U.S. Rep. Ron Paul | earth |
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Access To Energy
25 February 1998 1998 Ron Paul 19:3
Moreover, the article outlines how certain radicals would shut off technological benefits in the name of protecting earth at the expense of the humans who live on this planet. I commend this article to every Member and insert it in the record as an extension hereof.
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Access To Energy
25 February 1998 1998 Ron Paul 19:15
Now, virtually all of our technology is under serious attack. From our lumber mills, farms, and ranches to our dams, power plants, and factories, all are under assault. Our enemies belong to a peculiar form of pagan religion. Petr Beckmann called it the “green religion.” This is not a new religion. The animal, plant, and earth worship ascendant today (partially at the expense of animals, plants, and the earth, which are, on balance, actually harmed by this mania) is fundamentally the same as that which arose periodically among the ancients, as chronicled, for example, in the Old Testament.
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Peace
25 March 1999 1999 Ron Paul 23:2
The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium of war, not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord, fomented from principle, in all part of the earth; not peace to depend on juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries of distant nations. It is simply peace, sought in its natural course and in it ordinary haunts.
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Environmental Regulatory Issues
22 April 1999 1999 Ron Paul 31:4
CELEBRATING THE RESOURCEFUL EARTH Tomorrow, many Americans will celebrate the 30th anniversary of Earth Day. The event was created in 1970 to call attention to humankind’s despoliation of our planet. It’s a good time to see what 30 years of Earth Day enthusiasm has given us.
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Environmental Regulatory Issues
22 April 1999 1999 Ron Paul 31:5
The environmental awareness stimulated by the first Earth Day has had many beneficial results. Thanks to citizen awareness and ensuing state and national legislation, today the air is much cleaner, the water far purer, and risk from toxic and hazardous wastes sharply reduced. Polluters have been made to pay for disposal costs previously imposed on the public. Private groups like the Nature Conservancy have purchased and conserved millions of acres of land and natural resources.
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Environmental Regulatory Issues
22 April 1999 1999 Ron Paul 31:6
But — and it always seems there is a but — like every promising new movement, the people who became leaders of the environmental movement stimulated by Earth Day soon found they could increase their political power (and staff salaries) by constantly demanding more command and control regulation. That heavyhanded government response has increasingly surpassed the boundaries of science and reason and severely strained the good will of millions of Americans who had eagerly responded to the initial call to clean up and protect our planet.
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Environmental Regulatory Issues
22 April 1999 1999 Ron Paul 31:17
Fortunately, a common-sense, fair play, rights-respecting alternative environmental movement has begun to appear. On Earth Day 1999, its member groups — as many as a hundred state and national organizations — are celebrating “Resourceful Earth Day.” Their alternative is based on a remark made by Henry David Thoreau, who said, “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.”
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Environmental Regulatory Issues
22 April 1999 1999 Ron Paul 31:19
The friends of the “Resourceful Earth” believe in progress, not just to make and consume more stuff, but to protect our Earth as well. The tide is with them, and as their creative optimism prevails the better off Mother Earth — and its people — will be.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It
31 January 2000 2000 Ron Paul 2:9
The Revolution and subsequent Constitution settled the question as to which authority should rule man’s action, the individual or the state. The authors of the Constitution clearly understood that man has free will to make personal choices and be responsible for the consequences of his own actions. Man, they knew, was not simply to be a cog in a wheel or a single cell of an organism or a branch of a tree but an individual with free will and responsibility for his eternal soul as well as his life on earth. If God could permit spiritual freedom, government certainly ought to permit the political freedom that allows one to pursue life’s dreams and assume one’s responsibilities.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It
31 January 2000 2000 Ron Paul 2:85
Our attitude toward foreign policy has dramatically changed since the beginning of the century. From George Washington through Grover Cleveland, the accepted policy was to avoid entangling alliances. Although we spread our wings westward and southward as part of our manifest destiny in the 19th century, we accepted the Monroe Doctrine notion that European and Asians should stay out of our affairs in this hemisphere and we theirs. McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Spanish American war changed all that. Our intellectual and political leaders at the turn of the last century brought into vogue the interventionist doctrine setting the stage for the past 100 years of global military activism. From a country that once minded its own business, we now find ourselves with military personnel in more than 130 different countries protecting our modern day American empire. Not only do we have troops spread to the four corners of the Earth, we find Coast Guard cutters in the Mediterranean and around the world, our FBI in any country we choose, and the CIA in places Congress does not even know about. It is a truism that the state grows and freedom is diminished in times of war. Almost perpetual war in the 20th century has significantly contributed to steadily undermining our liberties while glorifying the state.
