Ron Paul and Abortion - In His Own Words

I was working on a post addressing Ron Paul's commitment to life and ending the practice of abortion, when I found this. I've said for a long time that Dr. Paul's pro-life record is stronger and more respectable than can be said for most of his critics on this point, especially when one turns from their rhetoric to examine their behavior. The most relevant example in the context of this election cycle would be Rick Santorum, who misses no opportunity to trot out his pro-life ratings and cultivate his image as a champion of the unborn. As a Pennsylvanian who remembers his unprincipled endorsement of the belligerently pro-abortion Senator Arlen Specter against Pat Toomey in 2004 (an endorsement which arguably cost Toomey the election and set the stage for Specter's predictable mid-term switch from big-government Republican to big-government Democrat), I find Santorum unconvincing, not to say - well, I won't say. But back to Ron Paul: here is his position on the right to life, in his own words. All I have to add is that, as usual, his own words aren't just words, they are backed by a consistent and active thirty year record that is unmatched by any other candidate in the race.

Ron Paul Life Pledge

December 19, 2011

As a pro-life OB/GYN who has delivered over 4,000 babies, I have always opposed abortion. Let me be very clear: life begins at conception. It is the duty of the government to protect life, as set forth in our founding documents.

While I am known for my defense of Liberty, I often say that you can’t have Liberty without Life.

I don’t just believe life begins at conception; I know it as a scientific certainty. And I have sponsored bills in Congress to make this definition law.

Today, I want to tell you a bit more about my views on life than the attached pledge really allows me to explain. I think it is important for us all to describe our views on life in our own words.

I believe the attached pledge is important. The fight for the Right to Life is unlike any other in our society right now, and I am proud to be a soldier in that fight.

But it is also important to fight every battle with principle. At this point, I think I am well-known for my constitutional views and sticking to my principles, even when doing so is hard and forces me to stand alone. Both this pledge and the pro-life issue itself require some careful thought from my fellow pro-lifers so we can avoid the trap of throwing out the Constitution in our effort to save lives. Just as we cannot have liberty without life, I believe the opposite is also true: we must keep the Constitution and liberty in mind when fighting for the rights of the unborn. Otherwise, we undermine the entire system our Founders put their lives on the line to create in order to protect life and liberty.

I guarantee you that no one would work harder to be the most ardent and active pro-life President in history. I do not say that lightly. My entire life’s work has touched on this issue in a way few others have. So as I pondered this pledge, as I do all pledges, I had to ensure I would continue to stand with the Constitution.

I have previously sponsored a Human Life Amendment while in Congress, and though I ultimately do not believe this is how we will end abortion, achieving such an amendment is certainly a laudable goal. Of course, Presidents do not sign constitutional amendments – another reason I cannot guarantee what would happen on this issue.

A Human Life Amendment should do two things. First, it should define life as beginning at conception and give the unborn the same protection all other human life enjoys. Second, it must deal with the enforcement of the ruling much as any law against violence does – through state laws.

To summarize my views – I believe the federal government has a role to play. I believe Roe v. Wade should be repealed. I believe federal law should declare that life begins at conception. And I believe states should regulate the enforcement of this law, as they do other laws against violence.

I don’t see the value in setting up a federal police force on this issue any more than I do on other issues. The Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to cancel out the Tenth Amendment. This means that I can’t agree that the Fourteenth Amendment has a role to play here, or otherwise we would end up with a “Federal Department of Abortion.” Does anyone believe that will help life? We should allow our republican system of government to function as our Founders designed it to: protect rights at the federal level, enforce laws against violence at the state level.

As President, I will sign and aggressively advocate for a law that removes abortion from the jurisdiction of the federal courts. This approach, done by simple majority vote and stroke of my Presidential Pen, would effectively overturn Roe v. Wade and allow states to pass strong pro-life legislation immediately. Millions of lives would be saved by this approach while we fight to make every state a right to life state.

I would place a priority in my administration on ending federal abortion funding, defunding Planned Parenthood, and defunding any state department or UN agency that encourages abortion in their “family planning” activities. As a Congressman, I have consistently voted against giving federal funds to any organization that performs abortions or engages in “family planning” activities, and I have offered legislation on the floor of the House to defund all international family planning programs.

No one has ever completely defunded these programs, because they weren’t willing to undertake the fight that would result from vetoing the spending bills. I will veto these bills every time it takes until no taxpayer dollars go to abortion.

I will use my constitutional authority as President to stop the enforcement of all regulations relating to ObamaCare, including the new HHS regulations forcing all employers, even religious or church-affiliated ones, to provide coverage for contraceptives and RU-486 as part of their health insurance plans.

