying, conniving hacks who have sold their soul for a paycheck to the hand full of media conglomerates that control the entire flow of information in this country - excluding the big cannon, the Internet. Congressman Paul has been married to the same woman for almost 50 years, there are no doxies in the back ground waiting to come forward, no drug use, no scandals and no flip flopping on the issues. A steady rock. A moral man. In truth, we can do little about this problem with the lame stream media except continue to expose the hypocrisy of these corporate junkies. Honest journalists like Cliff Kincaid and others are carrying the truth in their columns about the corrupt media and I believe that down the road, this concentrated effort to shun Congressman Paul is going to back fire in their faces, i.e., ratings and advertising dollars.
Enemy number two: Ron Paul supporters. What? Yes, and let me give you one example that came up last night on Glen Beck's show. Glen Beck: "My life has been threatened. I`ve had to wear a vest and have securities. I`ve had an S.W.A.T. team watch my family because of people who say they support you." Does anyone think this is a good way to support a candidate, not to mention stupid? I knew, as well as others that Glen Beck would bring up 911. He asked Ron Paul direct questions about some of the allegations out there about 911 and Congressman Paul responded he knew nothing about these allegations and conspiracy theories. This also got wound into Ron Paul supporters.
911 doesn't belong in the presidential race. Let me say that again: 911 doesn't belong in the presidential race. I have already received email this morning from some rabid 911 people who say Ron Paul sold out the movement and they will not vote for him. Fine. My mother always says: Stupid is as stupid does. Let's inject some reality here:
I am one of Glen Beck's "nut cases" in that I have reasonable questions about 911 and have written extensively on the issue. One only has to go to www.scroogle.org, type in my name plus 911 and dozens of columns pop up. Dr. Paul didn't sell out anyone Tuesday night. His responses indicate what I believe are his honest opinion. You have to remember what this man does: He serves in the House of Representatives full time. His staff in DC opens, reads and sorts his mail; the same process is a daily occurence in his district offices. He writes columns on a regular basis and since January 2007, when he announced his candidacy, one can imagine his schedule to be nothing short of a nightmare for most of us. Is in inconveieveable to anyone that he has not spent a thousand hours like many of us combing through the massive amount of information, disinformation and available documentation? Because that's what it takes: a massive amount of time, energy and an open mind to delve into 911.
Do I believe he's heard some of the looney stuff out there? Possibly and if he has, he's tuned it out because it's garbage. There were no planes that hit the World Trade Center towers, it was all a fake with special effects. No plane hit the ground in Shanksville, PA., it was a missile, it was an illusion and on and on and on. I've read them all and have found them to be absurd. I know the frustration level continues to grow over 911 and the refusal by any official in state, federal or county government to convene a grand jury or hold congressional hearings is building like a head of steam. We must continue reaching out to our fellow Americans with concise, factual and professional presentations that will raise questions and not shrill, hysterical side shows that turn people off. Congressman Paul has stated his opinions on this issue. If that doesn't sit well with some, it is his opinion at this time. Perhaps it will change later on down the line, but to beat him up and call him a sell out is disingenuous because what these whiners are saying: he isn't entitled to his own opinion if it doesn't match theirs.
We also have to remember what a presidential race is all about: Approximately 100 MILLION Americans going to the polls and voting. While millions of Americans don't believe the government's version of events that day or have serious doubts and questions, the overwhelming majority are concerned with a candidate on issues like health care, the economy, the immoral, unconstitutional invasions of Iraq and Afganistan, energy, the environment and abortion. Do you think Ron Paul would stand a snow ball's change in Hades if he made 911 a subject of discussion during his campaign? It would kill his chances quicker than a lightening bolt. Ron Paul supporters need to step back and evaluate their actions because first impressions are everything and everything you do and say reflects on this decent man and all he's sacrificing in this race for the White House. Ron Paul's message is resonating with the American people, don't become one of his negatives.
Enemy number three: Electronic voting machines. If you have an agenda and you want it to go forward, you make sure the lawmakers and policy makers, both county, state and federal, are put in office and stay in office. THAT is the purpose of electronic voting machines. I began pounding on this issue in 1993 and again, you need only do a scroogle.org search with my name plus vote fraud and dozens of columns will appear. The good news is that because, slowly but surely over time, Americans have finally caught on to these insidious devices which have been stealing our elections for decades. More and more progress is being made to get rid of them once and for all and it's primarily being done by the states themselves because of massive heat from we the people.
Those all important primaries, which I detest, are coming up: 15 days to Iowa, 20 days to New Hampshire and "Super Tuesday," Feb. 5, 2008; as many as 22 states could be in; see map here. Electronic voting machines in all forms will be used in most of these states. This is bad for honest and fair elections. It is very bad for Ron Paul. I know a big effort is being made to have precinct watchers in place, but here's the raw truth about those machines: They have internal modems which can be programmed from anywhere. So called "paper trails" mean nothing because of the ability to rig the vote and spit out a different number. I covered this extensively in my booklet, Blind Loyalty, devoted to vote fraud, giving example after example after example; this booklet is on my CD.
What has to be done? The same thing I've been telling candidates for 15 years: you have to audit precincts with hand counts. I proved in my Blind Loyalty booklet how hand count disputes resulted in a defeat turned into a win. Old veterans like me remember what happened to Buchanan during the primaries and even if you would never vote for him, I hope you will agree that election fraud is not what this country is about. I know Ron Paul's campaign is worried about this and well they should be. This web site has a tremendous amount of information on vote fraud. There's no doubt in my mind based on my research that counterfeit U.S. Senator Harry Reid was elected by electronic vote fraud as was U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who I am also convicned is an illegal alien.
Those of us who support Ron Paul have given his campaign more than enough funds to conduct these audits and I will be sadly disappointed if it doesn't happen. How do you do this? The bigger the precinct, the easier it is to pull off vote fraud with machines as I discussed in my Blind Loyalty booklet. The day after the primary, Dr. Paul's campaign needs to immediately file for a hand count in a half dozen precincts in the big cities and a small number of precincts in areas where he was showing strong support but allegedly lost.
Let me give you an example: In Modesto, California, several elections ago, a local measure, M, was supposed to pass. It was popular and it didn't. A hand recount was done, televised on our local news. What it showed after the first 500 cards were fed into the machine was sysematic flopping of the vote count. The process was stopped, all the cards were hand counted and the measure actually passed. It doesn't matter what "paper trail" is coming out of the machine because they are programmed internally. Only the programmers know the code and you and I, according to the courts, have no right to this proprietary information even though we pay for every phase of elections in this country.
Ron Paul's campaign needs to get set up over the next couple of weeks with the paper work that has to be filed in Iowa and New Hampshire. I know NH used to be 100% hand counted ballots, but research I just did shows the voters there will be robbed like all the other states. A candidate has to catch the fraud immediately and file an injunction to stop certification of the vote, otherwise, it stands. Let me repeat that: You have to catch the fraud when its fresh or the vote will stand.
I sincerely hope Ron Paul doesn't do the same thing Bob Dornan did when he allegedly lost his race to Loretta Sanchez. Dornan made a few whimpers, did a little scratching on the surface and then walked away. I say no more. Your supporters aren't just giving so generously from their wallets, but also their time and hope.
No more, gee the media calls the outcome of the vote five minutes after the polls close and you walk away and onto to the next state. Choose those precincts at random, get the hand count done and then let's see the true results. Of course, we're still stuck with tainted voting rolls as I have written about before and this means massive numbers of illegals voting.
Earlier this week one of the cable anchors spent endless minutes on Rudy Julie Annie, Flip Romney and Brother Huckabee honking that once the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries were over, it was pretty much over for the nomination. Such blatant propaganda is toxic, but the norm. Congressman Paul is in this for the long haul, but vote fraud will hinder his run because of the message it sends: no one votes for him. Every trick in the book will be used to keep Dr. Paul's vote count low to dry up his support and funding. Before you knee jerk, read the book, Vote Scam: The Stealing of America, by the Collier Brothers, they caught the League of Women Voters commiting vote fraud on film. I read Vote Scam back in 1993 and it made me sick to my soul which is why I have never let up on this issue. You can read the book on line for free. The chapter dealing with the aforementioned fraud is here.
We have to stay focused right through the moronic "Super Tuesday" and then on to the convention delegates. A reminder: If you do want to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries, you need to check your state regarding elibility to vote by party; this map shows the dates of the primaries. See Ron Paul's web site for dates to change your party affilation voter registration.
Not another Ron Paul column. Yes, because certain things need to get said and done because the clock is ticking.
For those who are undecided about a candidate, I invite you to visit my election special; updates on the individual files soon. For those of you who do support Congressman Paul, we must stay focused and recognize certain realities.
Enemy number one: Ron Paul is a target of the compromised "mainstream media" and that includes cable network propaganda machines like FAUX (FOX) News, MSNBC and CNN. This is a fact. They are powerful, they are rotten to the core. They cannot cast your vote. However, they can and do influence the herd who rely on someone else (Oprah Winfrey, Chuck Norris, et al) to tell them how they should vote. The attacks on Ron Paul will become more fallacious as we move along in the process. These buzzards who call themselves news anchors, commentators and fair and balanced have shown themselves to be just the opposite when it comes to one man's run for the White House. The standouts include: Carl Cameron, FOX news correspondent, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, shallow Sean Hannity and the smarmiest of all, Frank Luntz - major creep factor.
It has been reported that Willard Romney's business consortium is buying Clear Channel Communications. What better way to continue feeding the masses your propaganda than to buy a massive amount of radio stations? Flip Romney is a shrewd businessman, but he's bad for America.
On December 18, 2007, Glen Beck had Dr. Paul on his show for the full hour. I have a great deal of contempt for Glen Beck because of the way he has treated anyone asking reasonable questions about 911 - and that includes widows, mothers and loved ones of those killed. His vituperative remarks have been insulting to the families and to millions of Americans who seek only the truth. He has also attacked Ron Paul supporters in a most unprofessional way for quite some time. However, last night he actually did show some professional traits in that he treated Ron Paul with respect. Actually, I think once the interview began with this statesman, he was intimidated to a certain degree and decided to behave himself. The full transcript of that show is here. You can also view it on video here.