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A Republic, If You Can Keep It – Part 2
2 February 2000 2000 Ron Paul 5:87
It is argued that the United States and now the world have learned a third way, something between extreme socialism and mean-spirited capitalism. But this is a dream. The so-called friendly third way endorses 100 percent the principle that government authority can be used to direct our lives and the economy. Once this is accepted, the principle that man alone is responsible for his salvation and his life on Earth, which serves as the foundation for free market capitalism, is rejected.
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TRIBUTE TO BASTROP HIGH SCHOOL ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE
April 6, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 28:2
* Some of their projects include trash pick-up, recycling, efficient driving and car maintenance training, and coordination of Earth Day festivities in Bastrop on the third weekend of April. They have also spread information by way of books, pamphlets and posters around their community. Not only has their work improved the safety and appearance of the campus and surrounding area, but it has also increased feelings of school unity and pride among the students.
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Statement on the Death of John Cardinal O’Connor
May 4, 2000 2000 Ron Paul 31:4
Having had the opportunity to correspond with him recently, I can attest that he remained a gentle and principled man until the very end of his earthly life. May God continue to bless the Cardinal and reveal Himself in all of His majesty to this great man in the place he has now been welcomed.
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India Disaster Relief
31 January 2001 2001 Ron Paul 5:5
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to express my sympathy for victims of the recent earthquake in the State of Gujarat, India and, at the same time, my concern for American taxpayers who, once again, will see their constitution ignored and their pockets raided by their representatives in Washington — it is, of course, easy to express sympathy with other people’s money.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:84
But it’s rarely mentioned that the lobbyists and proponents of foreign intervention are the weapons manufacturers, the oil companies, and the recipients of huge contracts for building infrastructures in whatever far corner of the earth we send our troops. Financial interests have a lot at stake, and it’s important for them that the United States maintains its empire. Not infrequently, ethnic groups will influence foreign policy for reasons other than preserving our security. This type of political pressure can at times be substantial and emotional.
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CHALLENGE TO AMERICA: A CURRENT ASSESSMENT OF OUR REPUBLIC —
February 07, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 7:145
Why should any of us be concerned about the future, especially if prosperity is all around us? America has been truly blessed. We are involved in no major military conflict. We remain one of the freest nations on earth. Current economic conditions have allowed for low unemployment and a strong dollar, with cheap purchases from overseas, further helping to keep price inflation in check. Violent crimes have been reduced, and civil disorder, such as we saw in the 1960s, is absent.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:10
The excuses are endless. But it is rarely mentioned that the lobbyists and the proponents of foreign intervention are the weapons manufacturers, the oil companies, and the recipients of huge contracts for building infrastructures in whatever far corners of the Earth we send our troops. Financial interests have a lot at stake, and it is important for them that the United States maintains its empire.
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POTENTIAL FOR WAR
February 08, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 10:91
Why should any of us be concerned about the future, especially if prosperity is all around us? America has been truly blessed. We are involved in no major military conflicts. We remain one of the freest nations on Earth. Current economic conditions have allowed for low unemployment and a strong dollar, with cheap purchases from overseas further helping to keep price inflation in check. Violent crimes have been reduced; and civil disorder, such as we saw in the 1960s, is absent.
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A New China Policy
April 25, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 25:7
Although there is no doubt that we technically have legal grounds for making these flights, the question really is whether or not it is wise to do so or necessary for our national security. Actually a strong case can be made that our national security is more threatened by our patrolling the Chinese coast than if we avoided such flights altogether. After a half a century it’s time to reassess the need for such flights. Satellite technology today gives us the ability to watch and to listen to almost everyone on earth. If there is a precise need for this type of surveillance for the benefit of Taiwan, then the Taiwanese ought to be involved in this activity, not American military personnel. We should not feel so insecure that we need to threaten and intimidate other countries in order to achieve some vague psychological reassurance that we’re still the top military power in the world. This is unnecessary and may well represent a weakness rather than strength.
