Publictrough » ron paul

Targeting Terrorists

Glazerbeam — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:51:07 +0000

“How can you sanction killing an American without so much as a hearing?” Jonah Goldberg (1)

The assassination of Al Qaida propagandist Anwar Al-Awlaki on September 30 by a drone missile in Yemen has spurred this anguished question.

Nearly twenty years after the US tried to kill Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333 which included the rule that “No person employed by…the United States Government shall engage in …..assassination.” (Wikipedia)

But in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress passed a law that stated that the President “is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against …persons he determines ….committed…the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2011…..” This law, which is tantamount to a declaration of war on Al Qaida, overrode President Reagan’s order, and so authorized the murder of Osama bin Laden in May of this year.

But bin Laden was not an American, and Al-Awlaki was. Does that matter? I contend that in war everyone in the enemy camp is an enemy, and thus a target, regardless of birth and citizenship. Had Al-Awlaki been located in the United States, the proper procedure would have been to arrest and try him for treason. Had he been located in a friendly and stable country such as Germany, France or Britain, the US should have requested the authorities in that country to arrest and extradite him.

The relevant fact was that Al-Awlaki was in Yemen, a failed state, literally in the camp of Al Qaida, so extradition was not possible. Although the Government of Yemen is nominally allied with the United States, it does not actually control all of its territory and a revolution is going on there. By defecting to al Qaida and joining its camp, this man had effectively renounced the rights he would have held as an American citizen.

Is there then any effective limit on the power of the President of the United States to kill anyone, anywhere in the world, by merely asserting that the victim was an enemy combatant or traitor? Roman emperors could kill anybody with impunity. Stalin could kill Trotsky, even in Mexico. Do we want our presidents to have this power?

The only effective restraint on the President is the power of impeachment by Congress, something the Caesars and Soviet dictators did not have to worry about. Rep. Ron Paul (R, Texas) thinks that Obama deserves impeachment for killing Al-Awlaki, but I say that most Americans believe that he did the right thing. If a future president kills an innocent person, he will be held accountable by the people, represented in Congress. President Nixon was forced to resign for less, and President Clinton was impeached (though not convicted) for much less.

Gerald S Glazer

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(1) “The president’s terrorist dilemma” in the Milwaukee Journal Perspectives, October 5, 2011, page 15A.

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Why Are Ron Paul’s Poll Numbers Improving?

Editor — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:00:44 +0000

Once considered a “fringe” presidential candidate, Texas Congressman Ron Paul is suddenly being taken seriously by voters and the media alike.

After finishing second to Michelle Bachmann in the recent Iowa straw poll, and having climbed into third in most polls of republican candidates (behind Rick Perry and Mitt Romney), Paul has become a force to be reckoned with. His poll numbers are improving.

So, why the sudden surge in popularity? Is it due to Paul’s debating skills or slick packaging by his handlers?

Or, could it be due to the electorate’s realization that our country faces some of the most severe economic, monetary, and security problems in its history, and Paul’s proposals for addressing them make more sense than that of any other candidate?

Unlike many of his competitors, Paul is very specific about how he would resolve our country’s many woes. According to his Ron Paul for President website, the ten-term congressman would do the following as president:

On the Economy

Veto any unbalanced budget submitted by Congress.
Refuse to raise the debt ceiling so politicians can no longer spend recklessly.
Fully audit (and then end) the Federal Reserve System, which continues to create money out of thin air to finance future debt.
End the corporate stranglehold on the White House.
Reduce gas prices by allowing offshore drilling, abolish highway motor fuel taxes, increase the mileage reimbursement rates, and offer tax credits for the use and production of natural gas vehicles.
Eliminate income, capital gains, and death taxes.

On Healthcare

Repeal ObamaCare and end its unconstitutional mandate that all Americans must carry only government-approved health insurance.
Allow purchase of health insurance across state lines.
Provide tax credits and deductions for all medical expenses.
Exempt those with terminal illnesses from the employee portion of payroll taxes.
Give a payroll deduction to any worker who is the primary caregiver for a spouse, parent, or child with a terminal illness.
Guarantee that Medicare and Medicaid funds are not raided for other purposes.
Make all Americans eligible for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and remove government-imposed barriers to obtaining HSAs.

On National Defense

Secure our national borders.
Avoid expensive land wars by using constitutional means to capture or kill terrorist leaders who attack the U.S. and plot further attacks.
End the nation-building that is increasing our debt and sacrificing the lives of our troops.
Follow the Constitution by asking Congress to declare war before one is waged.
Only send our military into conflict with a clear mission and the tools they need to accomplish it.
Ensure our veterans receive the care, benefits, and honors they have earned when they return.
Revitalize the military for the 21st century by eliminating waste in the military budget.
Stop giving rich dictators taxpayer money through foreign aid.

Are Ron Paul’s positions extreme? Some think so.

But, in an age of $1.5 trillion annual budget deficits (with 41 cents of every dollar spent
being borrowed), and a national debt in excess of $14 trillion (with $4 trillion having been added in the last 30 months alone), maybe not that extreme.

Why Does The Media Ignore Ron Paul While Paying Attention To Tim Pawlenty?

Editor — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 20:00:19 +0000

Garnering media attention is the lifeblood of any presidential campaign. For positive poll results, and the critical campaign contributions that flow from them, face time crucial to any aspiring candidate.

So, why do certain presidential candidates generate more coverage than others? For example, why is Texas Congressman Ron Paul largely ignored by the media while former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is not?