Ron Paul is not a good target for honest journalists, but he is for lying, conniving hacks who have sold their soul for a paycheck to the hand full of media conglomerates that control the entire flow of information in this country - excluding the big cannon, the Internet. Congressman Paul has been married to the same woman for almost 50 years, there are no doxies in the back ground waiting to come forward, no drug use, no scandals and no flip flopping on the issues. A steady rock. A moral man. In truth, we can do little about this problem with the lame stream media except continue to expose the hypocrisy of these corporate junkies. Honest journalists like Cliff Kincaid and others are carrying the truth in their columns about the corrupt media and I believe that down the road, this concentrated effort to shun Congressman Paul is going to back fire in their faces, i.e., ratings and advertising dollars.
Enemy number two: Ron Paul supporters. What? Yes, and let me give you one example that came up last night on Glen Beck's show. Glen Beck: "My life has been threatened. I`ve had to wear a vest and have securities. I`ve had an S.W.A.T. team watch my family because of people who say they support you." Does anyone think this is a good way to support a candidate, not to mention stupid? I knew, as well as others that Glen Beck would bring up 911. He asked Ron Paul direct questions about some of the allegations out there about 911 and Congressman Paul responded he knew nothing about these allegations and conspiracy theories. This also got wound into Ron Paul supporters.
911 doesn't belong in the presidential race. Let me say that again: 911 doesn't belong in the presidential race. I have already received email this morning from some rabid 911 people who say Ron Paul sold out the movement and they will not vote for him. Fine. My mother always says: Stupid is as stupid does. Let's inject some reality here:
I am one of Glen Beck's "nut cases" in that I have reasonable questions about 911 and have written extensively on the issue. One only has to go to www.scroogle.org, type in my name plus 911 and dozens of columns pop up. Dr. Paul didn't sell out anyone Tuesday night. His responses indicate what I believe are his honest opinion. You have to remember what this man does: He serves in the House of Representatives full time. His staff in DC opens, reads and sorts his mail; the same process is a daily occurence in his district offices. He writes columns on a regular basis and since January 2007, when he announced his candidacy, one can imagine his schedule to be nothing short of a nightmare for most of us. Is in inconveieveable to anyone that he has not spent a thousand hours like many of us combing through the massive amount of information, disinformation and available documentation? Because that's what it takes: a massive amount of time, energy and an open mind to delve into 911.
Do I believe he's heard some of the looney stuff out there? Possibly and if he has, he's tuned it out because it's garbage. There were no planes that hit the World Trade Center towers, it was all a fake with special effects. No plane hit the ground in Shanksville, PA., it was a missile, it was an illusion and on and on and on. I've read them all and have found them to be absurd. I know the frustration level continues to grow over 911 and the refusal by any official in state, federal or county government to convene a grand jury or hold congressional hearings is building like a head of steam. We must continue reaching out to our fellow Americans with concise, factual and professional presentations that will raise questions and not shrill, hysterical side shows that turn people off. Congressman Paul has stated his opinions on this issue. If that doesn't sit well with some, it is his opinion at this time. Perhaps it will change later on down the line, but to beat him up and call him a sell out is disingenuous because what these whiners are saying: he isn't entitled to his own opinion if it doesn't match theirs.
We also have to remember what a presidential race is all about: Approximately 100 MILLION Americans going to the polls and voting. While millions of Americans don't believe the government's version of events that day or have serious doubts and questions, the overwhelming majority are concerned with a candidate on issues like health care, the economy, the immoral, unconstitutional invasions of Iraq and Afganistan, energy, the environment and abortion. Do you think Ron Paul would stand a snow ball's change in Hades if he made 911 a subject of discussion during his campaign? It would kill his chances quicker than a lightening bolt. Ron Paul supporters need to step back and evaluate their actions because first impressions are everything and everything you do and say reflects on this decent man and all he's sacrificing in this race for the White House. Ron Paul's message is resonating with the American people, don't become one of his negatives.
Enemy number three: Electronic voting machines. If you have an agenda and you want it to go forward, you make sure the lawmakers and policy makers, both county, state and federal, are put in office and stay in office. THAT is the purpose of electronic voting machines. I began pounding on this issue in 1993 and again, you need only do a scroogle.org search with my name plus vote fraud and dozens of columns will appear. The good news is that because, slowly but surely over time, Americans have finally caught on to these insidious devices which have been stealing our elections for decades. More and more progress is being made to get rid of them once and for all and it's primarily being done by the states themselves because of massive heat from we the people.
Those all important primaries, which I detest, are coming up: 15 days to Iowa, 20 days to New Hampshire and "Super Tuesday," Feb. 5, 2008; as many as 22 states could be in; see map here. Electronic voting machines in all forms will be used in most of these states. This is bad for honest and fair elections. It is very bad for Ron Paul. I know a big effort is being made to have precinct watchers in place, but here's the raw truth about those machines: They have internal modems which can be programmed from anywhere. So called "paper trails" mean nothing because of the ability to rig the vote and spit out a different number. I covered this extensively in my booklet, Blind Loyalty, devoted to vote fraud, giving example after example after example; this booklet is on my CD.
What has to be done? The same thing I've been telling candidates for 15 years: you have to audit precincts with hand counts. I proved in my Blind Loyalty booklet how hand count disputes resulted in a defeat turned into a win. Old veterans like me remember what happened to Buchanan during the primaries and even if you would never vote for him, I hope you will agree that election fraud is not what this country is about. I know Ron Paul's campaign is worried about this and well they should be. This web site has a tremendous amount of information on vote fraud. There's no doubt in my mind based on my research that counterfeit U.S. Senator Harry Reid was elected by electronic vote fraud as was U.S. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who I am also convicned is an illegal alien.
Those of us who support Ron Paul have given his campaign more than enough funds to conduct these audits and I will be sadly disappointed if it doesn't happen. How do you do this? The bigger the precinct, the easier it is to pull off vote fraud with machines as I discussed in my Blind Loyalty booklet. The day after the primary, Dr. Paul's campaign needs to immediately file for a hand count in a half dozen precincts in the big cities and a small number of precincts in areas where he was showing strong support but allegedly lost.
Let me give you an example: In Modesto, California, several elections ago, a local measure, M, was supposed to pass. It was popular and it didn't. A hand recount was done, televised on our local news. What it showed after the first 500 cards were fed into the machine was sysematic flopping of the vote count. The process was stopped, all the cards were hand counted and the measure actually passed. It doesn't matter what "paper trail" is coming out of the machine because they are programmed internally. Only the programmers know the code and you and I, according to the courts, have no right to this proprietary information even though we pay for every phase of elections in this country.
Ron Paul's campaign needs to get set up over the next couple of weeks with the paper work that has to be filed in Iowa and New Hampshire. I know NH used to be 100% hand counted ballots, but research I just did shows the voters there will be robbed like all the other states. A candidate has to catch the fraud immediately and file an injunction to stop certification of the vote, otherwise, it stands. Let me repeat that: You have to catch the fraud when its fresh or the vote will stand.
I sincerely hope Ron Paul doesn't do the same thing Bob Dornan did when he allegedly lost his race to Loretta Sanchez. Dornan made a few whimpers, did a little scratching on the surface and then walked away. I say no more. Your supporters aren't just giving so generously from their wallets, but also their time and hope.
No more, gee the media calls the outcome of the vote five minutes after the polls close and you walk away and onto to the next state. Choose those precincts at random, get the hand count done and then let's see the true results. Of course, we're still stuck with tainted voting rolls as I have written about before and this means massive numbers of illegals voting.
Earlier this week one of the cable anchors spent endless minutes on Rudy Julie Annie, Flip Romney and Brother Huckabee honking that once the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries were over, it was pretty much over for the nomination. Such blatant propaganda is toxic, but the norm. Congressman Paul is in this for the long haul, but vote fraud will hinder his run because of the message it sends: no one votes for him. Every trick in the book will be used to keep Dr. Paul's vote count low to dry up his support and funding. Before you knee jerk, read the book, Vote Scam: The Stealing of America, by the Collier Brothers, they caught the League of Women Voters commiting vote fraud on film. I read Vote Scam back in 1993 and it made me sick to my soul which is why I have never let up on this issue. You can read the book on line for free. The chapter dealing with the aforementioned fraud is here.
We have to stay focused right through the moronic "Super Tuesday" and then on to the convention delegates. A reminder: If you do want to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries, you need to check your state regarding elibility to vote by party; this map shows the dates of the primaries. See Ron Paul's web site for dates to change your party affilation voter registration.
AND ANOTHER THOUGHT...JASON RINK
The Republican Party should be ecstatic right now. One of their candidates in the 2008 Election just raised more money in a single day than any candidate in political history. The previous title holder? John Kerry, when the Democrats announced him as the nominee in 2004. He raised $5.7 million. Surely, we will be hearing about this for weeks to come.
After all, the Democrats have been out-raising the Republicans all year. Hillary Clinton raised more than twice the amount Giuliani raised last quarter. They lost Congressional seats in 2006. Their support base has been shrinking. Everyone knows that the GOP will have difficulty winning this election. It's "Hail Mary" time.
Certainly, they are shouting news of this great fund-raising feat from the rooftops. Right? Right?!?
It seems the only thing the Republican Party wants to shout about is the endorsements candidates Huckabee and McCain have received from Chuck Norris and Joe Lieberman, respectively. I searched the news papers and news channels, and that's all I can find. Plenty about how Huckabee is so hip because Walker, Texas Ranger is voting for him. I hear he's got a fist underneath his beard. Is this month-old endorsement still news? What about Joe Lieberman and John McCain? Wow! He'll really be able to bring Congress together to get things done. McCain must be the unity candidate of the 2008 Election.
I did see a thirty-second bit on how Ron Paul has broken his own fund-raising record set on November 5th. Ho-hum. No mention of breaking Kerry's record. Ron Paul is one contender in a crowded field of candidates scrambling for donations, and he raised more in one day than Kerry did when anointed the "chosen one" in 2004. Talk about ammunition against the Democrats. The GOP should be getting so much mileage out of this.
If they are genuinely interested in expanding their support base, why aren't they getting behind Ron Paul? Congressman Paul isn't getting endorsements from Democratic politicians, he is getting actual Democratic voters to change their party affiliation to vote Republican in the primaries. Why aren't they talking about how Ron Paul is stealing from the Democrats' base? Why not talk about how Paul may out-raise Hillary this quarter? Why not laud this "internet sensation" with praise for getting young people involved and interested in politics again?
The silence speaks volumes.