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The War On Terrorism
November 29, 2001 2001 Ron Paul 98:85
“Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own. The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional do-gooders, who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others — with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means.”
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Stimulating The Economy
February 7, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 5:8
Those who felt and acted wealthy in holding the dot-com and Enron stocks were brought back to earth with a shattering correction. There’s a lot more of this type of correction yet to come in the financial sector.
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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.
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Oppose the "Supplemental" Spending Bill
May 24, 2002 2002 Ron Paul 50:2
Despite being sold as a national security bill, most of the spending in this bill bears little relationship to protecting the American people from terrorism. For example, this bill contains funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission, federal courts, and various welfare programs. In addition, this bill spends millions on unconstitutional foreign aid. Mr. Speaker, some may say that foreign aid promotes national security, but if that were true America would be the most beloved country on earth. After all, almost every country in the world has in some way benefited from Congress’ willingness to send the American people’s money oversees.
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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.
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The Price Of War
5 September 2002 2002 Ron Paul 83:7
By the end of the 20th century, in fact, this occurred. We have totally forgotten that for well over 100 years we followed the advice of the founders by meticulously avoiding overseas conflict. Instead, we now find ourselves in charge of an American hegemony spread to the four corners of the Earth.
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American Citizenship Amendment
20 March 2003 2003 Ron Paul 38:3
What the current state of events has led to is a booming business in smuggling pregnant mothers over the border to give birth to new “American” citizens, who in turn become eligible for all the benefits thereof. Practically, what this does is cheapen citizenship: rather than impart all the obligations and responsibilities of being an American it becomes merely a ticket to welfare and other benefits. The history of the United States is that of immigrants: individuals from diverse backgrounds accepted the obligations of citizenship in exchange for the great benefits of living in the freest nation on earth.
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Don’t Meddle With Religion In Vietnam
19 November 2003 2003 Ron Paul 119:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am opposed to this ill-conceived and ill-timed bill. I would like to remind my colleagues that according to our own Constitution, Congress is prohibited from making any law “respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof.” Yet are we not doing that today — albeit in a country some 10,000 miles away? Why on earth are we commending one particular church in Vietnam in the name of “religious freedom”? At the risk of being blunt, what business is the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam of the United States Congress? The answer, of course, is that this legislation is of a much more political than a religious nature: this bill tells the Vietnamese government how it should enforce its own constitution, commits the United States government to promoting religious freedom in Vietnam, and tells the U.S. embassy staff in Vietnam to “closely monitor” religious issues in Vietnam. It is an attempt to meddle in the affairs of Vietnam and force them to adopt the kinds of laws we think they should have. Mr. Speaker, as much as we value our own religious liberty, we must realize that setting the example of the benefits of a society that values such liberty is much more effective than demanding that other countries pass the kinds of laws we want them to pass. The unintended consequences of this otherwise well-meaning legislation is that relations with the Vietnamese government will likely suffer, making it less likely that Vietnam’s leaders look favorably upon our own history of religious liberty.
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A Wise Consistency
February 11, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 2:5
As for Emerson, he was not even talking about consistency in defending political views that were deemed worthy and correct. Emerson clearly explained the consistency he was criticizing. He was most annoyed by a foolish consistency. He attacked bull-headedness, believing that intellectuals should be more open-minded and tolerant of new ideas and discoveries. His attack targeted the flat-earth society types in the world of ideas. New information, he claimed, should always lead to reassessment of previous conclusions. To Emerson, being unwilling to admit an error and consistently defending a mistaken idea, regardless of facts, was indeed a foolish consistency. His reference was to a character trait, not sound logical thinking.
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Praising Private Space Exploration
June 25, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 44:1
Mr. Speaker, I rise to congratulate and commend the designers, builders, sponsors, and pilot of SpaceShipOne on the occasion of its successful flight out of earth’s atmosphere on June 21, 2004. What is most remarkable about SpaceShipOne, of course, is that it is the first privately-financed and privately built vehicle to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.
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Praising Private Space Exploration
June 25, 2004 2004 Ron Paul 44:2
SpaceShipOne was designed and built by Burt Rutan and piloted by test pilot Michael W. Melvill. It was launched successfully from Mojave California, reaching a height of 100 KM (62 miles ) above the Earth’s surface. Remarkably, SpaceShipOne is entirely privately-financed, chiefly by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen.
