Ron Paul: Right on All Issues in Two Sentences or Less
The following is a summary of Ron Paul’s stances on 18 major issues and an explanation why he is right in two sentences or less. The arguments are heavily linked for full explanations from Ron Paul himself and are ordered loosely by popular importance.
1. End the War In Iraq
Its inception violated Congress’s sole constitutional authority to declare war and the original authorization of force has lapsed. Due to mounting casualties coupled with lack of meaningful progress, withdrawal is the best way to achieve a positive long-term result based on the empirical evidence of Vietnam and the Law of Opposites and should come as soon as possible.
2. The War On Terror is a Trademark, Killing Terrorists is a Strategy
“We should arrest or kill the perpetrators abroad, use our armed forces more wisely to defend our borders, and reform immigration laws to keep terrorists out.” [cite] While congress spends on the endless War on Terror, thus unconstitutionally expanding Government at the expense of personal liberty, the Constitution has a specific, simple, and sufficient provision dealing with non-state ‘terrorists’: letters of marque.
3. Reject Both Interventionist AND Isolationist Foreign Policy
Intervening in the affairs of other nations leads to conflicts and results in blowback, now in the present form of Osama Bin Laden. This policy results in wasted lives, dollars, and widespread hatred for the US, but “[i]t does not [mean] that we [should instead] isolate ourselves; on the contrary, our founders advocated open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.” [cite]
4. Reform Health Care Without Socialism
The ability of patients to spend their own money directly for health care creates a market incentive to keep costs down. Instead of presuming an unconstitutional expansion of government can fix problems it has already created, Congress should create a health expenses tax credit, and promote tax-deductible medical savings accounts.
5. Cut Taxes
If we can toss off even the lightest chaff of unconstitutional programs and spending, a $9 trillion debt and an indiscernible $2.9 trillion dollar budget (Nancy Pelosi: “This is historic“) would be a thing of antiquity. “Lower taxes benefit all of us, creating jobs and allowing us to make more decisions for ourselves about our lives.” [cite]
6. Stop Promoting Illegal Immigration
While Americans welcome legal immigrants, taxpayers should not fund interlopers using hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and social services. Illegal immigration can be curbed by eliminating the incentives, such as birthright citizenship, insecure borders, and potential amnesty.
7. Rethink Social Security Altogether
While the government’s current commitments should be honored by reducing spending in other areas, Social Security is both unconstitutional and a going-out-of-business Ponzi scheme. “The best private solution, of course, is simply to allow the American people to keep more of their paychecks and invest for retirement as they see fit.” [cite]
8. Stop Federal Encroachment on Privacy
The government engages in domestic surveillance without judicial oversight, mandates the private use of social security numbers, uses the census to poll you under penalty of law, flags moderately-sized bank transactions, tracks your medical history, and is creating a national ID. These and other other acts are unconstitutional affronts to your liberty and privacy and should be stopped.
9. Let States Handle Abortion
The difficulty of defining what constitutes a human life should be left to the States pursuant to the 10th Amendment. “Constitutionally, virtually all crimes are state matters.”
10. Start Respecting Property Rights
The Supreme Court has ruled that a city can take your property and give it to others if it will increase tax revenue - a gross perversion of eminent domain powers. The government should respect the limits of the takings clause and also end regulatory meddling in property amounting to taking without just compensation.
11. Get the Federal Government Out of Education
The Constitution does not give the Federal Government the power to regulate education, and the 10th Amendment mandates that such be left to the States. Local control is preferable, as recently shown by the failure of No Child Left Behind, because it is cheaper, less bureaucratic, and better suited to respond to community concerns.
12. Stop Gun Control
The Second Amendment states that “the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” and was placed there by the founders as a check on tyrannical government. Legislating in this area without passing an amendment to the Constitution trades the integrity of that document for short-sighted gun control programs incapable of achieving their intended goal.
13. Stop Printing Monopoly Money
The Federal Reserve, a private conglomeration of banks that should be abolished, regularly conjures money to cover budget deficits by exercising its monopoly over the money supply. Every dollar added to the system is a secret tax: the dollar in your pocket loses value because it is no longer backed by gold.
14. End the War on Drugs
The unconstitutional War on Drugs is out of hand, and is causing widespread police corruption, loss of financial privacy, gangsterism a la prohibition, illegal searches, prison overpopulation, loss of potential tax revenue, and federal expenditures in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The government is not a nanny and should respect your personal liberty to consume on your own accord - even if it is harmful to yourself.
15. De-Fund the United Nations
The US hosts and is indebted to the UN more than all other member nations combined ($1.9 billion). The UN aspires to implement a global tax, impose global gun control, impose itself on US sovereignty, has kicked the US out of the Human Rights Council while China and Cuba remain members, all while being mired in constant scandal and corruption, and it should be eliminated.
16. Reject International Encroachments On Our Sovereignty
“So called free trade deals and world governmental organizations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and CAFTA are a threat to our independence as a nation. They transfer power from our government to unelected foreign elites.” [cite]
17. Reject the Draft
Forced servitude is slavery, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” The draft and its Selective Service mechanisms are unnecessary and in violation of the 13th Amendment, and they should be abolished.