It would be baffling if it weren't so predictable. If there is anyone out there still buying the Democrats vs. Republicans paradigm, this should settle the issue. Ron Paul is not one of them, and they don't want what he brings to the party. Never mind that he could actually beat a Democrat. He is the only true conservative running in this race, and his integrity is causing the cracks in the election process to show. He is an "outsider," not a Washington "insider." He knows how the game is played, but won't play by their rules. The establishment heads and big-wigs in both parties want to keep him out of the ring. They won't give him a fair fight.
Ron Paul is like Brad Pitt's character Mickey O'Neill, the Gypsy bare-knuckle boxer, in the movie "Snatch." He's does not know how to throw a fight. He can knock out his opponents in one punch, and he isn't afraid to let them know it. He cannot be bought, and he won't go down in the fourth round.
If you are waiting for the Old Media to give Ron his due sometime this week, don't hold your breath. He has a few appearances scheduled this week, but nothing like the barrage of coverage we saw last month. The November 5th Money Bomb was a novelty to the Old Media, and the establishment wasn't afraid of Paul, yet; however, Tea Party '07 has proven it to be more than a fluke. It is a repeatable event that can occur every month if necessary. He gained more than 25,000 new donors on December 16th. There were 20,000 new donors on November 5th. Do I see a pattern forming?
Come January, I secretly hope they decide to overlook him when the fourth quarter fund-raising totals are announced. With Paul coming in first, they could simply pretend he doesn't exist, and report on who came in second, third and fourth place.
It would defy logic, expose their bias, and our numbers would continue to grow stronger.
After all, the Democrats have been out-raising the Republicans all year. Hillary Clinton raised more than twice the amount Giuliani raised last quarter. They lost Congressional seats in 2006. Their support base has been shrinking. Everyone knows that the GOP will have difficulty winning this election. It's "Hail Mary" time.
Certainly, they are shouting news of this great fund-raising feat from the rooftops. Right? Right?!?
It seems the only thing the Republican Party wants to shout about is the endorsements candidates Huckabee and McCain have received from Chuck Norris and Joe Lieberman, respectively. I searched the news papers and news channels, and that's all I can find. Plenty about how Huckabee is so hip because Walker, Texas Ranger is voting for him. I hear he's got a fist underneath his beard. Is this month-old endorsement still news? What about Joe Lieberman and John McCain? Wow! He'll really be able to bring Congress together to get things done. McCain must be the unity candidate of the 2008 Election.
I did see a thirty-second bit on how Ron Paul has broken his own fund-raising record set on November 5th. Ho-hum. No mention of breaking Kerry's record. Ron Paul is one contender in a crowded field of candidates scrambling for donations, and he raised more in one day than Kerry did when anointed the "chosen one" in 2004. Talk about ammunition against the Democrats. The GOP should be getting so much mileage out of this.
If they are genuinely interested in expanding their support base, why aren't they getting behind Ron Paul? Congressman Paul isn't getting endorsements from Democratic politicians, he is getting actual Democratic voters to change their party affiliation to vote Republican in the primaries. Why aren't they talking about how Ron Paul is stealing from the Democrats' base? Why not talk about how Paul may out-raise Hillary this quarter? Why not laud this "internet sensation" with praise for getting young people involved and interested in politics again?
The silence speaks volumes.
It would be baffling if it weren't so predictable. If there is anyone out there still buying the Democrats vs. Republicans paradigm, this should settle the issue. Ron Paul is not one of them, and they don't want what he brings to the party. Never mind that he could actually beat a Democrat. He is the only true conservative running in this race, and his integrity is causing the cracks in the election process to show. He is an "outsider," not a Washington "insider." He knows how the game is played, but won't play by their rules. The establishment heads and big-wigs in both parties want to keep him out of the ring. They won't give him a fair fight.
Ron Paul is like Brad Pitt's character Mickey O'Neill, the Gypsy bare-knuckle boxer, in the movie "Snatch." He's does not know how to throw a fight. He can knock out his opponents in one punch, and he isn't afraid to let them know it. He cannot be bought, and he won't go down in the fourth round.
If you are waiting for the Old Media to give Ron his due sometime this week, don't hold your breath. He has a few appearances scheduled this week, but nothing like the barrage of coverage we saw last month. The November 5th Money Bomb was a novelty to the Old Media, and the establishment wasn't afraid of Paul, yet; however, Tea Party '07 has proven it to be more than a fluke. It is a repeatable event that can occur every month if necessary. He gained more than 25,000 new donors on December 16th. There were 20,000 new donors on November 5th. Do I see a pattern forming?
Come January, I secretly hope they decide to overlook him when the fourth quarter fund-raising totals are announced. With Paul coming in first, they could simply pretend he doesn't exist, and report on who came in second, third and fourth place.
It would defy logic, expose their bias, and our numbers would continue to grow stronger.
WHAT I THINK....JIM FEDAKO
Am I betting against the long tail in the primaries? No way! Why not? Well, it seems that every time I bet against the tail, it ends up whipping me back to reality.
Two recent examples come to mind.
Jorma Kaukonen played lead guitar for the 60's rock group Jefferson Airplane and later for the blues-influenced Hot Tuna. While still being a great guitarist, Jorma is now a long-tail musician, with stadium concerts an almost-forgotten past.
In order to publicize his latest CD of new music, Jorma staged a free mini-concert and CD signing at a local music store. I decided to take my family to enjoy the music and the scene.
The night before the show, my wife asked me what time I planned to leave the house the following morning. Given that I am a long-tail audiophile and that Jorma is a long-tail artist, and that the only notice for this event was a sentence or two tucked deep in the local newspaper, I saw no reason to arrive early. I fully expected to be competing for seats or standing room with only a few other long-tail stragglers. Boy was I wrong.
The morning awoke to an unexpected cold front, with blustery, chilling winds and occasional showers. Not a day to venture out for just any old event, yet the long tail came to the music store in full force, and I was out a performance. No concert, no signing, nothing. By the time we had arrived, the parking lot was packed with a large group of fellow long-tailers, all facing the elements without any chance of seeing Jorma, even from a distance. Yes, we had arrived too late to get a spot inside the store, and barely found standing room on the parking lot. The long tail whipped me again.
You see, just because someone appeals to the not-so-mainstream does not mean that he cannot create a tipping-point crowd. While Jorma showed me this in clear detail, a more recent example is of immediate interest.
On December 16, Ron Paul proved for the umpteenth time that his long tail could create a scene. And, Paul's record fund raising – money received from tens of thousands of lovers of Liberty – demonstrates that his long tail can change the face of politics in a flash.
Given that long-tailers tend to be committed and willing to face the wind and rain – note the crowd at the Ron Paul Tea Party held the same day in snowy, windy Columbus, Ohio; and given that primaries typically have a low voter turnout; it's easy to see how just a small percentage of the population can change history. It certainly did on December 16.
However, instead of a being just a long-tail candidate, I claim that Ron Paul is also a long-reach candidate. How else do you explain the fear he creates within the establishment, on both sides of the aisle?
Economist Fr̩d̩ric Bastiat of France wrote about a similar situation back in the 1800's. While serving as an elected official, he transformed a society of local labors into a committee Рthe Lower Council of Labor Рthat was comprised of those who were not part of the established trade associations Рthe Upper Councils of Industry.
To understand the thoughts of these folks, he had them break into subcommittees of the various trades and then asked each subcommittee to answer the question of whether tariffs and other forms of protection helped or hampered them.
Without the voice of the power-hungry demagogues – the establishment – spouting lies and nonsense, the subcommittees unanimously decided that government policies harm, they never help. That’s right, the common man wanted Liberty in order to go about his business unhampered by the political class.
I believe that absent the DC blob and its mind-numbing talking heads, this country would once again turn toward Liberty, as Liberty still streams through our veins.
Yes, the ideas and ideals of Ron Paul are still the essence of this great nation. And, once he makes inroads in the early primaries, the greater number of voters will begin to hear the truths Paul speaks. His speeches will reach into the hearts and minds of voters who have long been subject to manipulations and lies, awakening the spirit of freedom that lies within all of us – well, almost all of us, as it is fair to assume that the other candidates hear, instead, a sinister inner voice.
Finally, put Paul head-to-head against whichever spinning, statist candidate survives the Democratic primary, and we will see Liberty win in November.
I only had to stand once in a music store parking lot, facing the wind and rain, in order to recognize the power of the long tail. And, I only had to hear Paul speak once in order to feel my renewed passions for Liberty flow warm through my veins, and to recognize the long reach which freedom has on the increasingly oppressed masses of this country.
Yes, the long tail and the long reach of Liberty will win in the end. Go Ron Paul.
Two recent examples come to mind.
Jorma Kaukonen played lead guitar for the 60's rock group Jefferson Airplane and later for the blues-influenced Hot Tuna. While still being a great guitarist, Jorma is now a long-tail musician, with stadium concerts an almost-forgotten past.
In order to publicize his latest CD of new music, Jorma staged a free mini-concert and CD signing at a local music store. I decided to take my family to enjoy the music and the scene.
The night before the show, my wife asked me what time I planned to leave the house the following morning. Given that I am a long-tail audiophile and that Jorma is a long-tail artist, and that the only notice for this event was a sentence or two tucked deep in the local newspaper, I saw no reason to arrive early. I fully expected to be competing for seats or standing room with only a few other long-tail stragglers. Boy was I wrong.
The morning awoke to an unexpected cold front, with blustery, chilling winds and occasional showers. Not a day to venture out for just any old event, yet the long tail came to the music store in full force, and I was out a performance. No concert, no signing, nothing. By the time we had arrived, the parking lot was packed with a large group of fellow long-tailers, all facing the elements without any chance of seeing Jorma, even from a distance. Yes, we had arrived too late to get a spot inside the store, and barely found standing room on the parking lot. The long tail whipped me again.
You see, just because someone appeals to the not-so-mainstream does not mean that he cannot create a tipping-point crowd. While Jorma showed me this in clear detail, a more recent example is of immediate interest.
On December 16, Ron Paul proved for the umpteenth time that his long tail could create a scene. And, Paul's record fund raising – money received from tens of thousands of lovers of Liberty – demonstrates that his long tail can change the face of politics in a flash.
Given that long-tailers tend to be committed and willing to face the wind and rain – note the crowd at the Ron Paul Tea Party held the same day in snowy, windy Columbus, Ohio; and given that primaries typically have a low voter turnout; it's easy to see how just a small percentage of the population can change history. It certainly did on December 16.