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Sense Of The Congress Resolution That The United States Should Not Ratify The Law Of The Sea Treaty
10 February 2005 2005 Ron Paul 20:5
The Law of the Sea Treaty will deem the oceans of the Earth as the “Common Heritage of Mankind.” The Treaty dictates that oceanic resources should be shared among all mankind. The effect of this will be U.N. control over the world’s seabeds — a full 70 percent of the earth’s surface.
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“Emergency” Supplemental Spending Bill
16 March 2005 2005 Ron Paul 29:3
We are told that this is emergency spending, and that we therefore must not question this enormous expenditure. Does an emergency require sending billions of American taxpayers’ dollars overseas as foreign aid an emergency? This bill is filled with foreign aid spending. If we pass this ill-conceived legislation, we will spend $656 million for tsunami relief; $94 million for Darfur, Sudan; $150 million for food aid, most to Liberia and Sudan; $580 million for “peacekeeping” overseas; $582 million to build a new American embassy in Iraq; $76 million to build a new airport in Kuwait (one of the wealthiest countries on earth); $257 million for counter drug efforts in Afghanistan; $372 million for health, reconstruction, and alternative development programs to help farmers stop raising poppy; $200 million in economic aid for the Palestinians; $150 million for Pakistan (run by an unelected dictator); $200 million for Jordan; $34 million for Ukraine.
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Introduction Of The Nursing Home Emergency Assistance Act
6 October 2005 2005 Ron Paul 100:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce the Nursing Home Emergency Assistance Act. This act makes private, for-profit nursing homes eligible for the same federal aid as is currently available to public nursing homes. Under current federal law, only public nursing homes may receive federal disaster assistance. However, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes do not distinguish between private and public, or for-profit and not-for-profit, nursing homes.
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Big Lies and Little Lies
November 2, 2005 2005 Ron Paul 116:1
Scooter Libby has been indicted for lying. Many suspect Libby, and perhaps others, deliberately outed Joe Wilson’s wife as a covert CIA agent. This was done to punish and discredit Wilson for bringing attention to the false information regarding Iraq’s supposed efforts to build a nuclear weapon — information made public in President Bush’s State of the Union message in January 2003. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was chosen to determine if this revelation regarding Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife, violated the Intelligence Identification Protection Act. The actual indictment of Libby did not claim such a violation occurred. Instead, he has been charged with lying and participating in a cover-up during the two-year investigation. I believe this is a serious matter that should not be ignored, but it is not an earth-shattering event.
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Bill Would Authorize Force
26 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 31:5
Yes, we quote Ahmadinejad about his vitriolic statements, and they are horrible, but how do you think they interpret other statements when we say we are going to wipe their regime off the face of the Earth? We are going to have regime change. So from their viewpoint we are saying the same thing, and we should not be blinded to that and pretend, because our language is not quite as violent. We are saying the same thing, because look at the result of the violence in Iraq as a result of our efforts of regime change.
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Bill Would Authorize Force
26 April 2006 2006 Ron Paul 31:10
What about the fact that Kim Jong Il is still in power? We are talking to him. We talked to Qadaffi. Mao was in power, and he had nuclear weapons. What did we do; did we attack him? No. What did we do with Stalin? Stalin and Khrushchev had 30,000 nuclear weapons. Were we ready to use force and intimidation and yelling and screaming? And Khrushchev was ready to wipe us off the face of the Earth also.
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Big-Government Solutions Don’t Work
7 september 2006 2006 Ron Paul 74:92
A real solution to our problems will require a better understanding of and a greater dedication to free markets and private property rights. It can’t be done without restoring a sound asset- backed currency. If we hope to restore any measure of constitutional government, we must abandon the policy of policing the world and keeping troops in the four corners of the earth. Our liberties and our prosperity depend on it.
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Milton Friedman
6 December 2006 2006 Ron Paul 100:1
Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support H. Res. 1089, a resolution honoring Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman was one of America’s greatest champions of liberty. Launching a career as a public intellectual at a time when dissenters from the reigning Keynesian paradigm where viewed as the equivalent of members of the Flat Earth Society, Milton Friedman waged an oftentimes lonely intellectual battle on behalf of free markets and individual liberty in the fifties and sixties. As the economic crisis of the seventies caused by high taxes, high spending, and inflation vindicated Friedman’s critiques of interventionism, his influence grew — not because he moved to the mainstream but because the mainstream moved toward him. Friedman served as an advisor to Presidents Nixon and Ford and as a member of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors. In 1976, Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics.