In addition, I will only put pro-life judges who adhere to the Constitution on the federal bench.
Finally, I will fight back against our depraved culture by ending all federal programs that undermine the family and our traditional American values of respect for life and personal responsibility. I will lead by example, as I have done every day in my medical practice and in Congress.

We CAN both fight for life AND liberty. We can remain true to our principle of following the Constitution while also fighting for our moral values. In fact, we must.

I ask for the support of every one of my fellow pro-lifers. This is an important moment in history. You can vote for any of the many folks who will sign a pledge, or you can vote for the one who stands by everything he has ever said on this critical issue over the years. You can choose the candidate whose principles and consistency are unquestioned, and whose record is unmatched.

You can vote for BOTH a pro-life champion and a different kind of President, who will end business as usual all across Washington, fix our budget mess, and strengthen our families by restoring jobs and upholding our values.
Thank you for your consideration.

For Life and Liberty,

Ron Paul, MD

Ron Paul, Foreign Policy and the Military

Probably the most common objection to Dr. Ron Paul heard from conservative voters is the well-worn line: “I like Ron Paul, except on foreign policy.” This isn’t because the typical Republican voter agrees with the current Bush-Clinton-Obama foreign policy: a November CBS News poll found nearly three-fourths of Republicans believe “the U.S. should not try to change dictatorships to democracies…” More likely, it is because they hear the same drivel incessantly repeated by people they have been accustomed to respect. A delusional Dick Morris, speaking on the O’Reilly Factor, recently claimed that Ron Paul is a “left-wing radical” who “wants to dismantle the military” and “blame[s] America for 9/11.” Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann called his foreign policy ideas “dangerous,” while Newt Gingrich pompously announced that “Ron Paul's views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.”

Really?

Perhaps we should clarify that “Ron Paul’s views” aren’t just random gleanings from the Huffington Post. Unlike Santorum, whose chief foreign policy adviser might as well be Toby Keith, Ron Paul is one of the most well-informed people in the beltway when it comes to the Middle East, its history and America’s involvement there. Even if you don’t agree with his conclusions, you can’t help noticing the depth of his knowledge when he warms up to this subject. His thorough historical studies and his own observations over the last 35 years form a solid basis for understanding world events. His advisers have included Michael Scheuer, a 22 year CIA veteran who spent over 17 years focused exclusively on Bin Laden- and Al Qaeda-related intelligence analysis, and who for some time headed the “Bin Laden desk” at the CIA, and Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and contributing editor for The American Conservative. His foreign policy views are more or less those of George Washington, Grover Cleveland, Calvin Coolidge, Sen. Robert Taft, Russell Kirk – even William F. Buckley’s views on foreign policy come closer to Ron Paul’s than those of any other current presidential candidate. With that said, let’s take a closer look at these “extreme” views.

Ron Paul’s budget calls for cutting defense spending back to 2006 levels. That’s right, the same spending levels we had four years into the so-called War on Terror and three years into the Iraq War. If that were done, our defense budget would only amount to 35-40% of the entire world’s military spending, approximately equal to the next ten countries combined (Russia, China, UK, France, etc.). It is beyond difficult to imagine that Dick Morris is unaware of this fact, so he must be either nuts or disingenuous.

On “blaming America for 9/11,” Paul has merely pointed out that our policies and actions in the Middle East have – predictably - caused an extreme backlash among Muslims, of which 9/11 was a result. To the neocon hawks who measure the strength of America’s defenses by the number of bombs we drop in a given week, this view may sound extreme and radical. It is shared, however, by the previously mentioned left-wing radicals – sorry, I meant intelligence experts - Scheuer and Giraldi. It is also the view expressed by the 9-11 Commission and by many of the counter-terrorism experts who testified during its investigation. Even more relevant to the absurd claims of Dick Morris is the prediction conservative icon Russell Kirk delivered back in 1991 in a speech to the Heritage Foundation. Speaking of the Gulf War and the policies pursued by the first President Bush, Kirk warned that “We must expect to suffer during a very long period of widespread hostility toward the United States — even, or perhaps especially, from the people of certain states that America bribed or bullied into combining against Iraq. In Egypt, in Syria, in Pakistan, in Algeria, in Morocco, in all of the world of Islam, the masses now regard the United States as their arrogant adversary …”

Those of us who have admired Ron Paul for years were entirely unsurprised to hear him say that 9/11 reflected a backlash to American policies. After all, he had called for President Clinton’s impeachment in 1998 after the Sudan and Iraq bombings, noting that “our national security is jeopardized by allowing this to happen… We’re liable to have more attacks … by terrorists. ” Many Republicans agreed with him at the time. Prior to September 2001, Dr. Paul had repeatedly predicted that the arrogant course we pursued since the 1950s in the Middle East would lead to increasingly deadly terrorist attacks. His warnings were largely ignored, but given the accuracy of his predictions, those who ignored them should not be astonished that he still maintains the same views.