However, instead of a being just a long-tail candidate, I claim that Ron Paul is also a long-reach candidate. How else do you explain the fear he creates within the establishment, on both sides of the aisle?
Economist Fr̩d̩ric Bastiat of France wrote about a similar situation back in the 1800's. While serving as an elected official, he transformed a society of local labors into a committee Рthe Lower Council of Labor Рthat was comprised of those who were not part of the established trade associations Рthe Upper Councils of Industry.
To understand the thoughts of these folks, he had them break into subcommittees of the various trades and then asked each subcommittee to answer the question of whether tariffs and other forms of protection helped or hampered them.
Without the voice of the power-hungry demagogues – the establishment – spouting lies and nonsense, the subcommittees unanimously decided that government policies harm, they never help. That’s right, the common man wanted Liberty in order to go about his business unhampered by the political class.
I believe that absent the DC blob and its mind-numbing talking heads, this country would once again turn toward Liberty, as Liberty still streams through our veins.
Yes, the ideas and ideals of Ron Paul are still the essence of this great nation. And, once he makes inroads in the early primaries, the greater number of voters will begin to hear the truths Paul speaks. His speeches will reach into the hearts and minds of voters who have long been subject to manipulations and lies, awakening the spirit of freedom that lies within all of us – well, almost all of us, as it is fair to assume that the other candidates hear, instead, a sinister inner voice.
Finally, put Paul head-to-head against whichever spinning, statist candidate survives the Democratic primary, and we will see Liberty win in November.
I only had to stand once in a music store parking lot, facing the wind and rain, in order to recognize the power of the long tail. And, I only had to hear Paul speak once in order to feel my renewed passions for Liberty flow warm through my veins, and to recognize the long reach which freedom has on the increasingly oppressed masses of this country.
Yes, the long tail and the long reach of Liberty will win in the end. Go Ron Paul.
AND ANOTHER THOUGHT...LEW ROCKWELL
A relentless theme in the commentary on Ron Paul is that he is not really a Republican, mainly because he dissents from the party on foreign policy. People now associate the Republican Party with crazed war-mongering, massive military spending, and relentless conflict-seeking, to the point even of a messianic global crusade on behalf of American imperial control.
This is madness, and Ron Paul does dissent. But is he really departing from Republican tradition? In the 1990s, the GOP opposed Clinton's wars in Somalia and Serbia. It denounced nation building as an extension of the domestic planning state. But those were short-lived moments. The party reverted to its war-mongering self after Bush came to power.
So for a genuinely non-interventionist policy within the Republican Party we need to go back further to the last of the great statesmen of mid-20th century America: Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, also known as Mr. Republican. His 1951 book A Foreign Policy for Americans was a huge seller and exercised vast influence.
These were highly confusing times when Republicans were sure that FDR's wartime alliance with Russia, and especially Yalta's empowerment of Stalin in Europe, were grave errors. So on one hand, they wanted to show that Russia was not a force for good in the world, and, in fact, represented a threat to liberty as grave as that of Nazi Germany. On the other hand, they strongly suspected that Truman was "triangulating" the issue of the Russian threat to Europe as a way of stealing a Republican issue for Democratic policy advantage. They were aghast at the flip-flop on the issue and feared playing into the hands of a new form of Democratic nationalism.
So Taft, in this book, it walking a fine line: warning against the Russian threat as a way of scoring anti-FDR points but also being careful not to exaggerate it in a way that would bolster the Truman plot to use the fear of Communism to extend the American empire. More on the complexities here can be found in Rothbard's seminal work, Betrayal of the American Right, which everyone who seeks to understand this period in American political history must certainly read.
Hence, what is striking about this Taft book is not so much the specific policy recommendations but the principles that underlie what Taft considered to be the true Republican foreign policy.
I offer, then, words from the first Mr. Republican on the true principles of a Republican foreign policy:
The truth is that no nation can be constantly prepared to undertake a full-scale war at any moment and still hope to maintain any of the other purposes in which people are interested and for which nations are founded.
In the first place, it requires a complete surrender of liberty and the turning over to the central government of power to control in detail the lives of the people and all of their activities.
While in time of war people are willing to surrender those liberties in order to protect the ultimate liberty of the entire country, they do so on the theory that it is a limited surrender and one which they hope will soon be over, perhaps within a few months, certainly within a few years. But an indefinite surrender of liberty such as would be required by an all-out war program in time of peace might mean the final and complete destruction of those liberties which it is the very purpose of the preparation to protect.
Furthermore, the destruction of that liberty in the long run will put an end to the constant progress which has characterized this country during its 160 years of life, a progress due more than anything else to the freedom of men to think their own thoughts, live their own lives, and run their own affairs.
It would require a complete surrender of all of our material and humanitarian aims to increase the standard of living of our people and of the people of our allies. All of those standards of living would have to be reduced, because even the most optimistic do not feel that we can have all the guns we want and all the butter we want at the same time.
It would be impossible to conduct any such all-out program without inflation. In World War II, in spite of complete controls, we saw an increase in prices, apparently permanent, of about 70 per cent, a depreciation of the dollar to sixty cents. I doubt if any government spending program calling for half the national income could be undertaken which would not involve an increase in prices of at least 10 per cent every year and a corresponding depreciation in the value of the dollar.
This would mean the destruction of savings and life insurance policies. It would mean a constant race between prices and wages. It would mean hardship for millions, and doubt and uncertainty for many millions more. It would mean constant domestic turmoil and disagreement.
Finally, it would interfere with the very production which is the great basis of the strength of the United States and to which not only our own people but all of our allies look for ultimate victory if there should be a war with Russia.
The truth is, also, that the most foresighted person could not set up a preparation that would protect us against every conceivable contingency. One or two Pearl Harbors might lay us open to a dangerous attack. We have to choose those measures which will give us the most complete protection within our reasonable economic capacity.
In short, there is a definite limit to what a government can spend in time of peace and still maintain a free economy, without inflation and with at least some elements of progress in standards of living and in education, welfare, housing, health, and other activities in which the people are vitally interested.
The question which we have to determine, and which apparently nobody in the Administration has really thought through, is the point at which we reach the economic limitation in time of peace on government expenditures and a military program. After that we must choose between the various measures contributing to our defense, to determine which are of first importance and which can be ignored without serious danger. (pp. 69–70)
An unwise and overambitious foreign policy, and particularly the effort to do more than we are able to do, is the one thing which might in the end destroy our armies and prove a real threat to the liberty of the people of the United States....
And when I say liberty I do not simply mean what is referred to as "free enterprise." I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and to live; the liberty of the family to decide how they wish to live, what they want to eat for breakfast and for dinner, and how they wish to spend their time; liberty of a man to develop his ideas and get other people to teach those ideas, if he can convince them that they have some value to the world; liberty of every local community to decide how its children shall be educated, how its local services shall be run, and who its local leaders shall be; liberty of a man to choose his own occupation; and liberty of a man to run his own business as he thinks it ought to be run, as long as he does not interfere with the right of other people to do the same thing.
We cannot overestimate the value of this liberty of ideas and liberty of action. It is not that you or I or some industrial genius is free; it is that millions of people are free to work out their own ideas and the country is free to choose between them and adopt those which offer the most progress. I have been through hundreds of industrial plants in the last two or three years, and in every plant I find that the people running that plant feel that they have something in the way of methods or ideas or machinery that no other plant has. I have, met men said to be the best machinists in the industry who have built special machines for a particular purpose in which that company is interested.
Thousands of wholly free and independent thinkers are working out these ideas and have the right and ability to try them out without getting the approval of some government bureau. You can imagine the difference between the progress under such a system and one in which the government ran every plant in the country as it runs the post offices today. There would be one idea for a hundred that are now developed. If any plant employee had an idea for progress and wrote to Washington, he probably would get back a letter referring him to Regulation No. 5201 (c), which tells him exactly how this particular thing should be done, and has been done for the past fifty years.
It is clear to me that the great progress made in this country, the tremendous production of our people, the productivity per man of our workmen have grown out of this liberty and the freedom to develop ideas. We have the highest standard of living, because we produce more per person than any other country in the world.
After the American Revolution and the French Revolution the whole world became convinced that liberty was the key to progress and happiness for the peoples of the world, and this theory was accepted, even in those countries where there was, in fact, no liberty. People left Europe and came to this country, not so much because of the economic conditions as because they sought a liberty which they could not find at home. But gradually this philosophy has been replaced by the idea that happiness can only be conferred upon the people by the grace of an efficient government. Only the government, it is said, has the expert knowledge necessary for the people's welfare; only the government has the power to carry out the grandiose plans so necessary in a complicated world.
Those who accept the principle of socialism, of government direction, and of government bureaucracy have a hard time battling against the ideology of communism. Our labor union leaders cannot effectively fight communism, as such, because they favor a socialist control that comes very close to communism in the actual measures which are to be undertaken. Even our statesmen seem to be handicapped in the same way.
Thus, Secretary Acheson only a year ago stated: "To say that the main motive of American foreign policy was to halt the spread of communism was putting the cart before the horse. The United States was interested in stopping communism chiefly because it had become a subtle instrument of Soviet imperialism."
With this point of view I emphatically disagree. I believe that we should battle the principles of communism and socialism and convince the world that true happiness lies in the establishment of a system of liberty, that communism and socialism are the very antithesis of liberalism, and that only a nation conceived in liberty can hope to bring real happiness to its people or to the world. (pp. 155–117)
Robert Taft understood that freedom at home was tied to seeking peace abroad and avoiding entangling alliances that lead to war. Would that today's Republicans would listen to him – and to Ron Paul.
This is madness, and Ron Paul does dissent. But is he really departing from Republican tradition? In the 1990s, the GOP opposed Clinton's wars in Somalia and Serbia. It denounced nation building as an extension of the domestic planning state. But those were short-lived moments. The party reverted to its war-mongering self after Bush came to power.
So for a genuinely non-interventionist policy within the Republican Party we need to go back further to the last of the great statesmen of mid-20th century America: Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, also known as Mr. Republican. His 1951 book A Foreign Policy for Americans was a huge seller and exercised vast influence.
