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U.S. Rep. Ron Paul defense Book of Ron Paul defense State Of The Republic 28 January 1998    1998 Ron Paul 2:15 These days, not even the United States moves without permission from the UN Security Council. In checking with the U.S. Air Force about the history of U–2 flights in Iraq, over Iraq, and in their current schedules, I was firmly told the Air Force was not in charge of these flights, the UN was. The Air Force suggested I call the Defense Department. defense State Of The Republic 28 January 1998    1998 Ron Paul 2:107 A consistent defense of all voluntary associations does not preclude laws against violence, fraud, threat, libel and slander. To punish acts of aggression and protect non-violent economic and social associations is the main purpose of government in a constitutional republic. Moral imperfections cannot be eliminated by government force any more than economic inequalities can be eliminated through welfare or socialist legislation. defense State Of The Republic 28 January 1998    1998 Ron Paul 2:137 Political leaders no longer see their responsibility to protect life and liberty as a sacred trust and a concept of individual rights has been significantly undermined throughout the 20th century. The record verifies this. Authoritarian governments, in this the bloodiest of all centuries, have annihilated over 100 million people, their own. Wars have killed an additional 34 million, and only a small number of these were truly in the defense of liberty. defense Three Important Issues For America 11 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 7:60 I think the responsibility of the Members of Congress here is to protect the national interest, to provide national security, to take care of national defense, to follow the rules that say, we should not go to war unless the war is declared. If we go to war, we go to war to fight and win the war. But we do not go to war because we like one country over another country and we want to support them. defense Three Important Issues For America 11 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 7:72 So I see this as really a sad time for us and not one that we should be proud of. I do know that the two weakest arguments I can present here would be that of a moral argument, that wars ought to be fought only for defense and for national security. I have been told that is too old-fashioned and we must police the world, and we have the obligation. We are the only superpower. defense Three Important Issues For America 11 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 7:84 In a war for national defense, if this country is threatened, every one of us should participate in it. We should and we can. We could do it our way, to participate in the defense of this country. But once it is being involved in a casual and a careless manner with not knowing what the goals are, not knowing what victory means, not fighting to win, this can only lead to bigger problems. defense Three Important Issues For America 11 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 7:102 There is nothing wrong with a foreign policy that is consistent based on a moral principle and on our Constitution. That means that the responsibility of the U.S. Congress is to provide for a strong national defense. There is nothing wrong with being friends with everybody who is willing to be friends with us. There is nothing wrong with trading with as many people that will trade with us, and there is nothing wrong with working for as low tariffs as possible. defense Three Important Issues For America 11 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 7:111 There is nothing wrong with a consistent defense of a pro-America foreign policy. People will say, well, the world is different and we have to be involved. That is exactly the reason that we ought to be less aggressive. That is exactly the reason why we ought to take our own counsel and not do these things. Because we live in an age where communications are much more rapid. The weapons are much worse. There is every reason in the world to do less of this, not more of it. defense Urging Caution On Action Taken In Iraq 12 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 11:3 Morally, the only justifiable war is a war of defense, a war when our national security is threatened. A legal war in this country is one that is declared by the Congress acting for the people. defense Millennium Bug 24 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 13:2 The General Accounting Office (GAO) has reported unfavorably on the FDIC’s readiness. Before the Subcommittee on Financial Services and Technology, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, US Senate, Jack L. Brock, Jr., Director, Governmentwide and Defense Information Systems, testified on February 10, 1998 (Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Efforts to Ensure Bank’s Systems Are Year 2000 Compliant) that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has not met its own “y2k-compliant” standards. According to GAO, the FDIC has not yet completed the assessment phase of the remediation process, despite its own standard that banks under the agency’s supervision should have completed this phase by the end of the third quarter of 1997. defense The Folly Of Foreign Intervention — Part 1 25 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 15:10 So all of a sudden it is hard to understand why our policy changes. But once we embark on a policy of intervention and it is arbitrary, we intervene when we please or when it seems to help, it seems then that we can be on either side of any issue anytime, and so often we are on both sides of many wars. This does not serve us well. A policy design that is said to be pro-American and in defense of this country where we follow the rules and follow the laws and we do not get involved in war without a declaration by the Congress, I think it would be very healthy not only for us as Americans but it would be very healthy for the world as a whole. defense The Folly Of Foreign Intervention — Part 1 25 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 15:12 But we used the CIA in Cuba a few decades ago. Now it has just been revealed that our CIA botched the job. Also, those individuals who were trying to restore freedom to Cuba, we let them down by them assuming we would do more and then we did less. We were very much involved in overthrowing a leader in South Vietnam right before the rampant escalation of the war there. That did not serve us well. And then there is another example of our CIA putting a government in charge over in Iran. That is when we put the Shah in. But this did not bring peace and stability to the region. It brought us hostage takings and hostility and hatred and threats of terrorism in this country. So although many will make the moral cause for doing good around the world, there is no moral justification if we are going to follow the laws of this land and try to stick to the rules of providing a national defense for us and a strong foreign policy. defense The Folly Of Foreign Intervention — Part 2 25 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 17:1 Mr. PAUL. I thank the gentleman for his remarks. He made some very good points. I would like to follow up on the one point with regards to the military. That is one of the most essential functions of the Federal Government, is to provide for a strong national defense. But if we intervene carelessly around the world, that serves to weaken us. defense The Folly Of Foreign Intervention — Part 3 25 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 18:18 It is not difficult for me to come down on the side of arguing for peace. Peace is what we should be for. That does not mean you give up your military, but you use your military more wisely than we have over the past 30 or 40 years. You use it for national defense. defense The Folly Of Foreign Intervention — Part 3 25 February 1998    1998 Ron Paul 18:19 Today we have a powerful military force, but a lot of people do not think we are as strong in defense as we used to be. So, yes, we are stronger than others, but if we have a failed and a flawed policy and a military that has been weakened, then we are looking for trouble. defense Birth Defects Prevention Act 10 March 1998    1998 Ron Paul 24:3 As a Congressman, I have repeatedly come to the house floor to denounce the further expansion of the federal government into areas ranging from “toilet-tank-size mandates” to “public housing pet size;” areas, that is, where no enumerated power exists and the tenth amendment reserves to state governments and private citizens the exclusive jurisdiction over such matters. My visits to the floor have not gone uncontested — proponents of an enlarged federal government and more government spending have justified their pet spending and expansionist projects by distorting the meaning of the “necessary and proper” and “common defense and general welfare” clauses to encompass the constitutionally illegitimate activities they advocate. Even the Export-Import Bank and Overseas Private Investment Corporation during Foreign Operations Appropriations debate were constitutionally “justified” by the express power to “coin money and regulate the value thereof”? In other words, where money exists, credit exists — where credit exists, loans exist — where loans exist, defaulters exist — and from this, the federal government has a duty to bail-out (at taxpayer expense) politically connected corporations who make bad loans in political-risk-laden venues? defense Birth Defects Prevention Act 10 March 1998    1998 Ron Paul 24:4 In the Federalist Papers, Madison and Hamilton strongly denied such views with respect to the necessary and proper clause. Madison was similarly emphatic that the “defense and welfare” clause did not expand the enumerated powers granted to Congress. To the extent these clauses encompass the enumerated powers (rather than merely serve as their preamble), one must ask why then the federal powers were, in fact, enumerated in Article One, Section 8. defense Birth Defects Prevention Act 10 March 1998    1998 Ron Paul 24:7 Congress are [sic] authorized to defend the nation. Ships are necessary for defense, copper is necessary for ships; mines, necessary for copper; a company necessary to work the mines; and who can doubt this reasoning who has ever played at “This is the House that Jack Built”? under such a process of filiation of the necessities the sweeping clause makes clean work. [1 c. Warren, The Supreme Court United States History 501 (Rev. ed. 1926] defense U.S. Obsession With Worldwide Military Occupation Policy 10 March 1998    1998 Ron Paul 25:13 Concern for American security is a proper and necessary function of the U.S. Congress. The current policy, and one pursued for decades, threatens our security, drains our wallets, and worst of all, threatens the lives of young Americans to stand tall for Americans’ defense, but not for Kofi Annan and the United Nations. defense Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act 31 March 1998    1998 Ron Paul 31:3 Unfortunately, Congress has refused to acknowledge anytime recently that the proper and constitutional role of the U.S. military is to provide for the national defense and not the security of all foreign entities against attacks by all other foreign entities. It was for this reason that I submitted amendments to defund the military appropriations in H.R. 3579. The proper amount of appropriations for unjustifiable United States peacekeeping missions around the world is zero. Instead, this bill rescinds funding from domestic programs such as airport funding to be spent on our “police-the-world” program. defense Building Highways Is State Function 1 April 1998    1998 Ron Paul 34:2 I would like to remind my colleagues that in the 1950s when the Federal highway program started it was recognized that it was an improper function of the Federal Government. Therefore the Congress back then, they were still recognizing that the Constitution had some effect as well as the President; they had to come up for a reason for the highway projects, so they did it under national defense. defense Don’t Bail Out Bankers 23 April 1998    1998 Ron Paul 38:2 Think about it. Some of you would like to spend that on the military, on national defense. That would not be too bad an idea. Others might want to spend it on domestic welfare programs. This would be a better idea than bailing out rich bankers and foreign governments. Besides, there are some of us who would like to give the $53 billion back to the American people and lower their taxes. But to give them another $18 billion does not make any sense. defense The Bubble 28 April 1998    1998 Ron Paul 39:27 A good example of how interventionism leads to the destruction of a market can be seen in the recent tobacco fiasco. First, the tobacco industry accepted subsidies and protectionism to build a powerful and wealthy industry. Then, having conceded this “nanny” role to the government, Big Tobacco had no defense when it was held liable for illnesses that befell some of the willing users of tobacco products. Now, the current plan of super taxation on tobacco users will allow the politicians to bail out the individual farmers who may be injured by reduced use of tobacco products (destruction of the market). This half-trillion-dollar tax proposal hardly solves the problem. defense Girl Arrested For Rescuing Classmate In Asthma Attack 5 May 1998    1998 Ron Paul 47:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to point out, once again, that up until just very recently in our history, it was assumed that the Federal Government did not have this authority. To assume that we do have this, I guess that is why we call it a war, to say that this is national defense. defense United Nations Money Came From Defense Department 20 May 1998    1998 Ron Paul 53:3 I think another point that we ought to make is, how did they get any money already? They got it from the Defense Department. We did not even appropriate the money. They have already started it. They have used American taxpayers’ money without a direct appropriation from this Congress, and it is about time we stopped that type of legislation. That is the point. Where did the money come from? The Defense Department. It goes over into the United Nations for meddling, meddling overseas. It is taken away, literally, from defense. defense United Nations Money Came From Defense Department 20 May 1998    1998 Ron Paul 53:4 We have a problem in this country for national defense. We have Air Force people who do not get flying time. Our men are not trained. We do not have the right equipment. We continuously spend all our money overseas, endlessly getting involved in Bosnia and Somalia, and wherever. defense Can’t Vote For Amendment 4 June 1998    1998 Ron Paul 55:4 Those who attack religious values are, unfortunately, not doing it in the defense of constitutional liberty. Secular humanism, although equivalent to a religion, is passed off as being neutral with respect to spiritual beliefs, and yet too often used to fill the void by forced exclusion of other beliefs. defense Patient Protection Act of 1998 24 July 1998    1998 Ron Paul 84:12 Perhaps the biggest danger these regulations pose is ratification of the principle that guaranteeing a patients’ access to physicians is the proper role for the government, thus opening the door for further federal control of the patient-physician relationship. I ask my physician-colleagues who support this regulation, once we have accepted the notion that federal government can ensure patients have access to our services, what defense can we offer when the government places new regulations and conditions on that access? defense Iraq — Part 3 5 October 1998    1998 Ron Paul 109:7 Mr. Speaker, let me just close by talking a little bit about this authorization. It says, there are to be authorized appropriations, such sums as may be necessary to reimburse the applicable appropriation funds. This is what the money is to go for: Defense articles, defense services, military education, and training. Sounds like getting ready for the Bay of Pigs. That is exactly what we did. And then we backed off, we were not doing it for the right reason, and of course we have solidified for 40 years the dictatorship in Cuba. defense Supports Impeachment Of President Clinton 19 December 1998    1998 Ron Paul 125:2 The charges against the President are serious and straight forward: lying, perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power. The main argument made in his defense is that these charges surround the sexual escapades of the President and therefore should not be considered as serious as they otherwise would be. defense How Long Will The War With Iraq Go On Before Congress Notices? 2 February 1999    1999 Ron Paul 3:7 The continual ranting about stopping Hussein, who is totally defenseless against our attacks, from developing weapons of mass destruction ignores the fact that more than 30,000 very real nuclear warheads are floating around the old Soviet empire. defense Congress Relinquishing The Power To Wage War 2 February 1999    1999 Ron Paul 4:6 Let there be no doubt. The President, according to the Constitution, has no power to wage war. However it has been recognized throughout our history that certain circumstances might require the President to act in self-defense if Congress is not readily available to act if the United States is attacked. defense Congress Relinquishing The Power To Wage War 2 February 1999    1999 Ron Paul 4:14 Without an actual declaration of war and support from the American people, victory is unachievable. This has been the case with the ongoing war against Iraq. Without a legitimate concern for our national security, the willingness to declare war and achieve victory is difficult. The war effort becomes narrowly political, serving special interests, and not fought for the defense of the United States against a serious military threat. If we can win a Cold War against the Soviets, we hardly need a hot war with a third world nation, unable to defend itself, Iraq. defense President Should Get Authority From Congress To Send Troops 9 February 1999    1999 Ron Paul 5:6 It would be much better for us to spend this money that is being wasted in Bosnia and Iraq on our national defense. We spend less and less money every year on national defense but we spend more and more money on policing the world. I think that policy ought to change and it is the responsibility of the Congress, the body that has control of the purse strings, to do something about this. defense President Should Get Authority From Congress To Send Troops 9 February 1999    1999 Ron Paul 5:11 Troops in Kosovo will not serve the interests of the United States. They will not help our national security. It will drain funds that should be spent on national defense. At the same time it will jeopardize our national security by endangering our troops and raising the possibility of us becoming involved in a war spreading through the Balkans. This should not occur. defense Introducing Legislation To Prevent Expansion Of American Military Intervention Without Congressional Approval 11 February 1999    1999 Ron Paul 6:2 I have introduced legislation that will prevent the President from sending troops to further expand our intervention around the world without congressional approval. This is very, very important. We are spending so much money on intervention in so many countries around the world at the same time our national defense is being diminished. Worst of all, the President is planning to put these thousands of troops under a British commander. defense Kosovo War Resolution 11 March 1999    1999 Ron Paul 18:4 I strongly urge that we not send the troops. It is not our fight. We are not the policemen of the world. It weakens our national defense. There are numerous reasons why we do not need to send more troops into another country someplace around the world. Every time we do this it just leads to the next problem. defense Everybody Supports the Troops 24 March 1999    1999 Ron Paul 21:4 Now, if we really want to support our troops, I think we would defend the sovereignty of this country, we should provide for a strong national defense and we certainly should avoid putting our troops in harm’s way. The real question that comes up is by putting the troops in this region right now, we are invading the sovereignty of a nation which is very questionable. This is not done very often. Yet Serbia is a sovereign nation. They are involved in a civil war, and there are bad guys on both sides. For us here in the Congress to decide who the good guys and who the bad guys are is not possible, nor is it our job. defense U.S. Military Action Taking Place in Serbia is Unconstitutional 24 March 1999    1999 Ron Paul 22:11 Sympathy and compassion for the suffering and voluntary support for the oppressed is commendable. The use of force and acts of war to pick and choose between two sides fighting for hundreds of years cannot achieve peace. It can only spread the misery and suffering, weaken our defenses and undermine our national sovereignty. defense Peace 25 March 1999    1999 Ron Paul 23:4 For is it not the same virtue which would do the thing for us here in these United States? Do you imagine than that it is the Income Tax which pays our revenue? That it is the annual vote of the Ways and Means Committee, which provide us an army? Or that it is the Court Martial which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! Surely, no! It is the private activity of citizens which gives government revenue, and it is the defense of our country that encourages young people to not only populate our army and navy but also has infused them with a patriotism without which our army will become a base rubble and our navy nothing but rotten timber. defense Crisis in Kosovo 14 April 1999    1999 Ron Paul 25:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to address the crisis that is ongoing now in Yugoslavia. For a war to be moral, we must have a reason to go in. National defense is a moral justification. If we are attacked, it is a moral war. Getting involved in any other kind of war is not considered to be moral. defense Opposing Congressional Medal of Honor for Rosa Parks 20 April 1999    1999 Ron Paul 28:2 Because of my continuing and uncompromising opposition to appropriations not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution, I must remain consistent in my defense of a limited government whose powers are explicitly delimited under the enumerated powers of the Constitution—a Constitution, which only months ago, each Member of Congress, swore to uphold. defense U.S. Foreign Policy and NATO’s Involvement in Yugoslavia and Kosovo 21 April 1999    1999 Ron Paul 29:3 This policy of nation-building and interference in a civil war totally contradicts the mission of European defense set out in the NATO charter. defense U.S. Foreign Policy and NATO’s Involvement in Yugoslavia and Kosovo 21 April 1999    1999 Ron Paul 29:12 How many refugees, how many children’s death has U.S. policy caused by our embargo and bombing for 9 years of a defenseless poverty-ridden Iraq. Just as our bombs in Iraq have caused untold misery and death, so have our bombs in Serbia killed the innocent on both sides, solidified support for the ruthless leaders, and spread the war. defense U.S. Foreign Policy and NATO’s Involvement in Yugoslavia and Kosovo 21 April 1999    1999 Ron Paul 29:30 Our overseas efforts to police the world implies that with or without success, resulting injuries and damage imposed by us and others will be rectified with U.S. tax dollars in the form of more foreign aid, as we always do. Nation building and international social work has replaced national defense as the proper responsibility of our government. defense U.S. Foreign Policy and NATO’s Involvement in Yugoslavia and Kosovo 21 April 1999    1999 Ron Paul 29:53 Philosophic interventionism is a politician’s dream. It allows arbitrary intervention, domestic or international, and when political circumstances demand opposition, it is easy to cite the Constitution which always and correctly rejects the use of government force, except for national self-defense and for the protection of life, liberty and property. defense Moral And Constitutional Wars Must Be Fought In Self Defense 28 April 1999    1999 Ron Paul 35:16 But I think it is a powerful message that the American people have spoke through this House of Representatives today to not rubber stamp an illegal, unconstitutional and immoral war. The only moral war is a war that is fought in self-defense. Some claim that this is a moral war because there are people who have been injured. But that is not enough justification. The moral and constitutional war has to be fought in self-defense. defense We Must Not Fund This Senseless Bombing 5 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 39:2 Serb victims are people, too, who love their families and hate the war, yet become the victims of this ill-conceived policy of NATO aggression. It is a strange argument, indeed, that the capture of our three soldiers was illegal and yet our bombing of civilians is not. Violence, when not in one’s own self-defense, can never be justified, no matter how noble the explanation. It only makes things worse. defense Kosovo War Is Illegal 5 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 40:13 Number ten. Our weapons are being depleted, our troops spread too thin, resulting in further undermining of our national defense. defense Kosovo War Is Illegal 5 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 40:16 Up until now, general defense funds have been spent to wage this war without permission. The President wants to catch up and is asking for $6 billion, but Congress, in its infinite wisdom, wants to give him $13 billion for a war Congress rejects. Once we directly fund the war we will be partners in this mis-adventure. The votes last week were symbolic. They had no effect of law, but appropriations do. defense Kosovo War Is Illegal 5 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 40:17 Saying the new appropriations will be used to beef up a neglected defense does not make it so. Defense funds are fungible. The President has proven this by waging a war for a month without any authorization or appropriation. Congress will no more control the next $13 billion than the money the President has already spent on the war. defense More Money For War Not The Answer 6 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 42:4 Mr. Speaker, there is a fallacy, that floats around this House that says that if we increase the funding for the military, we will have greater defense. That reminds me of the accusation from the right that always challenges the left that says, if there is a social problem, all you want ever to do is throw more money at it. The worse the problem gets, the more money they want to spend on the social problem. defense More Money For War Not The Answer 6 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 42:5 It seems like the worse our defense gets and the more we get into quagmires around the world and the more we accept the policy of policing the world, all we seem to do is come back and say, well, if we just put more money in it, everything is going to be okay. defense More Money For War Not The Answer 6 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 42:7 Yes, I am for a strong national defense, but if the policy is wrong, it will undermine all the spending. The money will actually be wasted. Funding encourages a policy that is in error. Funding is an endorsement of the war. We must realize that it is equivalent to it. We have not declared this war. If we fund it, we essentially become partners in this ill-advised war. defense No Billions In Appropriations Can Make Our Foreign Policy Effective 13 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 46:9 Thus or contortions and distortions that have led to dilemmas in our thoughts and dilemmas in our policy have led also to real paradoxes. Because our policy of globaloney is so bad, so unprincipled and so bound up with the notions of interventionism, we now face this strange truth: we ought to spend less on our military but we should spend more on defense. Our troops are underpaid, untertrained and poorly outfitted for the tasks we have given them. We are vulnerable to missile attack, and how do we spend our constituents money? What priorities have we set in this body? We vote to purchase a few more bombs to drop over Serbia or Iraq. defense No Billions In Appropriations Can Make Our Foreign Policy Effective 13 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 46:10 Our policy is flawed. Our nation is at risk. Our defenses are weakened by those people who say they are “hawks” and those who claim they “support the troops.” Our policy is the end to which we must make ourselves effective, and currently our policy is all wrong. Our constitution grants us the obligation to defend this nation, and the right to defend only this nation. I should hope that we will never be prepared to police the world. We should not be militarily prepared nor philosophically prepared for such a policy. We need to refocus our military force policy and the way to do that is clear. It is to return it to the constitutionally authorized role of defending our country. Again, this is not simply a question of policy, and not merely a political question. No Mr. Speaker, the source of our quandary is the minds and hearts of human beings. Bad philosophy will always lead to bad policy precisely because ideas do have consequences. defense No Billions In Appropriations Can Make Our Foreign Policy Effective 13 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 46:12 “Now we are in it we must win it.” But we know not what “win” means, other than “be effective.” But we are “unprepared,” but unprepared for what? Unprepared to be effective! But what is it, we are ineffective at achieving? “Well, winning,” is the reply. Without ends our policies become tautological. And with the wrong policy, our execution becomes disastrous. We must reject this absurd pragmatism and reestablish a military policy based on the defense of our nation. Only then we will be able to take the steps necessary for effectiveness, and preparedness. No billions in appropriations can make our present policy effective. defense Quietly Restoring Funding For War In Kosovo 27 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 53:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me this time. I would like to point out that this is a rule of which I do not believe the authors