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Everyone Supports The Troops
18 January 2007 2007 Ron Paul 20:8
Don’t believe for a minute that additional congressional funding is needed so our troops can defend themselves or extricate themselves from the war zone. That is nonsense. The DOD has hundreds of billions of dollars in the pipeline available to move troops anywhere on Earth, including home.
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Does Anybody Care? Has Anybody Noticed?
7 February 2007 2007 Ron Paul 23:15
But not only does Iran not have a nuclear weapon, it has no significant military power; it is a Third World nation that could be wiped off the face of the Earth by the U.S. or by Israel if it ever attempted hostilities toward us?
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The Real Reason To Oppose The Supplemental Appropriation
20 March 2007 2007 Ron Paul 36:12
Our leaders cannot grasp the tragic consequences of our policies toward Iraq for the past 25 years. It is time we woke them up. We are still by far the greatest military power on Earth; but since we stubbornly refuse to understand the nature of our foes, we are literally defeating ourselves.
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INTRODUCTION OF THE NURSING HOME EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE ACT
24 September 2008 2008 Ron Paul 61:1
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Nursing Home Emergency Assistance Act. This act makes private, for-profit nursing homes eligible for the same federal aid as is currently available to public nursing homes. Under current federal law, only public nursing homes may receive federal disaster assistance. However, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes do not distinguish between private and public, or for-profit and not-for- profit, nursing homes.
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INTRODUCING THE NURSING HOME EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE ACT
March 12, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 31:1
Mr. PAUL. Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Nursing Home Emergency Assistance Act. This act makes private, for-profit nursing homes eligible for the same federal aid as is currently available to public nursing homes. Under current federal law, only public nursing homes may receive federal disaster assistance. However, hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes do not distinguish between private and public, or for-profit and not-for- profit, nursing homes.
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GLOBAL WARMING PETITION SIGNED BY 31,478 SCIENTISTS
June 4, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 64:3
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
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GLOBAL WARMING PETITION SIGNED BY 31,478 SCIENTISTS
June 4, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 64:6
Signers of this petition include 3,803 with specific training in atmospheric, earth, and environmental sciences. All 31,478 of the signers have the necessary training in physics, chemistry, and mathematics to understand and evaluate the scientific data relevant to the human-caused global warming hypothesis and to the effects of human activities upon environmental quality.
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GLOBAL WARMING PETITION SIGNED BY 31,478 SCIENTISTS
June 4, 2009 2009 Ron Paul 64:17
While it is evident that the human right to produce and use energy does not extend to activities that actually endanger the climate of the Earth upon which we all depend, bogus claims about climate dangers should not be used as a justification to further limit the American people’s freedom.
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- Kyoto treaty disregards science for a radical anti-American agenda
15 December 1997 Texas Straight Talk 15 December 1997 verse 6 ... Cached
We've only been able to accurately study the levels of atmospheric gases for some 25 years. To definitively claim today's weather patterns are the result of naturally-occurring cycles, or part of a long chain of natural events, or something man alone is creating, is unsound simply because more data is needed. In the respectable scientific community, there is considerable debate over how to interpret the global climate data. Therefore, urgings for radical action based on claims that the earth is about to boil are wrong-headed. In fact, all available evidence points to the contrary, that the temperatures are getting cooler, on average.
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A new declaration: more liberty, fewer taxes
05 July 1999 Texas Straight Talk 05 July 1999 verse 4 ... Cached
On the fourth day of July, in 1776, a small group of men, representing 13 colonies in the far-off Americas, boldly told the most powerful nation on earth, that they were free.
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A new declaration: more liberty, fewer taxes
05 July 1999 Texas Straight Talk 05 July 1999 verse 15 ... Cached
That ours is the freest land on the earth, that we enjoy a higher level of liberty than people anywhere, should never distract us from demanding more freedom and more liberty. This should be our declaration.
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The Blessings of Liberty at Christmas
25 December 2000 Texas Straight Talk 25 December 2000 verse 5 ... Cached
225 years later, our undeniable status as the greatest nation on earth is due to our origins as a free society. America is a place of unequaled prosperity. Our capitalist economic system, which is the only system compatible with freedom, creates affluence far beyond that of any other country. Capitalism provides the incentive for tremendous individual achievement, which benefits society as a whole. Americans of all economic classes enjoy a better standard of living and greater opportunities than the inhabitants of any other nation.