These were highly confusing times when Republicans were sure that FDR's wartime alliance with Russia, and especially Yalta's empowerment of Stalin in Europe, were grave errors. So on one hand, they wanted to show that Russia was not a force for good in the world, and, in fact, represented a threat to liberty as grave as that of Nazi Germany. On the other hand, they strongly suspected that Truman was "triangulating" the issue of the Russian threat to Europe as a way of stealing a Republican issue for Democratic policy advantage. They were aghast at the flip-flop on the issue and feared playing into the hands of a new form of Democratic nationalism.
So Taft, in this book, it walking a fine line: warning against the Russian threat as a way of scoring anti-FDR points but also being careful not to exaggerate it in a way that would bolster the Truman plot to use the fear of Communism to extend the American empire. More on the complexities here can be found in Rothbard's seminal work, Betrayal of the American Right, which everyone who seeks to understand this period in American political history must certainly read.
Hence, what is striking about this Taft book is not so much the specific policy recommendations but the principles that underlie what Taft considered to be the true Republican foreign policy.
I offer, then, words from the first Mr. Republican on the true principles of a Republican foreign policy:
The truth is that no nation can be constantly prepared to undertake a full-scale war at any moment and still hope to maintain any of the other purposes in which people are interested and for which nations are founded.
In the first place, it requires a complete surrender of liberty and the turning over to the central government of power to control in detail the lives of the people and all of their activities.
While in time of war people are willing to surrender those liberties in order to protect the ultimate liberty of the entire country, they do so on the theory that it is a limited surrender and one which they hope will soon be over, perhaps within a few months, certainly within a few years. But an indefinite surrender of liberty such as would be required by an all-out war program in time of peace might mean the final and complete destruction of those liberties which it is the very purpose of the preparation to protect.
Furthermore, the destruction of that liberty in the long run will put an end to the constant progress which has characterized this country during its 160 years of life, a progress due more than anything else to the freedom of men to think their own thoughts, live their own lives, and run their own affairs.
It would require a complete surrender of all of our material and humanitarian aims to increase the standard of living of our people and of the people of our allies. All of those standards of living would have to be reduced, because even the most optimistic do not feel that we can have all the guns we want and all the butter we want at the same time.
It would be impossible to conduct any such all-out program without inflation. In World War II, in spite of complete controls, we saw an increase in prices, apparently permanent, of about 70 per cent, a depreciation of the dollar to sixty cents. I doubt if any government spending program calling for half the national income could be undertaken which would not involve an increase in prices of at least 10 per cent every year and a corresponding depreciation in the value of the dollar.
This would mean the destruction of savings and life insurance policies. It would mean a constant race between prices and wages. It would mean hardship for millions, and doubt and uncertainty for many millions more. It would mean constant domestic turmoil and disagreement.
Finally, it would interfere with the very production which is the great basis of the strength of the United States and to which not only our own people but all of our allies look for ultimate victory if there should be a war with Russia.
The truth is, also, that the most foresighted person could not set up a preparation that would protect us against every conceivable contingency. One or two Pearl Harbors might lay us open to a dangerous attack. We have to choose those measures which will give us the most complete protection within our reasonable economic capacity.
In short, there is a definite limit to what a government can spend in time of peace and still maintain a free economy, without inflation and with at least some elements of progress in standards of living and in education, welfare, housing, health, and other activities in which the people are vitally interested.
The question which we have to determine, and which apparently nobody in the Administration has really thought through, is the point at which we reach the economic limitation in time of peace on government expenditures and a military program. After that we must choose between the various measures contributing to our defense, to determine which are of first importance and which can be ignored without serious danger. (pp. 69–70)
An unwise and overambitious foreign policy, and particularly the effort to do more than we are able to do, is the one thing which might in the end destroy our armies and prove a real threat to the liberty of the people of the United States....
And when I say liberty I do not simply mean what is referred to as "free enterprise." I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and to live; the liberty of the family to decide how they wish to live, what they want to eat for breakfast and for dinner, and how they wish to spend their time; liberty of a man to develop his ideas and get other people to teach those ideas, if he can convince them that they have some value to the world; liberty of every local community to decide how its children shall be educated, how its local services shall be run, and who its local leaders shall be; liberty of a man to choose his own occupation; and liberty of a man to run his own business as he thinks it ought to be run, as long as he does not interfere with the right of other people to do the same thing.
We cannot overestimate the value of this liberty of ideas and liberty of action. It is not that you or I or some industrial genius is free; it is that millions of people are free to work out their own ideas and the country is free to choose between them and adopt those which offer the most progress. I have been through hundreds of industrial plants in the last two or three years, and in every plant I find that the people running that plant feel that they have something in the way of methods or ideas or machinery that no other plant has. I have, met men said to be the best machinists in the industry who have built special machines for a particular purpose in which that company is interested.
Thousands of wholly free and independent thinkers are working out these ideas and have the right and ability to try them out without getting the approval of some government bureau. You can imagine the difference between the progress under such a system and one in which the government ran every plant in the country as it runs the post offices today. There would be one idea for a hundred that are now developed. If any plant employee had an idea for progress and wrote to Washington, he probably would get back a letter referring him to Regulation No. 5201 (c), which tells him exactly how this particular thing should be done, and has been done for the past fifty years.
It is clear to me that the great progress made in this country, the tremendous production of our people, the productivity per man of our workmen have grown out of this liberty and the freedom to develop ideas. We have the highest standard of living, because we produce more per person than any other country in the world.
After the American Revolution and the French Revolution the whole world became convinced that liberty was the key to progress and happiness for the peoples of the world, and this theory was accepted, even in those countries where there was, in fact, no liberty. People left Europe and came to this country, not so much because of the economic conditions as because they sought a liberty which they could not find at home. But gradually this philosophy has been replaced by the idea that happiness can only be conferred upon the people by the grace of an efficient government. Only the government, it is said, has the expert knowledge necessary for the people's welfare; only the government has the power to carry out the grandiose plans so necessary in a complicated world.
Those who accept the principle of socialism, of government direction, and of government bureaucracy have a hard time battling against the ideology of communism. Our labor union leaders cannot effectively fight communism, as such, because they favor a socialist control that comes very close to communism in the actual measures which are to be undertaken. Even our statesmen seem to be handicapped in the same way.
Thus, Secretary Acheson only a year ago stated: "To say that the main motive of American foreign policy was to halt the spread of communism was putting the cart before the horse. The United States was interested in stopping communism chiefly because it had become a subtle instrument of Soviet imperialism."
With this point of view I emphatically disagree. I believe that we should battle the principles of communism and socialism and convince the world that true happiness lies in the establishment of a system of liberty, that communism and socialism are the very antithesis of liberalism, and that only a nation conceived in liberty can hope to bring real happiness to its people or to the world. (pp. 155–117)
Robert Taft understood that freedom at home was tied to seeking peace abroad and avoiding entangling alliances that lead to war. Would that today's Republicans would listen to him – and to Ron Paul.
Tuesday
ANOTHER LETTER TO HOMESCHOOLERS
Homeschooling is now a viable option for parents who are religiously motivated or just fed up with the government school systems that have been increasingly federalized and as a result, increasingly non-performers. It was not always so. In the 1960’s, you could be arrested in most states for attempting to homeschool. A few brave souls pushed back and started that revolution. Among them were Christian homeschoolers and especially the Rev. R.J. Rushdoony.
Fast-forward to the present and the privately organized group, Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) routinely battles the socialists who try to terrorize parents that elect to educate their children at home. More often than not, HSLDA wins these battles. The homeschooling movement is self-organizing, internet-savvy, and highly motivated just like Ron Paul’s supporters. In some instances, these two groups overlap. It is quite natural.
It seems as though Mike Farris, the founder of HSLDA, and some of the "leaders" of the movement are coalescing behind the Presidential campaign of former Baptist Minister and former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee. I want to sincerely ask Mike Farris and all homeschoolers to stop and think before jumping on the Huckabee bandwagon.
First of all, read the statement of faith posted by Ron Paul on his campaign website. Compare this with the page on Mike Huckabee’s website. Did you see anything missing from Huckabee’s page? Because Huckabee doesn’t define what his faith is in, is it possible that his faith is in government? Look at all of the things that he wants to do with government (i.e. your money) because of his undefined "faith." Ron Paul freely confesses his faith but doesn’t wave it around as a political rallying flag.
The second issue is homeschooling itself. Ron Paul would do away entirely with the federal bureaucracy that uses you tax dollars to hire swarms of education agents that harass home educators with a religious fervor. Come to think of it maybe I have just had a revelation. What homeschool organization would most likely suffer if its raison d'être were suddenly abolished? They shouldn’t worry. It will take at least a generation to root out the educational socialists from the state and local levels. I looked on Huckabee’s website for a statement on homeschooling and all that I found was this. The last statement in that link should be all that homeschoolers need to know about Huckabee:
As President, I will use my broad and deep expertise in education policy to lift up our children and America's economic future.
In short, Mike Huckabee will retain the Department of Education and its attendant funding that is used to harass homeschoolers. To be fair, he might make life difficult for these bureaucrats. Ron Paul would eliminate them from federal service, never to harass anyone ever again while hiding behind a federal badge. Mike Huckabee plans to spend the money that the IRS steals from you to give scholarships to illegal aliens. (How many more will this inspire to hop the fence?) Ron Paul will eliminate the IRS and its immoral tax. Eliminating the benefits (including free public education for their children) will do far more than building a fence to discourage Mexicans from wading across the Rio Grande.
If Mike Huckabee wants to head an organization that takes people’s money to do God’s work, why didn’t he remain a Baptist Minister? The tithe is voluntary. The income tax is not (try not paying and see how many ninja-wannabe federal warriors descend on you to encourage compliance).
Fast-forward to the present and the privately organized group, Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) routinely battles the socialists who try to terrorize parents that elect to educate their children at home. More often than not, HSLDA wins these battles. The homeschooling movement is self-organizing, internet-savvy, and highly motivated just like Ron Paul’s supporters. In some instances, these two groups overlap. It is quite natural.
It seems as though Mike Farris, the founder of HSLDA, and some of the "leaders" of the movement are coalescing behind the Presidential campaign of former Baptist Minister and former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee. I want to sincerely ask Mike Farris and all homeschoolers to stop and think before jumping on the Huckabee bandwagon.
