 | Ron Paul Republican Candidate
Texas | Counter-Terrorism/Detention - "Of course, the excuse is that 9/11 changed everything, but the Bush doctrine of preemptive war is not a minor change. This is huge. This is the first time we as a nation accept as our policy that we start the wars. I don't understand this." ABC/Facebook/WMUR Republican Debate, Manchester, NH, 1/5/08
- "Enough is enough. We don't need more Patriot Acts, we don't need more surveillance of our people. We don't need national ID cards. We don't need the suspension of habeas corpus. What we need is more freedom." Appearance on Meet the Press, NBC, 12/23/07
- "OK, but let's go, let's go with the CIA. They're, they're involved in, in, in torture. I would abolish that, yes." Appearance on Meet the Press, NBC, 12/23/07
- "I'm saying we should take our marching orders from our Constitution. We should not go to war...without a declaration. We should not go to war when it's an aggressive war. This is an aggressive invasion. We've committed the invasion of this war, and it's illegal under international law. That's where I take my marching orders, not from any enemy." Fox News Republican Presidential Candidates Debate in Durham, NH, 9/5/07
Trade Agreements - "Actually, I believe we're at a time where we even ought to talk to Cuba and trade and travel to Cuba." Univision Republican Debate, 12/9/07
- MR. RUSSERT: "Would you cut off all foreign aid to Israel?" REP. PAUL: "Absolutely. But remember, the Arabs would get cut off, too, and the Arabs get three times as much aid altogether than Israel." Appearance on Meet the Press, NBC, 12/23/07
- "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.
The ICC wants to try our soldiers as war criminals. Both the WTO and CAFTA could force Americans to get a doctor's prescription to take herbs and vitamins. Alternative treatments could be banned.
The WTO has forced Congress to change our laws, yet we still face trade wars. Today, France is threatening to have U.S. goods taxed throughout Europe. If anything, the WTO makes trade relations worse by giving foreign competitors a new way to attack U.S. jobs.
NAFTA's superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, called the North American Union. This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system. Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme.
And a free America, with limited, constitutional government, would be gone forever.
Let's not forget the UN. It wants to impose a direct tax on us. I successfully fought this move in Congress last year, but if we are going to stop ongoing attempts of this world government body to tax us, we will need leadership from the White House.
We must withdraw from any organizations and trade deals that infringe upon the freedom and independence of the United States of America." Ron Paul 2008
- "In reality, the WTO is the third leg of the globalists' plan for a one-world, centrally-managed economic system. The intention behind the creation of the WTO was to have a third institution to handle the trade side of international economic cooperation, joining two institutions created by Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. For the United States to give up any bit of its sovereignty to these unelected and unaccountable organizations is economic suicide. International organizations can never 'manage' trade better than it naturally occurs in a true free market of goods and services. At best, WTO acts as a meddling middleman, taking a cut for unnecessary services provided. At worst, it forces the United States to change its domestic laws in ways that seriously harm our economy and our sovereignty.
Economist Murray Rothbard said it best: You don't need a treaty to have free trade. Governments and quasi-government bodies like the WTO can only politicize and interfere with the natural flow of goods and services across borders. When we cede even a fraction of our sovereignty to an organization like the WTO, we can hardly hope to become more prosperous or more free." Ron Paul, "Does the WTO Serve Our Interests?," Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk: A Weekly Column, 5/16/2005
International Security and Non-Proliferation - "...[E]conomic sanctions are acts of aggression. Sanctions increase poverty and misery among the very poorest inhabitants of targeted nations, and they breed tremendous resentment against those imposing them. But they rarely hurt the political and economic elites responsible for angering American leaders in the first place.... While embargoes sound like strong, punitive action, in reality they represent a failed policy that four decades of experience prove doesn't work. Conversely, economic engagement is perhaps the single most effective tool in tearing down dictatorships and spreading the message of liberty.... Embargoes only hurt the innocent of a targeted country. While it may be difficult for the leader of an embargoed nation to get a box of American-grown rice, he will get it one way or another. For the poor peasant in the remote section of his country, however, the food will be unavailable.
It is difficult to understand how denying access to food, medicine, and other products benefits anyone. Embargo advocates claim that denying people access to our products somehow creates opposition to the despised leader. The reality, though, is that hostilities are more firmly directed at America.... For more than thirty years we have embargoed Cuba in an attempt to drive Fidel Castro from power. Yet he remains in power. By contrast look at the Soviet Union, a nation we allowed our producers to engage economically. Of course the Soviet Union has collapsed." Ron Paul, "Sanctions Against Iran," Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk: A Weekly Column, 4/17/2006
International Criminal Court - "The United Nations and the ICC are inherently incompatible with national sovereignty. America must either remain a constitutional republic or submit to international law, because it cannot do both. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the conflict between adhering to the rule of law and obeying globalist planners is now staring us in the face. At present we fortunately have a President who opposes the ICC, but ultimately it is up to Congress- and concerned citizens- to insure that no American ever stands trial before an international court." Ron Paul, "A Court of No Authority," Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk: A Weekly Column, 4/8/2002
International Institutions/UN Reform - "No war should ever be fought without a declaration of war voted upon by the Congress, as required by the Constitution. Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations." Ron Paul 2008 Campaign Website
- "The problem is not that the UN is corrupt, or ineffective, or run by scoundrels. The real problem is that the UN is inherently illegitimate, because supra-national government is an inherently illegitimate concept. Legitimate governments operate only by the consent of those they govern. Yet it is ludicrous to suggest that billions of people across the globe have in any way consented to UN governance, or have even the slightest influence over their own governments. The UN is perhaps the least democratic institution imaginable, but both Democrats and Republicans insist on using it to 'promote democracy.' We should stop worrying about the UN and simply walk away from it by withdrawing our membership and our money. We should demand a return to real national sovereignty, and respect other nations by rejecting our failed interventionist foreign policy. By doing so we would make the world a more peaceful place." Ron Paul, "Can the UN Really Be Reformed?," Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk: A Weekly Column, 6/20/2005
- "No treaty or international agreement can transfer this legislative power from Congress to UN bureaucrats.... Yet the trend toward unconstitutional international laws already is firmly established. The UN wants to generate the same acceptance for global gun laws that it has established for global environmental and labor laws. As the global government trend intensifies, the conflicts between internationalism and sovereign constitutional government will only increase.... The simple truth is that the UN is not concerned with our Constitution or our system of government. It is concerned only with expanding its power." From Ron Paul 2008, July 16, 2003
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