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Spy Scandal Reveals Deeper Problems with Federal Police Agencies
05 March 2001 Texas Straight Talk 05 March 2001 verse 3 ... Cached
The recent FBI spy scandal continues to make national headlines, particularly given FBI director Louis Freeh's statement that the damage done to U.S. intelligence was "exceptionally grave." While it's certainly tragic that a veteran FBI agent allegedly sold high-level secrets to the Russians for years, the greater tragedy is our government's continued intervention in the domestic affairs of virtually every nation on earth. Corrupted spies simply are an inevitable by-product of our own government's relentless quest to police the world.
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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?
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Conflicts at the UN Conference on Racism
10 September 2001 Texas Straight Talk 10 September 2001 verse 7 ... Cached
I hope the highly publicized infighting at this latest conference will demonstrate how truly political the UN really is. Like all political organizations, the UN exists to serve the interests of certain parties at the expense of others. It is no more impartial or altruistic than the governments and people it now wants to condemn for the sins of the past. In fact, it acts precisely as the colonial powers did- by constantly expanding its global governance and waging war to conquer nations that resist its authority. The UN's plans for control over every nation on earth make the imperialists of past centuries pale in comparison.
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Argentine Default and the IMF
14 January 2002 Texas Straight Talk 14 January 2002 verse 5 ... Cached
Why on earth would Congress fund such a lousy scheme? IMF supporters claim the organization exists to fight poverty in developing countries, but the evidence shows otherwise. At best IMF borrowers are governments of countries with little economic productivity; at worst the money ends up in the hands of corrupt dictators. Either way, most recipient nations end up with huge debts that they cannot service, which only adds to their poverty and instability. IMF money ultimately corrupts those countries it purports to help, by keeping afloat reckless political institutions that destroy their own economies.
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UN Planting the Seeds for a Coming Global Tax
25 March 2002 Texas Straight Talk 25 March 2002 verse 4 ... Cached
The UN is meeting this week in Monterrey, Mexico to discuss exactly such a tax. The meeting is billed as a "Conference on Financing for Development," which is a nice way of saying it’s a conference to consider the best ways to shake down rich nations for money. UN bureaucrats think rich nations like America ought to give more money to poor nations- a lot more- simply because we’re rich. Never mind the billions of foreign aid tax dollars we send overseas every year; never mind the billions donated to overseas charities by Americans, the most charitable people on earth. The UN mindset blames the western world for poverty everywhere, assuming that our relative wealth must have come at the expense of the third world. The poor countries themselves are never deemed responsible for their own predicaments, despite their often corrupt governments, lack of property rights, and hostility toward wealth-producing capitalism. Somehow, it’s always our fault. So the UN holds conferences to talk about how we should pay to make things right, and the idea of a UN tax naturally arises.
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American Foreign Policy and the Middle East Powder Keg
01 April 2002 Texas Straight Talk 01 April 2002 verse 9 ... Cached
Respect for self-determination really is the cornerstone of a sensible foreign policy, yet many Americans who strongly support U.S. sovereignty advocate interventionist policies that deny other nations that same right. The interventionist approach that has dominated American foreign policy since World War I has produced an unmitigated series of disasters. From Korea to Vietnam to Kosovo to the Middle East, American military and economic meddling has made numerous conflicts worse, not better. Washington and Jefferson had it right when they warned against entangling alliances, and the history of the 20th century proves their point. The simple truth is that we cannot resolve every human conflict across the globe, and there will always be violence somewhere on earth. If we care about the self-determination of the Israeli and Palestinian people, and if we care about the Constitution, we must adopt a neutral, diplomatic role in the conflict and stop funding both sides.
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A Court of No Authority
08 April 2002 Texas Straight Talk 08 April 2002 verse 3 ... Cached
You may have heard about the International Criminal Court, which was first proposed in 1998 at a UN treaty conference in Rome. The treaty purports to establish a worldwide UN criminal court that will have jurisdiction over every nation on earth. Once created, the ICC will give the UN the legal apparatus it needs to enforce its global "laws" against American citizens, in direct violation of our own Constitution and national sovereignty.
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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?
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What About Government Accountability?