should be proud. This rule, I believe, strictly limits a serious debate with regards to our national defense and our involvement in war at this particular time. defense Quietly Restoring Funding For War In Kosovo 27 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 53:4 But today we are dealing with this process, and this is related to the bill that is about to be brought to the floor because, specifically, as this bill came out of committee, it said that monies in this bill should be used for defense, not for aggressive warfare in Kosovo, and yet that was struck in the Committee on Rules. That is a serious change in the bill. I think all our colleagues must remember this when it comes time to vote for the final passage. defense Quietly Restoring Funding For War In Kosovo 27 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 53:5 We could have had a bill that made a statement against spending this money to perpetuate this illegal NATO war, and yet it was explicitly removed from the bill. I think this is reason to question the efforts on this rule. Certainly it should challenge all of us on the final passage of this bill, because much of this money will not be spent on the national defense, but to perpetuate war, which is a direct distraction from our national defense because it involves increasing threats to our national security. It does not protect our national security. defense Quietly Restoring Funding For War In Kosovo 27 May 1999    1999 Ron Paul 53:6 It might be well to also note that this bill does not do much more for fiscal conservatives. The President asked for a certain amount for the defense of this country, but we have seen fit to raise him more than $8 billion, spend more money, more money that is so often not spent in our national defense. At the same time, we must also remember that when we vote on this bill, and this rule allows it, more than $10 billion will be in excess of the budget agreement of 1997. defense A Positive Spin On An Ugly War 7 June 1999    1999 Ron Paul 54:5 Number four, more Americans every day are discovering that military spending is not equivalent to defense spending. This is a good start. It is clearly evident that when useless immoral wars are pursued, money is wasted, weapons are consumed, and national security is endangered, opposite to everything that is supposed to be achieved through defense spending. A foolish policy of foreign interventionism, no matter how much money is spent on the military, can never substitute for a sensible, pro-American policy of friendship and trade with all those countries willing to engage. defense A Positive Spin On An Ugly War 7 June 1999    1999 Ron Paul 54:6 Number five, the ill-gotten war has shown once again that air power alone, and especially when pursued without a declaration of war and a determination to win, serves no useful purpose. Although most military experts have stated this for years, it is now readily apparent to anyone willing to study the issue. Many more Americans now agree that war not fought for the defense of one’s country and for the preservation of liberty is immoral and rarely brings about victory. If we remember that in the future, that would be good. defense A Positive Spin On An Ugly War 7 June 1999    1999 Ron Paul 54:11 Number ten, the 19 nations’ military actions against a tiny state shows that alliances to promote aggression do not work. The moral high ground is not achieved because despite the pronouncements of concerns for the suffering of the innocent, when survival is not at stake and when the defense against an aggressor is not an issue, war by committee is doomed to fail. This is a lesson that needs restating. defense Campaign Finance Reform 14 June 1999    1999 Ron Paul 58:3 There is tremendous incentive for every special interest group to influence government. Every individual, bank or corporation that does business with government invests plenty in influencing government. Lobbyists spend over $100 million per month trying to influence Congress. Taxpayers’ dollars are endlessly spent by bureaucrats in their effort to convince Congress to protect their own empires. Government has tremendous influence over the economy and financial markets through interest rate controls, contracts, regulations, loans and grants. Corporations and others are forced to participate in the process out of greed, as well as self defense, since that is the way the system works. defense Campaign Finance Reform 14 June 1999    1999 Ron Paul 58:16 There’s tremendous incentive for every special interest group to influence government. Every individual, bank or corporation that does business with government invests plenty in influencing government. Lobbyists spend over a hundred million dollars per month trying to influence Congress. Taxpayers dollars are endlessly spent by bureaucrats in their effort to convince Congress to protect their own empires. Government has tremendous influence over the economy, and financial markets through interest rate controls, contracts, regulations, loans, and grants. Corporations and others are “forced” to participate in the process out of greed as well as self defense— since that’s the way the system works. Equalizing competition and balancing power such as between labor and business is a common practice. As long as this system remains in place, the incentive to buy influence will continue. defense On The United Nations And Embassy security 19 July 1999    1999 Ron Paul 79:8 Now, this does not get us out of the United Nations. It is a step in that direction, obviously. But it is a step in the right direction because I think it is the proper use of our military if we do not capitulate and put it under NATO and put it in the United Nations. We need to use our military strictly in the defense of U.S. sovereignty. defense Selective Service System 8 September 1999    1999 Ron Paul 91:4 Ronald Reagan was a strong opponent of the draft. He spoke out against it. We do not need it. It is wasted money. It is absolutely unnecessary. The Department of Defense has spoken out clearly that it is not necessary for national security reasons to have a selective service system, and yet we continually spend $24.5 million annually for this program. So I urge all Members, all my colleagues, to oppose putting this money back in for the Selective Service System. defense Campaign Finance Reform 14 September 1999    1999 Ron Paul 97:3 There’s tremendous incentive for every special interest group to influence government. Every individual, bank or corporation that does business with government invests plenty in influencing government. Lobbyists spend over a hundred million dollars per month trying to influence Congress. Taxpayers dollars are endlessly spent by bureaucrats in their effort to convince Congress to protect their own empires. Government has tremendous influence over the economy, and financial markets through interest rate controls, contracts, regulations, loans, and grants. Corporations and others are ‘forced’ to participate in the process out of greed as well as self-defense — since that’s the way the system works. Equalizing competition and balancing power such as between labor and business is a common practice. As long as this system remains in place, the incentive to buy influence will continue. defense A Republic, If You Can Keep It 31 January 2000    2000 Ron Paul 2:88 Throughout our early history and up to World War I, our wars were fought with volunteers. There was no military draft except for a failed attempt by Lincoln in the Civil War which ended with justified riots and rebellion against it. The attitudes toward the draft definitely changed over the past century. Draftees were said to be necessary to fight in World War I and World War II, Korea and Vietnam. This change in attitude has definitely satisfied those who believe that we have an obligation to police the world. The idiocy of Vietnam served as a catalyst for an antidraft attitude which is still alive today. Fortunately we have not had a draft for over 25 years, but Congress refuses to address this matter in a principled fashion by abolishing once and for all the useless selective service system. Too many authoritarians in Congress still believe that in times of need, an army of teenage draftees will be needed to defend our commercial interests throughout the world. A return to the spirit of the republic would mean that a draft would never be used and all able-bodied persons would be willing to volunteer in defense of their liberty. Without the willingness to do so, liberty cannot be saved. A conscripted army can never substitute for the willingness of freedom-loving Americans to defend their country out of their love for liberty. defense A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Part 2 2 February 2000    2000 Ron Paul 5:17 Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen was recently quoted as saying, “Terrorism is escalating to the point that U.S. citizens may have to choose between civil liberties and more intrusive forms of protection.” This is all in the name of taking care of us. defense A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Part 2 2 February 2000    2000 Ron Paul 5:116 1. Complete police protection is impossible; therefore, we must preserve the right to own weapons in self-defense. defense UNNECESSARY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND UNWISE MILITARY ADVENTURISM IN COLOMBIA March 29, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 20:3 But we should be very cautious about what we are doing today by expanding our involvement in Colombia. We are now moving into Colombia and spending a lot of money and expanding our war in this area. We should not be spending our money on military adventurism. We should be taking this money and spending it to build up our military defenses. We should be using this money to pay our military personnel more money, give them better housing and better education and better medical care. defense 2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT March 29, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 21:5 I had an amendment that was not approved. But what I would have done, if I had had the chance, I would have taken all the money from the overseas spending, Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor, and the funds now for this new adventure down in Colombia, and put it into building up our military defense. That is what we need. We need better salaries, better medical care, and we need better housing for our military personnel. But here we go spreading ourselves thinly again around the world by taking on a new adventure, which will surely lead to trouble and a lot of expense. defense 2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT March 29, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 21:10 So I think that, unfortunately, this could end up in a real mess. Maybe then we would have enough sense to leave. But we, in the Congress, ought to have enough sense not to go down there. This money can be better spent on national defense. We should be concerned about national security. defense 2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT March 29, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 21:12 Under the Constitution, we should have a strong national defense, and we should provide for national security. Going into Colombia has nothing to do with national security and serves to undermine national defense. defense 2000 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT March 29, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 21:19 It’s amazing to me to see an administration who strongly opposes law abiding American citizens from owning guns for self defense to be such a promoter of the big guns of war throughout the world. defense Amendment No. 5 Offered By Mr. Paul 30 March 2000    2000 Ron Paul 22:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment. The CHAIRMAN. The Clerk will designate the amendment. The text of the amendment is as follows: Amendment No. 5 printed in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD offered by Mr. PAUL: At the end of the bill, insert after the last section (preceding the short title) the following new section: SEC. . (a) The amounts otherwise provided in title I for the following accounts are hereby reduced by the following amounts: (1) “DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE—Drug Enforcement Administration—Salaries and Expenses”, $293,048,000. (2) “DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE-MILITARY —OTHER DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PROGRAMS—Drug Interdiction and Counter-Drug Activities, Defense”, $185,800,000. (3) “BILATERAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE —Funds Appropriated to the President —Department of State—Assistance for Plan Colombia and for Andean Regional Counternarcotics Activities”, $1,099,000,000. (b) None of the funds made available in title I for “Military Construction, Defense- Wide” may be used for construction outside of the United States or any of its territories or possessions. (c) None of the funds made available in title II may be used for operations in Kosovo or East Timor, other than the return of United States personnel and property to the United States. The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to the order of the House of Wednesday, March 29, 2000, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. PAUL) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. YOUNG) each will control 10 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas (Mr. PAUL). defense Fiscal 2000 Supplemental Appropriations/DEA Funding Cuts Amendment 30 March 2000    2000 Ron Paul 23:7 If we want to spend the money, spend it here at home. Spend the money here. Build up our national defense. If we wish to continually expand our interventionism and aggravation overseas, then I guess we have to vote against this amendment and for the bill. But this is a policy statement. Should we continue current policy of forever spending money and being involved overseas? I say it is time to start thinking about what is good for our people, what is good for our taxpayers, what is good for national defense, and what is good for our constitutional republic. Should we be doing this? I do not think so. Are we authorized to do it? No, we are not authorized to police the world. defense Fiscal 2000 Supplemental Appropriations/DEA Funding Cuts Amendment 30 March 2000    2000 Ron Paul 23:9 We condemn all the welfare from the left, but we always have our own welfare on the right, and it is not for national defense. We should do less of this military adventurism overseas and put it into national defense, take better care of our troops, which would boost morale, and increase our ability to defend our country. But, instead, what do we do? We subsidize our enemies to the tune of many billions of dollars for a country like China at the same time, when they are aggravated and annoyed with Taiwan, we send more weapons to Taiwan and then promise to send American servicemen to stand in between the two of them. defense Sense Of Congress Regarding Importance And Value Of Education In United States History July 10, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 63:5 * Madam Speaker, the confusion over whether America is a democracy, where citizens’ rights may be violated if the consent of 51 percent of the people may be obtained, or a republic, where the federal government is forbidden to take any actions violating a people’s fundamental rights, is behind many of the flawed debates in this Congress. A constitutionally literate Congress that understands the proper function of a legislature in a constitutional republic would never even debate whether or not to abridge the right of self-defense, instruct parents how to raise and educate their children, send troops to intervene in distant foreign quarrels that do not involve the security of the country, or even deny entire classes of citizens the fundamental right to life. defense AMERICA’S ROLE IN THE UNITED NATIONS September 18, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 77:29 While no previous United Nations’ secretary general has been so bold, Annan’s proclamation of universal jurisdiction over ‘human rights and fundamental freedoms’ simply reflects the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations which contemplated a future in which the United Nations operates in perpetuity ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of ware . . . to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights . . . to establish conditions under which justice . . . can be maintained, and to promote social progress and between standards of life in larger freedom.’ Such lofty goals and objectives are comparable to those found in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America: ‘to . . . establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity . . .’ defense CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 4205, FLOYD D. SPENCE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2001 October 11, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 83:1 * Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 4205, the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 Conference Report. While Federal constitutional authority clearly exists to provide for the national defense, global militarism was never contemplated by the founders. Misnamed like most everything else in Washington, the ‘Defense’ Authorization Act thus funds U.N.-directed peacekeeping in Kosovo and Bosnia to the tune of $3.1 billion dollars, $443 million in aid to the former Soviet Union, $172 million for NATO infrastructure (the formerly defensive alliance which recently initiated force against Kosovo), and $869 million for drug interdiction efforts by the U.S. military in an attempt to take our failed 1920’s prohibition experiment worldwide. defense CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 4205, FLOYD D. SPENCE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2001 October 11, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 83:2 * Certainly a bill authorizing use of resources for the national defense which also properly compensates those military personnel necessary to maintain it would be not only constitutional but most appropriate. Contrarily, a bill which continues our elitist and failed policy of policing the world all the while creating additional enemies of the United States is neither constitutional, justifiable, supportable, nor prudent. By avoiding such a police-the-world approach, which destroys troop morale by isolating them from their families and spreading them dangerously thin, considerably less money could be authorized with seriously improved security results. defense CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 4205, FLOYD D. SPENCE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2001 October 11, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 83:3 * Meanwhile, H.R. 3769, my bill to prohibit the destruction during fiscal year 2001 of missile silos in the United States, fails to even receive so much as a hearing. While I understand that to comply with questionable, but ratified, disarmament treaties, certain missiles may need to be deactivated, it seems ill-advised to spend money to also destroy the missile silos which may be strategically vital to our national defense at some date in the not-so-distant future. defense CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 4205, FLOYD D. SPENCE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2001 October 11, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 83:4 * I encourage my colleagues to rethink the United States’ 20th century role of global policeman and restore instead, a policy of true national defense which will better protect their constituents, keep their constituent’s children safer and out of endless global conflicts, and reassume for taxpayers some semblance of fiscal sanity. defense THREATS TO FINANCIAL FREEDOM October 19, 2000    2000 Ron Paul 88:17 As part of the drug war that progressed and expanded (but is never victorious), the catch all crime of ‘money laundering’ was invented: an all purpose federal prosecutors’ dream. The anti-money laundering statutes that have grown like a malignancy. Charges of money laundering now routinely are shown in with almost every possible criminal indictment, often as a bargaining chip and/or a means to confiscate the wealth of the accused even before trial. Try hiring a good defense attorney when your bank account has been frozen. defense CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC — February 07, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 7:77 Talk of a new era the past five years has had many, including Greenspan, believing that this time it really would be different. And it may indeed be different this time. The correction could be an especially big one, since the Fed-driven distortion of the past 10 years, plus the lingering distortions of previous decades have been massive. The correction could be big enough to challenge all our institutions, the entire welfare state, Social Security, foreign intervention, and our national defense. This will only happen if the dollar is knocked off its pedestal. No one knows if that is going to happen soon or later. But when it does, our constitutional system of government will be challenged to the core. defense CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC — February 07, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 7:96 Our foreign policy has led to an incestuous relationship between our military and Hollywood. In December, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen used $295,000 of taxpayer money to host a party in Los Angeles for Hollywood bigwigs. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said it was well worth it. The purpose was to thank the movie industry for putting the military in a good light . A similar relationship has been reported with TV stations licensed by the US government. They have been willing to accept suggestions from the government to place political messages in their programming. This is a dangerous trend, mixing government and the media. Now here’s where real separation is needed! defense CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC — February 07, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 7:157 The question remains: can we afford to be lax in the defense of liberty at this juncture in our history? I don’t think so. defense CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC — February 07, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 7:158 The problems are not complex, and even the big ones can be easily handled if we pursue the right course. Prosperity and peace can be continued, but not with the current system that permeates Washington. To blindly hope our freedom will remain intact, without any renewed effort in its defense, or to expect that the good times will automatically continue, places our political system in great danger. defense POTENTIAL FOR WAR February 08, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 10:24 Our foreign policy has led to an incestuous relationship between our military and Hollywood. In December, our Secretary of Defense used $295,000 of taxpayers’ money to host a party in Los Angeles for Hollywood bigwigs. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said it was well worth it. The purpose was to thank the movie industry for putting the military in a good light. defense POTENTIAL FOR WAR February 08, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 10:102 The question remains, though, can we afford to be lax in the defense of liberty at this juncture in our history? I do not think so. defense POTENTIAL FOR WAR February 08, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 10:103 The problems are not complex, and even the big ones can be easily handled if we pursue the right course. Prosperity and peace can be continued, but not with the current system that permeates Washington. To blindly hope our freedom will remain intact without any renewed effort in its defense or to expect that the good times will automatically continue places our political system in great danger. defense Questions for Secretary of State Colin Powell before the House Committee on International Relations March 8, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 17:7 6. If investors of a foreign nation had a stake in oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and their country was dependent on oil imports for subsistence, is that country justified in militarily dominating the Gulf and use of U.S. soil for basing operations? My guess is Americans would be furious even if done with our government official’s approval. Yet we expect the Arab world — a world quite different from ours — to accept our presence and domination. Is it not possible for our policy in the region to show more “humility” rather than pursue a policy that incites Islamic fundamentalists against us leading to what they see as acts of self defense and we see as acts of terrorism? defense U.S. Intervention In South Korea 25 April 2001    2001 Ron Paul 26:6 Now, the U.S.-China standoff over an American surveillance plane that landed on China’s Hainan island is fanning fears that a renewed Cold War will grip North Asia. “The U.S.’s dependence upon a Cold War strategy . . . is causing the detente mood (on the Korean Peninsula) to collapse,” says Jang Sung Min, a legislator with the Millennium Democratic Party and an aide to Mr. Kim. He fears the U.S.’s pursuit of missile defense will exacerbate this tension by leading to a renewed arms race between regional powers China, Japan and Russia. defense Repeal of the Selective Service Act April 26, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 28:2 * Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am today introducing legislation to repeal the Selective Service Act and related parts of the US Code. Also, I am placing the attached article from the Taipei Times in today’s CONGRESSIONAL RECORD . I fear that this source is not widely read among many in this body or our nation, so I am hopeful this action will serve to bring this letter to a much wider audience. The person who writes this letter is a law student in Taiwan. His arguments against conscription are similar to those offered by people in the United States who oppose the draft. The student argues that conscription is a violation of civil liberties, a costly and ineffective system that harms society and the economy as well as the rights of the individual conscripted, and a system that harms national defense rather than helping it. While we do not currently have conscription in the US we do have draft registration and each argument against the draft is equally applicable to our current selective service system and the registration requirement. I urge my colleagues to seriously consider the arguments against conscription raised in this article and cosponsor my legislation to repeal the Selective Service Act. defense Repeal of the Selective Service Act April 26, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 28:13 As for the question of not finding enough recruits, this should not be a problem as long as the Ministry of National Defense offers competitive salaries. If serving in the military simply means loafing around, then such service may be worth less than NT$10,000 a month. But there should be no such “profession.” If being a soldier is a high-risk profession, there should be a high salary to compensate for that risk. That may increase expenditures for the government, but it must be remembered that only people who can freely enter various professions on the job market can maximize their value. defense International Criminal Court 10 May 2001    2001 Ron Paul 33:4 The problems with the ICC treaty and the ICC are numerous. The International Criminal Court Treaty would establish the International Criminal Court as an international authority with power to threaten the ability of the United States to engage in military action to provide for its national defense. defense Conscription Policies 13 June 2001    2001 Ron Paul 42:2 Selective Service is not even a good way of providing an effective military fighting force. As Mr. Allen points out (paraphrasing former Senator Mark Hatfield), the needs of the modem military require career professionals with longterm commitments to the service, not shortterm draftees eager to “serve their time” and return to civilian life. The military itself recognizes that Selective Service serves no useful military function. In 1993), the Department of Defense issued a report stating that registration could be stopped “with no effect on military mobilization, no measurable effect on the time it would take to mobilize, and no measurable effect on military recruitment.” Yet the American taxpayer has been forced to spend over $500 million dollars on a system “with no measurable effect on military mobilization!” defense Conscription Policies 13 June 2001    2001 Ron Paul 42:5 This bill was an excellent proposal that should have never been needed. The dovish Hatfield’s arguments in promotion of the bill constituted what is actually the conservative position on the item. In its defense, Hatfield asserted that we need career military men who can adapt to system changes within the context of weaponry. Short-term draftees, maintained Hatfield, would not be particularly adept at utilizing modern technology. More recent efforts to overturn the Selective Service Act have similarly stressed efficiency. defense Conscription Policies 13 June 2001    2001 Ron Paul 42:13 Former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, a Democrat, said in a 1980 US News and World Report article that “Middle and upper-class America are not sufficiently participating in the defense of the country today except in the officer corp. That’s one of the tragedies of the volunteer force . . .” defense Defense Production Act 10 September 2001    2001 Ron Paul 76:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, when the Defense Production Act was enacted in 1950, considerable damage was done. Some of the worst damage occurred as a result of wage and price controls and the improper delegation of economic powers to the President (much of which economic power even Congress itself didn’t have). defense Statement on the New York City and Washington, DC Terrorist Attacks September 12, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 78:4 If there is such a thing, a moral war is one that is only pursued in self-defense. Those who initiate aggression against others for the purpose of occupation or merely to invoke death and destruction are