Speaking to Sean Hannity back in October, Rick Santorum credited Ron Paul with extensive experience and a “deep” understanding of foreign policy issues; and, while noting that he and Paul had “different viewpoints,” added that “when the phone rings at three in the morning” Paul would likely know the history and the characters and have a plan to handle the situation. But last week he called Paul “dangerous,” falsely accusing him of saying that a nuclear Iran is not a threat to Israel. Actually, Paul has said that a nuclear Iran does not pose a credible threat to America, and that Israel has both the right and the capability to respond should they determine that Iran poses a risk to them.

A little known fact bears mentioning here: when Israel bombed two Iraqi nuclear reactors in 1981, the United States Congress passed an almost unanimous resolution condemning Israel’s actions as reckless and unjustified. I said almost unanimous – Ron Paul was the only vote against the resolution. He opposed it on the grounds that Israel had a right to defend itself and that America should stay out of their affairs unless our involvement was requested.

Santorum also recently attacked Paul’s assertion that military aid to Pakistan is not in America’s best interest, arguing that because Pakistan has nuclear weapons, America has no choice but to buy Pakistan’s allegiance, whatever it takes. There is a lesson here if one can get past the embarrassment of a presidential candidate making such a cowardly argument in public. Maybe Rick doesn’t realize this, but if he is smart enough to make the connection between Pakistan’s nukes and the billions of dollars their political and military leaders siphon away from American workers, you can bet the Iranians are too. As Dr. Paul has pointed out before, we talked Gaddafi out of his nuclear ambitions and then turned on him. Bomb = aid; no bomb = lots of bombs dumped on you; what possible motivation have we left Iran for abandoning a nuclear weapons program, if indeed they have one?

But Newt Gingrich stands out in the lineup of Paul bashers. His sweeping, all-inclusive, and arrogant attacks are earning him the disrespect of many, if not most, Americans. Imagine that you are a soldier in Afghanistan, or a sailor in the Persian Gulf, and a Ron Paul supporter. You’ve gone beyond merely supporting him; you’ve given a chunk of your shamefully low combat pay to his campaign. You’ve made this sacrifice, along with thousands of your fellow fighting men and women, precisely because of Paul’s views on foreign policy. You know why active duty military personnel are far and away the largest group (by employer) among his supporters. You know why he has received more in donations from military men and women than all the other GOP candidates combined. You are living the war on terror; your life is on the line every day; you’ve seen firsthand how the effort to win hearts and minds in the Middle East really works; and you believe Ron Paul is right when he says we are less safe because of our military adventurism. Now a narcissistic career politician and lobbyist who studiously avoided military service in Viet Nam declares those views - your views – to be “totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American.” How exactly does that feel?

Which brings to mind one thing I really don’t like about Ron Paul: he is way too kind to Gingrich and his ilk. He tends to stick to his own argument even when seemingly irresistible opportunities present themselves for showing up windbags like Newt. He did finally call Newt out as a chickenhawk last Saturday night, which brought an angry reaction from the former Speaker: he denied using college deferments to avoid the draft, claiming that he was married with a child and thus wouldn’t have been eligible anyway. To which Paul responded icily, “When I was drafted, I was married and had two kids, and I went.”

And one more thing for the record, Newt: he’s still married.

_______________________________________________

Here's a great article by John Nichols on why Ron Paul isn’t just a conservative, he’s the only conservative running for President this election cycle:

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/22/144122913/the-nation-why-do-gop-bosses-fear-ron-paul

Hammers And Nails: Getting Things Done

With Republicans taking control of the House for the next two years, a tired old template for debate inside the beltway has been rediscovered: it's now time to put aside the rhetoric and partisanship and focus on getting things done for the American people. New polls assure lawmakers that a majority of Americans want compromise for the sake of "progress" (a helpfully vague ideal that is almost never given a definite meaning). This concept is nothing new: principled legislators like Ron "Dr. No" Paul or Pennsylvania's Sam Rohrer are often criticized for their failure to "get things done" - usually defined as authoring legislation which will ultimately become law. As with most political debate, the underlying question (what are legislators for?) is never asked unless in a rhetorical sense; the assumption is nearly always that the legislator's first responsibility is to come up with additional laws.