18. Get Rid of Unconstitutional Campaign Finance Laws
” . . . Congress has no authority under Article I of the Constitution to regulate campaigns at all. Article II authorizes only the regulation of elections, not campaigns, because our Founders knew Congress might pass campaign laws [such as McCain-Feingold] that protect incumbency.” [cite]
And most importantly: Give Freedom Back its Meaning
No sentence needed
(5, 14 votes)
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You should also add that Paul is pro-free trade (anti NAFTA or any other govt beuracracy to oversee it). This is essential to our inherent right to property.
I agree w/ Ron Paul on every issue except immediate withdrawal in Iraq. This war has been a serious blunder - no doubt. However, we have created reliance on the part of (our) loyalists over there and left a nation in shambles. We at least owe it to them to keep it some what secure so another Cambodia/ S. Vietnam massacre does not happen.
Ron Paul serves the interests of the largest special interest group in America…We The People. No other candidate can make that claim.
I also wanted to add that the UN under UNESCO has gained influence over, and in some cases supercedes US Sovereignty of 47 National Parks, including Yellowstone National Park.
What next?
RP ‘08…election day…can’t wait.
Ron Paul is impressive. No other politician could do this because they would want to flip flip later. Only the impressive Ron Paul could put his views in black and white because he has been consistent with them for 20 years.
I disagree with Casen. Id much rather them fight each other and figure out what they want for themselves than our soldiers being shot at and shooting them.
Regardless, can anyone tell me how or when we will win?
P. Nicholson & Casen: Imagine if the British had been on hand to police hostilities between the North and South during the Civil War era.
Elaborate more on the abortion issue. Mention H.R. 776,
the Sanctity of Life act of 2005. Also, the lack of support
for the bill by the evangelicals’ pet politicians, including
George Bush.
[…] Ron Paul for President. No flip-flopping. No what-will-you-do-for-me-today. No guesswork. […]
finally someone I can vote for.
And you know that Ron isn’t saying these things just to get into office - he’s speaking from the heart. That’s how I am 100% confident that he will do everything in office, that he says he will do. Not like GWB who preached against nation building, or other presidents who pledged not to raise taxes before raising them.
Read my lips: Ron Paul = no new taxes.
[…] read more | digg story […]
Yeah!!!! Let’s all list how much money we have saved for retirement…divide by about $40,000 and tell me how many years you can live on your savings alone…especially easy in an America that has seen the dollar deflate by 30% in the past few years…and then let’s all promise to reutrn the Social Security checks to the government when we retire to prove that we really walk the walk in saying that Social Security is wrong!!! Those of you working for less than about $100,000 per year currently go to the front fo the line when they start passing out the free cheese blocks in a few decades to people like you who have not saved a dollar for retirement and still complain about Social Security being bad…of which there are million sof you. Next comment will include how tax cuts for people who do not pay taxes will be used to pay for their health care.
joewo
I’m not sure I understand your message, but I take it that you are of the opinion that Social Security serves a legitimate government interest. First, I believe it is erroneous to assume that people will starve in the streets during their old age. Yes, it will require more individual accountability, but the alternative to socialism is liberty, not helplessness. Second, assuming you are correct in that Social Security is a meritorious program, it should be implemented by the states. If the 10th amendment were reinvigorated, it would allow the states to compete amongst themselves as to what is the proper role of government. If people were worried for their retirement, they would flock to those states that implemented a Social Security program. I personally think that those states’ experiments would fail by going broke just as our national experiment has - but who knows, you could be vindicated at a more local level.
See also the US Declaration of Dependence.
The US was not ‘kicked out’ of the Human Rights Council, it chose not to submit a representative for election to the Council out of protest. Big difference.
I’m also unclear on how 2nd, 19th, and 13th Amendments are freely cited, yet Dr. Paul seems to forget all about the 16th Amendment when it comes to income tax and the 14th Amendment when trashing birthright citizenship.
As for the US being kicked out, they didn’t submit a representative because they would lose the election, so it depends on how you look at it.
Dr. Paul calls for the repeal of the 16th Amendment - which would be constitutional.
The 14th Amendment was never meant to give birthright citizenship. If someone immigrates in violation of US law, are they “under the jurisdiction” of the United States when they have a child here? The answer is no, but the meaning of the 14th Amendment has evolved in the court system over the years. Ron Paul proposes that we amend the Constitution to clarify the 14th Amendment - also a constitutional act.
Being a Constitutionalist does not mean freezing the constitution in its present state. It means respecting the constitution enough to amend it when you want to change it. We understood this as recently as prohibition, when a constitutional amendment was passed to outlaw alcohol (and another, thankfully, to repeal that ban). Yet, there has been no such forbearance for the war on drugs, department of education, etc. etc.
Ron Paul is a reminder to Congress that this is a nation of laws, not a nation of men.