Transcript:
Ron Paul: “Madam Speaker, I have a few questions for my colleagues.
What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interest?
What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is the predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others, and has nothing to do with us being free and prosperous?
What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel?
What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the hatred directed toward us?
What if someday it dawns on us that losing over 5,000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair tradeoff with the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistanian, Afghan people are killed or displaced?
What if we finally decide that torture, even if called “enhanced interrogation technique”, is self-destructive and produces no useful information and that contracting it out to a third world nation is just as evil?
What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy?
What if all war-time spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing?
What if we finally see that war-time conditions always undermine personal liberty?
What if Conservatives who preach small government wake up and realize that our interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government?
What if Conservatives understood once again that their only logical position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire throughout the world?
What if the American people woke up and understood that the official reasons for going to war are almost always based on lies and promoted by war propaganda in order to serve special interests?
What if we as a nation came to realize that the quest for empire eventually destroys all great nations?
What if Obama has no intention of leaving Iraq?
What if a military draft is being planned for for the wars that would spread if our foreign policy is not changed?
What if the American people learned the truth, that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security, that it never changes from one administration to the next?
What if war in preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests?
What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan and it turns out worse than Iraq and Vietnam put together?
What if Christianity actually teaches peace and not preventive wars of aggression?
What if diplomacy is found to be superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America?
What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded?
Nothing.
But what happens if my concerns are justified and ignored?
Nothing good.
And I yield back the balance of my time.”
if "big government" means more spending on unproductive military spending, and extremely counterproductive surveilance programs, then I agree.
ReplyDeleteIt should not be confused with government running hospitals, schools and all parts of the court system, and all other parts of infrastructure related programs, although of course, private money could easily be made part of financing, if you fix the interest system.
Only Government can provide these services, because money and profits dont mix in markets that can never have equal bargaining right between the involved parties. Free markets is a concept where buyers have equal opportunity to choose between e.g. a Ford or Chevrolet, or even no car at all, although that would require a decent mobile alternative to a car.
From a buyer viewpoint, right now an electric car is not operating in a "free market" compared to gasoline, due to range and flexibility concerns, so it could be considered the governments role to make programs that equal out this initial handicap the electric car has, if they consider oil independence as vital for the national interests of the coming generations, (this example goes on many levels and industries, which so i consider the mantra of "smaller" government both very simplistic but also divisive and counterproductive in the people coming together and overthrowing the absurdities we see now in the US.
It is much more efficient from a societal viewpoint to not have money in hospitals, - military spending contributes to society maybe one third or one fourth of what spending the same amount on schools does, and it is a well established historical fact that the soviet totalitarian states eventually broke down because the system was designed so that one third controlled another third who surveilanced the last third.
Resources spend on surveilance is a black hole that leads nowhere for ordinary people.
In the old duopolistic pre 90's world, spy agencies had a somewhat justifiable role, in that it allowed the then two superpowers to communicate to one another through unofficial channels, but now it seems they just hunt information that are used for corporate profits, to rig elections by seducing the general tv viewing voters, and create the illusion of control on a personal level, even though all they need are statistics to uphold government controlled propaganda probations.
All funded by DEA and the war on drugs, aided by neofacsists tv networks, it is all they need to uphold system status quo, I agree it is here we need change. How come less than a handful of private non elected people are allowed to control every bit of information sent out through the outdated tv medium, we need change of focus away from the locus.
I think that Ron Paul speaks the truth and that is why our government doesn't want him in office. Gosh, he really lays the cards on the table. Everything that he's said every time that I've heard him speak are all the things that I listen to most other people grumbling and complaining about. I wish that they would get someone in office that clearly cares, tries and accomplishes something to bring some kind of justice to our nation to get her back on track.
ReplyDeleteThe single most important thing that the United States could do- to fulfill a leadership role in the world, is to elect a President that has a heart and seeks to benefit actual people instead of Corporations.
ReplyDeleteI would love to meet this amazing man in person! You sing the songs of my heart Ron! <3
ReplyDeleteRon Paul speaks the truth and belongs in the Whitehouse!!
ReplyDelete