There's an old proverb that applies here: to a man with nothing but a hammer everything looks like a nail. Lawmakers are always happy to indulge, even when the public really doesn't want them to. As early as 1834, a profligate Congress drew this rebuke from William Leggett in the New York Evening Post:

"One of the great practical evils of our system arises from a superabundance of legislation. ... Putting the acts of Congress and those of the State legislature together, they amount to some thousands annually. Is it possible that the good people of the United States require to be hampered and pestered by such a multiplicity of fetters as this: or that they cannot be kept in order without being manacled every year by new laws and regulations? Every superfluous law is a wanton and unnecessary innovation of the [people's] freedom of action... [yet our] legislative bodies have been regularly and systematically employed in frittering away, under a thousand pretenses, the whole fabric of the reserved rights of the people."

Good thing our great-grandparents put a stop to that. Imagine what our country would look like if Congress and the Pennsylvania General Assembly still enacted "some thousands of new laws annually."

Oh wait - they still do that.

The most overlooked consequence of nearly all legislation today is, embarrassingly, its primary purpose. Generally speaking, a new law means a new crime. It is precisely for this reason that unnecessary laws are so destructive to freedom and economic growth. Whether a law's purpose is to ban a substance, levy a tax, create a license, or impose a reporting requirement, it has invented a new crime where none existed before. This is not to say that laws are bad, only that unnecessary laws are bad.

I'd like to suggest that legislators aren't elected to make laws. Their responsibility is to see that only good and necessary laws are made. If no new laws are needed, then their responsibility is to prevent bad laws from being made (obstructionism, if you please). If bad laws have already been made, then their responsibility is to undo them.

Is there any doubt that this last is the situation we find ourselves in today? Almost everyone, regardless of their political opinions, thinks that we have bad laws on the books. But when the political class is confronted with the problems caused by their collective OCD, they don't undo anything, they just do more of it. It's time for that to change. The American voters took the legislative hammer away from a significant number of politicians on November 2nd; now we need to keep the pressure on those replacing them to start pulling nails instead of driving more. And instead of cringing in fear when others label us "the party of no," why don't we remind them that a "no" to the Nanny State is a "yes" to freedom, not just for Republicans, but for all Americans?

From Mao To Hitler; The Full Political Spectrum?

Yes, I'm still alive.

I was asked to speak about Patrick Henry at the 19th annual Bill of Rights Commemorative Banquet earlier this week, in recognition of the 275th anniversary of his birth next year. The following is the last half of my remarks, which address the subject of empire-building, something that has generated a good bit of reaction here in the past. The first half covered the history and context of Henry's public life up to the Revolutionary War. I begin below with the debate over the Constitution.

___________________________________________

We don’t have time to dwell on Henry’s time in the Governor’s Mansion and the Assembly during and after the war – I want to jump ahead thirteen years to June, 1788. The Constitutional Convention had been held in Philadelphia the year before, for the purpose of amending the Articles of Confederation. They had concluded that the Articles were past amending and instead produced an entirely new constitution, which was sent to the states to be ratified or rejected.

Henry thought it should be rejected.

He had many objections, but they all boiled down to centralization of power. Henry was convinced that America could not remain free with the triple powers of trade regulation, taxation and defense all consolidated under the federal government. He believed that the framers of the constitution had lost sight of essential liberties in their desire to see America become great.

Now, history has proven many of Henry’s objections to have been groundless, and, with the benefit of hindsight, I do not agree with him that the Federal Constitution was a dangerous step toward tyranny. But the truth is, if Henry had not objected to the constitution as it stood we would, most likely, have no Bill of Rights today. What is more, while Henry (I believe) underestimated the value of the various checks and balances that were built into the federal Constitution, on this point at least his words seem eerily prophetic when read today. He returned again and again throughout twenty-three days of debate in the Virginia Convention to this question of empire vs. liberty.

“I own, sir,” he said, “I am not free from suspicion. I am apt to entertain doubts… You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government. … Sir, suspicion is a virtue, as long as its object is the preservation of the public good. … Guard with jealous attention the public liberty! Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel!”

“The American spirit,” he went on, “has fled from hence: it has gone to regions where it has never been expected; it has gone to the people of France, in search of a splendid government—a strong, energetic government. Shall we imitate the example of those nations who have gone from a simple to a splendid government? Are those nations more worthy of our imitation? What can make an adequate satisfaction to them for the loss they have suffered in attaining such a government—for the loss of their liberty? If we admit this consolidated government, it will be because we like a great, splendid one. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty empire; we must have an army, and a navy, and a number of things. When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object.