15 July 2002 Texas Straight Talk 15 July 2002 verse 4 ... Cached
Yet Mr. Cavuto is absolutely right. No corporation on earth comes close to the accounting fraud practiced year after year by the federal government. In fact, there is no real accountability at all for the trillions in tax dollars raised and spent annually by Congress and our entrenched federal agencies. The official "accounting" that does take place is a sham. Every year Congress creates a meaningless budget, the Fed prints phony money, the Budget office issues false revenue forecasts, and the administrative agencies waste billions in the most unproductive ways imaginable. Literally tens of billions of dollars go unaccounted for every year, simply disappearing down bureaucratic black holes. This hardly represents a standard against which corporations should be judged!
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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.
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Welfare for the Left, Welfare for the Right, Welfare for the World
03 February 2003 Texas Straight Talk 03 February 2003 verse 8 ... Cached
I say “supposedly” because the money never really helps, and almost always ends up in the hands of dictators, corrupt government officials, or thuggish leaders of local factions. We could send $100 or $500 billion, and Africa would remain mired in AIDS and poverty. Only freedom, property rights, capitalism, and the rule of law can help Africa. The AIDS crisis cannot be solved by government, but rather requires a combination of truly independent private sector medical research and politically incorrect prevention efforts. Americans are the most charitable people on earth, and we should stop taxing them so much and allow private charities, including charities aimed at combating AIDS, to flourish.
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Declining Dollar, Declining Fortunes
23 June 2003 Texas Straight Talk 23 June 2003 verse 4 ... Cached
Mr. Greenspan declined to answer my question about the tumbling value of the dollar, citing a kind of gentlemen’s agreement between him and the Treasury department not to discuss dollar policy. This is preposterous, of course, because he is unquestionably the one man on earth most responsible for the value of the U.S. dollar. If a member of Congress cannot ask the Federal Reserve Chairman a straightforward question about dollar policy, how can we expect the American public to have the faintest idea about what the Fed really does? The answer is that very few Americans pay any attention to the Fed, which has successfully insulated itself as a “nonpolitical” entity.
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Independence from England, Dependence on Washington?
07 July 2003 Texas Straight Talk 07 July 2003 verse 8 ... Cached
We owe our Founding Fathers a tremendous debt of gratitude. They created a society based on the radical idea that the purpose of government was to protect the rights of the individual, preexisting rights granted by God rather than the state. For the first time in human history, a government was designed to serve the individual, rather than vice versa. This triumph of the individual over the claims of the state, the King, the collective, or society represents a great gift to humanity. The principle of a servant government is the ideal that made America the greatest nation on earth.
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The Great Foreign Aid Swindle
24 May 2004 Texas Straight Talk 24 May 2004 verse 9 ... Cached
Americans are the most charitable people on earth. Those who wish to help fight AIDS, famine, and poverty overseas can choose from hundreds of private charities. Americans don’t need a politician or rock star to tell them what causes are important. Most of all, they don’t need to be forced to pay for foreign welfare at the barrel of a government gun.
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The 9-11 Commission Charade
23 August 2004 Texas Straight Talk 23 August 2004 verse 3 ... Cached
But what exactly is going on here? These hearings amount to nothing more than current government officials meeting with former government officials, many of whom now lobby government officials, and agreeing that we need more government! The current and past architects of the very bureaucracy that failed Americans so badly on September 11th three years ago are now meeting to recommend more bureaucracy. Why on earth do we assume that former government officials, some of whom are self-interested government lobbyists, suddenly become wise, benevolent, and politically neutral when they retire? Why do we look to former bureaucrats to address a bureaucratic failure?
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The Middle East Quagmire
15 November 2004 Texas Straight Talk 15 November 2004 verse 8 ... Cached
Respect for self-determination really is the cornerstone of a sensible foreign policy, yet many Americans who strongly support U.S. sovereignty advocate interventionist policies that deny other nations that same right. The interventionist approach that has dominated American foreign policy since World War I has produced an unmitigated series of disasters. From Korea to Vietnam to Kosovo to the Middle East, American military and economic meddling has made numerous conflicts worse, not better. Washington and Jefferson had it right when they warned against entangling alliances, and the history of the 20th century proves their point. The simple truth is that we cannot resolve every human conflict across the globe, and there will always be violence somewhere on earth. The fatal conceit lies in believing America can impose geopolitical solutions wherever it chooses.