First of all, read the statement of faith posted by Ron Paul on his campaign website. Compare this with the page on Mike Huckabee’s website. Did you see anything missing from Huckabee’s page? Because Huckabee doesn’t define what his faith is in, is it possible that his faith is in government? Look at all of the things that he wants to do with government (i.e. your money) because of his undefined "faith." Ron Paul freely confesses his faith but doesn’t wave it around as a political rallying flag.
The second issue is homeschooling itself. Ron Paul would do away entirely with the federal bureaucracy that uses you tax dollars to hire swarms of education agents that harass home educators with a religious fervor. Come to think of it maybe I have just had a revelation. What homeschool organization would most likely suffer if its raison d'être were suddenly abolished? They shouldn’t worry. It will take at least a generation to root out the educational socialists from the state and local levels. I looked on Huckabee’s website for a statement on homeschooling and all that I found was this. The last statement in that link should be all that homeschoolers need to know about Huckabee:
As President, I will use my broad and deep expertise in education policy to lift up our children and America's economic future.
In short, Mike Huckabee will retain the Department of Education and its attendant funding that is used to harass homeschoolers. To be fair, he might make life difficult for these bureaucrats. Ron Paul would eliminate them from federal service, never to harass anyone ever again while hiding behind a federal badge. Mike Huckabee plans to spend the money that the IRS steals from you to give scholarships to illegal aliens. (How many more will this inspire to hop the fence?) Ron Paul will eliminate the IRS and its immoral tax. Eliminating the benefits (including free public education for their children) will do far more than building a fence to discourage Mexicans from wading across the Rio Grande.
If Mike Huckabee wants to head an organization that takes people’s money to do God’s work, why didn’t he remain a Baptist Minister? The tithe is voluntary. The income tax is not (try not paying and see how many ninja-wannabe federal warriors descend on you to encourage compliance).
THE IMPORTANCE OF FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY IN GOVERNMENT
As the year draws to a close, the battle over spending in Washington is heating up. The Democrats want to expand government healthcare, while the President has vetoed the second attempt to expand SCHIP.
The latest version of the State Children's Health Insurance Program would have expanded the entitlement program and raised taxes, just as the earlier version did and the President showed fiscal restraint with his veto.
Reducing our entitlement programs here at home is not against saving the children, as the rhetoric goes, it is about saving the country's economy. The fact is we have huge trade imbalances, massive deficits, and a $9 trillion national debt, which balloons to $60 trillion if unfunded future liabilities in social security and other promises we have made to Americans are included.
We are at a crucial point in history right now. We must think very carefully about our next moves. There is coming a time, if we continue on this path, when all that our tax dollars and government revenues will be able to do is pay interest on the mountain of debt we have compiled in the past few decades. That will mean no government programs or services of any kind will be funded, yet future generations of Americans will still struggle under a crushing tax burden with nothing to show for it. That is why fiscal restraint and common sense with the budget are so vitally important in government.
The difference now is that our printing presses at the Federal Reserve are getting worn out as we have expanded our money supply to the breaking point with yet another rate cut this week. As the dollar falls, it is losing its reserve currency status as many countries are shifting to the Euro or the Chinese yuan or other currencies. The more that trend continues, the weaker we become on the world stage. Those foreign governments and entities that enabled us to spend so much for so long are wearing thin and cutting us off.
The truth is, our enemies won't need a nuclear weapon to harm us if we keep spending phantom dollars at the current rate. In fact, they won't need to do anything but sit back and watch as we spend ourselves into oblivion. Historically, empires fail because they run out of money, or more accurately, run out of the ability to spend or inflate. Unfortunately, that is exactly the direction we are headed. We need to control spending, immediately, before it is too late.
I applaud the President for his veto of the SCHIP expansion bill. It is a step in the right direction. But it is just one small step. What our economy needs right now is to go full gallop away from the tax-and-spend policies that have gotten us into this mess.
The latest version of the State Children's Health Insurance Program would have expanded the entitlement program and raised taxes, just as the earlier version did and the President showed fiscal restraint with his veto.
Reducing our entitlement programs here at home is not against saving the children, as the rhetoric goes, it is about saving the country's economy. The fact is we have huge trade imbalances, massive deficits, and a $9 trillion national debt, which balloons to $60 trillion if unfunded future liabilities in social security and other promises we have made to Americans are included.
We are at a crucial point in history right now. We must think very carefully about our next moves. There is coming a time, if we continue on this path, when all that our tax dollars and government revenues will be able to do is pay interest on the mountain of debt we have compiled in the past few decades. That will mean no government programs or services of any kind will be funded, yet future generations of Americans will still struggle under a crushing tax burden with nothing to show for it. That is why fiscal restraint and common sense with the budget are so vitally important in government.
The difference now is that our printing presses at the Federal Reserve are getting worn out as we have expanded our money supply to the breaking point with yet another rate cut this week. As the dollar falls, it is losing its reserve currency status as many countries are shifting to the Euro or the Chinese yuan or other currencies. The more that trend continues, the weaker we become on the world stage. Those foreign governments and entities that enabled us to spend so much for so long are wearing thin and cutting us off.
The truth is, our enemies won't need a nuclear weapon to harm us if we keep spending phantom dollars at the current rate. In fact, they won't need to do anything but sit back and watch as we spend ourselves into oblivion. Historically, empires fail because they run out of money, or more accurately, run out of the ability to spend or inflate. Unfortunately, that is exactly the direction we are headed. We need to control spending, immediately, before it is too late.
I applaud the President for his veto of the SCHIP expansion bill. It is a step in the right direction. But it is just one small step. What our economy needs right now is to go full gallop away from the tax-and-spend policies that have gotten us into this mess.
WHAT I THINK....GEOFFREY PIKE
Ron Paul has certainly received the attention of disaffected Americans in his run for the presidency. Many young people and previously apathetic citizens have been drawn to the Ron Paul revolution because of his unique message as compared to the other candidates. But there are still some non-voters out there that refuse to participate in politics. They ask, "Why should I trust him?"
It is certainly a legitimate question to ask why we should trust another politician. What makes Ron Paul different from any other candidate today or in the past?
Candidates say one thing and then they do something completely different once in office.
While we cannot accurately say what every person will do, we can certainly make good predictions based on the information we have. Anything is possible. George W. Bush could turn libertarian tomorrow or Osama Bin Laden could convert to Christianity, but we can reasonably predict that these things won’t happen.
There are two primary reasons why we can reasonably predict that Ron Paul’s policies in office would be similar to what he preaches. The first reason is his past record. He has been in Congress for ten terms and we can see how he has voted. He has consistently voted to uphold the principles that he advocates.
When there is a vote in the House of Representatives that reads something like 420-1, we can take a good guess that he was the one "no" vote. That is how he got the nickname Dr. No. He does not vote in favor of any legislation that is not specifically authorized in the Constitution. Since most bills passed in Congress are unconstitutional, Ron Paul often has to vote no.
Ron Paul’s voting record alone makes him a unique politician. George W. Bush campaigned in 2000 for no nation building and cutting taxes. Ronald Reagan campaigned in 1980 and 1984 to get the government out of our lives. Even under Reagan, the federal budget grew approximately two-thirds bigger. Ronald Reagan continued to preach less government throughout his presidency, but his policies rarely reflected his rhetoric.
But we can look at the records of Bush and Reagan when they were governors. It should not be any great surprise that they embraced big government once in office as president. They both expanded the budgets in their respective states and failed to make significant cuts in government programs. And this is aside from the fact that even some of their rhetoric was far from libertarian, such as their enthusiasm for the war on drugs.
The second reason to trust Ron Paul to do what he says is because he offers us specifics. It is easy for Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani to say they will cut taxes, but does that just mean more deficits? Aside from Ron Paul, none of the candidates have been able to point out specific areas where they will cut spending.
Ron Paul says we need to leave Iraq and stop policing the world. Dismantling the U.S. empire would immediately cut hundreds of billions of dollars out of the budget. He also says we can get rid of the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, among others. We can also stop farm subsidies and handing out foreign aid. These are all specific measures to reduce spending which could actually produce real tax cuts.
John McCain will talk about stopping pork-barrel spending (which in his terms makes up less than 1% of the total budget) and other candidates will talk about stopping wasteful spending. But they are short on specifics. This means they have no specific plans to cut the size and scope of government. There is no such thing as a free lunch. In order to cut taxes without increasing deficits or inflating, you have to cut the budget. The only candidate who offers specific programs and departments to cut is Ron Paul.
It could be argued that Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress offered specific proposals in 1994 with their Contract with America. But most of the items were modest proposals that did little to shrink government. And again, many of the Republican Congressmen (like Gingrich) that were part of this already had a track record of big government.
Many Democrats (hopefully former Democrats) have recognized that they can trust Ron Paul. He speaks firmly and with conviction about ending the war. From the Democratic candidates (possibly excepting Kucinich and Gravel), you hear wishy-washy statements about the need to keep a presence in Iraq with no promises to end the war immediately.
By looking at Ron Paul’s record and by hearing his specific proposals, you can be reasonably sure that he will do what he says. His message is consistent and unyielding and it just so happens that his message of freedom is the correct one.
It is certainly a legitimate question to ask why we should trust another politician. What makes Ron Paul different from any other candidate today or in the past?
Candidates say one thing and then they do something completely different once in office.
While we cannot accurately say what every person will do, we can certainly make good predictions based on the information we have. Anything is possible. George W. Bush could turn libertarian tomorrow or Osama Bin Laden could convert to Christianity, but we can reasonably predict that these things won’t happen.
There are two primary reasons why we can reasonably predict that Ron Paul’s policies in office would be similar to what he preaches. The first reason is his past record. He has been in Congress for ten terms and we can see how he has voted. He has consistently voted to uphold the principles that he advocates.
When there is a vote in the House of Representatives that reads something like 420-1, we can take a good guess that he was the one "no" vote. That is how he got the nickname Dr. No. He does not vote in favor of any legislation that is not specifically authorized in the Constitution. Since most bills passed in Congress are unconstitutional, Ron Paul often has to vote no.
Ron Paul’s voting record alone makes him a unique politician. George W. Bush campaigned in 2000 for no nation building and cutting taxes. Ronald Reagan campaigned in 1980 and 1984 to get the government out of our lives. Even under Reagan, the federal budget grew approximately two-thirds bigger. Ronald Reagan continued to preach less government throughout his presidency, but his policies rarely reflected his rhetoric.