“We are descended from a people whose government was founded on liberty: our forefathers of Great Britain made liberty the foundation of every thing. That country is become a great, mighty, and splendid nation; not because their government is strong and energetic, but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and foundation. We drew the spirit of liberty from our British ancestors: by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. …

"But, sir, we are not feared by foreigners; we do not make nations tremble. Would this constitute happiness, or secure liberty? I trust, sir, our political hemisphere will ever direct their operations to the security of those objects. …. No matter whether the people be great, splendid, and powerful, if they enjoy freedom. The Turkish Grand Signior, alongside of our President, would put us to disgrace; but we should be abundantly consoled for this disgrace, when our citizens have been put in contrast with the Turkish slave. The most valuable end of government is the liberty of the inhabitants. No possible advantages can compensate for the loss of this privilege.”

Henry’s opposition to the constitution barely failed to prevent its ratification; but his influence was enough to ensure that a list of amendments was sent to the first Congress from the Virginia Ratifying Convention. He also successfully nominated two opponents of the Constitution to the first United States Senate. Their election convinced James Madison, one of the leading Federalists, that concessions would have to be made if the new government was to succeed, and he agreed to support the proposed amendments in Congress. He did so ably and successfully, thereby earning the popular title “Father of the Bill of Rights,” which rightly belongs to Henry, if to anyone.

That brings us around to the reason we are celebrating here tonight. But I can’t bring myself to leave it there without asking the million dollar question: have the past two hundred and nineteen years validated Henry’s fear that Americans would lose sight of liberty in the pursuit of national greatness?

The value of history is only what we learn from it. Perhaps every one of us here tonight would agree that we have indeed lost much of the freedom our forefathers enjoyed. Probably not so many would agree with Patrick Henry that our liberty has fallen a victim to our pursuit of greatness and empire. But I do. In fact, I believe that, not a belligerent minority, not even fifty percent, but the vast majority of Americans are complicit – unintentionally, perhaps – but complicit none the less, in the loss of that freedom; or perhaps I should say complicit in the growth and centralization of government power, which is the same thing.

It has been common, especially leading up to last month’s election, to hear “liberals” blamed for the growth of government; and not without cause. People who describe themselves as “liberals” tend to be open about their view that government is good, and they readily acknowledge that they support more of it. People who describe themselves as “conservative,” on the other hand, tend to have at least a vague idea that big government, on the whole, is a bad thing for society. Unfortunately, this idea is usually not clear enough to serve any purpose. While there are probably countless reasons for this lack of clarity, the one that seems most obvious to me is the box in which we are all expected to think. You know, tyranny imposed through a democratic process is often the worst possible kind of tyranny, because it requires control over the mind of the electorate. And I’m not talking about some high-tech, top-secret government mind control program. The most effective way to control the outcome of a debate is to control the framework of the debate, and the great American experiment has shown, among other things, that such control is both achievable and effective. So in the spirit of Patrick Henry, let’s think for a minute about the box.

And please understand, if I am particularly hard on conservatives, it’s because I am a conservative Republican talking to a room mostly full of conservative Republicans. Fair enough?

What do the words “conservative” and “liberal” mean? Why is conservative politics a good thing and conservative Islam a bad thing? Why is economic liberalism an essential ingredient of a free society while political liberalism is a threat to a free society? Properly defined, political conservatism really just means a philosophical support for tradition or the established order of things – you could almost define it as a strict adherence to what is. Political liberalism is a philosophy of progress or change – not to put too fine a point on it, an affinity for what isn’t.

What I’m driving at is that the terms “conservative” and “liberal” only have real meaning when they refer to a standard. When we lose sight of that standard we get confused and end up rooting for Team A or Team B without asking why the goals are on the same side of the field. If the standard is that liberty with which all men are endowed by their Creator, I’m conservative. If the standard is the Constitution I’m conservative. If it’s anything else I’m not playing. But if we can agree that the Constitution is indeed the standard, then much of the popular conservative agenda today doesn’t look conservative anymore.

I can hear somebody say “Enough with the dictionary. When we say liberal or conservative we know what we mean!” Really? Do we really? Ask a certain popular radio host to define conservative and he’ll probably say something about lower taxes and not talking to rogue dictators without preconditions. To confuse matters even further, we have come to use “right” and “left” interchangeably with conservative and liberal. You talk about a box! We think in terms of a political spectrum that runs from Mao to Hitler.

As if there is a difference.

That strikes me as being like a medical practice that offers a full range of family health services, from euthanasia to assisted suicide.

Seriously, how did we accept this fraud? Between Mao and Hitler, where do you want to be? You say, “Well, I guess in the middle. Get as far from either end as I can.” That’s exactly what you’re supposed to say, because the center is engineered to be where your elitist leaders want you. And if you dare move away from the center they can call you names. “Socialist,” or “Fascist,” depending on which way you go.