unforgivable and serve only to spread wanton killing. defense Foreign Interventionism September 25, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 80:25 Punishing the evildoers is crucial. Restoring safety and security to our country is critical. Providing for a strong defense is essential. But extricating ourselves from a holy war that we don’t understand is also necessary if we expect to achieve the above-mentioned goals. Let us all hope and pray for guidance in our effort to restore the peace and tranquility we all desire. defense AIR PIRACY REPRISAL AND CAPTURE ACT OF 2001 -- HON. RON PAUL October 10, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 84:3 * Congress must use every means available to fight the terrorists behind this attack if we are to fulfill our constitutional obligations to provide for the common defense of our sovereign nation. Issuance of letters of marque and reprisal are a valuable tool in the struggle to exact just retribution on the perpetrators of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In fact, they may be among the most effective response available to Congress. defense Statement on International Relations committee hearing featuring Secretary of State Colin Powell October 17, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 89:7 Our interventionist policies have not only made enemies around the globe. Our own troops are spread so thin defending foreign peoples and foreign lands, that when a crisis hit our own shores we were forced to bring in foreign AWACs surveillance planes to defend our country. That, more than anything else, underscores the folly of our interventionist foreign policy: our own defense establishment is unable to protect our citizens because it is too busy defending foreign lands. We must focus our efforts on capturing and punishing those who committed this outrageous act against the United States. Then, if we are to be truly safe, we need a national debate on our foreign policy; we need to look at interventionism and the enmity it produces. We need to return to the sadly long-lost policy of peaceful commerce and normal relations with all nations and entangling alliances with none. defense A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS -- October 25, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 90:10 We are not even considering restoring the rights of pilots to carry weapons for self-defense as one of the solutions. Even though pilots once carried guns to protect the mail and armored truck drivers can still carry guns to protect money, protecting passengers with guns is prohibited on commercial flights. The U.S. Air Force can shoot down a wayward aircraft, but a pilot cannot shoot down an armed terrorist. defense A SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS -- October 25, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 90:20 It is aggravating to listen to the daily rhetoric regarding liberty and the Constitution while the same people participate in their destruction. It is aggravating to see all the money spent and civil liberties abused while the pilot’s right to carry guns in self-defense is denied. It is even more aggravating to see our government rely on foreign AWACS aircraft to provide security to U.S. territory. A $325 billion military budget, and we cannot even patrol our own shores. This, of course, is just another sign of how little we are concerned about U.S. sovereignty and how willing we are to submit to international government. defense Airport Security Federalization Act 1 November 2001    2001 Ron Paul 93:3 Mr. Chairman, the bill before us, while a slight improvement over the Senate version, is still a step in the wrong direction. By authorizing a new airline ticket tax, by creating new federal mandates and bureaucracies, and by subsidizing the airline industry to the tune of another $3 billion, this bill creates a costly expense that the American people cannot afford. We appropriated $40 billion in the wake of September 11, and I supported that measure as legitimate compensation for individuals and companies harmed by the failure of the federal government to provide national defense. Soon thereafter we made another $15 billion available to the airlines, and now we have a House bill that further victimizes the taxpayers by making them pay for another $3 billion worth of subsidies to the airline industry. defense Statement on Air Safety Legislation November 1, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 94:3 Mr. Speaker, the House bill, while a slight improvement over the Senate version, is still a step in the wrong direction. By authorizing a new airline ticket tax, by creating new federal mandates and bureaucracies, and by subsidizing the airline industry to the tune of another $3 billion dollars, this bill creates a costly expense that the American people cannot afford. We appropriated $40 billion dollars in the wake of September 11, and I supported that measure as legitimate compensation for individuals and companies harmed by the failure of the federal government to provide national defense. Soon thereafter we made another $15 billion available to the airlines, and now we have a House bill that further victimizes the taxpayers by making them pay for another $3 billion dollars worth of subsidies to the airline industry. defense Expansion of NATO is a Bad Idea November 7, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 95:8 Now that is old-fashioned, to talk about the interests of the United States. We are supposed to only talk about the interests of internationalism, globalism, one-world government. To talk about the interests of the United States in this city is seen as being very negative, but I would say if we talk about U.S. security, security of the United States of America and our defense around the country, it is very popular. Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I sincerely appreciate the fact that I have brought together bipartisanship here and got time from both sides. I deeply appreciate that, especially since I am taking the opposition to this bill. I do rise in opposition to expanding NATO. I do not think it is in the best interests of the United States. The one thing that I would concede, though, is that everyone in this Chamber, I believe, every Member agrees that our country should be strong; that we should have a strong national defense; and that we should do everything conceivable to make our country safe and secure. I certainly endorse those views. It just happens that I believe that membership in organizations like NATO tends to do the opposite, tends to weaken us and also makes us more vulnerable. But that is a matter of opinion, and we have to debate the merits of the issue and find out what is best for our country. defense Expansion of NATO is a Bad Idea November 7, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 95:11 But overall I oppose this because I support a position of a foreign policy of noninterventionism, foreign noninterventionism out of interest of the United States. I know the other side of the argument, that United States interests are best protected by foreign intervention and many, many entangling alliances. I disagree with that because I think what eventually happens is that a country like ours gets spread too thin and finally we get too poor. I think we are starting to see signs of this. We have 250,000 troops around the world in 241 different countries. When the crisis hit with the New York disaster, it turned out that our planes were so spread out around the world that it was necessary for our allies to come in and help us. This is used by those who disagree with me as a positive, to say, “See, it works. NATO is wonderful. They’ll even come and help us out.” I see it as sad and tragic that we spent last year, I think it was over $325 billion for national defense, and we did not even have an AWACS plane to protect us. defense Expansion of NATO is a Bad Idea November 7, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 95:15 With this victory, however, NATO’s raison d’etre was destroyed. The alliance was created to defend against a Soviet system that as of 1991 had entirely ceased to exist. Rather than disbanding, though, NATO bureaucrats and the governments behind them reinvented the alliance and protected its existence by creating new dragons to slay. No longer was NATO to be an entirely defensive alliance. Rather, this “new” NATO began to occupy itself with a myriad of non-defense related issues like economic development and human rights. This was all codified at the Washington Summit of 1999, where the organization declared that it would concern itself with “economic, social and political difficulties ..... ethnic and religious rivalries, territorial disputes, inadequate or failed efforts at reform, the abuse of human rights, and the dissolution of states.” The new name of the NATO game was “interventionism”; defense was now passé. defense Expansion of NATO is a Bad Idea November 7, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 95:18 According to the Department of Defense’s latest available figures, there are more than 250,000 U.S. military personnel deployed overseas on six continents in 141 nations. It is little wonder, then, that when a crisis hit our own shores--the treacherous attacks of September 11--we were forced to call on foreign countries to defend American airspace! Our military is spread so thin meddling in every corner of the globe, that defense of our own homeland is being carried out by foreigners. defense The War On Terrorism November 29, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 98:19 The drumbeat for attacking Baghdad grows louder every day, with Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, and Bill Bennett leading the charge. In a recent interview, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, made it clear: “We are going to continue pursuing the entire al Qaeda network which is in 60 countries, not just Afghanistan.” Fortunately, President Bush and Colin Powell so far have resisted the pressure to expand the war into other countries. Let us hope and pray that they do not yield to the clamor of the special interests that want us to take on Iraq. defense The War On Terrorism November 29, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 98:68 There are well-documented histories of secret military tribunals. Up until now, the United States has consistently condemned them. The fact that a two-thirds majority can sentence a person to death in secrecy in the United States is scary. With no appeals available, and no defense attorneys of choice being permitted, fairness should compel us to reject such a system outright. defense The War On Terrorism November 29, 2001    2001 Ron Paul 98:82 I see good reason for American citizens to be concerned- not only about another terrorist attack, but for their own personal freedoms as the Congress deals with the crisis. Personal freedom is the element of the human condition that has made America great and unique and something we all cherish. Even those who are more willing to sacrifice a little freedom for security do it with the firm conviction that they are acting in the best interest of freedom and justice. However, good intentions can never suffice for sound judgment in the defense of liberty. defense Let Privateers Troll For Bin Laden 4 December 2001    2001 Ron Paul 100:5 Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld recently acknowledged the role that private parties, when provided sufficient incentives by government, can play in bringing terrorists to justice. Now is the time for Congress to ensure President Bush can take advantage of every effective and constitutional means of fighting the war on terrorism. This is why I have introduced the Air Piracy Reprisal and Capture Act of 2001 (HR 3074) and the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 (HR 3076). The Air Piracy Reprisal and Capture Act of 2001 updates the federal definition of “piracy” to include acts committed in the skies. The September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001 provides Congressional authorization for the President to issue letters of marque and reprisal to appropriate parties to seize the person and property of Osama bin Laden and any other individuals responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11. I encourage my colleagues to read Professor Sechrest’s article on the effectiveness of privateers, and to help ensure President Bush can take advantage of every available tool to capture and punish terrorists by cosponsoring my Air Piracy Reprisal and Capture Act and the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act. defense Too Many Federal Cops 6 December 2001    2001 Ron Paul 104:3 TOO MANY FEDERAL COPS (By Joseph A. Califano Jr.) As defense lawyers and civil libertarians huff and puff about Attorney General John Ashcroft’s procedural moves to bug conversations between attorneys and their imprisoned clients, hold secret criminal military trials and detain individuals suspected of having information about terrorists, they are missing an even more troubling danger: the extraordinary increase in federal police personnel and power. defense Too Many Federal Cops 6 December 2001    2001 Ron Paul 104:6 In 1878 Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act to prohibit the military from performing civilian police functions. Over Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger’s opposition, President Ronald Reagan declared drug trafficking a threat to national security as the rationale for committing the military to the war on drugs. (Weinberger argued that “reliance on military forces to accomplish civilian tasks is detrimental to . . . the democratic process.”) Reagan’s action gives George Bush a precedent for committing the military and National Guard to civilian police duty at airports and borders. defense Too Many Federal Cops 6 December 2001    2001 Ron Paul 104:7 Given the president’s candor about the likelihood that the war on terrorism will last many years, the administration and a compliant Congress are in clear and present danger of establishing a national police force and — under either the attorney general, director of homeland security or an agency combining the CIA and State and Defense intelligence (or some combination of the above) — a de facto ministry of the interior. defense H.R. 3054 16 December 2001    2001 Ron Paul 106:5 Because of my continuing and uncompromising opposition to appropriations not authorized within the enumerated powers of the Constitution, I must remain consistent in my defense of a limited government whose powers are explicitly delimited under the enumerated powers of the Constitution — a Constitution which each Member of Congress swore to uphold. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I must oppose this legislation and respectfully suggest that perhaps we should begin a debate among us on more appropriate processes by which we spend other people’s money. Honorary medals and commemorative coins, under the current process, come from other people’s money. It is, of course, easier to be generous with other people’s money, but using our own funds to finance these gold medal is true to the sprit of the heros of September 11. defense Saddam Hussein 19 December 2001    2001 Ron Paul 107:7 My idea of national defense is minding our own business, being strong, and making sure our borders are secure. After 9/11, we had to go to Germany and ask them for help for AWACS airplanes to patrol our shores. I understand our ports are not necessarily secure, and yet we have Coast Guard cutters down in Colombia and in the Mediterranean Sea. I think if we learn anything it is that we ought to work harder to protect our country and not make us so vulnerable, yet we continue along this way. defense The Case For Defending America 24 January 2002    2002 Ron Paul 1:11 One of the key responsibilities of the Federal Government in providing for national defense is protection of liberty here at home. Unwisely responding to the attacks could undermine our national defense while threatening our liberties. defense The Case For Defending America 24 January 2002    2002 Ron Paul 1:18 The people of this country now realize more than ever their own responsibility for personal self-defense, using guns if necessary. The anti-gun fanatics have been very quiet since 9–11, and more Americans are ready to assume responsibility for their own safety than ever before. This is all good. defense The Case For Defending America 24 January 2002    2002 Ron Paul 1:23 The changes obviously are a result of something other than the tragic loss of over 3,900 people. We kill that many people every month on our government highways. We lost 60,000 young people in the Vietnam War; yet the sense of fear in our country then was not the same as it is today. The major difference is that last year’s attacks made us feel vulnerable because it was clear that our Federal Government had failed in its responsibility to provide defense against such an assault, and the anthrax scare certainly did not help to diminish that fear. defense The Case For Defending America 24 January 2002    2002 Ron Paul 1:39 Our presence in the Persian Gulf is not necessary to provide for America’s defense. Our presence in the region makes all Americans more vulnerable to attacks and defending America much more difficult. The real reason for our presence in the Persian Gulf, as well as our eagerness to assist in building a new Afghan government under U.N. authority, should be apparent to us all. Stuart Eizenstat, Under Secretary of Economics, Business and Agricultural Affairs for the previous administration, succinctly stated U.S. policy for Afghanistan testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Trade Committee October 13, 1997. He said, “One of five main foreign policy interests in the Caspian region is to continue support for U.S. companies and the least progress has been made in Afghanistan, where gas and oil pipeline proposals designed to carry Central Asian energy to world markets have been delayed indefinitely pending establishment of a broad-based, multiethnic government.” defense The Case For Defending America 24 January 2002    2002 Ron Paul 1:41 Born in Afghanistan, Khalilzad is a controversial figure, to say the least, due to his close relationship with the oil industry and previously with the Taliban. His appointment to the National Security Council, very conveniently, did not require confirmation by the Senate. Khalilzad also is a close ally of the Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in promoting early and swift military action against Iraq. defense The Case For Defending America 24 January 2002    2002 Ron Paul 1:67 I am certain that national security and defense of our own cities can never be adequately provided unless we reconsider our policy of foreign interventionism. Conventional wisdom in Washington today is that we have no choice but to play the role of the world’s only superpower. Recently we had to cancel flights of our own Air Force over our cities because of spending restraints, and we rely on foreign AWACS to fly over to protect our air spaces. defense The Case For Defending America 24 January 2002    2002 Ron Paul 1:68 The American people are not in sync with the assumption that we must commitment ourselves endlessly to being the world’s policemen. If we do not reassess our endless entanglements as we march toward world government, economic law will one day force us to do so anyway under very undesirable circumstances. In the meantime, we can expect plenty more military confrontations around the world while becoming even more vulnerable to attack by terrorists here at home. A constitutional policy and informed relations of nonintervention is the policy that will provide America the greatest and best national defense. defense So-Called “Campaign Finance Reform” is Unconstitutional February 13, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 7:8 There is a tremendous incentive for every special interest group to influence government. Every individual, bank, or corporation that does business with government invests plenty in influencing government. Lobbyists spend over a hundred million dollars per month trying to influence Congress. Taxpayer dollars are endlessly spent by bureaucrats in their effort to convince Congress to protect their own empires. Government has tremendous influence over the economy and financial markets through interest rate controls, contracts, regulations, loans, and grants. Corporations and others are “forced” to participate in the process out of greed as well as self-defense- since that’s the way the system works. Equalizing competition and balancing power- such as between labor and business- is a common practice. As long as this system remains in place, the incentive to buy influence will continue. defense Before We Bomb Iraq... February 26, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 9:8 Iraq’s defense of her homeland can hardly be characterized as aggression against those who rain bombs down on them. We had to go over 6,000 miles to pick this fight against a third-world nation with little ability to defend itself. defense Statement on the International Criminal Court February 28, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 13:9 It is very convenient for supporters of this International Criminal Court that the high profile test case in the Yugoslav tribunal is the widely reviled Slobodan Milosevic. They couldn’t have hoped for a better case. Any attack on the tribunal is immediately brushed off as a defense of Milosevic. It is illustrative for us to take a look at how the Milosevic trial is being prosecuted thus far. After all, today it is Milosevic but tomorrow it could be any of us. And with the Milosevic trial, the signs are very troubling. We have all seen the arrogance of the judge in the case, who several times has turned off Milosevic’s microphone in mid-sentence. Thus far, the prosecution has attempted to bring as witnesses people who are on the payroll of the tribunal itself, as in the case of Besnik Sokoli. Other witnesses have turned out to have been members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which is the armed force that initiated the insurgent movement within Yugoslavia. Remember, Milosevic was extradited for Kosovo and for Kosovo only, but the weakness of the case forced the Court to add other charges in other countries. Now, after Milosevic has shown himself adept at cross-examination, the prosecution is seeking to have the judge limit Milosevic’s ability to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses. This in itself flies in the face of our system of evidence law, which allows the defendant nearly unlimited ability to cross-examine a witness as long as it is relevant to testimony. defense America’s Entangling Alliances in the Middle East April 10, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 21:14 Foreign interventionism is bad for America. Special interests control our policies, while true national security is ignored. Real defense needs, the defense of our borders, are ignored, and the financial interests of corporations, bankers, and the military-industrial complex gain control- and the American people lose. defense Seeks More Balance Of Interests 2 May 2002    2002 Ron Paul 34:6 There is a lot of talk about democracy and peace. I take a position of nonintervention in the affairs of other people. I believe very sincerely that it is consistent with the Constitution and very sincerely that it works to our best interest for national security and for defense; and that even though this is intended very sincerely to help Israel, motions like this, resolutions like this, can very well backfire and actually hurt Israel more so than they will help. defense Say No to Conscription May 9, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 35:9 Conscription is chosen as the most promising instrument, both of overcoming reluctance to the Service, and of subduing the difficulties which arise from the deficiencies of the Exchequer. The administration asserts the right to fill the ranks of the regular army by compulsion. It contends that it may now take one out of every twenty-five men, and any part or the whole of the rest, whenever its occasions require. Persons thus taken by force, and put into an army, may be compelled to serve there, during the war, or for life. They may be put on any service, at home or abroad, for defense or for invasion, according to the will and pleasure of Government. This power does not grow out of any invasion of the country, or even out of a state of war. It belongs to Government at all times, in peace as well as in war, and is to be exercised under all circumstances, according to its mere discretion. This, Sir, is the amount of the principle contended for by the Secretary of War (James Monroe). defense Say No to Conscription May 9, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 35:15 Nor is it, Sir, for the defense of his own house and home, that he who is the subject of military draft is to perform the task allotted to him. You will put him upon a service equally foreign to his interests and abhorrent to his feelings. With his aid you are to push your purposes of conquest. The battles which he is to fight are the battles of invasion; battles which he detests perhaps and abhors, less from the danger and the death that gather over them, and the blood with which they drench the plain, than from the principles in which they have their origin. If, Sir, in this strife he fall — if, while ready to obey every rightful command of Government, he is forced from home against right, not to contend for the defense of his country, but to prosecute a miserable and detestable project of invasion, and in that strife he fall, ’tis murder. It may stalk above the cognizance of human law, but in the sight of Heaven it is murder; and though millions of years may roll away, while his ashes and yours lie mingled together in the earth, the day will yet come, when his spirit and the spirits of his children must be met at the bar of omnipotent justice. May God, in his compassion, shield me from any participation in the enormity of this guilt. defense Amendment 9 9 May 2002    2002 Ron Paul 37:9 But there is no time to rest on this victory. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated this week, upon our renunciation of the ICC: “Unfortunately, the ICC will not respect the U.S. decision to stay out of the treaty. To the contrary, the ICC provisions claim the authority to detain and try American citizens — U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, as well as current and future officials — even though the United States has not given its consent to be bound by the treaty.” Secretary Rumsfeld added, “When the ICC treaty enters into force this summer, U.S. citizens will be exposed to the risk of prosecution by a court that is unaccountable to the American people, and that has no obligation to respect the Constitutional rights of our citizens.” defense Amendment 9 9 May 2002    2002 Ron Paul 37:11 I have introduced this amendment to the Defense Authorization Act, therefore, to support the president’s decision and to indicate that Congress is behind him in his rejection of this unconstitutional global court. it is imperative that we not award the International Criminal Court a single tax dollar to further its objective of undermining our sovereignty and our Constitutional protections. How could we do anything less: each of us in this body has taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States? defense Statement on the introduction of H. Res. 416, Expressing the Sense of the Congress regarding the International Criminal Court May 9, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 39:5 But this is only a first step. