Thread: Ron Paul on the Issues

VIDEO: Dr. Paul on CNN State of the Union with Candy Crowley - Feb. 19, 2012

Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!

This talk is called "Imagine" and it was given by Ron Paul on March 11, 2009. The original text of the talk is below:

Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of "keeping us safe" or "promoting democracy" or "protecting their strategic interests."

Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up checkpoints on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence.

Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers' attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. Imagine if most of the citizens of the foreign land also wanted these troops to return home. Imagine if they elected a leader who promised to bring them home and put an end to this horror.

Imagine if that leader changed his mind once he took office.

The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe-straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment towards us.

According to our own CIA, our meddling in the Middle East was the prime motivation for the horrific attacks on 9/11. But instead of re-evaluating our foreign policy, we have simply escalated it. We had a right to go after those responsible for 9/11, to be sure, but why do so many Americans feel as if we have a right to a military presence in some 160 countries when we wouldn't stand for even one foreign base on our soil, for any reason? These are not embassies, mind you, these are military installations. The new administration is not materially changing anything about this. Shuffling troops around and playing with semantics does not accomplish the goals of the American people, who simply want our men and women to come home. 50,000 troops left behind in Iraq is not conducive to peace any more than 50,000 Russian soldiers would be in the United States.

Shutting down military bases and ceasing to deal with other nations with threats and violence is not isolationism. It is the opposite. Opening ourselves up to friendship, honest trade and diplomacy is the foreign policy of peace and prosperity. It is the only foreign policy that will not bankrupt us in short order, as our current actions most definitely will. I share the disappointment of the American people in the foreign policy rhetoric coming from the administration. The sad thing is, our foreign policy WILL change eventually, as Rome's did, when all budgetary and monetary tricks to fund it are exhausted.

Immigration http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/immigration/



A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY

A nation without borders is no nation at all.

It just doesn’t make sense to fight terrorists abroad while leaving our front door unlocked.

Unfortunately, for far too long, neither major political party has had the courage to do what is necessary to tackle the problem.

Instead, we’re presented with so-called “solutions” that involve amnesty proposals or further restricting Americans’ civil liberties through programs like REAL ID.

Ron Paul opposes both of these schemes and believes they will only make illegal immigration and the problems associated with it worse. He has been proud to see states exercising their Tenth Amendment rights and protecting their citizens by refusing to comply with the unconstitutional REAL ID law.

While the federal government neglects its constitutional responsibility to protect our borders, it continues to push mandates on the states to provide free education and medical care to illegal immigrants at a time when the states are drowning in debt. This must not be tolerated any longer.

Like most Americans, Ron Paul also understands just how valuable legal immigration is to our country.

Immigrants who want to work hard, obey our laws, and live the American Dream have always been great assets.

COMMON SENSE REFORMS

If elected President, Ron Paul will work to implement the following common sense reforms:

* Enforce Border Security – America should be guarding her own borders and enforcing her own laws instead of policing the world and implementing UN mandates.

* No Amnesty - The Obama Administration’s endorsement of so-called “Comprehensive Immigration Reform,” granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, will only encourage more law-breaking.

* Abolish the Welfare State – Taxpayers cannot continue to pay the high costs to sustain this powerful incentive for illegal immigration. As Milton Friedman famously said, you can’t have open borders and a welfare state.

* End Birthright Citizenship – As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be granted U.S. citizenship, we’ll never be able to control our immigration problem.

* Protect Lawful Immigrants – As President, Ron Paul will encourage legal immigration by streamlining the entry process without rewarding lawbreakers.

As long as our borders remain wide open, the security and safety of the American people are at stake.

As President, Ron Paul will address immigration by fighting for effective solutions that protect our nation, uphold the rule of law, and respect every American citizen’s civil liberties.

More on The Maine’s Stolen 2012 GOP Caucuses – And How It Appears They Did It…

Brad Blog
February 18, 2012

It figures. The one time we’re on the road and unable to keep up with things on a minute-by-minute basis, a major election would be stolen outright. And there’s not a disenfranchising polling place Photo ID restriction in the world that could have done a thing to stop the thieves.