Our political dialogue is like the emperor’s new clothes; we’re supposed to be so intimidated by the experts that we never call the game what it is. This kind of thinking is how we end up with ObamaCare being socialized medicine while RomneyCare is innovation and leadership. It is why the same party that brought us the TSA, MediCare Part D, the TARP bailout, the National Animal ID System, No Child Left Behind, the McCain-Feingold Incumbent Protection Act, the National ID Card, legalized torture, massive increases in the national debt, the greatest consolidation of power in the Executive Branch since FDR, the two longest wars our nation has ever fought, and the only mass confiscation of firearms from law-abiding citizens in recent American history – it is why this party can still sell itself as the party of small government and effectively convince Americans that they will roll back the size, scope and cost of the federal government if they get the chance.

I don’t mean to engage in needless Republican-bashing; it’s just that I’m convinced we Republican voters are being used. If the political spectrum made sense, and the far left believed in total government control, one would expect the far right to believe in no government at all; anarchy, in other words. But somehow, the statists have sold us this fraudulent idea where both ends want big government in some area, with the result that no matter who’s in and who’s out after a given election, there is always a big government agenda to move forward. Think about this: both the “right” and the “left” also claim that they want to rein in government - in certain areas. But what happens when they take control? Did the Republican Party take advantage of their six years of control in Washington to reduce the debt, or to stop abortion, or to cut entitlement programs, or to roll back federal control of anything? No, but they sure managed to consolidate power in the Executive branch, trash our Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, dramatically expand law enforcement and the military, and reward a bunch of cronies in the financial sector. When the Democrats took over, did they reduce corporate welfare, or cut pork-barrel spending, or bring our troops home from a single one of our 800 overseas citadels, or end the travesty of justice that we call trial by military commission? No, but they sure managed to take over our health care system. They sure managed to tighten their chokehold on small businesses, further trash our Fourth Amendment rights, and reward a bunch of cronies in the financial sector.

Forget rolling back the size of government – if we don’t recognize the game that is being played we will keep demanding bigger government. Because the expansion of government today isn’t only an item on the liberal agenda; it seems to me to be divided pretty evenly between both “sides.” The feel-good, bleeding heart big government may be for “liberals,” but conservatives are all about the empire thing. We blame liberals for promoting dependency on government when it comes to economic security, but “conservatives” just as avidly promote dependency on government for physical security. I know this isn’t going to win me any new friends, but this issue has to be addressed; it is a ball and chain on the movement to restore liberty in America.

Our assumed role of superpower and our obsession with security has put us exactly where Henry predicted, and with exactly the consequences that he expected. How can you have a restrained government at home and an adventurous government overseas? How can you spread freedom by force? You cannot empower your leaders to aggressively use force abroad without losing your soul and your liberty to the monster you have created. “Government,” said George Washington, “is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” And history has shown again and again that the government that acquires a taste for mastery abroad will never be content to serve at home.

The only way I see to break out of the box is to reject the fraudulent “right-left” political spectrum, reject the notion that either party is the answer – and I’m not talking about a third party; I am a Republican – but we need to start judging every single government action by one standard: freedom, based on the fact that all men are created equal. For too long we have been told, “Yes, government is out of control, but terrorists are trying to kill us, so just give up a little more freedom here. Sure, government is out of control, but there are thousands of illegal immigrants entering the country every day, so we need a little more power over here. Yes, it’s a crime to saddle our children and grandchildren with this kind of debt, but we’ve got to maintain a strong national defense, so don’t ask us to bring troops home from any of the 130 countries we keep them in.”

Where does it end? No matter what the problem is, it is time for Americans to demand only solutions that make government smaller, less intrusive, and less costly; or, to put it another way, solutions that result in more freedom for us as individuals. Such solutions do exist, but they will never be willingly implemented by this power-drunk government. The American people will have to reassert their control over their public servants, but we cannot do that until we first control our own thinking; until, like Patrick Henry, we are willing to make liberty the standard, to think outside the box, to ask the uncomfortable question. I believe that the question for us today remains what it was in 1775; it is, as Henry said, “a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject, ought to be the freedom of debate.”

Thank you very much.