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated this week, upon our renunciation of the ICC: "Unfortunately, the ICC will not respect the U.S. decision to stay out of the treaty. To the contrary, the ICC provisions claim the authority to detain and try American citizens-U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, as well as current and future officials-even though the United States has not given its consent to be bound by the treaty." Secretary Rumsfeld added, "When the ICC treaty enters into force this summer, U.S. citizens will be exposed to the risk of prosecution by a court that is unaccountable to the American people, and that has no obligation to respect the Constitutional rights of our citizens." defense Don’t Force Taxpayers to Fund Nation-Building in Afghanistan May 21, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 43:20 Madam Chairman, earlier the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher) came up with an astounding reason for us to do this. He said that we owe this to Afghanistan. Now, I have heard all kinds of arguments for foreign aid and foreign intervention, but the fact that we owe this to Afghanistan? Do we know what we owe? We owe responsibility to the American taxpayer. We owe responsibility to the security of this country. One provision of this bill takes a $300 million line of credit from our DOD and just gives the President the authority to take $300 million of weapons away from us and give it to somebody in Afghanistan. Well, that dilutes our defense, that does not help our defense. This is not beneficial. We do not need to have an occupation of Afghanistan for security of this country. There is no evidence for that. defense Opposing The Amendment 21 May 2002    2002 Ron Paul 45:7 One provision of this bill takes a $300 million line of credit from our DOD and just gives the President the authority to take $300 million of weapons away from us and give it to somebody in Afghanistan. Well, that dilutes our defense, that does not help our defense. This is not beneficial. We do not need to have an occupation of Afghanistan for security of this country. There is no evidence for that. defense No More Taxpayer Funds for the Failed Drug War in Colombia May 23, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 49:5 What we are doing is we are appropriating for something for the administration to do without a proper authority. He has no authority to get involved in the civil war down there. We cannot imply that the issue of war is granted through the appropriation process. It is not the way the system works. The constitutional system works with granting explicit authority to wage war. The President has no authority, and now he wants the money; and we are ready to capitulate. Let me tell my colleagues, if we care about national defense, we must reconsider this. defense No More Taxpayer Funds for the Failed Drug War in Colombia May 23, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 49:6 This dilutes our national defense, it dilutes our forces, exposes our troops, takes away our weapons, increases the expenditures. If we ignore this issue I guess we can go back to demagoging the national debt limit. defense No More Taxpayer Funds for the Failed Drug War in Colombia May 23, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 49:7 So I would say, please, take a close look at this. We do not need to be expanding our role in Colombia. The drug war down there has not worked, and I do not expect this military war that we are about to wage to work either. We need to talk about national defense, and this does not help our national defense. I fear this. I feel less secure when we go into areas like this, because believe me, this is the way that we get troops in later on. We already have advisory forces in Colombia. Does anybody remember about advisors and then eventually having military follow in other times in our history. Yes, this is a very risky change in policy. This is not just a minor little increase in appropriation. defense No More Taxpayer Funds for the Failed Drug War in Colombia May 23, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 49:8 So I would ask, once again, where is the authority? Where does the authority exists for our President to go down and expand a war in Colombia when it has nothing to do with our national defense or our security? It has more to do with oil than our national security, and we know it. There is a pipeline down there that everybody complains that it is not well protected. It is even designated in legislation, and we deal with this at times. So I would say think about the real reasons behind us going down there. defense Commending Efforts Of John Keating, Joe Sapere, And Jerry Suggs 10 July 2002    2002 Ron Paul 68:2 John Keating, age 40, is the son of a former U.S. Defense attache and is the father of three sons. Joe Sapere, age 61, is a retired Air Force Colonel and a recent amputee. Jerry Suggs, 68, is retired form our U.S. Navy. defense DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY – WHO NEEDS IT? July 23, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 73:3 The flawed foreign policy of interventionism that we have followed for decades significantly contributed to the attacks. Warnings had been sounded by the more astute that our meddling in the affairs of others would come to no good. This resulted in our inability to defend our own cities, while spending hundreds of billions of dollars providing more defense for others than for ourselves. In the aftermath, we were even forced to ask other countries to patrol our airways to provide security for us. defense Statement on Expulsion of Congressman Jim Traficant July 24, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 76:5 However, the most disturbing accusations concern the possibility that Mr. Traficant was denied basic due process by not being allowed to present all of his witnesses at the trial. This failure raises serious questions whether Mr. Traficant had the opportunity to present an adequate defense. These questions are especially serious since one of the jurors from Mr. Traficant’s criminal trial told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that had he heard the testimony of Richard Detore at Mr. Traficant’s trial, he would have voted "not guilty." defense Department of Homeland Security 26 July 2002    2002 Ron Paul 80:2 Mr. Speaker, as many commentators have pointed out, the creation of this new department represents the largest reorganization of federal agencies since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947. Unfortunately, the process by which we are creating this new department bears little resemblance to the process by which the Defense Department was created. Congress began hearings on the proposed department of defense in 1945 — two years before President Truman signed legislation creating the new Department into law! Despite the lengthy deliberative process through which Congress created the new department, turf battles and logistical problems continued to bedeviled the military establishment, requiring several corrective pieces of legislation. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Goldwater-Nicholas Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 (PL 99–433) was passed to deal with problems stemming from the 1947 law! The experience with the Department of Defense certainly suggests the importance of a more deliberative process in the creation of this new agency. defense Department of Homeland Security 26 July 2002    2002 Ron Paul 80:3 This current proposed legislation suggest that merging 22 government agencies and departments — compromising nearly 200,000 federal employees — into one department will address our current vulnerabilities. I do not see how this can be the case. If we are presently under terrorist threat, it seems to me that turning 22 agencies upside down, sparking scores of turf wars and creating massive logistical and technological headaches — does anyone really believe that even simple things like computer and telephone networks will be up and running in the short term? — is hardly the way to maintain the readiness and focus necessary to defend the United States. What about vulnerabilities while Americans wait for this massive new bureaucracy to begin functioning as a whole even to the levels at which its component parts were functioning before this legislation was taken up? Is this a risk we can afford to take? Also, isn’t it a bit ironic that in the name of “homeland security” we seem to be consolidating everything except the government agencies most critical to the defense of the United States: the multitude of intelligence agencies that make up the Intelligence Community? defense Congress Sgould Think Twice Before Thrusting U.S. Into War September 4, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 81:10 First, there is a practical reason to oppose a war in Iraq. Our military now has been weakened over the last decade, and when we go into Iraq we will clearly dilute our ability to defend our country. We do not enhance our national defense by initiating this war. Besides, it is impractical because of unintended consequences which none of us know about. We do not know exactly how long this will last. It could be a six-day war, a six-month war, or six years or even longer. defense Congress Sgould Think Twice Before Thrusting U.S. Into War September 4, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 81:18 Finally, there is a compelling moral argument against war in Iraq. Military force is justified only in self-defense; naked aggression is the province of dictators and rogue states. This is the danger of a new "preemptive first strike" doctrine. America is the most moral nation on earth, founded on moral principles, and we must apply moral principles when deciding to use military force. defense Avoid War With Iraq 4 September 2002    2002 Ron Paul 82:4 First, it is a practical reason. There is no practical defense for this. Our military now has been weakened over the last decade, and actually when we go into Iraq, as we may well do, we will weaken our ability to defend our country. We do not enhance our defense by initiating this war. defense The Price Of War 5 September 2002    2002 Ron Paul 83:28 This continuous escalation of our involvement overseas has been widespread. We have been in Korea for more than 50 years. We have promised to never back away from the China-Taiwan conflict over territorial disputes. Fifty-seven years after World War II we still find our military spread throughout Europe and Asia. And now the debate ranges over whether our national security requires that we, for the first time, escalate this policy of intervention to include anticipatory self-defense and preemptive war. defense The Price Of War 5 September 2002    2002 Ron Paul 83:43 The basic moral principle underpinning a noninterventionist foreign policy is that of rejecting the initiation of force against others. It is based on nonviolence and friendship unless attacked, with determination for self-defense while avoiding confrontation, even when we disagree with the way other countries run their affairs. It simply means that we should mind our own business and not be influenced by the special interests that have an axe to grind or benefits to gain by controlling other foreign policy. Manipulating our country into conflicts that are none of our business and of no security interest provides no benefits to us, while exposing us to great risk financially and militarily. defense Questions That Will Not Be Asked About Iraq September 10, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 85:31 30. Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for any reason other than self-defense? defense Can We Afford this War? September 24, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 89:15 The tragedy is that once the flaw in policy is discovered, it is too late to prevent the pain and suffering, and only finger pointing occurs. Now is the only time we can give serious attention to the true cost of assuming the burden of an endless task of being the world’s policeman and starting wars that have nothing to do with defense or national security. defense Is Congress Relevant with Regards to War? October 3, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 94:11 A great irony of all this is that the United Nations Charter doesn’t permit declaring war, especially against a nation that has been in a state of peace for 12 years. The UN can only declare peace. Remember, it wasn’t a war in Korea; it was only a police action to bring about peace. But at least in Korea and Vietnam there was fighting going on, so it was a bit easier to stretch the language than it is today regarding Iraq. Since Iraq doesn’t even have an Air Force or a Navy, is incapable of waging a war, and remains defenseless against the overwhelming powers of the United States and the British, it’s difficult to claim that we’re going into Iraq to restore peace. defense Oppose The New Homeland Security Bureaucracy! November 13, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 101:2 The last time Congress attempted a similarly ambitious reorganization of the government was with the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947. However, the process by which we are creating this new department bears little resemblance to the process by which the Defense Department was created. Congress began hearings on the proposed Department of Defense in 1945 – two years before President Truman signed legislation creating the new Department into law! Despite the lengthy deliberative process through which Congress created that new department, turf battles and logistical problems continued to bedevil the military establishment, requiring several corrective pieces of legislation. In fact, Mr. Speaker, the Goldwater-Nicholas Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 was passed to deal with problems steaming from the 1947 law! The experience with the Department of Defense certainly suggests the importance of a more deliberative process in the creation of this new agency. defense Unintended Consequences November 14, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 102:6 No local Iraqi or regional Arab support materializes. Instead of a spontaneous uprising as is hoped, the opposite occurs. The Iraqi citizens anxious to get rid of Hussein join in his defense, believing foreign occupation and control of their oil is far worse than living under the current dictator. Already we see that sanctions have done precisely that. Instead of blaming Saddam Hussein and his dictatorial regime for the suffering of the past decade, the Iraqi people blame the U.S.-led sanctions and the constant bombing by the U.S. and British. Hussein has increased his power and the people have suffered from the war against Iraq since 1991. There are a lot of reasons to believe this same reaction will occur with an escalation of our military attacks. Training dissidents like the Iraqi National Congress will prove no more reliable than the training and the military assistance we provided in the 70’s and the 80’s for Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein when they qualified as U.S. "allies." defense “You Are A Suspect” 14 November 2002    2002 Ron Paul 103:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to read “You are a Suspect” by William Safire in today’s New York Times. Mr. Safire, who has been one of the media’s most consistent defenders of personal privacy, details the Defense Department’s plan to establish a system of “Total Information Awareness.” According to Mr. Safire, once this system is implemented, no American will be able to use the internet to fill a prescription, subscribe to a magazine, buy a book, send or receive e-mail, or visit a web site free from the prying eyes of government bureaucrats. Furthermore, individual internet transactions will be recorded in “a virtual centralized grand database.” Implementation of this project would shred the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that the government establish probable cause and obtain a search warrant before snooping into the private affairs of its citizens. I hope my colleagues read Mr. Safire’s article and support efforts to prevent the implementation of this program, including repealing any legislation weakening privacy protections that Congress may inadvertently have passed in the rush to complete legislative business this year. defense “You Are A Suspect” 14 November 2002    2002 Ron Paul 103:2 [New York Times, Nov. 14, 2002] YOU ARE A SUSPECT (By William Safire) Washington — If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you: Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and email you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as “a virtual, centralized grand database.” defense “You Are A Suspect” 14 November 2002    2002 Ron Paul 103:7 This ring-knocking master of deceit is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-contra. He heads the “Information Awareness Office” in the otherwise excellent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the “data-mining” power to snoop on every public and private act of every American. defense “You Are A Suspect” 14 November 2002    2002 Ron Paul 103:10 When George W. Bush was running for president, he stood foursquare in defense of each person’s medical, financial and communications privacy. But Poindexter, whose contempt for the restraints of oversight drew the Reagan administration into its most serious blunder, is still operating on the presumption that on such a sweeping theft of privacy rights, the buck ends with him and not with the president. defense Important Questions Concerning the Administration’s Smallpox Vaccine Proposals December 19th, 2002    2002 Ron Paul 104:8 5. Have any states made plans to mandate smallpox vaccines as part of their bioterrorism defense plan? defense Republic Versus Democracy 29 January 2003    2003 Ron Paul 6:23 A true defense of self-determination for all people, the necessary ingredient of a free society is ignored. Self-determination implies separation of smaller governments from the larger entities that we witnessed in the breakup of the Soviet Union. This notion contradicts the goal of pure democracy and world government. A single world government is the ultimate goal of all social egalitarians who are unconcerned with liberty. defense Republic Versus Democracy 29 January 2003    2003 Ron Paul 6:50 Even before 9–11 these trends were in place, and proposals were abundant for restraining liberty. Since 9–11 the growth of centralized government and the loss of privacy and personal freedoms have significantly accelerated. It is in dealing with homeland defense and potential terrorist attacks that the domestic social programs and the policy of foreign intervention are coming together and precipitating a rapid expansion of the state and an erosion of personal liberty. defense Republic Versus Democracy 29 January 2003    2003 Ron Paul 6:120 Arbitrary, ever-changing laws are the friends of dictators. Authoritarians argue constantly that the Constitution is a living document and that rigid obedience to ideological purity is the enemy that we should be most concerned about. They would have us believe that those who cherish strict obedience to the rule of law in the defense of liberty are wrong merely because they demand ideological purity. They fail to demand that their love of relative rights and pure democracy is driven by a rigid obedience to an ideology as well. The issue is never rigid beliefs versus reasonable friendly compromise. In politics it is always competition between two strongly held ideologies. The only challenge for men and women of goodwill is to decide the wisdom and truth of the ideologies offered. defense Abolish Selective Service January 29, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 9:1 Mr. Speaker, I am today introducing legislation to repeal the Selective Service Act and related parts of the US Code. The Department of Defense, in response to recent calls to reinstate the draft, has confirmed that conscription serves no military need. This is only the most recent confirmation that the draft, and thus the Selective Service system, serves no military purpose. In 1999, then-Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera, in a speech before the National Press Club, admitted that “Today, with our smaller, post-Cold War armed forces, our stronger volunteer tradition and our need for longer terms of service to get a good return on the high, up-front training costs, it would be even harder to fashion a fair draft.” defense Abolish Selective Service January 29, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 9:3 In fact, in 1993 the Department of Defense issued a report stating that registration could be stopped “with no effect on military mobilization and no measurable effect on the time it would take to mobilize, and no measurable effect on military recruitment.” Yet the American taxpayer has been forced to spend over $500 million dollars on an outdated system “with no measurable effect on military mobilization!” defense Introducing United States Korea Normalization Resolution Of 2003 13 February 2003    2003 Ron Paul 23:3 The U.S. defense guarantee of South Korea costs more than $3 billion per year in direct costs and approximately $12 billion per year in total costs. Total U.S. aid to South Korea has exceeded $14 billion since the war. defense American Servicemember And Civilian Protection Act Of 2003 6 March 2003    2003 Ron Paul 30:9 Last year Congress passed the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act within the Defense Authorization bill. Commendable as that effort was, the fact of the matter is that because of the numerous loopholes and exemptions in that legislation, our servicemembers are still not protected from the probing arms of the International Criminal Court. American citizens have absolutely no protection under last year’s legislation. This is simply unacceptable. That is why I am introducing this legislation that makes the position of the United States clear: we will protect our servicemembers and citizens from this illegal court. defense American Sovereignty Restoration Act Of 2003 6 March 2003    2003 Ron Paul 31:24 While no previous United Nations’ secretary general has been so bold, Annan’s proclamation of universal jurisdiction over ‘human rights and fundamental freedoms’ simply reflects the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations which contemplated a future in which the United Nations operates in perpetuity ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war . . . to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights . . . to establish conditions under which justice . . . can be maintained, and to promote social progress and between standards of life in larger freedom.’ Such lofty goals and objectives are comparable to those found in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America: ‘to . . . establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity . . .’ defense War No Excuse For Frivolous Spending 3 April 2003    2003 Ron Paul 46:2 For example, this bill provides a hidden subsidy to vaccine manufacturers by transferring liability for injuries caused by the smallpox vaccine from the companies to the United States Taxpayer. It also provides $3.2 billion dollars for yet another government bailout of the airline industry, as well as a hidden subsidy to the airlines in the form of $235 million of taxpayer money to pay for costs associated with enhanced baggage screening. Mr. Speaker, there is no more constitutional reason for the taxpayer to protect what is, after all, the airlines’ private property, than there is for the taxpayer to subsidize security costs at shopping malls or factories. Furthermore, the airlines could do a more efficient and effective job at providing security if they were freed from government rules and regulations. I remind my colleagues that it was government bureaucrats who disarmed airline pilots, thus leaving the pilots of the planes used in the September 11 attacks defenseless against the terrorists. I would also remind my colleagues that anti-gun fanatics in the federal bureaucracy continue to prevent pilots from carrying firearms. defense The Flag Burning Amendment June 3, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 57:18 Earlier in the debate it was said that an individual may well be unpatriotic if he voted against a Defense appropriation bill. I have voted against the Defense appropriation bill because too much money in the Defense budget goes to militarism that does not really protect our country. I do not believe that is being unpatriotic. defense Results Of The Attack On Iraq: What Have We Discovered 19 June 2003    2003 Ron Paul 67:6 (6) US troops and defense planners were shocked that the Iraqi army simply melted away as the US attack pressed toward Baghdad. An army that cannot even defend its own territory is hardly a threat to its neighbors — or to the United States 6,000 miles away. defense The “Continuity of Government” Proposal – A Dangerous and Unnecessary Threat to Representative Rule June 30, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 72:5 The scenarios offered by the commission, while theoretically possible, are highly unlikely to disable Congress. Remember, a majority of members assemble together in one place only rarely; even during votes most members are not on the floor together at the same time Inauguration ceremonies and State of the Union addresses often bring together a majority of members in the same place, but simple precautions could be taken to keep a sufficient number away from such events. Even a direct terrorist attack on the Pentagon failed to disrupt the operation of the Department of Defense. The COGC proposal exaggerates the likelihood that a terrorist strike on Washington would incapacitate the House of Representatives, and exaggeration is a bad reason to amend the Constitution. defense Neo – CONNED ! July 10, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 73:8 Early in our history, the advocates of limited, constitutional government recognized two important principles: the rule of law was crucial, and a constitutional government must derive “just powers from the consent of the governed.” It was understood that an explicit transfer of power to government could only occur with power rightfully and naturally endowed to each individual as a God-given right. Therefore, the powers that could be transferred would be limited to the purpose of protecting liberty. Unfortunately, in the last 100 years, the defense of liberty has been fragmented and shared by various groups, with some protecting civil liberties, others economic freedom, and a small diverse group arguing for a foreign policy of nonintervention. defense Neo – CONNED ! July 10, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 73:40 13. Using American might to force American ideals on others is acceptable. Force should not be limited to the defense of our country. defense Neo – CONNED ! July 10, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 73:48 The election of 2000 changed all that. The Defense Policy Board, chaired by Richard Perle, played no small role in coordinating the various projects and think tanks, all determined to take us into war against Iraq. It wasn’t too long before the dream of empire was brought closer to reality by the election of 2000 with Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld playing key roles in this accomplishment. The plan to promote an “American greatness” imperialistic foreign policy was now a distinct possibility. Iraq offered a great opportunity to prove their long-held theories. This opportunity was a consequence of the 9-11 disaster. defense The Justifications for War July 21, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 85:10 Since we lack a coherent foreign policy, we see support for war from different groups depending on circumstances unrelated to national defense. For instance, those who strenuously objected to Kosovo promoted war in Iraq. And those who objected to Iraq are now anxious to send troops to Liberia. For some, U.N. permission is important and necessary. For others, the U.N. is helpful provided it endorses the war they want. defense We Cannot Afford Another $87 Billion in Iraq September 16, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 98:1 Mr. Speaker, the neo-conservative media machine has been hard at work lately drumming up support for the $87 billion appropriation to extend our precarious occupation of Iraq. Opposition to this funding, according to the Secretary of Defense, encourages our enemies and hinders the war against terrorism. This is a distortion of the facts and is nothing more than attacking the messenger when one disapproves of the message. defense Defense Production Reauthorization Act 15 October 2003    2003 Ron Paul 107:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, no one questions the need for the Federal Government to obtain the necessary resources to fill its constitutional role of providing for the common defense. However, the federal government must fulfill this duty in a manner that does not conflict in any way with the Constitution or endanger republican government. The Defense Production Reauthorization Act (DPA), which gives almost unchecked power to the executive to interfere in the economy in the name of “national security,” fails both of these standards. In fact, when I inquired at the sole hearing the House Financial Services Committee held on this issue as to which section of the Constitution authorized such sweeping grants of power to the Executive, I was greeted by silence from the “expert” witnesses! defense Defense Production Reauthorization Act 15 October 2003    2003 Ron Paul 107:2 Under this bill, the President is given authority to void private contracts in order to ensure that federal defense priorities, as determined by the executive, are met. The only limitation on the President’s judgment is a requirement that he submits a series of “findings” to Congress. The Executive also has what appears to be unchecked authority to use financial incentives such as loan guarantees, direct loans, and purchase guarantees to ensure production of items he determines are in the national interest. defense Defense Production Reauthorization Act 15 October 2003    2003 Ron Paul 107:4 The wide grant of unchecked power to the Executive runs counter to the intent of the drafters of the Constitution. The Founders carefully limited the executive power because they recognized that an executive with unfettered power was a threat to liberty. In recent years we have seen administrations of both parties undermine the Constitutional separation of powers via enhanced reliance on executive orders and unilateral decision-making. The Defense Production Reauthorization Act provides Constitutional blessing to this usurpation of power, and not just in areas clearly related to national defense. For example, the DPA has been used to justify federal interference in the energy market. It is an open question what other exercise of federal power could be justified as related to defense. For example, federal education programs has been justified on the grounds that an educated population is vital to national defense, so perhaps a future president will use DPA to impose a national curriculum! defense Defense Production Reauthorization Act 15 October 2003    2003 Ron Paul 107:6 In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the Defense Production Act gives the executives unchecked power to meddle in the economy, flying in the face of the original constitutional structure and endangering the very liberty it claims to protect. Therefore, I must oppose this bill. defense Veterans Recognized By The Silver Rose 16 October 2003    2003 Ron Paul 109:2 Established in 1997 by Mary Elizabeth Marchand, The Order of The Silver Rose gives many veterans the satisfaction of being recognized for making the ultimate sacrifice for our nation. Mrs. Marchand’s father, Chief Hospital Corpsman Frank Davis, died from illnesses resulting from the use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War. A combat veteran, Chief Davis was not wounded in combat but exposed to a dangerous substance while fighting for his country. Exposure to Agent Orange resulted in Davis losing his life some years later. Subsequently, determination was made by the Department of Defense that Chief Davis and many like him do not qualify for The Purple Heart. defense Misguided Policy Of Nation Building In Iraq 17 October 2003    2003 Ron Paul 111:2 I think so rarely we deal with policy and we deal only with technicality and accounting and an attempt made at oversight. So I would like to spend a little bit of time emphasizing a different type of foreign policy that we have become unaccustomed to. Because there was an American foreign policy once well known to us, to our country and especially to our founders, a policy of nonintervention. Today, and essentially for a hundred years, we have been following a policy of foreign intervention, that is, that we assume more than I believe we should overseas. And I object to that because I see it as not gaining a constitutional mandate as well as I see it as being a great danger to us both in the area of national defense, national security, as well as the economic dangers it presents. defense Expressing Gratitude To Members Of The U.S. Armed Forces Deployed In Operation Restore Hope In Somalia In 1993 28 October 2003    2003 Ron Paul 114:4 This legislation expresses