Despite the reputation The BRAD BLOG has gained in some quarters over the years, I don’t believe we have ever outright declared an election as “stolen.” That has now changed as the Republican Party of Maine has blatantly stolen the 2012 GOP Caucuses in their state for Mitt Romney, as we detailed yesterday.

That fact is just the latest data point in a remarkable and rapidly expanding spate of GOP election fraud by very high profile Republicans across the nation, as we also detailed in yesterday’s report.
The question now: Can it be “stolen back”?

Happily, even though we’re on the road, the issue is being covered very well this time around by Rachel Maddow at MSNBC. Her coverage last night honed in on a few additional points in this remarkable story, underscoring the blatant theft and breathtaking hypocrisy in the entire embarrassing, if enlightening, affair.

Among the points she expanded on last night (several of which we’d flagged in our coverage yesterday): the call by a Maine county Republican committee for the immediate removal of the shameless and breathtakingly dishonest state GOP Chair Charlie Webster and how the state party leadership not only seems to have lied to voters about results from postponed caucuses to be held this Saturday in Washington County, but how new evidence from Waldo County suggests the party may have simply just made up “results” out of whole cloth — and then tried to keep those fake numbers a secret from the public in order to award the race to Mitt Romney by 194 votes over Ron Paul.

All of that, remember, before an entire county — Washington County, one of just 16 in the entire state — has even managed to hold their caucuses and vote at all in the statewide contest.
This is remarkable stuff and perhaps made more remarkable by the fact that this isn’t currently at the top of every news outlet in the nation…

Here’s Maddow’s full report from last night…

Of particular note in her coverage last night:

• It has never happened before this cycle that a winner has been announced in a Presidential primary or caucus only to see that result later overturned with a different winner announced instead. That happened earlier this year after the Iowa Caucuses — when that state’s GOP chair similarly announced Romney as the winner, even before all vote counts had been reported accurately — and it may well happen a second time in Maine if the people stand up and fight for the “winner” of the election to be the one who actually received the most, ya know, votes.
• There has been a call for Maine GOP chair Charlie Webster to be fired. The Waldo County Republican Party voted to ask the state GOP committee to formerly “censure” him, after they were unable to get consensus on the call to fire him outright. Remember, Webster, in addition to prematurely announcing Romney the “winner” last Saturday night, before all of Maine’s voters had even had a chance to cast their vote, is the hapless clown who, last year, went on a shameless and embarrassing bender in hopes of trying to keep thousands of legal student voters from being able to vote in Maine at all in this year’s Presidential elections.

• Washington County was allegedly told the results of their postponed caucuses would be counted in the final results, originally, only to learn last Saturday night, when the state party issued its statement declaring Mitt Romney “the winner” of the 2012 Republican Caucuses in Maine, that the county’s “results WILL NOT be factored into” the final certified results of the contest. When the state committee meets on March 10 (several days after Super Tuesday on March 6), in addition to voting to censure Webster as requested by the Waldo County GOP, the committee could also do the right thing and decide to factor in Washington County’s results after all.

• The GOP reported zero votes in a number of towns that, in fact, had reported their votes correctly. Is this what the party did across the state? Never mind Washington County, which is set to vote this Saturday, but did Paul already beat Romney even before Washington votes?

A closer look at this last point is in order, as it demonstrates potential malfeasance beyond simply ignoring voters who have yet to cast their votes. It suggests the Maine GOP deliberately falsified the numbers they reported last Saturday.



In our coverage yesterday, we reported on comments posted to a Ron Paul supporter website from Matt McDonald, the chair of the caucus in Waldo County’s town of Belfast. He had claimed that when he called the GOP to give the numbers from his caucus (where Paul had won), they told him that their numbers showed Romney winning there instead.

But when he told the woman he spoke to that they had “publicly counted the ballots” at his caucus, “her ears perked up.”

The trouble with all of this? When the state GOP posted their official numbers to their website [PDF], the town of Belfast showed ZERO votes for the entire town!
Read full report here


» More on The Maine’s Stolen 2012 GOP Caucuses – And How It Appears They Did It… Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

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