Hypocrisy In PA GOP Primary

The following is an excellent response to Corbett's latest smear attack against Sam Rohrer, originally posted at winthewestforsam.com :

After viewing a copy of the latest mailing sent out comparing Tom Corbett and Sam Rohrer, I must say that I am more embarassed than ever to be a member of the Republican Party in this state. You claim that this flier’s purpose is to “set the record straight” about the two candidates, when you have actually done the exact opposite, and in doing so done a great disservice to every member of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania. Let’s take a truthful approach to “setting the record straight”, shall we? We’ll start with the statements made about Sam Rohrer:

“Voted for the midnight pay raise”: How appropriate that you bring this vote up, as it was actually the REPUBLICAN PARTY that backed Representative Rohrer into a corner, saying if he didn’t vote for the pay raise that his legislation for property tax elimination would never see the House floor for a vote. So in voting for the pay raise, he actually did exactly what you wanted him to do. And now you dare feign repulsiveness at that same vote. In fact, your real problem with the pay raise and Sam Rohrer is that he came out the very next day publicly against it and helped spearhead the effort to have it repealed, and hasn’t accepted a dime of the pay increase. But you failed to mention that part in your mailer, didn’t you?

“Voted to raise his taxpayer-funded pension by 50%”: Again, Representative Rohrer voted for this based on information he was given that the state could afford the increase in the benefits. And one can only assume that this information was given to him by his own party, otherwise I don’t believe that he would have accepted it.

“In 18 years as a legislator, Rohrer has received over a million dollars in salary and benefits, yet has never written a single bill passed into law.”: This is probably one of my favorite “criticisms” of Sam Rohrer that you make on this flier, and demonstrates just how far out of touch with reality the Republican Party in this state is. I’m not sure if you realize this, but a state representative isn’t elected by his district to go to Harrisburg and write and get passed as much legislation as possible to earn his pay. He is sent to Harrisburg by his district to REPRESENT the interests of his constituents, and if need be PROTECT those same interests. That’s why they’re called “representatives”. Using the proper definition of his job title, Representative Rohrer has done an admirable job in his tenure in the House, putting his constituents before party politics. Otherwise they would not have elected him for 9 terms. It’s not your place to determine if he earned his salary or did his job, the voters decided that. Your obvious ignorance about this point is statement enough that the Republican Party leadership in this state has lost grasp of the concept of “Constitutionally-limited government”, a term Mr. Corbett has tried to use as much as possible during this campaign after Representative Rohrer has made it a centerpiece of his campaign.

“Has billed taxpayers over $100,000 for his car, including gas and maintenance”: Wow. That seems like an excessive amount of money when put that way. But, when broken down over 18 years, that comes to a little over $5555 a year, a modest amount of money given how much he used it to travel back and forth to the capitol for his job. Tom Corbett drives one of the state-owned “fleet” that he has so ardently promised to prune. How much has his vehicle cost the taxpayers on a yearly basis? Funny, I don’t see that figure on your mailer….

As far as your points about Tom Corbett on your flier, they’re not much of a “comparison”. His quoted experience going after money from various criminal enterprises isn’t any sort of honest assesment of his qualifications to be governor, it means he’s a good prosecutor. Show me any experience Mr. Corbett has in an executive capacity that demonstrates his ability to govern our state: a business he’s owned and operated, for example. And please, don’t use his tenure as Attorney General as an example, because given the multitudes of improprieties that have occurred in that office while he’s been in charge I think speak volumes of his inability to monitor those he is responsible for and run the department he’s in charge of in
any sort of fiscally responsible way.

The rest of your talking points about Tom Corbett are nothing more than promises he has made during this campaign. He has no track record of conservative values at all. In fact, he has no legislative history at all to look at to see whether he’s conservative or not. What he DOES have that we can look at is the history of the cases he’s pursued for prosecution, including many examples of seeking to deny citizens their gun ownership rights. Not very conservative, Mr. Corbett.

The point of this letter is this: the members of the Republican Party in this state
are sick and tired of the party elite “coronating” our candidates for us, deciding for us who is worth representing the party in elections and providing them with all of the party’s financial backing. It is our RIGHT to decide for ourselves who is worthy to represent us, not yours. Your job is in an organizational capacity only, taking the information from the lower levels of precinct committeemen all the way up to the state level in order to determine whom the people want for potential candidates, coordinating funds and dispensing them to candidates as needed, and letting us have fair and open primaries so that every qualified candidate gets an equal chance to get his message out to every member of the party so that “We The People” can make OUR decision who represents us, NOT YOU.

You’re seeing a groundswell happen this year that you don’t understand and cannot measure. You don’t understand why your choice for Governor isn’t already the defacto winner of the primary. You’re obviously nervous about Sam Rohrer, otherwise why bother with the smear campaign of a fellow Republican so close to the election? Which, by the way, is a repugnant act to treat a member of your own party with such disdain. And don’t think it will go unnoticed.