gratitude for our troops’ “provid[ing] humanitarian assistance to the people of Somalia in 1993.” I see nowhere in our Constitution a provision that allows the United States armed forces to be used for the purpose of “provid[ing] humanitarian assistance” to any foreign country or people. Our armed forces are to be used in defense of our homeland. Period. So I am deeply disturbed by legislation such as this. Yes, we must honor troops, but we cannot honor a foreign policy that sends them into harm’s way for “nation-building” or “humanitarian assistance” or any other reason not directly related to the defense of the United States. I hope the next time we see legislation congratulating the brave service of our armed forces it is more honest. Our servicemembers deserve at least this, do they not? defense Say No To Involuntary Servitude November 21, 2003    2003 Ron Paul 122:16 Without conscription, unpopular wars are much more difficult to fight. Once the draft was undermined in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Vietnam War came to an end. But most importantly, liberty cannot be preserved by tyranny. A free society must always resort to volunteers. Tyrants thinks nothing of forcing men to fight and serve in wrongheaded wars; a true fight for survival and defense of America would elicit, I’m sure, the assistance of every able-bodied man and woman. This is not the case for wars of mischief far away from home in which we so often have found ourselves in the past century. defense A Wise Consistency February 11, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 2:8 The truth is that Emerson must be misquoted in order to use him against those who rigidly and consistently defend a free society, cherish and promote diverse opinions, and encourage nonconformity. A wise and consistent defense of liberty is more desperately needed today than any time in our history. Our foolish and inconsistent policies of the last 100 years have brought us to a critical junction, with the American way of life at stake. It is the foolish inconsistencies that we must condemn and abandon. Let me mention a few: defense A Wise Consistency February 11, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 2:39 The freedom philosophy is based on the humility that we are not omnipotent, but also the confidence that true liberty generates the most practical solution to all our problems, whether they are economic, domestic security, or national defense. Short of this, any other system generates authoritarianism that grows with each policy failure and eventually leads to a national bankruptcy. It was this end, not our military budget, which brought the Soviets to their knees. defense Opposing H.R. 557 17 March 2004    2004 Ron Paul 19:13 Article 14 of the new constitution grants the Iraqi people the “right” to “security, education, health care, and social security,” and affirms that “the Iraqi state . . . shall strive to provide prosperity and employment opportunities to the people.” This sounds more like the constitution of the old USSR than that of a free and market-oriented society. Further, this constitution declares that Iraqi citizens “shall not be permitted to possess, bear, buy, or sell arms” except by special license — denying the right of self defense to the Iraqi people just as their security situation continues to deteriorate. The Iraqi constitution also sets up a quota system for the Iraqi electoral system, stating that women should “constitute no less than one-quarter of the members of the National Assembly.” Is this kind of social engineering in Iraq on very left-liberal lines really appropriate? Are we doing the Iraqi people any favors with this approach? defense Oppose the Spendthrift 2005 Federal Budget Resolution March 25, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 24:2 Neither political party wants to address the fundamental yet unspoken issue lurking beneath any budget debate: What is the proper role for government in our society? Are these ever-growing social services and defense expenditures really proper in a free country? We need to understand that the more government spends, the more freedom is lost. Instead of simply debating spending levels, we ought to be debating whether the departments, agencies, and programs funded by the budget should exist at all. My Republican colleagues especially ought to know this. Unfortunately, however, the GOP has decided to abandon principle and pander to the entitlements crowd. But this approach will backfire, because Democrats will always offer to spend even more than Republicans. When Republicans offer to spend $500 billion on Medicare, Democrats will offer $600 billion. Why not? It’s all funny money anyway, and it helps them get reelected. defense Don’t Expand NATO! March 30, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 25:2 More than 50 years ago the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed to defend Western Europe and the United States against attack from the communist nations of Eastern Europe. It was an alliance of sovereign nations bound together in common purpose - for mutual defense. The deterrence value of NATO helped kept the peace throughout the Cold War. In short, NATO achieved its stated mission. With the fall of the Soviet system and the accompanying disappearance of the threat of attack, in 1989-1991, NATO’s reason to exist ceased. Unfortunately, as with most bureaucracies, the end of NATO’s mission did not mean the end of NATO. Instead, heads of NATO member states gathered in 1999 desperately attempting to devise new missions for the outdated and adrift alliance. This is where NATO moved from being a defensive alliance respecting the sovereignty of its members to an offensive and interventionist organization, concerned now with “economic, social and political difficulties...ethnic and religious rivalries, territorial disputes, inadequate or failed efforts at reform, the abuse of human rights, and the dissolution of states,” in the words of the Washington 1999 Summit. defense Don’t Expand NATO! March 30, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 25:7 Further, this legislation encourages the accession of Albania, Macedonia, and Croatia - nations that not long ago were mired in civil and regional wars. The promise of US military assistance if any of these states are attacked is obviously a foolhardy one. What will the mutual defense obligations we are entering into mean if two Balkan NATO members begin hostilities against each other (again)? defense The Lessons of 9/11 April 22, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 27:21 I’m sure we will hear that the bureaucracy failed, whether it was the FBI, the CIA, the NSC, or all of them for failure to communicate with each other. This will not answer the question of why we were attacked and why our defenses were so poor. Even though 40 billion dollars are spent on intelligence gathering each year, the process failed us. It’s likely to be said that what we need is more money and more efficiency. Yet, that approach fails to recognize that depending on government agencies to be efficient is a risky assumption. defense The Lessons of 9/11 April 22, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 27:27 Instead of immediately legalizing a natural right of personal self-defense guaranteed by an explicit Second Amendment freedom, we still do not have armed pilots in the sky. Instead of more responsibility being given to the airlines, the government has taken over the entire process. This has been encouraged by the airline owners, who seek subsidies and insurance protection. Of course, the nonsense of never resisting has been forever vetoed by all passengers. defense The Lessons of 9/11 April 22, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 27:29 Over the years the entire psychology of national defense has been completely twisted. Very little attention had been directed toward protecting our national borders and providing homeland security. defense The Same Old Failed Policies in Iraq June 3, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 37:19 True defense is diminished when money and energy are consumed by activities outside the scope of specifically protecting our national security. Diverting resources away from defense and the protection of our borders while antagonizing so many around the world actually serves to expose us to greater danger from more determined enemies. defense Bill Would Not Bring Middle East Peace 23 June 2004    2004 Ron Paul 40:2 Mr. Speaker, this resolution in several places asserts that the United States is “strongly committed” to the security of Israel. I find no provision in the Constitution that allows the United States Government to confiscate money from its own citizens and send it overseas for the defense of a foreign country. Further, this legislation promises that the United States “remains committed to . . . Israel, including secure, recognized, and defensible borders.” So we are pledging to defend Israel’s borders while we are not even able to control our own borders. Shouldn’t we be concentrating on fulfilling our constitutional obligations in our own country first, before we go crusading around the world to protect foreign borders? defense A Token Attempt to Reduce Government Spending June 24, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 43:2 Even if this bill becomes law, it is likely that the provision in this bill allowing spending for emergency purposes to exceed the bill’s spending caps will prove to be an easily abused loophole allowing future Congresses to avoid the spending limitations in this bill. I am also concerned that, by not applying the spending caps to international or military programs, this bill invites future Congresses to misplace priorities, and ignores a major source of fiscal imprudence. Congress will not get our fiscal house in order until we seriously examine our overseas commitments, such as giving welfare to multinational corporations and subsidizing the defense of allies who are perfectly capable of defending themselves. defense Stop Prosecuting Doctors For Prescribing Legal Drugs 7 July 2004    2004 Ron Paul 46:10 And let me tell you, there are plenty, because all they have to do is to be reported that they prescribed an unusual number of tablets for a certain patient, and before you know it, they are intimidated, their license is threatened, their lives are ruined, they spend millions of dollars in defense of their case, and they cannot ever recover. And it is all because we here in the Congress write these regulations, all with good intentions that we are going to make sure there is no abuse. defense Taiwan Relations Act — Part 1 14 July 2004    2004 Ron Paul 54:7 I essentially have four objections to what we are doing. One is a moral objection. I will not dwell on the first three and I will not dwell on this one. But I do not believe one generation of Americans has a moral right to obligate another generation, because, in many ways, when we make this commitment, this is not just a friendly commitment; this is weapons and this is defense. defense Taiwan Relations Act — Part 3 14 July 2004    2004 Ron Paul 56:2 Let me just restate my general position, because my defense is that of a foreign policy of nonintervention, sincerely believing it is in the best interests of our people and the world that we get less involved militaristically. defense Financing Operations, Export Financing, And Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2005 15 July 2004    2004 Ron Paul 60:6 There are two economic points that I want to make on this. When we do this and we allow tax credit and special deals for some corporations, we assume, and we will hear this in the defense of the Ex-Im Bank, and say look at the good that we do. But what they fail to ask is, where did it come from, who was denied the credit? The fact that we do not finance it does not mean it would not happen. It would happen. defense Protecting Marriage from Judicial Tyranny July 22, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 64:6 In 1996 Congress exercised its authority under the full faith and credit clause of Article IV of the Constitution by passing the Defense of Marriage Act. This ensured each state could set its own policy regarding marriage and not be forced to adopt the marriage policies of another state. Since the full faith and credit clause grants Congress the clear authority to “prescribe the effects” that state documents such as marriage licenses have on other states, the Defense of Marriage Act is unquestionably constitutional. However, the lack of respect federal judges show for the plain language of the Constitution necessitates congressional action so that state officials are not forced to recognize another states’ same-sex marriage licenses because of a flawed judicial interpretation. The drafters of the Constitution gave Congress the power to limit federal jurisdiction to provide a check on out-of-control federal judges. It is long past time we begin using our legitimate authority to protect the states and the people from judicial tyranny. defense Protecting Marriage from Judicial Tyranny July 22, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 64:7 Since the Marriage Protection Act requires only a majority vote in both houses of Congress (and the president’s signature) to become law, it is a more practical way to deal with this issue than the time-consuming process of passing a constitutional amendment. In fact, since the Defense of Marriage Act overwhelmingly passed both houses, and the president supports protecting state marriage laws from judicial tyranny, there is no reason why the Marriage Protection Act cannot become law this year. defense District Of Columbia Personal Protection Act 29 September 2004    2004 Ron Paul 72:2 H.R. 3193 repeals several of the more draconian citywide Washington, DC, gun restrictions enacted in 1976. Restrictions H.R. 3193 will repeal include the requirement that all firearms be registered. Gun registration in other countries has created government lists of who owns what guns. Such lists facilitate the harassment of gun owners and the confiscation of their guns. Also repealed are blanket bans on the possession of handguns and handgun ammunition as well as any semi-automatic guns. These bans exist despite the fact that handguns and semi-automatic guns are regularly used outside Washington, DC, for self-defense. Also repealed is the prohibition on carrying a gun on one’s own property. It is hard to say a person is free if he is prohibited from using the means of protecting himself and his family even in his own home. defense Cultural Conservatives Lose if Gay Marriage is Federalized September 30, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 73:3 If I were in Congress in 1996, I would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress’s constitutional authority to define what official state documents other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a “same sex” marriage license issued in another state. This Congress, I was an original cosponsor of the Marriage Protection Act, HR 3313, that removes challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act from federal courts’ jurisdiction. If I were a member of the Texas legislature, I would do all I could to oppose any attempt by rogue judges to impose a new definition of marriage on the people of my state. defense Cultural Conservatives Lose if Gay Marriage is Federalized September 30, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 73:4 Having studied this issue and consulted with leading legal scholars, including an attorney who helped defend the Boy Scouts against attempts to force the organization to allow gay men to serve as scoutmasters, I am convinced that both the Defense of Marriage Act and the Marriage Protection Act can survive legal challenges and ensure that no state is forced by a federal court’s or another state’s actions to recognize same sex marriage. Therefore, while I am sympathetic to those who feel only a constitutional amendment will sufficiently address this issue, I respectfully disagree. I also am concerned that the proposed amendment, by telling the individual states how their state constitutions are to be interpreted, is a major usurpation of the states’ power. The division of power between the federal government and the states is one of the virtues of the American political system. Altering that balance endangers self-government and individual liberty. However, if federal judges wrongly interfere and attempt to compel a state to recognize the marriage licenses of another state, that would be the proper time for me to consider new legislative or constitutional approaches. defense Cultural Conservatives Lose if Gay Marriage is Federalized September 30, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 73:5 Conservatives in particular should be leery of anything that increases federal power, since centralized government power is traditionally the enemy of conservative values. I agree with the assessment of former Congressman Bob Barr, who authored the Defense of Marriage Act: defense Reject Draft Slavery October 5, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 75:2 The Department of Defense, in response to calls to reinstate the draft, has confirmed that conscription serves no military need. Defense officials from both parties have repudiated it. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has stated, “The disadvantages of using compulsion to bring into the armed forces the men and women needed are notable,” while President William Clinton’s Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera, in a speech before the National Press Club, admitted that, “Today, with our smaller, post-Cold War armed forces, our stronger volunteer tradition and our need for longer terms of service to get a good return on the high, up-front training costs, it would be even harder to fashion a fair draft.” defense Reject Draft Slavery October 5, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 75:8 Without conscription, unpopular wars are difficult to fight. Once the draft was undermined in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Vietnam War came to an end. But most importantly, liberty cannot be preserved by tyranny. A free society must always resort to volunteers. Tyrants think nothing of forcing men to fight and serve in wrongheaded wars. A true fight for survival and defense of America would elicit, I am sure, the assistance of every able-bodied man and woman. This is not the case with wars of mischief far away from home, which we have experienced often in the past century. defense The 9-11 Intelligence Bill: More Bureaucracy, More Intervention, Less Freedom October 8, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 77:14 Finally, I am skeptical about the reorganization of the intelligence community in this legislation. In creating an entire new bureaucracy, the National Intelligence Director, we are adding yet another layer of bureaucracy to our already bloated federal government. Yet, we are supposed to believe that even more of the same kind of government that failed us on September 11, 2001 will make us safer. At best, this is wishful thinking. The constitutional function of our intelligence community is to protect the United States from foreign attack. Ever since its creation by the National Security Act of 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been meddling in affairs that have nothing to do with the security of the United States. Considering the CIA’s overthrow of Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadeq in the 1950s, and the CIA’s training of the Muhajadin jihadists in Afghanistan in the 1980s, it is entirely possible the actions of the CIA abroad have actually made us less safe and more vulnerable to foreign attack. It would be best to confine our intelligence community to the defense of our territory from foreign attack. This may well mean turning intelligence functions over to the Department of Defense, where they belong. defense Where To From Here? November 20, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 81:38 The Crucial Moral Issue — Respect for Life It has been said that a society is defined by how it treats its elderly, its infirm, its weak, its small, its defenseless, and its unborn. defense Where To From Here? November 20, 2004    2004 Ron Paul 81:74 7. Those who understand the most important function of our national government is to provide strong national defense should realize that having troops in over 100 countries hardly helps us protect America, secure our borders, or avoid alienating our allies and potential enemies. defense America’s Foreign Policy Of Intervention 26 January 2005    2005 Ron Paul 6:36 What if Secretary Rumsfeld is replaced for the wrong reasons, and things become worse under a defense secretary who demands more troops and an expansion of the war? defense America’s Foreign Policy Of Intervention 26 January 2005    2005 Ron Paul 6:45 What if the Pentagon, as reported by its Defense Science Board, actually recognized the dangers of our policy before the invasion, and their warnings were ignored or denied? defense Introducing The American Sovereignty Restoration Act Of 2005 8 March 2005    2005 Ron Paul 27:24 While no previous United Nations’ secretary general has been so bold, Annan’s proclamation of universal jurisdiction over “human rights and fundamental freedoms” simply reflects the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations which contemplated a future in which the United Nations operates in perpetuity “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of ware . . . to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights . . . to establish conditions under which justice . . . can be maintained, and to promote social progress and between standards of life in larger freedom.” Such lofty goals and objectives are comparable to those found in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America: “to . . . establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the Blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity . . .” defense Who’s Better Off? April 6, 2005    2005 Ron Paul 35:22 Because of the war, fewer dollars are available for real national security and defense of this country. Military spending is up, but the way the money is spent distracts from true national defense and further undermines our credibility around the world. defense Statement Introducing Repeal Of Selective Service 18 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 49:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am today introducing legislation to repeal the Selective Service Act and related parts of the United States Code. The Department of Defense, in response to calls to reinstate the draft, has confirmed that conscription serves no military need. defense Statement Introducing Repeal Of Selective Service 18 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 49:2 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is on record citing the “notable disadvantages” of a military draft, adding, “. . . there is not a draft. . . . There will not be a draft.” defense Statement Introducing Repeal Of Selective Service 18 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 49:5 In fact, in 1993, the Department of Defense issued a report stating that registration could be stopped “with no effect on military mobilization and no measurable effect on the time it would take to mobilize, and no measurable effect on military recruitment.” Yet the American taxpayer has been forced to spend over $500 million dollars on an outdated system “with no measurable effect on military mobilization!” defense Introducing A Bill To Postpone The 2005 Round Of Defense Base Closure And Realignment 19 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 50:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce a bill to postpone the 2005 round of military base closure and realignment. This bill would postpone the conclusion of the Realignment report issued by the Department of Defense on 13 May 2005, as well as any preceding or subsequent plans that may ultimately be enacted to close or realign military bases on U.S. territory. This bill will postpone such closures and realignments until a specific set of criteria have been fulfilled, including until both the Defense Department and Congress have had the opportunity to fully study the recommendations and their implications for the national security and defense of the United States. defense Introducing A Bill To Postpone The 2005 Round Of Defense Base Closure And Realignment 19 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 50:3 Also, we should not proceed with this round of base closures and realignments before the 2006 release of the Quadrennial Defense Review. Congress must have ample time to study the recommendations of the QDR before agreeing on any major closure and realignment strategy. To do otherwise just does not make any sense. defense Introducing A Bill To Postpone The 2005 Round Of Defense Base Closure And Realignment 19 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 50:4 Mr. Speaker, for these and other reasons I feel it is essential — for the strength of our military, the effectiveness of our defense, and the security of all Americans — that we postpone this round of BRAC closings until we are able to satisfy the critical criteria outlined in this bill. I hope my colleagues will join me by supporting this legislation and I hope for its speedy consideration on the House Floor. defense Bad Policy For Base Closings 25 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 52:7 I have a quote here I want to read; it comes from a think tank, one of the defense policy think tanks. This to me is important. “The big story here is not going to be saving money; the big story is going to be preparing the force for future threats by moving it to more logical locations.” In other words, defending our borders, protecting our homeland, worry about defending this country is less important than spreading our troops and protecting the empire and expanding the empire and exposing us to greater danger. defense Bad Policy For Base Closings 25 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 52:9 This is the time that we ought to reassess our policies and how we spend our money. This is why a 1-year delay is a perfect time to take time, stand back and figure out when we are going to get our troops home, when are we going to have a defense policy that defends this country and our borders rather than spreading ourselves so thinly around the world and building huge bases in foreign lands. defense Military Appropriations 26 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 53:3 Although I recognize the need for legitimate funds for military construction, I do remain concerned that the funds appropriated herein will be used to fund the construction of U.S. military installations overseas. At a time when we are closing dozens of military installations in the United States — installations that actually contribute to the defense of the United States — under the auspices of saving money, it is unconscionable to be spending money for the defense of foreign countries. defense Military Appropriations 26 May 2005    2005 Ron Paul 53:4 I also strongly object to the appropriation of U.S.taxpayer funds for, as the bill states, “the acquisition and construction of military facilities and installations (including international military headquarters) and for related expenses for the collective defense of the North Atlantic Treaty Area.” NATO is a relic of the Cold War and most certainly has no purpose some fifteen years after the fall of the Soviet Union. As we saw in the NATO invasion of Yugoslavia, having outlived its usefulness as a defensive alliance, the Organization has become an arm of aggressive militarism and interventionism. NATO deserves not a dime of American taxpayer’s money, nor should the United States remain a member. defense The Hidden Cost of War June 14, 2005    2005 Ron Paul 58:8 But societies that do not enjoy maximum freedom and economic prosperity still pull together to resist invaders. A spirit of nationalism brings people together when attacked, as do extreme religious beliefs. The cause of liberty or a “divine” emperor or radical Islam can inspire those willing to fight to the death to stop a foreign occupation. These motivations make the costs and risks necessary and justifiable, where a less popular offensive war will not be tolerated as long. Idealism inspires a strong defense; cynicism eventually curtails offensive wars. defense The Hidden Cost of War June 14, 2005    2005 Ron Paul 58:12 In almost all wars, governments use deception about the enemy that needs to be vanquished to gain the support of the people. In our recent history, just since 1941, our government has entirely ignored the requirement that war be fought only after a formal congressional declaration-- further setting the stage for disenchantment once the war progresses poorly. Respect for the truth is easily sacrificed in order to rally the people for the war effort. Professional propagandists, by a coalition of the media and government officials, beat the war drums. The people follow out of fear of being labeled unpatriotic and weak in the defense of our nation-- even when there is no national security threat at all. defense The Hidden Cost of War June 14, 2005    2005 Ron Paul 58:14 Ideologues use war to pursue personal ambitions unrelated to national defense, and convert the hesitant with promises of spreading democracy, freedom, and prosperity. The tools they use are unrestrained state power to force their ideals on others, no matter how unjust it seems to the unfortunate recipients of the preemptive war. For some, the more chaos the greater the opportunity to jump in and remake a country or an entire region. At times in history the opening salvo has been deliberately carried out by the ones anxious to get the war underway while blaming the opposition for the incident. The deceptions must stir passion for the war through an appeal to patriotism, nationalism, machismo, and jingoistic manliness of proving oneself in great feats of battle. defense An Article By Mr. Lee Jackson 14 June 2005    2005 Ron Paul 62:10 Left with hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills accumulated for our defense, we sought to recover through the courts. As we proceeded, we became aware of the Spina case, and feared that the same tax provisions could apply to us. defense An Article By Mr. Lee Jackson 14 June 2005    2005 Ron Paul 62:16 Not so for us in our California case, and thousands of other plaintiffs also facing ruinous taxes after winning their cases. Clearly