But we can look at the records of Bush and Reagan when they were governors. It should not be any great surprise that they embraced big government once in office as president. They both expanded the budgets in their respective states and failed to make significant cuts in government programs. And this is aside from the fact that even some of their rhetoric was far from libertarian, such as their enthusiasm for the war on drugs.
The second reason to trust Ron Paul to do what he says is because he offers us specifics. It is easy for Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani to say they will cut taxes, but does that just mean more deficits? Aside from Ron Paul, none of the candidates have been able to point out specific areas where they will cut spending.
Ron Paul says we need to leave Iraq and stop policing the world. Dismantling the U.S. empire would immediately cut hundreds of billions of dollars out of the budget. He also says we can get rid of the Department of Education and the Department of Energy, among others. We can also stop farm subsidies and handing out foreign aid. These are all specific measures to reduce spending which could actually produce real tax cuts.
John McCain will talk about stopping pork-barrel spending (which in his terms makes up less than 1% of the total budget) and other candidates will talk about stopping wasteful spending. But they are short on specifics. This means they have no specific plans to cut the size and scope of government. There is no such thing as a free lunch. In order to cut taxes without increasing deficits or inflating, you have to cut the budget. The only candidate who offers specific programs and departments to cut is Ron Paul.
It could be argued that Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress offered specific proposals in 1994 with their Contract with America. But most of the items were modest proposals that did little to shrink government. And again, many of the Republican Congressmen (like Gingrich) that were part of this already had a track record of big government.
Many Democrats (hopefully former Democrats) have recognized that they can trust Ron Paul. He speaks firmly and with conviction about ending the war. From the Democratic candidates (possibly excepting Kucinich and Gravel), you hear wishy-washy statements about the need to keep a presence in Iraq with no promises to end the war immediately.
By looking at Ron Paul’s record and by hearing his specific proposals, you can be reasonably sure that he will do what he says. His message is consistent and unyielding and it just so happens that his message of freedom is the correct one.
WHAT I THINK....ANDREW SULLIVAN
Let's be clear: we have lost this war. We have lost because the initial, central goals of the invasion have all failed: we have not secured WMDS from terrorists because those WMDs did not exist. We have not stymied Islamist terror - at best we have finally stymied some of the terror we helped create. We have not constructed a democratic model for the Middle East - we have instead destroyed a totalitarian government and a phony country, only to create a permanently unstable, fractious, chaotic failed state, where the mere avoidance of genocide is a cause for celebration. We have, moreover, helped solder a new truth in the Arab mind: that democracy means chaos, anarchy, mass-murder, national disintegration and sectarian warfare. And we have also empowered the Iranian regime and made a wider Sunni-Shiite regional war more likely than it was in 2003. Apart from that, Mr Bush, how did you enjoy your presidency?
The others still don't get this. Ron Paul does.
Paul, moreover, supports the only rational response: a withdrawal, as speedily and prudently as possible. McCain, along with Lieberman, still seems to believe that expending even more billions of dollars to prop up and enable a fast-devolving, ethnically toxic, religiously nutty region is somehow in American interests. Given the enormous challenges of the terror war, the huge debt we are piling up, the exhaustion of the military, the moral and financial corruption that has its white-hot center in Mesopotamia, I do not believe that an endless military, economic and political commitment to Iraq makes sense. It only makes sense if we are determined to occupy the Middle East indefinitely to secure oil supplies. But the rational response to oil dependence is not to entrench it, but to try and move away from it.
Institutionalizing a bank-breaking, morale-busting Middle East empire isn't the way to go.
But the deeper reason to support Ron Paul is a simple one. The great forgotten principles of the current Republican party are freedom and toleration. Paul's federalism, his deep suspicion of Washington power, his resistance to government spending, debt and inflation, his ability to grasp that not all human problems are soluble, least of all by government: these are principles that made me a conservative in the first place. No one in the current field articulates them as clearly and understands them as deeply as Paul. He is a man of faith who nonetheless sees a clear line between religion and politics. More than all this, he has somehow ignited a new movement of those who love freedom and want to rescue it from the do-gooding bromides of the left and the Christianist meddling of the right. The Paulites' enthusiasm for liberty, their unapologetic defense of core conservative principles, their awareness that in the new millennium, these principles of small government, self-reliance, cultural pluralism, and a humble foreign policy are more necessary than ever - no lover of liberty can stand by and not join them.
He's the real thing in a world of fakes and frauds. And in a primary campaign where the very future of conservatism is at stake, that cannot be ignored. In fact, it demands support.
Go Ron Paul!
The others still don't get this. Ron Paul does.
Paul, moreover, supports the only rational response: a withdrawal, as speedily and prudently as possible. McCain, along with Lieberman, still seems to believe that expending even more billions of dollars to prop up and enable a fast-devolving, ethnically toxic, religiously nutty region is somehow in American interests. Given the enormous challenges of the terror war, the huge debt we are piling up, the exhaustion of the military, the moral and financial corruption that has its white-hot center in Mesopotamia, I do not believe that an endless military, economic and political commitment to Iraq makes sense. It only makes sense if we are determined to occupy the Middle East indefinitely to secure oil supplies. But the rational response to oil dependence is not to entrench it, but to try and move away from it.
Institutionalizing a bank-breaking, morale-busting Middle East empire isn't the way to go.
But the deeper reason to support Ron Paul is a simple one. The great forgotten principles of the current Republican party are freedom and toleration. Paul's federalism, his deep suspicion of Washington power, his resistance to government spending, debt and inflation, his ability to grasp that not all human problems are soluble, least of all by government: these are principles that made me a conservative in the first place. No one in the current field articulates them as clearly and understands them as deeply as Paul. He is a man of faith who nonetheless sees a clear line between religion and politics. More than all this, he has somehow ignited a new movement of those who love freedom and want to rescue it from the do-gooding bromides of the left and the Christianist meddling of the right. The Paulites' enthusiasm for liberty, their unapologetic defense of core conservative principles, their awareness that in the new millennium, these principles of small government, self-reliance, cultural pluralism, and a humble foreign policy are more necessary than ever - no lover of liberty can stand by and not join them.
He's the real thing in a world of fakes and frauds. And in a primary campaign where the very future of conservatism is at stake, that cannot be ignored. In fact, it demands support.
Go Ron Paul!
AN OPEN LETTER TO PRO-LIFERS
My parents, my older brother and I arrived in America on August 6, 1949. We sailed from West Germany, where I was born in 1946, and a few months after the Szabrinski (later changed to Sabrin) family emigrated from Poland. My dad and mom were the only ones in their respective families who survived the Holocaust in their native Poland. I grew up in New York City never knowing my grandparents, uncles or aunts. All my parents’ siblings were killed before they had children. I never had any first cousins.
Living in Manhattan and then in the Bronx during the 1950s and 1960s, politics was never discussed much at home, because my father it seemed was always working and we never had a chance to discuss politics at length. Nevertheless, I do remember my father mentioning he contributed $5 to Adlai Stevenson’s 1956 presidential campaign. My "job" as a youngster was simple – get an education and become a professional, so I wouldn’t have to work as hard as he had as a sheet metal worker, then as a New York City taxicab owner/driver.
One of my father’s great passions was the survival of the State of Israel – a very common feeling among Holocaust survivors. I shared his concern growing up, but I did not have that "connection" his generation had to Israel, nor for that matter many of my generation, children of Holocaust survivors. I always felt America was my "Zion" having become thoroughly assimilated in American culture, and at a very early age embracing the principles of the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I bring this up so you will know "where I am coming from."
As a New York City college student in the late 1960s, I applauded the New York State legislature’s decision to legalize abortion in 1967. At the time I was a middle-of-the road Democrat who did not believe the government had the authority to force women to have babies against their will. However, I did not agree with the Supreme Court’s 1973 notorious Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion. By 1973 I had become a pro-choice libertarian who supported federalism, the principle that contentious issues such as abortion should be decided at the state or local level. I therefore agreed with the pro-life community but for different reasons. I wanted abortion legal but decided at the state level; while pro-lifers wanted Roe v. Wade overturned so anti-abortion states could keep abortion illegal. To me the ideal "compromise" of the most controversial issue in America was simple: pro-lifers and pro-choice advocates should battle the abortion question at the statehouse. This would be democracy in action.
In the mid-1990s one of my "nontraditional students" (someone older than 25) showed me a picture of a procedure called "partial birth abortion." I was appalled that this could be legal, a fully developed baby brutally killed in a grizzly procedure that animal lovers would protest if done on a household pet or any other animal. I was under the impression that Roe allowed states to ban abortion in the last trimester and could regulate abortion in the second trimester. I was wrong. Apparently, abortion on demand has been the law of the land since 1973. I therefore could be described as a pro-choice, anti-partial birth abortion libertarian.
In March 1997 the Libertarian Party of New Jersey invited me to be its gubernatorial candidate that year. (I was a political independent at the time, having left the Republican Party in 1971 soon after I joined it in opposition to Johnson’s welfare-warfare state policies. President Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War and his economic controls revealed the GOP paid lip service to limited government. I concluded back then that we only have one party in DC, the "Washington Party".) I attended the Libertarian Party state convention at the end of the month and I was nominated without opposition to run against Gov. Christie Whitman, a pro-choice Republican and the eventual pro-choice Democrat candidate, Jim McGreevey, who was a mayor and state senator at the time. Both Whitman and McGreevey supported partial birth abortion during the campaign. So much for compassionate establishment
Republicans and Democrats.
The partial birth issue was to become one of the front-burner issues during the fall general election campaign. Moreover, I also sought guidance on the issue of abortion in general; I knew Rep. Ron Paul, who I have known since 1982, was a pro-life libertarian Republican. I called him to get his input on the abortion issue. He told me he wrote a book on abortion making a libertarian case for the pro-life position. I asked him to send me a copy. I read his beautifully written 100-page Challenge to Liberty in one reading and from then on I became a pro-life libertarian.
I never ever thought I could ever be convinced that a pro-life position was consistent with liberty and limited government. But in Challenge to Liberty, subtitled Coming to Grip with the Abortion Issue, Ron Paul demonstrated that logic is an indispensable tool to change peoples’ minds, especially when it comes to hot button issues like abortion.
For me politically, I rejoined the Republican Party in 1999 as a Ron Paul Republican and sought the 2000 GOP nomination for the U. S. Senate. I initially was in the race against Gov. Whitman who dropped out of contention in September 1999 and then three establishment Republicans jumped in the race. The primary was held in June 2000; I came in fourth as the GOP establishment used every legal trick in the book to thwart my effort.