Well let me fill you in on what’s going on. We the people of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania are putting you, the party machine, on notice: your time has come. The machinery is about to be dismantled. And we’re taking our party back. Precinct by precinct, county by county, your reign over us will fall. And this party will once again function the way the Founding Fathers intended our government to work, as a REPRESENTATIVE Republic.

So consider this your wake-up call: start representing us and our interests again, or find yourselves another line of work.

Sincerely,

David A. Groot

Republican

Venango County

Politics or Principles?

As a serious history student, I frequently find myself drawing comparisons between current and historical events, people and societal trends. The conclusions warranted by this method are often offensive to those who suffer from the delusion that “things are different today.” But as our national politics slip beyond their previously explored frontiers of degeneracy, I find myself thinking again on the vast difference between a statesman and a politician.

Contrary to the opinions of much of the religious right, the distinction does not lie in the volume of one’s profession of faith. As a matter of fact, true statesmen have been found among the ranks of nearly every denomination of the Christian Church, among numerous false religions, and even professing atheists. Nor does the distinction lie in political creed – throughout history, true (though often mistaken) statesmen have defended forms of government ranging from absolute monarchy to utopian communism.

The difference is simple: a statesman is one who loves his country more than himself or his political affiliations. His goal is the good of his country, and his political positions and actions, however mistaken or uninformed they may be, are taken for that purpose. In a nutshell, his loyalty is to his country.

A politician, on the other hand, to the extent that he possesses that virtue at all, is loyal either to his party or to himself (generally some combination of the two). His positions and actions are taken with an eye to the advancement of his party and/or his own ambitions. He may now and then pause to consider their effects on the nation as a whole, but his first priority is to consolidate his own position against the efforts of the opposition.

The current antics of our elected officials on Capitol Hill and in the White House are a supremely disgusting illustration of the latter. Our representatives in congress are wasting their time debating and voting on a bill to increase funding for embryonic stem cell research even though they know it will be vetoed. They justify this exercise in futility by citing a need to put the President on record as opposing “the will of the people,” even though his position on this issue is already clear. Their real purpose, however, is to bolster the Democratic Party’s position in the next election. And taxpayers’ hard-earned money is being used to fund this charade.

The federal district attorney firings and the accompanying furor provide another example of shameless political gaming by all sides. It is obvious that the Justice Department made appointments based on political loyalties, though this practice is not new. It is also plain that they used the pretext of the war on terror to avoid the oversight, and presumably the criticism, of congress when making replacements. On the other hand, the self-righteous clamor of the opposing party seems carefully oriented toward the approaching elections, and their ethically laced demands for the Attorney General’s resignation are hollow at best. They know that replacing Gonzales would require confirmation hearings, and that those hearings would be an ideal venue for lowering this administration still further in the public esteem. Which is precisely why they want Gonzales to resign, and more to the point, is precisely why he won’t resign.

If there are any national issues that ought to be addressed without regard to party politics, the war in Iraq deserves to be at the top of the list. Yet no other issue is so politically charged at present, and American soldiers are currently being treated as pawns by the ass and the elephant alike. The invasion and occupation received bipartisan support until the dreaded threat of low approval ratings began to rear its head. The White House, being controlled by politicians (not statesmen) who are painfully aware that pulling out of Iraq would be a disaster, has no choice but to “stay the course” until either conditions improve or a Democratic president arrives to take the blame for the consequences. Meanwhile, the Democratic hopefuls, knowing what awaits them if they step into the Oval office before the inevitable pullout, present a comical picture as they try everything short of funding cuts to convince the President that the troops should come home now.

The most ironic aspect of this circus is that the obvious constitutional option to end the war is to cut the funding, and that is precisely the option Congress is afraid of. To force the return of American troops over the President’s veto would place the blame for the ensuing disintegration of Iraq firmly on the heads of the Democratic leadership. But a pullout ordered by a Democratic president would yield similar results. Their only hope is to convince the current administration to accept responsibility for the failure of both parties, something the administration isn’t about to do. So the troops will stay where they should never have gone, while our leaders peer over their spectacles at the latest polling data and casualty reports as they desperately search for a way to leave Iraq without leaving D.C.

Contrast their behavior with that of Congressman Ron Paul, and one immediately recognizes the vast difference. Unlike the party faithful, Congressman Paul strenuously opposed the unconstitutional nature of the invasion. He spoke and wrote extensively on the dangers of empire building and the falsity of the various justifications for war. In doing so, he brought on himself the disdain of his colleagues and was icily ignored by the mainstream media. Now that he is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, he continues to speak the truth on those issues that are most likely to prevent him from reaching the Oval office. Political pundits question whether he is “presidential material,” but the real problem is their inability to comprehend genuine statesmanship.