the courts in California were used as a weapon to infringe on our civil rights. However, in that underlying case, we were then defendants. When we filed suit to recover damages, the case was characterized differently and was no longer, technically, a civil rights case. Our dilemma had been to seek court assistance to recover, or face paying our legal expense for our own defense in the underlying case for years to come. It did not occur to us at the time we filed with the court that we could win and end up owing an even greater amount to the IRS. defense Why We Fight September 8, 2005    2005 Ron Paul 95:33 It is not in our national interest. On the contrary, pursuing this war endangers our security, increases the chances of a domestic terrorist attack, weakens our defenses, and motivates our enemies to join together in opposition to our domineering presence around the world. Does anyone believe that Russia, China, and Iran will give us free reign over the entire Middle East and its oil? Tragically, we’re setting the stage for a much bigger conflict. It’s possible that this war could evolve into something much worse than Vietnam. defense Why We Fight September 8, 2005    2005 Ron Paul 95:60 It’s not unusual for the war crusaders to condemn those who speak the truth in an effort to end an unnecessary war. They claim those who want honest reasons for the enormous sacrifice are unpatriotic and un-American, but these charges only serve to exacerbate the social unrest. Any criticism of policy, no matter how flawed the policy is, is said to be motivated by a lack of support for the troops. Yet it is preposterous to suggest that a policy that would have spared the lives of 1900 servicemen and women lacks concern for the well being of our troops. The absence of good reasoning to pursue this war prompts the supporters of the war to demonize the skeptics and critics. They have no other defense. defense Protection Of Lawful Commerce In Arms Act 20 october 2005    2005 Ron Paul 106:6 The “armor piercing” bullets restriction imposes a 15 years mandatory minimum sentence for just carrying or possessing such bullets — even without a gun — during or in “relation to” a crime of violence or drug trafficking. Given the wide scope of criminal laws and the fact that people are on occasion accused of crimes they did not commit, this provision promises to discourage many non-violent, law- abiding individuals from possessing ammunition protected under the Second Amendment. Further, it does not take much imagination to see how such a provision could be used by an anti-gun prosecutor in the prosecution of an individual who used a gun in self defense, especially considering that use of such bullets to murder can result in a death sentence. In such instances, a defendant who exercised self defense may well accept a guilty plea bargain to avoid the severe enhanced penalties imposed under S. 397. defense The Blame Game December 7, 2005    2005 Ron Paul 124:34 True national defense and the voluntary army have been undermined; defense Foreign Policy 17 December 2005    2005 Ron Paul 128:24 Since March 2003, we have seen death and destruction, 2,100-plus Americans killed and nearly 20,000 sick and wounded, plus tens of thousands of Iraqis caught in the crossfire. A Shiite theocracy has been planted. A civil war has erupted. Iran’s arch nemesis, Saddam Hussein, has been removed. Osama bin Laden’s arch nemesis, Saddam Hussein, has been removed. Al Qaeda now operates freely in Iraq, enjoying a fertile training field not previously available to them. Suicide terrorism spurred on by our occupation has significantly increased. Our military-industrial complex thrives in Iraq without competitive bids. True national defense and the voluntary Army have been undermined. defense The End Of Dollar Hegemony 15 February 2006    2006 Ron Paul 3:115 Cut funding for corporate welfare, foreign aid, international NGOs, defense contractors, the military industrial complex, and rich corporate farmers before cutting welfare for the poor at home. No more unconstitutional intrusions into the privacy of law-abiding American citizens. Reconsider the hysterical demands for security over liberty by curtailing the ever-expanding oppressive wars on drugs, tax violators and gun ownership. defense Introduction Of The Sunlight Rule 2 March 2006    2006 Ron Paul 8:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” In order to shine sunlight on the practices of the House of Representatives, and thus restore public trust and integrity to this institution, I am introducing the sunlight rule, which amends House rules to ensure that Members have adequate time to study a bill before being asked to vote on it. One of the chief causes of increasing public cynicism regarding Congress is the way major pieces of legislation are brought to the floor without Members having an opportunity to read the bills. This is particularly a problem with the Appropriations conference reports, which are often rushed to the floor of the House in late-night sessions at the end of the year. For example, just this past December, the House voted on the Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Appropriations Conference Report at approximately 4 a.m. — just 4 hours after the report was filed. Yet, the report contained language dealing with avian flu, including controversial language regarding immunity liability for vaccine manufacturers, that was added in the House-Senate conference on the bill. Considering legislation on important issues in this manner is a dereliction of our duty as the people’s elected representatives. defense Tribute To Harry Browne 15 March 2006    2006 Ron Paul 16:5 Harry’s efforts were not limited to the economic realm. He understood the threat to liberty and prosperity posed by global crusades for democracy, as well as the importance of opposing restrictions on civil liberties. Harry’s outspoken defense of civil liberties and the Framers’ foreign policy of nonintervention took on added importance in the last years of his life when too many self-styled advocates of liberty attempted to curry favor with the political establishment by focusing solely on issues of economic liberty or combined advocacy of low taxes and regulations with active support for militarism and restrictions on personal liberty. defense Amendment No. 9 Offered By Mr. Paul — Part 2 16 March 2006    2006 Ron Paul 18:8 But my amendment, the way it works, emphasizes mostly cutting the militarism and the type of foreign policy that we finance around the world that has so many ramifications and unintended consequences and so much blow-back, that it literally hurts our national defense and ends up costing us so much more money. defense National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2007 11 May 2006    2006 Ron Paul 35:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this enormous defense authorization bill. At $512.9 billion, this defense authorization is $2.7 billion more than the president’s request. defense National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2007 11 May 2006    2006 Ron Paul 35:7 Mr. Chairman, as a Vietnam-era U.S. Air Force veteran, I am in favor of a strong defense of the United States. I believe we need to focus on our own homeland security rather than spending half a trillion dollars on policies and programs that will not make Americans more safe, but may well have the opposite effect. We need to re-focus our defense priorities on the United States, on our own borders and our ports. defense Conference Report On H.R. 4939, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act For Defense, The Global War On Terror, And Hurricane Recovery, 2006    2006 Ron Paul 43:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the Conference Report of the “Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Hurricane Recovery, 2006.” This is the largest supplemental spending bill in the history of the United States — and all of this spending is off the books. All supplemental bills by definition are deemed “off-budget” and thus the dollars spent are not counted by the General Accounting Office when compiling annual deficit figures, nor are they included in annual budget figures. They thus obscure the true levels of spending and debt, and much of the “emergency” spending is not at all in response to any emergency. defense Too Much Waste In Defense Appropriation Bill 20 June 2006    2006 Ron Paul 46:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this legislation. This bill is unfortunately very short on real defense spending and very generous with spending enormous amounts on expensive military equipment that is ultimately of very little use to defend our country. This bill will not do much to help our military troops. In fact, it gives the troops a pay raise lower than civilian federal employees. It shortchanges them. defense Too Much Waste In Defense Appropriation Bill 20 June 2006    2006 Ron Paul 46:2 The bill is very generous with spending on grossly over-budget acquisition of military equipment of questionable value in our current times. Over the past 5 years, the Defense Department has doubled spending on new weapons systems from about $700 billion to nearly $1.4 trillion. However a recent Pentagon report found significant cost overruns — 50 percent over original cost projections — in 36 major weapons systems. These programs benefit well-connected defense contractors, but they do not benefit the taxpayer and they do not benefit the soldiers who risk their lives. defense Too Much Waste In Defense Appropriation Bill 20 June 2006    2006 Ron Paul 46:3 The bill manages to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on foreign aid — $372 million to Russia, for example — and the failed drug war, but it fails to address the real problems of a military force that has been seriously stretched and challenged by an unprecedented level of sustained deployment overseas. I urge my colleagues to support a defense spending bill that really puts defense of the United States first. defense Why Are Americans So Angry? June 29, 2006    2006 Ron Paul 52:68 My beliefs aside, Christian teaching of nearly a thousand years reinforces the concept of “The Just War Theory.” This Christian theory emphasizes six criteria needed to justify Christian participation in war. Briefly the six points are as follows: 1. War should be fought only in self defense; 2. War should be undertaken only as a last resort; 3. A decision to enter war should be made only by a legitimate authority; 4. All military responses must be proportional to the threat; 5. There must be a reasonable chance of success; and 6. A public declaration notifying all parties concerned is required. defense Marriage Protection Amendment 18 July 2006    2006 Ron Paul 58:3 If I were in Congress in 1996, I would have voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress’s constitutional authority to define what official state documents other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a “same sex” marriage license issued in another state. This Congress, I am an original cosponsor of the Marriage Protection Act, H.R. 1100, that removes challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act from federal courts’ jurisdiction. If I were a member of the Texas legislature, I would do all I could to oppose any attempt by rogue judges to impose a new definition of marriage on the people of my state. defense Marriage Protection Amendment 18 July 2006    2006 Ron Paul 58:4 Having studied this issue and consulted with leading legal scholars, including an attorney who helped defend the Boy Scouts against attempts to force the organization to allow gay men to serve as scoutmasters, I am convinced that both the Defense of Marriage Act and the Marriage Protection Act can survive legal challenges and ensure that no state is forced by a federal court’s or another state’s actions to recognize same sex marriage. Therefore, while I am sympathetic to those who feel only a constitutional amendment will sufficiently address this issue, I respectfully disagree. I also am concerned that the proposed amendment, by telling the individual states how their state constitutions are to be interpreted, is a major usurpation of the states’ power. The division of power between the federal government and the states is one of the virtues of the American political system. Altering that balance endangers self-government and individual liberty. However, if federal judges wrongly interfere and attempt to compel a state to recognize the marriage licenses of another state, that would be the proper time for me to consider new legislative or constitutional approaches. defense Marriage Protection Amendment 18 July 2006    2006 Ron Paul 58:5 Conservatives in particular should be leery of anything that increases federal power, since centralized government power is traditionally the enemy of conservative values. I agree with the assessment of former Congressman Bob Barr, who authored the Defense of Marriage Act: defense Noninterventionist Policy — Part 1 19 July 2006    2006 Ron Paul 61:12 I believe that the founders were correct in advocating avoiding entangling alliances, to have a strong national defense, to defend this country, I believe that is just plain common sense. Most Americans, if you just flat-out put it to them, think we should not be the policemen of the world. Do you think we should be involved in the internal affairs of other nations? People say no. We shouldn’t do this. The Constitution doesn’t give us the authority to do it. defense Whom to Blame 19 July 2006    2006 Ron Paul 66:24 Now, you say, well, that is money for our ally. And fine, if it was used for defense, maybe. But if it is used to antagonize 1 billion Muslims and there is no willingness to even consider the fact that we should look at it in a balanced way, and instead it is ridiculed and said, oh, this is ridiculous to think of neutrality or balance and think about both sides, and the innocent people dying on both sides should be considered. defense Big-Government Solutions Don’t Work 7 september 2006    2006 Ron Paul 74:32 There should be no distinction between commercial speech and political speech with no consistent moral defense of true liberty. The continued erosion of personal property rights is inevitable. defense Big-Government Solutions Don’t Work 7 september 2006    2006 Ron Paul 74:87 We must not forget that the 9/11 terrorists came principally from Saudi Arabia, not Iraq, Iran, Lebanon or Syria. Iran has never in modern times invaded her neighbors, yet we worry obsessively that she may develop a nuclear weapon some day. Never mind that a radicalized Pakistan has nuclear weapons and our so-called friend Musharraf won’t lift a finger against bin Laden who most likely is hiding in Pakistan. Our only defense against this emerging nuclear threat has been to use and threaten to use weapons that do not meet the needs of this new and different enemy. defense Congressional Medal Of Honor For The Dalai Lama 13 September 2006    2006 Ron Paul 78:11 “Of course, the militaristic tradition may not end easily. But, let us think of this. If there were bloodshed, people in positions of power, or those who are responsible, will find safe places; they will escape the consequent hardship. They will find safety for themselves, one way or the other. But what about the poor people, the defenseless people, the children, the old and infirm. They are the ones who will have to bear the brunt of devastation. When weapons are fired, the result will be death and destruction. Weapons will not discriminate between the innocent and guilty. A missile, once fired, will show no respect to the innocent, poor, defenseless, or those worthy of compassion. Therefore, the real losers will be the poor and defenseless, ones who are completely innocent, and those who lead a hand-to-mouth existence.” defense Statement On Helen Chenoweth-Hage 13 November 2006    2006 Ron Paul 99:1 Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, with the passing last month of Helen Chenoweth-Hage, America has lost one of its true champions of liberty and constitutional government, and I have lost a valued friend and colleague. When Helen served in the House of Representatives, she gained a national following for her principled and uncompromising defense of private property, the Second Amendment, American sovereignty, and limited federal government. defense Milton Friedman 6 December 2006    2006 Ron Paul 100:13 But here’s the bigger point: with his steady and passionate work to end the military draft, Milton Friedman was the Dutch uncle of every young man in the United States. Or even better, he was like a favorite uncle that they’d never even met. He cared more for them than any president, any general, or any defense secretary has ever cared. How so? Because he wanted every young man to be free to choose whether to join the military or not. defense Introduction Of Legislation To Repeal The Selective Service Act And Related Parts Of The United States Code 11 January 2007    2007 Ron Paul 13:1 Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I am today introducing legislation to repeal the Selective Service Act and related parts of the United States Code. The Department of Defense, in response to calls to reinstate the draft, has confirmed that conscription serves no military need. defense Introduction Of Legislation To Repeal The Selective Service Act And Related Parts Of The United States Code 11 January 2007    2007 Ron Paul 13:2 In his December confirmation hearings, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated his opposition to a military draft. Secretary Gates’ immediate predecessor, Donald Rumsfield, also publicly opposed reinstating the draft. The opposition of the two most recent Defense Secretaries is only the most recent confirmation that the draft serves no military purpose. defense Introduction Of Legislation To Repeal The Selective Service Act And Related Parts Of The United States Code 11 January 2007    2007 Ron Paul 13:4 In fact, in 1993, the Department of Defense issued a report stating that registration could be stopped “with no effect on military mobilization and no measurable effect on the time it would take to I mobilize, and no measurable effect on military recruitment.” Yet the American taxpayer has been forced to spend over $500 million dollars on an outdated system “with no measurable effect on military mobilization!” defense Introducing The Sunlight Rule 12 January 2007    2007 Ron Paul 15:2 In past Congresses, it was all-too-common to see large Appropriations bills rushed to the floor of the House in late-night sessions at the end of the year. For example, the House voted on the Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Appropriations Conference Report at approximately 4 a.m. — just four hours after the report was filed. Yet, the report contained language dealing with avian flu, including controversial language regarding immunity liability for vaccine manufacturers, that was added in the House- Senate conference on the bill. Considering legislation on important issues in this manner is a dereliction of our duty as the people’s elected representatives. defense Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Is Excessive 29 March 2007    2007 Ron Paul 38:5 For those who thought a Democratic Congress would end the war in Iraq, think again: their new budget proposes supplemental funds totaling about $150 billion in 2008 and $50 billion in 2009 for Iraq. This is in addition to the ordinary Department of Defense budget of more than $500 billion, which the Democrats propose increasing each year just like the Republicans. defense We Just Marched In (So We Can Just March Out) 17 April 2007    2007 Ron Paul 40:6 Today, just about everyone acknowledges the war has gone badly, and 70 percent of the American people want it to end. Our national defense is weakened, the financial costs continue to drain us, our allies have deserted us, and our enemies are multiplying, not to mention the tragic toll of death and injuries suffered by American forces. defense In The Name Of Patriotism (Who Are The Patriots?) 22 May 2007    2007 Ron Paul 55:21 Protesters against this unconstitutional system of paper money are considered unpatriotic criminals and at times are imprisoned for their beliefs. The fact that, according to the Constitution, only gold and silver are legal tender and paper money outlawed matters little. The principle of patriotism is turned on its head. Whether it’s with regard to the defense of welfare spending at home, confiscatory income tax, or an immoral monetary system or support for a war fought under false pretense without a legal declaration, the defenders of liberty and the Constitution are portrayed as unpatriotic, while those who support these programs are seen as the patriots. defense In The Name Of Patriotism (Who Are The Patriots?) 22 May 2007    2007 Ron Paul 55:45 Some of the least noticed and least discussed changes in the law were the changes made to the Insurrection Act of 1807 and to posse comitatus by the Defense Authorization Act of 2007. These changes pose a threat to the survival of our Republic by giving the President the power to declare martial law for as little reason as to restore public order. The 1807 act severely restricted the President in his use of the military within the United States borders, and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 strengthened these restrictions with strict oversight by Congress. The new law allows the President to circumvent the restrictions of both laws. The Insurrection Act has now become the “Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act.” This is hardly a title that suggests that the authors cared about or understood the nature of a constitutional Republic. defense Saluting Fred Raschke: Galveston Chamber Of Commerce’s Business Leader Of The Year    2007 Ron Paul 73:2 Mr. Raschke is an honors graduate of the University of Texas and a graduate of Texas Tech University School of Law. He is a partner of the Mills Shirley law firm and a member of numerous legal organizations including the Fifth Federal Circuit and American Bar Association, the State Bar of Texas, and the Texas Association of Defense Counsels. His legal practice areas include defense litigation, negligence defense, personal injury defense, toxic tort defense, premises liability, gas, and electric utilities. defense Statement on Competing Currencies February 13, 2008    2008 Ron Paul 4:6 On the desk in my office I have a sign that says: “Don’t steal – the government hates competition.” Indeed, any power a government arrogates to itself, it is loathe to give back to the people. Just as we have gone from a constitutionally-instituted national defense consisting of a limited army and navy bolstered by militias and letters of marque and reprisal, we have moved from a system of competing currencies to a government-instituted banking cartel that monopolizes the issuance of currency. In order to introduce a system of competing currencies, there are three steps that must be taken to produce a legal climate favorable to competition. defense Earmark Declaration 19 November 2008    2008 Ron Paul 70:1 Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act (H.R. 2638): Requesting member: Ron Paul. Bill number: H.R. 2638. Account: Rdt&E Defense Health Program. Legal name of requesting entity: Gulf Chemical and Metallurgical Corporation. Address of requesting entity: PO Box 2290, 302 Midway Road, Freeport, TX 77542–2290. Description of request: The project earmarks $3,000,000 for a Department of Defense lead study of vanadium to assess the health safety and risks of military and civilian workers exposed to vanadium through work in military applications. defense THE END IS NOT NEAR March 4, 2009    2009 Ron Paul 21:6 Our presence will serve as an incentive for al Qaeda to grow in numbers and motivate more suicide bombers. An indefinite presence, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, will continue to drain our financial resources, undermine our national defense, demoralize our military and exacerbate our financial crisis. All this will be welcomed by Osama Bin Laden, just as he planned it. It’s actually more than he had hoped for. defense Afghanistan, Part 1 November 18, 2009    2009 Ron Paul 96:16 I emphasize, once again, that I think we could keep our eye on the target, emphasize what we should be doing if we went to war a lot more cautiously, if we have an enemy that we have to fight in our national defense and then there is a declaration of war. Mr. KAGEN. Would the gentleman yield for a moment? defense INTRODUCING THE FREE COMPETITION IN CURRENCY ACT December 9, 2009    2009 Ron Paul 102:5 On the desk in my office I have a sign that says: “Don’t steal – the government hates competition.” Indeed, any power a government arrogates to itself, it is loathe to give back to the people. Just as we have gone from a constitutionally instituted national defense consisting of a limited army and navy bolstered by militias and letters of marque and reprisal, we have moved from a system of competing currencies to a government-instituted banking cartel that monopolizes the issuance of currency. In order to reintroduce a system of competing currencies, there are three steps that must be taken to produce a legal climate favorable to competition. Texas Straight Talk defense - Congress to tackle Education budget this week 08 September 1997    Texas Straight Talk 08 September 1997 verse 7 ... Cached Unfortunately, the House then overwhelmingly voted to pass the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act. I voted against the measure not only because it includes the funding for population control, family planning and abortions, but also because this act called for spending more money on the so-called "peace-keeping" missions around the world. I cannot in good conscience vote to put the lives of our troops in very real danger for purposes that have nothing to do with our national defense. It's time to end our involvement in these activities and protect and support our troops, not open them up to more and more hostility and danger for no good reason. defense - Congress continues to ignore Constitution in the appropriations process 29 September 1997    Texas Straight Talk 29 September 1997 verse 6 ... Cached Included in the bills considered by the House last week was the conference report on the Defense Department appropriation for the coming year. In addition to spending more than $5 billion more than the last fiscal year, this budget continues funding for the UN mission in Bosnia. Sure, the appropriation bill contained a sentence or two asking, in a very soft way, that our troops be pulled out by mid-1998 - but even this weak request provides loopholes so that the president may continue US involvement in the UN Bosnia operation. We've been hearing promises of extracting our troops "in six months" for two years now, and yet American soldiers are still in the middle of a dangerous conflict in which we do not have a legitimate basis for intervening. defense - President must withdraw troops from Bosnia 22 December 1997    Texas Straight Talk 22 December 1997 verse 11 ... Cached The mission in Bosnia has been an unqualified failure by any standard save one. If the goal is to weaken domestic defense and inspire anti-American sentiment abroad by spreading US troops around the globe in pointless missions with high risk, then the goal has been reached. But if the goal was to bring peace, it has obviously not occurred. The hatred lives on, and skirmishes are part of daily life for the people in that region. defense - President must withdraw troops from Bosnia 22 December 1997    Texas Straight Talk 22 December 1997 verse 19 ... Cached Perhaps more importantly, we could better protect the security of our nation by bringing our soldiers home. With thousands of troops in Bosnia and other "hot-spots" of civil unrest around the world, our borders are less secure, our defense less than ideal. defense US must not trample Constitution to attack Iraq 16 February 1998    Texas Straight Talk 16 February 1998 verse 14 ... Cached According to the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war. My legislation prohibits Defense Department funds from being used for offensive actions against Iraq without Congress legally declaring a war. defense US should stop meddling in foreign wars 16 March 1998    Texas Straight Talk 16 March 1998 verse 15 ... Cached Concern for American security is a proper and necessary function of the U.S. Congress. The current policy, and one pursued for decades, threatens our security, drains our wallets, and worst of all, threatens the lives of young Americans to stand tall for Americans' defense, but not for Kofi Annan and the United Nations. defense Congressional action weakens national defense 06 April 1998    Texas Straight Talk 06 April 1998 verse 2 ... Cached Congressional action weakens national defense defense Congressional action weakens national defense 06 April 1998    Texas Straight Talk 06 April 1998 verse 4 ... Cached Last week Congress passed more legislation which weakens our national defense and further funds the unconstitutional, fiscally irresponsible and dangerous practice of policing the world. And it was all done at the expense of America's airports and public housing. defense Congressional action weakens national defense 06 April 1998    Texas Straight Talk 06 April 1998 verse 8 ... Cached Unfortunately, Congress has refused to acknowledge anytime recently that the proper and constitutional role of the U.S. military is to provide for the national defense and not the security of all foreign entities against attacks by all other foreign entities. It was for this reason that I submitted amendments to defund the military appropriations in this so-called Emergency Appropriations Act. The proper amount of appropriations for unjustifiable United States peacekeeping missions around the world is zero. Instead, this bill rescinds funding from domestic programs such as airport maintenance and safety programs, to be spent on our "police-the-world" program. defense Religious freedom found in following Constitution 08 June 1998    Texas Straight Talk 08 June 1998 verse 5 ... Cached And despite the claims of those who attack religious values, these actions are not motivated by a defense of constitutional liberty. defense Paul legislation will stop national ID card 13 July 1998    Texas Straight Talk 13 July 1998 verse 12 ... Cached Despite pleas for federal correction of societal wrongs, a national ID, followed surely by a national police force, is neither prudent nor constitutional. While it is easy to give in to the rhetoric of "protecting" children or