But getting back to Ron Paul’s bid for the presidency: Can you imagine what "miracles" Ron Paul could perform from the "bully pulpit" of the White House? If Dr. Paul could convince me abortion is incompatible with morality and humanitarianism, then there is hope that he could convince millions, maybe tens of millions of Americans that they should embrace the pro-life position. However, for many men and women a candidate’s abortion position is a litmus test. Yet, Ron Paul’s pro-life stance does seem to deter many pro-choice voters from supporting him. Why? Ron Paul is a man of unsurpassed integrity, is an unwavering advocate of liberty, free enterprise, and a noninterventionist foreign policy. Moreover, Dr. Paul shares all the family values pro-lifers could hope for in a presidential candidate. Please visit his website, RonPaul2008.com.
By supporting Ron Paul for president, pro-lifers get an unequivocal pro-life president who has the best strategy to deal with the abortion issue. As Lew Rockwell wrote recently on his blog:
Ron Paul, while a pro-life champion for all his life, has always opposed a constitutional amendment against abortion. Roe v. Wade was a usurpation of federal power against the states, and it can and should be undone by Congress. Congress has the explicit constitutional authority to determine the jurisdiction of the Supreme and other federal courts, except for a very narrow area (lawsuits between foreign governments and the US government, etc.).
A simple vote of both houses of Congress would do it, as Ron has long proposed legislatively. His bill would strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over abortion. But the Republicans don't want to repeal Roe anymore than the Democrats do. It is too fertile an issue for both parties.
Under a constitutional regime, the states handle such questions. New York and California, for example, would have legal abortion; Alabama and North Dakota would not. Of course, there would be no federal abortions performed or subsidized, under Medicaid, the military, the Indian Health Service, etc. (Funny how the allegedly pro-life Bush has never vetoed tax-paid abortions in military hospitals.)
Such a federalist regime wouldn't satisfy the centralizing ultras on either side, who would be welcome to fight it out in the state legislatures, but the vast majority of Americans would sigh in relief.
In any event, only religion can effectively battle abortion, not the guns and jails of the government….
For pro-lifers who are supporting and flirting with voting for Mike Huckabee in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early caucus and primary states, I urge you to first read Dr. Paul’s positions on abortion. Contrast Ron Paul’s positions with Mike Huckabee who writes on his website, "To me, life doesn't begin at conception and end at birth. Every child deserves a quality education, first-rate health care, decent housing in a safe neighborhood…" (Emphasis added) In short, Mike Huckabee believes in a comprehensive welfare state just like any Democrat running for president. Mike Huckabee believes in big government. Big government is bankrupting America and Huckabee wants to expand the entitlement culture and commitments of the federal government. Mike Huckabee is a supporter of the most anti–pro-life policies of the federal government, preemptive war and nation building. He wants to "save face" in Iraq. The American people cannot afford to have Mike Huckabee in the White House continue and expand the welfare-warfare state.
My fellow pro-lifers, Ron Paul opposes the welfare-warfare state with all his heart and soul and mind. When you go the caucuses and voting booths in January and February, there is only one candidate who is running for president who deserves your support: the baby doctor, the champion of the constitution and a great human being, Ron Paul, who I am proud to call my friend and hero.
Living in Manhattan and then in the Bronx during the 1950s and 1960s, politics was never discussed much at home, because my father it seemed was always working and we never had a chance to discuss politics at length. Nevertheless, I do remember my father mentioning he contributed $5 to Adlai Stevenson’s 1956 presidential campaign. My "job" as a youngster was simple – get an education and become a professional, so I wouldn’t have to work as hard as he had as a sheet metal worker, then as a New York City taxicab owner/driver.
One of my father’s great passions was the survival of the State of Israel – a very common feeling among Holocaust survivors. I shared his concern growing up, but I did not have that "connection" his generation had to Israel, nor for that matter many of my generation, children of Holocaust survivors. I always felt America was my "Zion" having become thoroughly assimilated in American culture, and at a very early age embracing the principles of the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I bring this up so you will know "where I am coming from."
As a New York City college student in the late 1960s, I applauded the New York State legislature’s decision to legalize abortion in 1967. At the time I was a middle-of-the road Democrat who did not believe the government had the authority to force women to have babies against their will. However, I did not agree with the Supreme Court’s 1973 notorious Roe v. Wade decision to legalize abortion. By 1973 I had become a pro-choice libertarian who supported federalism, the principle that contentious issues such as abortion should be decided at the state or local level. I therefore agreed with the pro-life community but for different reasons. I wanted abortion legal but decided at the state level; while pro-lifers wanted Roe v. Wade overturned so anti-abortion states could keep abortion illegal. To me the ideal "compromise" of the most controversial issue in America was simple: pro-lifers and pro-choice advocates should battle the abortion question at the statehouse. This would be democracy in action.
In the mid-1990s one of my "nontraditional students" (someone older than 25) showed me a picture of a procedure called "partial birth abortion." I was appalled that this could be legal, a fully developed baby brutally killed in a grizzly procedure that animal lovers would protest if done on a household pet or any other animal. I was under the impression that Roe allowed states to ban abortion in the last trimester and could regulate abortion in the second trimester. I was wrong. Apparently, abortion on demand has been the law of the land since 1973. I therefore could be described as a pro-choice, anti-partial birth abortion libertarian.
In March 1997 the Libertarian Party of New Jersey invited me to be its gubernatorial candidate that year. (I was a political independent at the time, having left the Republican Party in 1971 soon after I joined it in opposition to Johnson’s welfare-warfare state policies. President Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War and his economic controls revealed the GOP paid lip service to limited government. I concluded back then that we only have one party in DC, the "Washington Party".) I attended the Libertarian Party state convention at the end of the month and I was nominated without opposition to run against Gov. Christie Whitman, a pro-choice Republican and the eventual pro-choice Democrat candidate, Jim McGreevey, who was a mayor and state senator at the time. Both Whitman and McGreevey supported partial birth abortion during the campaign. So much for compassionate establishment
Republicans and Democrats.
The partial birth issue was to become one of the front-burner issues during the fall general election campaign. Moreover, I also sought guidance on the issue of abortion in general; I knew Rep. Ron Paul, who I have known since 1982, was a pro-life libertarian Republican. I called him to get his input on the abortion issue. He told me he wrote a book on abortion making a libertarian case for the pro-life position. I asked him to send me a copy. I read his beautifully written 100-page Challenge to Liberty in one reading and from then on I became a pro-life libertarian.
I never ever thought I could ever be convinced that a pro-life position was consistent with liberty and limited government. But in Challenge to Liberty, subtitled Coming to Grip with the Abortion Issue, Ron Paul demonstrated that logic is an indispensable tool to change peoples’ minds, especially when it comes to hot button issues like abortion.
For me politically, I rejoined the Republican Party in 1999 as a Ron Paul Republican and sought the 2000 GOP nomination for the U. S. Senate. I initially was in the race against Gov. Whitman who dropped out of contention in September 1999 and then three establishment Republicans jumped in the race. The primary was held in June 2000; I came in fourth as the GOP establishment used every legal trick in the book to thwart my effort.
But getting back to Ron Paul’s bid for the presidency: Can you imagine what "miracles" Ron Paul could perform from the "bully pulpit" of the White House? If Dr. Paul could convince me abortion is incompatible with morality and humanitarianism, then there is hope that he could convince millions, maybe tens of millions of Americans that they should embrace the pro-life position. However, for many men and women a candidate’s abortion position is a litmus test. Yet, Ron Paul’s pro-life stance does seem to deter many pro-choice voters from supporting him. Why? Ron Paul is a man of unsurpassed integrity, is an unwavering advocate of liberty, free enterprise, and a noninterventionist foreign policy. Moreover, Dr. Paul shares all the family values pro-lifers could hope for in a presidential candidate. Please visit his website, RonPaul2008.com.
By supporting Ron Paul for president, pro-lifers get an unequivocal pro-life president who has the best strategy to deal with the abortion issue. As Lew Rockwell wrote recently on his blog:
Ron Paul, while a pro-life champion for all his life, has always opposed a constitutional amendment against abortion. Roe v. Wade was a usurpation of federal power against the states, and it can and should be undone by Congress. Congress has the explicit constitutional authority to determine the jurisdiction of the Supreme and other federal courts, except for a very narrow area (lawsuits between foreign governments and the US government, etc.).
A simple vote of both houses of Congress would do it, as Ron has long proposed legislatively. His bill would strip the federal courts of jurisdiction over abortion. But the Republicans don't want to repeal Roe anymore than the Democrats do. It is too fertile an issue for both parties.
Under a constitutional regime, the states handle such questions. New York and California, for example, would have legal abortion; Alabama and North Dakota would not. Of course, there would be no federal abortions performed or subsidized, under Medicaid, the military, the Indian Health Service, etc. (Funny how the allegedly pro-life Bush has never vetoed tax-paid abortions in military hospitals.)
Such a federalist regime wouldn't satisfy the centralizing ultras on either side, who would be welcome to fight it out in the state legislatures, but the vast majority of Americans would sigh in relief.
In any event, only religion can effectively battle abortion, not the guns and jails of the government….
For pro-lifers who are supporting and flirting with voting for Mike Huckabee in Iowa, New Hampshire and other early caucus and primary states, I urge you to first read Dr. Paul’s positions on abortion. Contrast Ron Paul’s positions with Mike Huckabee who writes on his website, "To me, life doesn't begin at conception and end at birth. Every child deserves a quality education, first-rate health care, decent housing in a safe neighborhood…" (Emphasis added) In short, Mike Huckabee believes in a comprehensive welfare state just like any Democrat running for president. Mike Huckabee believes in big government. Big government is bankrupting America and Huckabee wants to expand the entitlement culture and commitments of the federal government. Mike Huckabee is a supporter of the most anti–pro-life policies of the federal government, preemptive war and nation building. He wants to "save face" in Iraq. The American people cannot afford to have Mike Huckabee in the White House continue and expand the welfare-warfare state.
My fellow pro-lifers, Ron Paul opposes the welfare-warfare state with all his heart and soul and mind. When you go the caucuses and voting booths in January and February, there is only one candidate who is running for president who deserves your support: the baby doctor, the champion of the constitution and a great human being, Ron Paul, who I am proud to call my friend and hero.
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