It’s certainly not because Paul isn’t accomplished or controversial. A ten-term Congressman, retired obstetrician (who delivered over 4,000 babies) and strict constitutionalist, Paul was nicknamed “Dr. No” by his colleagues both for his medical degree and for his promise never to vote for any measure not expressly authorized by the constitution.

Devotion to the constitution wins no points with the media, given their ambivalence to President Obama’s selective adherence (not seeking Congressional approval for military action in Libya, continuing to implement Obamacare despite the law’s individual mandate being declared unconstitutional by US District Court Judge Roger Vinson, etc.).

But, Paul’s opposition to the Iraq invasion (he voted against the 2002 Iraq War Resolution) should curry some media favor. Paul is staunchly noninterventionist, and a vigorous defender of US national sovereignty. He advocates withdraw from NATO and the UN, increased border security, denial of welfare to illegal aliens, and the end of birthright citizenship. Plus, he’d like to eliminate most federal bureaucracies, along with the Federal Reserve.

Governor Pawlenty is more of a mainstream conservative, who favors low taxes, limited government, free trade, expanded domestic oil production and gun owner rights, and opposes abortion on demand, nationalized healthcare, same-sex marriage and premature withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Though not as extreme as some of Congressman Paul’s Libertarian stances, Governor Pawlenty’s views are strongly opposed by many in the mainstream media. So, again, why is he covered more extensively?

Could it be that Pawlenty’s a better orator than Paul? Or, that the media is more practiced at attacking Pawlenty’s positions than Paul’s? Or, that Pawlenty’s not perceived as being much of a threat to defeat President Obama? It’s a difficult question.

Almost as difficult as facing the fact that some of Paul’s “extreme” positions are precisely what are needed to correct many of our country’s problems.

Time is Running Out – By Ron Paul

Editor — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 06:01:22 +0000

Ron Paul issued this article regarding our government’s proposal to bail out Wall Street:

“Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress’ throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! “This is welfare for the rich,” he said. “This is socialism for the rich. It’s bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters.”

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we’re being told it’s unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences – predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics – are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

• Financial institutions are “designated as financial agents of the Government.” This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

• Then there’s this: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this “sadly necessary.” Sad, yes. Necessary? Don’t make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind – another example of the big choice we’re supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they’re not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we’ll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.”

Ron Paul on Economic Bailouts

Editor — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:10:15 +0000

Ron Paul’s statement regarding the current economic crisis:

“Many Americans today are asking themselves how the economy got to be in such a bad spot.

For years they thought the economy was booming, growth was up, job numbers and productivity were increasing. Yet now we find ourselves in what is shaping up to be one of the most severe economic downturns since the Great Depression.

Unfortunately, the government’s preferred solution to the crisis is the very thing that got us into this mess in the first place: government intervention.

Ever since the 1930s, the federal government has involved itself deeply in housing policy and developed numerous programs to encourage homebuilding and homeownership.

Government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were able to obtain a monopoly position in the mortgage market, especially the mortgage-backed securities market, because of the advantages bestowed upon them by the federal government.

Laws passed by Congress such as the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks.

These governmental measures, combined with the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policy, led to an unsustainable housing boom. The key measure by which the Fed caused this boom was through the manipulation of interest rates, and the open market operations that accompany this lowering.

Because the boom comes about from an increase in the supply of money and not from demand from consumers, the result is malinvestment, a misallocation of resources into sectors in which there is insufficient demand.

In this case, this manifested itself in overbuilding in real estate. When builders realize they have overbuilt and have too many houses to sell, too many apartments to rent, or too much commercial real estate to lease, they seek to recoup as much of their money as possible, even if it means lowering prices drastically.

This lowering of prices brings the economy back into balance, equalizing supply and demand. This economic adjustment means, however that there are some winners — in this case, those who can again find affordable housing without the need for creative mortgage products, and some losers — builders and other sectors connected to real estate that suffer setbacks.

The government doesn’t like this, however, and undertakes measures to keep prices artificially inflated. This was why the Great Depression was as long and drawn out in this country as it was.

I am afraid that policymakers today have not learned the lesson that prices must adjust to economic reality. The bailout of Fannie and Freddie, the purchase of AIG, and the latest multi-hundred billion dollar Treasury scheme all have one thing in common: They seek to prevent the liquidation of bad debt and worthless assets at market prices, and instead try to prop up those markets and keep those assets trading at prices far in excess of what any buyer would be willing to pay.

Additionally, the government’s actions encourage moral hazard of the worst sort. Now that the precedent has been set, the likelihood of financial institutions to engage in riskier investment schemes is increased, because they now know that an investment position so overextended as to threaten the stability of the financial system will result in a government bailout and purchase of worthless, illiquid assets.

Using trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to purchase illusory short-term security, the government is actually ensuring even greater instability in the financial system in the long term.

The solution to the problem is to end government meddling in the market. Government intervention leads to distortions in the market, and government reacts to each distortion by enacting new laws and regulations, which create their own distortions, and so on ad infinitum.

It is time this process is put to an end. But the government cannot just sit back idly and let the bust occur. It must actively roll back stifling laws and regulations that allowed the boom to form in the first place.

The government must divorce itself of the albatross of Fannie and Freddie, balance and drastically decrease the size of the federal budget, and reduce onerous regulations on banks and credit unions that lead to structural rigidity in the financial sector.

Until the big-government apologists realize the error of their ways, and until vocal free-market advocates act in a manner which buttresses their rhetoric, I am afraid we are headed for a rough ride.”