some other defenseless group, we must be cautious that in a rush to provide protection in the short-term, we do not do permanent damage to our national heritage of liberty. defense Taxpayer cash flowing again to non-citizens 31 August 1998    Texas Straight Talk 31 August 1998 verse 9 ... Cached The agreement we each make with the government when we pay taxes is that we are getting something in return: defense, infrastructure, and so on. In our age of welfarism, we also expect benefits from the government if we fall sick or unemployed. defense The Ominous Budget Deal 26 October 1998    Texas Straight Talk 26 October 1998 verse 8 ... Cached While most people would agree that the use of so-called "chemical weapons" is deplorable, we also do not like the thought of ever having to use force. Unfortunately, just as the use of force in self-defense is required and we must never limit the right of Americans to protect themselves, so should we as a nation jealously defend our right to use any means necessary to safeguard ourselves from potential adversaries. defense The Ominous Budget Deal 26 October 1998    Texas Straight Talk 26 October 1998 verse 12 ... Cached It just isn’t a good trade-off: sending our troops to fight winless wars which have no impact on our security while funneling tax dollars to organizations which operate in direct conflict with US values, so at the same time foreign inspectors can come here to weaken our defense. defense Stopping the President's New Little War 15 February 1999    Texas Straight Talk 15 February 1999 verse 8 ... Cached We spend less and less money every year on our own defense while spending more and more policing the world. It would be better to spend on national defense projects the money now being wasted in Bosnia, Iraq and other locales around the world. Moreover, our nation would be undeniably stronger by not having our soldiers killed in pointless "police" actions. defense Contentious debate produces rubber-stamp of Kosovo 15 March 1999    Texas Straight Talk 15 March 1999 verse 7 ... Cached In this current debate, liberal Democrats cannot oppose military action in Kosovo (despite their better instincts to avoid wars) because to do so would reflect badly on a president of their party. Meanwhile, the conservative Republicans (who are finally coming around to a sensible understanding of proper defense policy) must endure charges of hypocrisy if they now oppose missions similar to those rubber-stamped under Republican administrations. defense Burning bridges 29 March 1999    Texas Straight Talk 29 March 1999 verse 13 ... Cached The use of force and acts of war can only spread the misery and suffering, weaken our defenses, and undermine our national sovereignty. defense Rein-in the President 19 April 1999    Texas Straight Talk 19 April 1999 verse 5 ... Cached Congress was not diligent these last several months, ignoring legislation I put forward at the beginning of this term to prevent any action in Kosovo. My legislation, HR 647, would prohibit the use of any Department of Defense funds from being used to bomb Yugoslavia without an Act of Congress authorizing such action. defense The war that isn't a war 03 May 1999    Texas Straight Talk 03 May 1999 verse 20 ... Cached It is significant that the House has finally chosen not to rubber stamp an illegal, unconstitutional and immoral war. The American people know that the only moral war is a war that is fought in self-defense. defense China is only winner in scandals 31 May 1999    Texas Straight Talk 31 May 1999 verse 6 ... Cached Our national defense is not even for sale, it is simply available for the taking -- all comers welcome. defense Tragedy begets tragedy 14 June 1999    Texas Straight Talk 14 June 1999 verse 11 ... Cached People who are ordinarily our allies in the defense of liberty have been mislead into supporting HR1501 and amendments that turn federalism and the Constitution on its head. These conservatives are promoting several new "gun control" measures, such as mandatory trigger locks, expanding the background checks, and more. defense Campaign reform misses target 12 July 1999    Texas Straight Talk 12 July 1999 verse 6 ... Cached There is a tremendous incentive for every special interest group to influence government. Every individual, bank or corporation that does business with government invests plenty in influencing government. Corporate lobbyists spend over $100 million per month trying to influence Congress, while taxpayers' dollars are used by bureaucrats in efforts to convince Congress to protect their "empires." Government has tremendous influence over the economy and financial markets through interest rate controls, contracts, regulations, loans and grants. Corporations and individuals alike are forced to participate in an out-of-control system essentially as a matter of self-defense. defense Draft not needed for protection of liberty 23 August 1999    Texas Straight Talk 23 August 1999 verse 5 ... Cached In 1994 a Department of Defense document was released saying that the time had come to end the inefficient Selective Service draft registration system. In fact, the report stated draft registration could be stopped "with no effect on military mobilization requirements, little effect on the time it would take to mobilize, and no measurable effect on military recruitment." defense Draft not needed for protection of liberty 23 August 1999    Texas Straight Talk 23 August 1999 verse 10 ... Cached The draft is foreign to the precepts of liberty. If there is ever a threat to our national survival, people will serve if they believe liberty is worth saving; droves of men rushed to volunteer for service after Japan attacked in 1941. The burden rests on those in elected office to ensure our free society remains one in which the people are willing to fight, even to death, for its continuation. In our Constitution, the founding fathers provided for this mechanism by ensuring all would be free to be armed so that they may rise up in defense of liberty. defense Confused priorities 04 October 1999    Texas Straight Talk 04 October 1999 verse 11 ... Cached In addition, the president wants even more of Americans' money to spent in so-called "peacekeeping" operations, like those in Somalia and Bosnia, which recklessly place American soldiers in harms' way for reasons other than national defense. defense Budget Standoff Continues 15 November 1999    Texas Straight Talk 15 November 1999 verse 7 ... Cached But this year's budget process has brought us many other wonders, also. For example, the Defense Appropriations bill provides $1.7 Billion to fund this year's unconstitutional war in Iraq and Bosnia and $460 million dollars of military aid to the former Soviet Union. The VA/ HUD Appropriations Bill funded the Environmental Protection Agency at a record $7.6 Billion, 5% more than the Administration's request. The Environmental Protection Agency has now grown to more than 18,000 employees. defense This Year's Successes 22 November 1999    Texas Straight Talk 22 November 1999 verse 9 ... Cached I also introduced HR 1812 this year, to end the needless and inefficient policy of draft registration. The Department of Defense issued a report pointing out why this program is a waste of money and simply makes no sense in light of current personnel requirements consistent with modern warfare. Moreover, my concern is with the threat to personal freedom evidenced by compulsory registration with the federal government. defense Relations with Russia 31 January 2000    Texas Straight Talk 31 January 2000 verse 12 ... Cached The best way for us to break this vicious cycle seems most clear to me. We ought to recommit ourselves to a foreign policy that seeks our national interest. The components of such a policy involve a strong national defense and a policy of non-intervention abroad. That means that we should end these failed attempts to win people to our cause by giving them foreign aid payments. defense The Danger of Military Foreign Aid to Colombia 11 September 2000    Texas Straight Talk 11 September 2000 verse 7 ... Cached The American people do not support our actions in Colombia. Polls have shown that approximately 70% of Americans do not support defending foreign countries if U.S. soldiers are put in jeopardy. Our primary concern in military affairs should be maintaining a strong national defense and protecting our national security interests. Our actions in Colombia have nothing to with our national defense, and they undermine our national security by creating resentment from factions we do not support. We must remember that money spent in Colombia necessarily reduces spending on a variety of more important issues. We should build up our military, providing our soldiers with better salaries, housing, and medical care. Similarly, foreign aid dollars could be spent on education, Social Security, or Medicare. My constituents do not support our dangerous and expensive involvement in Colombia, and I intend to continue working to eliminate wasteful foreign aid in our next budget. defense Spy Scandal Reveals Deeper Problems with Federal Police Agencies 05 March 2001    Texas Straight Talk 05 March 2001 verse 4 ... Cached The fundamental question has been ignored by the press. The real issue ought to be simple: Why is a domestic law enforcement agency involved in international espionage at all? In other words, why was the accused FBI agent spying on foreign nations in the first place? Surely the CIA and the Department of Defense are charged with that task. Since the ostensible mission of the FBI is to police crime here in the U.S., how on earth would an FBI agent obtain information that was so valuable to the Russians? defense Medical Privacy Threatened by Federal Health Bureaucrats 18 June 2001    Texas Straight Talk 18 June 2001 verse 5 ... Cached HHS officials have sought to reassure the public that the new rules require patient consent before physicians may release medical information. Unfortunately, however, the consent protection has very limited effect. First, your physician likely will refuse to treat you if you decline consent to share your records. This is almost certain to happen, because heavy fines (and even jail sentences!) will be imposed on physicians who don't exactly follow the new regulations. Furthermore, there are very broad exceptions to the consent rule for ill-defined categories such as "oversight of the health care system," "public health," "law enforcement activities," "judicial and administrative proceedings," and "national defense and security." These exceptions give the government almost unlimited justifications to access your private records not only without your consent, but also without your knowledge. The law enforcement exception is particularly troubling, because the 4th Amendment clearly prohibits warrantless searches of medical records by government officials. So while on the surface the new rules may seem to give patients some control, the reality is that the consent protection is largely meaningless. defense UN Plans for Global Gun Control 16 July 2001    Texas Straight Talk 16 July 2001 verse 5 ... Cached The role of small arms in defending against aggression should not be overlooked. Gun control proponents like to characterize light weapons as ineffective in wartime, but history proves they are critical to the self-defense of nations. For example, badly outnumbered and outgunned Afghan rebels succeeded in creating havoc for the massive invading Soviet army using only light rifles and even handguns. By contrast, Jewish civilians in Germany who had been stripped of all weapons were unable to mount any resistance to Hitler's terror. UN gun control advocates ignore history when they attempt to link guns only with crime, and never with heroic resistance to tyranny. defense What Should Government Do for the Airlines? 24 September 2001    Texas Straight Talk 24 September 2001 verse 8 ... Cached There are steps the government can take immediately to enhance airline security. It should undo regulations that have in effect disarmed pilots, and create a clear policy that permits airlines to establish their own rules regarding the arming of flight crews. Many commercial pilots once carried firearms, but federal rules now require that airlines go through a process of FAA-administered training classes that literally have never been conducted. It is ludicrous to leave pilots defenseless in the cockpit. A federal air-marshall program may be needed in the short run, but ultimately we should insist that pilots and flight crews be allowed to defend themselves and their passengers so that any future hijacking attempts can be thwarted. defense Why Leave Pilots Defenseless? 01 October 2001    Texas Straight Talk 01 October 2001 verse 2 ... Cached Why Leave Pilots Defenseless? defense Why Leave Pilots Defenseless? 01 October 2001    Texas Straight Talk 01 October 2001 verse 3 ... Cached In the days since the September 11th tragedy, hundreds of Americans have contacted my office concerning airline security. Most are angry and appalled that our planes were left so vulnerable to hijacking, especially considering the terrorists needed only simple boxcutting knives to carry out their depraved plan. The American people understandably are shocked at the ease with which the airplanes were overtaken and the defenseless pilots removed from the cockpit. The resounding message that people have conveyed to my office is very clear: the federal government should allow pilots to be armed. defense America Retains its Sovereign Right to Respond to Attacks 08 October 2001    Texas Straight Talk 08 October 2001 verse 3 ... Cached The tragic events of September 11th have led to renewed calls for the expansion of global government. Terrorism, we are told, is an international problem- and therefore the United States must subordinate its interests and defer to the international community before taking military action. Of course it's certainly commendable that President Bush is trying to build an international coalition to fight terrorism, and we should be enormously grateful to our allies for their support during these trying times. Yet we must never allow our national sovereignty to be eroded in the name of international cooperation. We cannot forget that our Constitution grants Congress and the President complete authority to provide for national defense and declare war. International support for our efforts against Bin Laden is desirable, but we do not need anyone's permission to act. Remember, the terrorists attacked on American soil and killed mostly American citizens. No international coalition can or should attempt to dictate our response. defense Effective and Practical Counter-Terrorism Measures 15 October 2001    Texas Straight Talk 15 October 2001 verse 5 ... Cached Arm Pilots: It is unthinkable to leave pilots defenseless in the cockpit after the events of September 11th. We trust pilots to operate multimillion dollar machines filled with human cargo, yet incredibly we do not trust them with firearms. While airport security certainly can be strengthened, pilots must have the choice to carry weapons as a last line of defense against future hijacking attempts. defense U.S. Armed Forces Should Protect American Soil 22 October 2001    Texas Straight Talk 22 October 2001 verse 7 ... Cached The simple solution is not huge increases in defense spending. The federal budget is not unlimited; taxpayers cannot be expected to pay infinite amounts of money for national defense. While non-defense spending certainly should be cut drastically, the most realistic approach is to reassign most of our troops currently overseas to stateside duty defending our borders. defense U.S. Armed Forces Should Protect American Soil 22 October 2001    Texas Straight Talk 22 October 2001 verse 8 ... Cached Clearly our efforts in playing policeman to the world have failed to make us more secure. This does not mean that we are in any way responsible for the barbaric acts of Bin Laden or any other fanatical murders who hate the U.S. Yet we have no choice but to honestly assess the threats we now face here at home in the wake of these terrorist attacks. The most basic and important function of our government must be to provide national defense, and our overseas commitments directly interfere with the government's ability to defend you and your family. defense Business as Usual in Washington? 29 October 2001    Texas Straight Talk 29 October 2001 verse 9 ... Cached While Congress debates airport security, we are not even seriously considering restoring the right of pilots to carry weapons for self-defense. Even though pilots once carried guns to protect the mail, and armored truck drivers can still carry guns to protect money, protecting passengers with guns is prohibited on commercial flights. The US Air Force can shoot down a wayward aircraft, but a pilot cannot shoot down an armed terrorist. Pilots need a last of defense in the cockpit. defense Expansion of NATO is a Bad Idea 12 November 2001    Texas Straight Talk 12 November 2001 verse 4 ... Cached Consider our participation in NATO, which commits American military forces to conflicts that serve no national interest. Congress voted last week to expand NATO and increase the number of countries we are obligated to defend, even while our own military forces are stretched far to thin around the globe. Department of Defense figures show that 250,000 American troops are deployed on 6 continents and 141 nations. When we suffered the September 11th attack on our own shores, we were forced to call on foreign nations to supply AWACS planes and defend our domestic airspace! Our military entanglements, especially NATO, have left us relying on foreigners to defend us- yet this is exactly what the globalists want. They want us to lose our sense of national sovereignty, so that America's national defense becomes a matter of international consensus. Only by removing ourselves from NATO and the UN can we reassert our fundamental right to defend our borders without the approval or participation of any international coalition. defense Expansion of NATO is a Bad Idea 12 November 2001    Texas Straight Talk 12 November 2001 verse 5 ... Cached NATO is an organization that has outlived its usefulness. It was formed as a defensive military alliance, designed to protect western Europe against the Soviet threat. With the Soviet collapse in 1991, however, NATO bureaucrats (and the governments backing them) were forced to reinvent the alliance and justify its continued existence. So the "new NATO" began to occupy itself with issues totally unrelated to defense, such as economic development, human rights, territorial disputes, religious conflicts, and ethnic rivalries. In other words, "nation building." The new game was interventionism, not defense. defense Expansion of NATO is a Bad Idea 12 November 2001    Texas Straight Talk 12 November 2001 verse 7 ... Cached Now Congress has endorsed the expansion of this purposeless alliance, of course taking the opportunity to grant 55 million of your tax dollars to the former Soviet bloc countries that want to join. This expansion may be profitable for weapons manufacturers and bureaucrats, but it represents another example of U.S. taxpayers subsidizing foreign governments and big corporations. It is time for the Europeans to take responsibility for their own military defense. defense Are Your Taxes Too Low? 22 April 2002    Texas Straight Talk 22 April 2002 verse 9 ... Cached An income tax would be wholly unnecessary if Congress restrained itself and spent your tax dollars only on legitimate constitutional functions like national defense. Remember, the federal government operated for more than 120 years without an income tax, using excise taxes to raise necessary revenues. Rather than squabbling about tiny changes in the existing tax code, Congress ought to be drastically reducing spending and scrapping the incomprehensible tax code altogether. defense Pilots vs. Bureaucrats 06 May 2002    Texas Straight Talk 06 May 2002 verse 5 ... Cached The case for arming pilots is simple: the fundamental duty of any pilot is to ensure the safe operation of his aircraft. Safety is utterly compromised if a terrorist takes control of a plane or violently attempts to do so. Armed pilots act as a last line of defense for themselves, their passengers, and people on the ground. Firearms in the cockpit also serve as a strong deterrent against hijacking attempts. defense Pilots vs. Bureaucrats 06 May 2002    Texas Straight Talk 06 May 2002 verse 8 ... Cached Pilots, airlines, and understandably nervous travelers deserve more from the federal government. No amount of airport security can guarantee that a terrorist will never again board a domestic flight with a weapon. Since armed marshals can't be on every flight, pilots are the last line of defense against future terrorist acts in the skies. Why on earth does our government insist on disarming the same pilots we otherwise trust with our lives? defense President Bush Delivers Victory over UN Court! 13 May 2002    Texas Straight Talk 13 May 2002 verse 4 ... Cached On the heels of the Bush administration decision, I introduced legislation aimed at prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds for the unconstitutional tribunal. I wanted to make sure that Congress took advantage of the moment and supported the administration by ensuring that your tax dollars aren’t used to pay for another UN scheme, especially one that the our President expressly rejected. My bill was supported by the House leadership, and several of my congressional colleagues joined as co-sponsors. The bill, which expressed that Congress should prohibit appropriations for the ICC, passed overwhelmingly as an amendment to a larger defense bill. defense Congress Spends, Future Generations Pay the Bills 03 June 2002    Texas Straight Talk 03 June 2002 verse 3 ... Cached Congress recently passed the so-called "supplemental" spending bill, wasting billions of your tax dollars supplementing the already swollen $2.3 trillion 2003 federal budget. Congress loves the annual supplemental bill, because unlike other spending bills, the supplemental does not fund any particular federal departments or agencies. This means members and the administration can find a home for pet spending projects that would not be permitted in a defense or education bill. This year, however, the supplemental also provides convenient cover for the big-spenders to quietly increase the federal debt ceiling. defense Imperial Transportation Bureaucrat Says Yes to Lavish Offices, No to Armed Pilots 24 June 2002    Texas Straight Talk 24 June 2002 verse 7 ... Cached His pompous display on national television angered many pilots, who recognized Magaw’s disdain for their abilities. The undersecretary made clear his belief that the men and women we entrust to fly our families cannot be trusted with simple firearms. His ludicrous statement- that pilots cannot fly the plane and defend the cockpit at the same time- utterly ignores the reality that pilots can’t fly at all if they’re left defenseless as terrorists overtake them! The bottom line is that guns in the cockpit might have changed the outcome of September 11th. defense Imperial Transportation Bureaucrat Says Yes to Lavish Offices, No to Armed Pilots 24 June 2002    Texas Straight Talk 24 June 2002 verse 10 ... Cached A new armed pilots bill recently passed in the Aviation subcommittee, and may see a vote later this year. While I support this bill, which essentially makes pilots federal deputies, my own legislation is more direct. My bill simply allows the airlines and pilots to decide for themselves whether to allow guns in the cockpit. This approach respects both the Second amendment and the private property rights of the airlines. While no amount of security can guarantee another terrorist won’t again board an aircraft with a weapon, Congress can make sure pilots are not left defenseless by passing a direct armed pilots bill and overseeing its immediate implementation. defense The Homeland Security Non-Debate 29 July 2002    Texas Straight Talk 29 July 2002 verse 2 ... Cached Late Friday evening, after only a few short hours of debate, Congress passed legislation creating a new Department of Homeland Security. The new department represents the biggest government reorganization since the creation of the Department of Defense in the 1940s, and potentially the single biggest expansion of the federal government in our history. Over 175,000 federal employees will be part of the new DHS, and if history is any guide, it will take decades to get all of them working together even marginally. In fact, some estimate that the process of buying and leasing new offices, moving existing offices, and getting all of the new DHS personnel using the same computer and phone systems could take twenty years. So much for streamlining the intelligence gathering process. defense The Case against War in Iraq 09 September 2002    Texas Straight Talk 09 September 2002 verse 7 ... Cached Finally, there is a compelling moral argument against war in Iraq. Military force is justified only in self-defense; naked aggression is the province of dictators and rogue states. This is the danger of a new "preemptive first strike" doctrine. America is the most moral nation on earth, founded on moral principles, and we must apply moral principles when deciding to use military force. defense Entangling Alliances Distort our Foreign Policy 16 September 2002    Texas Straight Talk 16 September 2002 verse 7 ... Cached This schizophrenic approach inevitably gives us the worst of both worlds. We give up our sovereignty, but fail to win any real allies. We pay all the bills, risk the lives of our young people, and invite UN meddling in our domestic laws, yet still we sow the seeds of discontent and future hostility with the world community. All because we have abandoned our Constitution and the founder’s ideal of noninterventionism in favor of globalism. What is badly needed today is a coherent foreign policy based on American national security and self-defense, free trade, a rejection of entangling political and military alliances, and a wholesale removal of the U.S. from the clutches of global government. defense Will We Bring bin Laden to Justice? 23 September 2002    Texas Straight Talk 23 September 2002 verse 5 ... Cached Our troops in Afghanistan, and defense secretary Rumsfeld himself, are becoming increasingly frustrated over the lack of progress in locating bin Laden. Clearly we need to provide President Bush with innovative new tools to bring these criminals to justice. The drafters of the Constitution provided just such a tool to retaliate against attacks on America by groups not formally affiliated with a government: letters of marque and reprisal. Letters of marque and reprisal are especially suited to our modern campaign against terrorism, which is fought against individuals rather than governments. Essentially, marque and reprisal authorizes the President to use private parties to find international terrorists wherever they hide. defense Will We Bring bin Laden to Justice? 23 September 2002    Texas Straight Talk 23 September 2002 verse 7 ... Cached Ultimately, letters of marque and reprisal could help us avoid a wider war by bringing terrorists to justice without the need for military action- saving American lives in the process. I recently wrote defense Secretary Rumsfeld, urging administration support for my legislation, the "Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001." Unless and until the administration puts the focus back on bin Laden and al-Qaida, the horrific crimes of September 11th will remain unpunished. defense Snipers, Terror, and Gun Control 28 October 2002    Texas Straight Talk 28 October 2002 verse 5 ... Cached As for the alleged sniper himself, we can expect two things from the media. First, we’ll hear a lot of details and nonsense about his rifle and how he obtained it. This scrutiny serves to instill a misguided sense of fear and awe toward a simple .223 rifle, making it seem like a highly dangerous instrument that should never be in the hands of the general public. Second, we’ll hear his defense attorneys feed the media a thousand excuses for his actions, ranging from his childhood to his failed marriage to his Army training. Most people see through this, however. The killer alone is responsible for his murderous actions. defense Snipers, Terror, and Gun Control 28 October 2002    Texas Straight Talk 28 October 2002 verse 6 ... Cached Despite all the talk about rifles, the undeniable truth is that armed citizens are safer than disarmed citizens. We can’t know, of course, that armed citizens would have prevented any of the shootings or brought the sniper to justice more quickly. Yet it’s hard to imagine the sniper choosing Texas or another well-armed southern state to commit his crimes. The bottom line is that criminals seek defenseless, unarmed victims. Any criminal operating in the suburbs of Washington DC, southern Maryland, and northern Virginia- all bastions of anti-gun sentiment- can reasonably assume that his victims will not shoot back. defense Honoring our Military Veterans 11 November 2002    Texas Straight Talk 11 November 2002 verse 3 ... Cached It’s easy to talk about honoring veterans and their sacrifices on a national holiday. Yet so often the rhetoric obscures the reality that the federal government treats veterans badly. Congress wastes billions of dollars funding so many unconstitutional programs, but it fails to provide adequately for the men and women who carry out the most important constitutional function: national defense. defense The Homeland Security Monstrosity 18 November 2002    Texas Straight Talk 18 November 2002 verse 3 ... Cached The last time Congress attempted a similarly ambitious reorganization of the government was with the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947. Back then, congressional hearings on the matter lasted two years before President Truman finally signed legislation. Even after this lengthy deliberation, however, organizational problems with the new department lasted more than 40 years! What do we expect from a huge bureaucracy conceived virtually overnight, by a Congress that didn’t even read the bill that creates it? Surely more deliberation was appropriate before establishing a giant new federal agency with 170,000 employees! defense Homeland Security is the Largest Federal Expansion in 50 Years 25 November 2002    Texas Straight Talk 25 November 2002 verse 2 ... Cached The administration and Congress put the finishing touches on the monstrous Homeland Security bill last week, creating the first new federal department since the Department of Defense at the end of World War II. Laughably, the new department has been characterized as merely a "reorganization" of existing agencies, even though I notice no department was abolished to make up for it! One thing we can be sure of in this world is that federal agencies grow. The Homeland Security department, like all federal agencies, will increase in size exponentially over the coming decades. Its budget, number of employees, and the scope of its mission will EXPAND. Congress has no idea what it will have created twenty or fifty years hence, when less popular presidents have the full power of a domestic spying agency at their disposal. defense Waning Prospects for Peace in 2003? 