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What does Freedom Really Mean?
07 February 2005 Texas Straight Talk 07 February 2005 verse 10 ... Cached
The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants, always via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive-- and thus incompatible with freedom. “Liberalism,” which once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government.
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What does Freedom Really Mean?
07 February 2005 Texas Straight Talk 07 February 2005 verse 13 ... Cached
Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word.
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Where is Your Money Going?
21 March 2005 Texas Straight Talk 21 March 2005 verse 10 ... Cached
-$76 million to build a new airport in Kuwait, one of the wealthiest countries on earth;
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Theology, Not Politics
11 April 2005 Texas Straight Talk 11 April 2005 verse 7 ... Cached
Both conservatives and liberals cannot understand that the Pope’s pronouncements were theological, not political. He was one of the few humans on earth who could not be bullied or threatened by any government. He was a man of God, not a man of the state. He was not a policy maker, but rather a steward of long-established Catholic doctrine. His mission was to save souls, not serve the political agendas of any nation, party, or politician.
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Theology, Not Politics
11 April 2005 Texas Straight Talk 11 April 2005 verse 8 ... Cached
To the secularists, this was John Paul II’s unforgivable sin-- he placed service to God above service to the state. Most politicians view the state, not God, as the supreme ruler on earth. They simply cannot abide a theology that does not comport with their vision of unlimited state power. This is precisely why both conservatives and liberals savaged John Paul II when his theological pronouncements did not fit their goals. But perhaps their goals simply were not godly.
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Slashing the Budget?
21 November 2005 Texas Straight Talk 21 November 2005 verse 4 ... Cached
Republicans trumpeted the measure as a huge victory for fiscal conservatism, while Democrats were enraged by the supposed “slashing” of government programs. The uproar shows just how entrenched the spending culture has become on Capitol Hill-- even insignificant reductions in the rate of growth in federal spending are seen as earth-shattering. But if we’re really serious about cutting federal spending, why not simply cut 10% from the 2006 budget?
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Congress Rejects UN Taxes
19 June 2006 Texas Straight Talk 19 June 2006 verse 4 ... Cached
UN bureaucrats think rich nations like America ought to give more money to poor nations- a lot more- simply because we’re rich. Never mind the billions of foreign aid tax dollars we send overseas every year; never mind the billions donated to overseas charities by Americans, the most charitable people on earth. The UN mindset blames the western world for poverty everywhere, assuming that our relative wealth must have come at the expense of the third world. The poor countries themselves are never deemed responsible for their own predicaments, despite their often corrupt governments, lack of property rights, and hostility toward wealth-producing capitalism. Somehow, it’s always our fault. So the UN holds conferences to talk about how we should pay to make things right, and the idea of a UN tax naturally arises.
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A New Declaration
03 July 2006 Texas Straight Talk 03 July 2006 verse 3 ... Cached
On the fourth day of July, in 1776, a small group of men, representing 13 colonies in the far-off Americas, boldly told the most powerful nation on earth that they were free.
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Rethinking Birthright Citizenship
02 October 2006 Texas Straight Talk 02 October 2006 verse 7 ... Cached
Make no mistake, Americans are happy to welcome immigrants who follow our immigration laws and seek a better life here. America is far more welcoming and tolerant of newcomers than virtually any nation on earth. But our modern welfare state creates perverse incentives for immigrants, incentives that cloud the issue of why people choose to come here. The real problem is not immigration, but rather the welfare state magnet.
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More of the Same in 2007
25 December 2006 Texas Straight Talk 25 December 2006 verse 13 ... Cached
Merry Christmas to all, and please share my wishes for peace on earth and goodwill toward men in 2007.
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Can We Achieve Peace in the Middle East?
22 January 2007 Texas Straight Talk 22 January 2007 verse 10 ... Cached
The simple truth is that we cannot resolve every human conflict across the globe, and there will always be violence somewhere on earth. The fatal conceit lies in believing America can impose geopolitical solutions wherever it chooses.
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On Foreign Entanglements: The Ties that Strangle
30 December 2007 Texas Straight Talk 30 December 2007 verse 8 ... Cached
I was deeply saddened to hear of Benazir Bhutto's death. My hope is that we can change our foreign policy moving forward and truly make strides this year toward peace on earth and goodwill toward men.
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.