30 December 2002    Texas Straight Talk 30 December 2002 verse 2 ... Cached As 2002 draws to a close, the prospects for peace seem bleak in the world’s troubled Middle East region. Afghanistan remains in chaos, despite the ouster of the Taliban regime by American forces. Israel and the occupied West Bank territories suffer terrible incidents of violence almost daily, forcing the cancellation of Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem. Although the administration has not yet ordered a full-scale military mobilization into Iraq, war hawks in the Pentagon and Defense department assure us that such an attack is imminent. defense Waning Prospects for Peace in 2003? 30 December 2002    Texas Straight Talk 30 December 2002 verse 4 ... Cached Defense Secretary Rumsfeld quickly responded to the North Koreans by declaring that the United States can fight simultaneous wars with Iraq and North Korea if necessary. But can we be certain this is true, especially after the demoralizing reductions in our military strength during the Clinton years? Does this mean we will stretch our military forces even thinner, to fight three or five or ten conflicts, if necessary to play world policeman in the new American empire? defense Conscription is Collectivism 13 January 2003    Texas Straight Talk 13 January 2003 verse 3 ... Cached Neither the Pentagon nor our military leaders want a draft. In fact, a Department of Defense report stated that draft registration could be eliminated "with no effect on military mobilization and no measurable effect on military recruitment." Today’s military is more high tech and specialized than ever before, and an educated volunteer force is required to operate our modern Army, Navy, and Air Force. Most military experts believe a draft would actually impair military readiness, despite the increase in raw manpower, because of training and morale problems. defense Conscription is Collectivism 13 January 2003    Texas Straight Talk 13 January 2003 verse 6 ... Cached I believe wholeheartedly that an all-volunteer military is not only sufficient for national defense, but preferable. It is time to abolish the Selective Service System and resign military conscription to the dustbin of American history. Five hundred million dollars have been wasted on the Selective Service System since 1979, money that could have been returned to taxpayers or spent to improve the lives of our nation’s veterans. defense The 2003 Spending Orgy 03 March 2003    Texas Straight Talk 03 March 2003 verse 5 ... Cached One might assume the 2003 spending increases are largely the result of September 11th and homeland security concerns, but actually it’s the standard types of federal pork that drive the overall spending surge. Virtually all federal agencies and federal programs, including those that have nothing to do with defense or terrorism, have enjoyed budget increases of more than 20% over the last two years. defense The 2003 Spending Orgy 03 March 2003    Texas Straight Talk 03 March 2003 verse 7 ... Cached The looming hangover is reflected in the federal debt, which is officially about 5.6 trillion dollars. The real figure is much higher, because the official figure does not include outstanding future liabilities like Social Security and Medicare that millions of Baby Boomers will soon demand. The “debt limit,” created by federal law in a hopeful attempt to limit congressional spending, is routinely raised by Congress without political fallout. All Americans must become aware of how truly unrestrained federal spending has become, and realize that voters represent the last line of defense against the complete bankruptcy of the U.S. government. defense Honor Veterans with a Better Budget 24 March 2003    Texas Straight Talk 24 March 2003 verse 3 ... Cached We should understand that veterans programs, unlike so many federal programs, are constitutional. The Constitution specifically provides for Congress to fund armed forces and provide national defense. Congress and the nation accordingly have a constitutional obligation to keep the promises made to those who provide that defense. This is why I support increased funding for veterans, while opposing the bloated spending bills that fund corporate and social welfare, pork favoritism, and special interests at the expense of those veterans. defense War Profiteers 07 April 2003    Texas Straight Talk 07 April 2003 verse 4 ... Cached We must understand that America is in a financial crisis. Tax revenues are down due to the faltering economy, but congressional spending has exploded by more than 22% in just two years. As a result, annual deficits have risen rapidly, and the national debt now approaches 6.5 trillion dollars. Almost all of this new spending has been completely unrelated to homeland defense or national security concerns. The same old failed domestic agencies and special-interest pork programs have received the bulk of the dollars. While Congress should fund constitutional federal functions like national defense, our very solvency as a nation is being threatened by unconstitutional spending. defense The Unbearable Cost of Running Iraq 09 June 2003    Texas Straight Talk 09 June 2003 verse 2 ... Cached Recently fired Army Secretary Thomas White said last week that senior defense officials “are unwilling to come to grips” with the scale of the postwar US obligation in Iraq. Similarly, in February, Army chief of staff General Eric Shinseki brought the same message to Congress: occupation of Iraq would take “several hundred thousand” troops. Both men have been publicly admonished. defense The Unbearable Cost of Running Iraq 09 June 2003    Texas Straight Talk 09 June 2003 verse 6 ... Cached Yet the United States is spending tens of billions of dollars and more rebuilding Iraq. The US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, scheduled to return home after its success in Iraq, will remain “indefinitely” because securing Iraq is proving more difficult than defense planners envisioned. The US civilian authority controlling Iraq has cancelled plans to allow the Iraqis to form their own provisional government. American bureaucrats are even running the Iraqi media. defense Mistreating Soldiers and Veterans 10 November 2003    Texas Straight Talk 10 November 2003 verse 3 ... Cached You may have read about conditions at Fort Stewart, Georgia, where hundreds of injured reserve and National Guard soldiers are housed in deplorable conditions and forced to wait months just to see a doctor. These soldiers made huge sacrifices, leaving their families and jobs to fight in Iraq. Now they find themselves living in hot, crowded, unsanitary barracks and waiting far too long to see overworked doctors. This is hardly the heroes’ welcome they might have expected. Only an expose in a major newspaper brought attention to their plight, prompting an embarrassed Defense department to rush additional doctors to the base. defense Mistreating Soldiers and Veterans 10 November 2003    Texas Straight Talk 10 November 2003 verse 5 ... Cached Similar mistreatment of soldiers has been evident throughout our occupation of Iraq. Some wounded soldiers convalescing at Walter Reed hospital in Washington were forced to pay for hospital meals from their own pockets! Other soldiers returning stateside for a two-week liberty had to buy their own airfare home from the east coast. Still others have paid for desert boots, night vision goggles, and other military necessities with personal funds. It’s shocking that our troops are forced to pay for basic items that should be supplied to them or paid from the defense budget. defense A Wise Consistency for Liberty 16 February 2004    Texas Straight Talk 16 February 2004 verse 7 ... Cached The truth is Emerson must be misquoted to be used against those who consistently defend a free society, cherish and promote diverse opinions, and encourage nonconformity. A wise and consistent defense of liberty is more desperately needed today than any time in our history. Our foolish and inconsistent policies of the last 100 years have brought us to a critical junction, with the American way of life at stake. It is the foolish inconsistencies that we must condemn and abandon. defense Gay Marriage Quicksand 01 March 2004    Texas Straight Talk 01 March 2004 verse 6 ... Cached But the Defense of Marriage Act, passed in 1996, explicitly authorizes states to refuse to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. Furthermore, the Supreme Court repeatedly has interpreted the Full Faith and Credit clause to allow Congress to limit the effect of state laws on other states. In fact, federal courts almost universally apply the clause only to state court judgments, not statutes. So a constitutional amendment is not necessary to address the issue of gay marriage, and will only drive yet another nail into the coffin of federalism. If we turn regulation of even domestic family relations over to the federal government, presumably anything can be federalized. defense Freedom vs. Security: A False Choice 31 May 2004    Texas Straight Talk 31 May 2004 verse 3 ... Cached But the obvious lesson of September 11th is that government cannot protect us. Even with trillions of tax dollars spent on “defense,” hijacked planes flew unchallenged over our skies and attacked national symbols of business and government. Yet now we’re told to put even more faith into the same bureaucracies that failed us so miserably in the past? Self-reliance and self-defense are American virtues; trembling reliance on the illusion of government-provided security is not. defense Torture, War, and Presidential Powers 14 June 2004    Texas Straight Talk 14 June 2004 verse 2 ... Cached A Wall Street Journal article last week detailed a Department of Defense memo that discusses the legality of interrogation and torture methods in the wake of events at Abu Gharib. The document reportedly advises that the president has authority to order almost any action, including physical or psychological torture, despite federal laws to the contrary. The Pentagon lawyers who drafted the memo were not shy about blatantly asserting that the Commander-In-Chief can break the law when necessary, as evidenced by this quote from the memo: “Sometimes the greater good for society will be accomplished by violating the literal language of the criminal law.” defense Torture, War, and Presidential Powers 14 June 2004    Texas Straight Talk 14 June 2004 verse 5 ... Cached The greater issue presented by the Defense department memo, however, is the threat posed by unchecked executive power. Defense department lawyers essentially argue that a president’s powers as Commander-In-Chief override federal laws prohibiting torture, and the Justice department appears to agree. But the argument for extraordinary wartime executive powers has been made time and time again, always with bad results and the loss of our liberties. War has been used by presidents to excuse the imprisonment of American citizens of Japanese descent, to silence speech, to suspend habeas corpus, and even to control entire private industries. defense Saving the World with Your Money 19 July 2004    Texas Straight Talk 19 July 2004 verse 5 ... Cached The Millennium Challenge Act is designed to appease fiscal conservatives and defense hawks by appearing to single out friendly, well-behaved nations for aid payments, ostensibly creating a carrot-and-stick approach. But the Act merely puts a shiny new label on the same old failed policy of trying to remake the world using welfare. Welfare has never worked at home and it’s never worked abroad, no matter what “incentives” Congress tries to attach. defense Resisting Judicial Tyranny 26 July 2004    Texas Straight Talk 26 July 2004 verse 2 ... Cached The US House passed the Marriage Protection Act last week, a bill designed to ensure that the “full faith and credit” clause of the Constitution is not used to impose gay marriage on Texas or any other state. You may remember Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which explicitly authorizes states to refuse recognition of gay marriages performed in other states. However, the lack of respect federal judges show for the plain language of the Constitution necessitated further congressional action. The Act underscores an important legal point: Marbury vs. Madison did not alter the congressional power to regulate and limit federal court jurisdiction, which is plainly stated in Article III. The drafters of the Constitution gave Congress the power to limit federal jurisdiction to provide a check on out-of-control federal judges. In other words, the federalist concept of checks and balances applies to the judiciary just as it does to the legislative and executive branches. The Marriage Protection Act represents a long-overdue exercise of the congressional power to limit and define federal court jurisdiction. defense Resisting Judicial Tyranny 26 July 2004    Texas Straight Talk 26 July 2004 verse 6 ... Cached Since the Marriage Protection Act requires only a majority vote in both houses of Congress and the president’s signature to become law, it is a more practical way to deal with the gay marriage issue than the time-consuming process of passing a constitutional amendment. In fact, since the Defense of Marriage Act overwhelmingly passed both houses, there is no reason why the Marriage Protection Act cannot become law this year. defense Useless Conventions 02 August 2004    Texas Straight Talk 02 August 2004 verse 9 ... Cached Americans don’t need new federal programs, and they certainly don’t need more federal control over their schools. They don’t need a disastrous government-run medical system. What Americans do need is a federal government that provides national defense, secures our borders, and does very little else. Needless to say you won’t hear the parties suggesting such a platform anytime soon. defense The 9-11 Commission Charade 23 August 2004    Texas Straight Talk 23 August 2004 verse 6 ... Cached Our nation will be safer only when government does less, not more. Rather than asking ourselves what Congress or the president should be doing about terrorism, we ought to ask what government should stop doing. It should stop spending trillions of dollars on unconstitutional programs that detract from basic government functions like national defense and border security. It should stop meddling in the internal affairs of foreign nations, but instead demonstrate by example the superiority of freedom, capitalism, and an open society. It should stop engaging in nation-building, and stop trying to create democratic societies through military force. It should stop militarizing future enemies, as we did by supplying money and weapons to characters like Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. It should stop entangling the American people in unholy alliances like the UN and NATO, and pledge that our armed forces will never serve under foreign command. It should stop committing American troops to useless, expensive, and troublesome assignments overseas, and instead commit the Department of Defense to actually defending America. It should stop interfering with the 2nd amendment rights of private citizens and businesses seeking to defend themselves. defense Mental Health Screening for Kids- Part II 20 September 2004    Texas Straight Talk 20 September 2004 verse 9 ... Cached American parents must do everything they can to remain responsible for their children’s well-being. If we allow government to become intimately involved with our children’s minds and bodies, we will have lost the final vestiges of parental authority. Strong families are the last line of defense against an overreaching bureaucratic state. defense The 9-11 Intelligence Bill- More of the Same 11 October 2004    Texas Straight Talk 11 October 2004 verse 7 ... Cached Finally, I am skeptical about the reorganization of the intelligence community in this legislation. In creating an entire new office-- the National Intelligence Director-- we are adding yet another layer of bureaucracy to our already bloated federal government. Yet we are supposed to believe that even more of the same kind of government that failed us on September 11, 2001 will make us safer. At best, this is wishful thinking. The constitutional function of our intelligence community is to protect the United States from foreign attack. Yet ever since the National Security Act of 1947, the agencies created have been meddling in affairs that have nothing to do with the security of the United States. When considering the CIA’s overthrow of Iranian leader Mohammed Mossadeq in the 1950s, or CIA training of the Muhajadin jihadists in Afghanistan in the 1980s, it is entirely possible the actions of the CIA abroad have actually made us less safe and more vulnerable to foreign attack. It would be best to confine our intelligence community to the defense of our territory from foreign attack. This may well mean eliminating the CIA altogether and turning intelligence functions over to the Department of Defense, where they belong. defense "I Have a Plan..." 18 October 2004    Texas Straight Talk 18 October 2004 verse 8 ... Cached In a truly free nation, the government acts only as a referee by protecting property rights, enforcing contracts, prohibiting force and fraud, and providing national defense. Such was the system envision by the Founding Fathers, who strictly limited regulatory and tax powers in the Constitution. They were tired of having their business affairs managed by the Crown, so they created a servant government that would allow freedom and capitalism to flourish. defense Ignoring Reality in Iraq 13 December 2004    Texas Straight Talk 13 December 2004 verse 3 ... Cached A recent study by the Pentagon’s Defense Science Task Force on Strategic Communications concluded that in the struggle for hearts and minds in Iraq, “American efforts have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended.” This Pentagon report flatly states that our war in Iraq actually has elevated support for radical Islamists. It goes on to conclude that our active intervention in the Middle East as a whole has greatly diminished our reputation in the region, and strengthened support for radical groups. This is similar to what the CIA predicted in an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, before the invasion took place. defense What does Freedom Really Mean? 07 February 2005    Texas Straight Talk 07 February 2005 verse 8 ... Cached Simply put, freedom is the absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. States, not the federal government, were charged with protecting individuals against criminal force and fraud. For the first time, a government was created solely to protect the rights, liberties, and property of its citizens. Any government coercion beyond that necessary to secure those rights was forbidden, both through the Bill of Rights and the doctrine of strictly enumerated powers. This reflected the founders’ belief that democratic government could be as tyrannical as any King. defense Empty Rhetoric for Veterans 04 April 2005    Texas Straight Talk 04 April 2005 verse 6 ... Cached It’s easy to talk about honoring veterans and their sacrifices, even while the federal government treats veterans badly. Congress wastes billions of dollars funding countless unconstitutional programs, but fails to provide adequately for the men and women who carry out the most important constitutional function: national defense. defense Too Little, Too Late 14 November 2005    Texas Straight Talk 14 November 2005 verse 5 ... Cached Remember, this is a Congress that has increased spending by 33% since President Bush took office in 2001. And we're not talking about national defense or anti-terrorism spending. We're talking about a one-third increase in garden variety domestic spending. This is also a Congress that passed the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, the single largest increase in entitlement spending since the Great Society programs of the 1960s. So there's not much credibility to be found on Capitol Hill when it comes to reducing the federal budget. defense Don't Complicate Immigration Reform 12 December 2005    Texas Straight Talk 12 December 2005 verse 7 ... Cached First, enforce existing laws by controlling the borders once and for all. We must recognize that true national defense means defending our own borders and coastlines. This is the primary constitutional responsibility of the federal government. This means it’s time to stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars on overseas military adventures and countless alphabet soup domestic agencies. Borders should be the number one national priority, plain and simple. Does the federal government have something better to do? defense Policy is More Important than Personnel 24 April 2006    Texas Straight Talk 24 April 2006 verse 3 ... Cached President Bush has been under pressure to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whom many view as the architect of a failed approach in Iraq. Even many ardent war hawks are unhappy with the Secretary for not having more troops on the ground in Iraq, and for conducting the war less aggressively than they would like. defense Policy is More Important than Personnel 24 April 2006    Texas Straight Talk 24 April 2006 verse 4 ... Cached But the issue is not who serves as Secretary of Defense, the issue is how, when, and why the United States uses military force. It makes no sense simply to replace Mr. Rumsfeld with someone else who holds the same view, namely that it’s the job of American soldiers and U.S. taxpayers to police the world. We should be debating the proper foreign policy for our country-- utopian nation building vs. the noninterventionism counseled by our founding fathers-- rather than which individual is best suited to carry it out. defense Policy is More Important than Personnel 24 April 2006    Texas Straight Talk 24 April 2006 verse 12 ... Cached In other words, Madison understood that large military forces can become the tools of tyrants, and can bankrupt the nations that support them. Instead of debating who should be Secretary of Defense, we should be studying the writing of our own founding fathers. Perhaps then we will question the wisdom of an open-ended, vague war on terror and the realities of trying to remake whole societies in our image. defense Rethinking the Draft 27 November 2006    Texas Straight Talk 27 November 2006 verse 5 ... Cached Yet the Department of Defense remains steadfastly opposed to a draft. A Pentagon report stated that draft registration could be eliminated "with no effect on military mobilization and no measurable effect on military recruitment." Most military experts believe a draft would actually impair military readiness, despite the increase in raw manpower, because of training and morale problems. defense Rethinking the Draft 27 November 2006    Texas Straight Talk 27 November 2006 verse 9 ... Cached I believe wholeheartedly that an all-volunteer military is not only sufficient for national defense, but also preferable. It is time to abolish the Selective Service System and resign military conscription to the dustbin of American history. Five hundred million dollars have been wasted on Selective Service since 1979, money that could have been returned to taxpayers or spent to improve the lives of our nation's veterans. defense More of the Same in 2007 25 December 2006    Texas Straight Talk 25 December 2006 verse 8 ... Cached This doesn’t sound like the “new generation” warfare envisioned by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, but more like old-fashioned occupation-- which requires hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the ground in Iraq. Once again, more of the same. defense Escalation in the Middle East 15 January 2007    Texas Straight Talk 15 January 2007 verse 4 ... Cached The president stated last week that, “Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity- and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria.” He also announced the deployment of an additional aircraft carrier battle group to the Persian Gulf, and the deployment of Patriot air missile defense systems to countries in the Middle East. Meanwhile, US troops stormed the Iranian consulate in Iraq and detained several Iranian diplomats. Taken together, the message was clear: the administration intends to move the US closer to a dangerous and ill-advised conflict with Iran. defense Inflation and War Finance 29 January 2007    Texas Straight Talk 29 January 2007 verse 10 ... Cached The $500 billion we’ve officially spent in Iraq is an enormous sum, but the real total is much higher, hidden within the Defense Department and foreign aid budgets. As we build permanent military bases and a $1 billion embassy in Iraq, we need to keep asking whether it’s really worth it. Congress should at least fund the war in an honest way so the American people can judge for themselves. defense Political Power and the Rule of Law 05 February 2007    Texas Straight Talk 05 February 2007 verse 9 ... Cached In a free society, government is restrained--and therefore political power is less important. I believe the proper role for government in America is to provide national defense, a court system for civil disputes, a criminal justice system for acts of force and fraud, and little else. In other words, the state as referee rather than an active participant in our society. defense Another Spending Bill for the War in Iraq 12 February 2007    Texas Straight Talk 12 February 2007 verse 4 ... Cached Never mind that the American people showed their dissatisfaction with the war in the fall elections. Congress lacks the political will to stand up to the administration and assert its power over the purse strings, and too many vested interests in the defense sector benefit from the supplemental bills. A cynic might even suggest that many Democrats want the war to drag on, despite their supposed opposition, to damage the president politically and benefit them in 2008. But whatever the reason, the money for war keeps flowing. defense Another Spending Bill for the War in Iraq 12 February 2007    Texas Straight Talk 12 February 2007 verse 5 ... Cached Defense Department officials will ask Congress for the next supplemental bill in coming weeks. The amount requested is likely to be at least $140 billion. If we stay in Iraq beyond 2007--and the administration has made it clear that we will-- the bill to American taxpayers easily could top one trillion dollars in another year or two. defense The 2008 Federal Budget 02 April 2007    Texas Straight Talk 02 April 2007 verse 6 ... Cached For those who thought a Democratic congress would end the war in Iraq, think again: their new budget proposes supplemental funds totaling about $150 billion in 2008 and $50 billion in 2009 for Iraq. This is in addition to the ordinary Department of Defense budget of more than $500 billion, which the Democrats propose increasing each year just like the Republicans. defense Exposing the True Isolationists 23 July 2007    Texas Straight Talk 23 July 2007 verse 9 ... Cached Despite the protestations of the neo-conservatives, this UN program is not the only example of personal enrichment that comes to the mind of those who doubt America’s authenticity due to these policies. Does anybody remember Richard Perle’s resignation from the defense policy board? defense Surrender Should Not be an Option 02 September 2007    Texas Straight Talk 02 September 2007 verse 6 ... Cached The American people voted for a humble foreign policy in 2000. They voted for an end to the war in 2006. Instead of recognizing the wisdom and desire of the voters, they are chided as cowards, unwilling to defend themselves. Americans are fiercely willing to defend themselves. However, we have no stomach for indiscriminate bombing in foreign lands when our actual attackers either killed themselves on 9/11 or are still at large somewhere in a country that is neither Iraq nor Iran. Defense of our homeland is one thing. Offensive tactics overseas are quite another. Worse yet, when our newly minted enemies find their way over here, where will our troops be to defend us? defense No Sunlight on the Omnibus 06 January 2008    Texas Straight Talk 06 January 2008 verse 3 ... Cached Every December Congress fights and argues over spending and never seems to be able to pass the necessary appropriations until the very last minute. There is panic and threats of government shut downs and reduction in essential services. And they always threaten the essential services, as if there is no waste they could possibly eliminate instead. This past December, right on cue the administration warned about dire civilian defense department layoffs if the money didn't come soon. defense Salute to Veterans 25 May 2008    Texas Straight Talk 25 May 2008 verse 2 ... Cached Most of my efforts on Capitol Hill are focused on reducing the federal government’s size and scope, but I make an exception for a very important group of people. Our nation’s men and women in uniform commit a selfless act of patriotism when they take up arms in defense of our country. As a veteran myself, I salute all those currently serving, or who have served in our armed forces. Our nation owes them a debt of gratitude for their sacrifices, their courage, their time away from friends and family, and the dangers they undertake. This Memorial Day we honor our soldiers and vets, we remember those who never came home, or who have since passed on. Above all, we acknowledge our respect for all who have served in the military. Texas Straight Talk from 20 December 1996 to 23 June 2008 (573 editions) are included in this Concordance. Texas Straight Talk after 23 June 2008 is in blog form on Rep. Paul’s Congressional website and is not included in this Concordance. Remember, not everything in the concordance is Ron Paul’s words. Some things he quoted, and he added some newspaper and magazine articles to the Congressional Record. Check the original speech to see. Home Page    Contents    Concordance   E-mail list.