Well RP will get my vote. Anyone who wants to abolish the IRS is OK in my book.
And 95% of all males in DC (black or white) probably are at least semi-criminal.

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1993 300E 2.8 185k miles
2006 Mustang Convertible 4.0 Eaton Supercharged

I think the two major parties are driving us more and more towards a two-class society like in South America. Lexus liberals and well-connected conservatives no longer represent core values. In fact, it looks like core values and common sense are a nuisance to many of them as they go around bashing each other over things that don't matter. They take today's bloated government as a baseline, and want to add more bloat. Issues are glossed over for the sake of political correctness.

True, RP has nary a chance of winning the office, but I hope he makes a big enough impact to create a strong and effectual following to become a major force in future elections.

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1985 380SE Blue/Blue - 230,000 miles
2012 Subaru Forester 5-speed
2005 Toyota Sienna
2004 Chrysler Sebring convertible
1999 Toyota Tacoma

I believe that some people are very fanatical about Ron Paul because he represents a sizeable portion of the population that have not had ANY real representation in the last decade or so. So they get excited that there is at least ONE person with their viewpoints running. If you're small government sort of person, the last 20 something years of government actions have gone completely against your idealogies. A lot of people are also willing to suspend nuances and little things in their overall viewpoints because they view Ron Paul as the only chance they will ever have for change in a favorable direction.

Why Ron Paul is a ten times better option that what we have had for the last 7 years. His allegience to the truth is why he will never be nominated.

September 25, 2001

Ron Paul speech in the House of Representatives

Mr. Speaker:

Last week was a bad week for all Americans. The best we can say is that the events have rallied the American spirit of shared love and generosity. Partisanship was put on hold, as it well should have been. We now, as a free people, must deal with this tragedy in the best way possible. Punishment and prevention is mandatory. We must not, however, sacrifice our liberties at the hand of an irrational urgency. Calm deliberation in our effort to restore normalcy is crucial. Cries for dropping nuclear bombs on an enemy not yet identified cannot possibly help in achieving this goal.

Mr. Speaker, I returned to Congress 5 years ago out of deep concern about our foreign policy of international interventionism, and a monetary and fiscal policy I believed would lead to a financial and dollar crisis. Over the past 5 years I have frequently expressed my views on these issues and why I believed our policies should be changed.

This deep concern prompted me to seek and receive seats on the Financial Services and International Relations Committees. I sought to thwart some of the dangers I saw coming, but as the horrific attacks show, these efforts were to no avail. As concerned as I was, the enormity of the two-prong crisis that we now face came with a ferocity no one ever wanted to imagine. But now we must deal with what we have and do our best to restore our country to a more normal status.

I do not believe this can happen if we ignore the truth. We cannot close our eyes to the recent history that has brought us to this international crisis. We should guard against emotionally driven demands to kill many bystanders in an effort to liquidate our enemy. These efforts could well fail to punish the perpetrators while only expanding the war and making things worse by killing innocent non-combatants and further radicalizing Muslim peoples.

It is obviously no easy task to destroy an almost invisible, ubiquitous enemy spread throughout the world, without expanding the war or infringing on our liberties here at home. But above all else, that is our mandate and our key constitutional responsibility- protecting liberty and providing for national security. My strong belief is that in the past, efforts in the US Congress to do much more than this, have diverted our attention and hence led to our neglect of these responsibilities.

Following the September 11th disasters a militant Islamic group in Pakistan held up a sign for all the world to see. It said: AMERICANS, THINK! WHY YOU ARE HATED ALL OVER THE WORLD. We abhor the messenger, but we should not ignore the message.

Here at home we are told that the only reason for the suicidal mass killing we experienced on September 11th is that we are hated because we are free and prosperous. If these two conflicting views are not reconciled we cannot wisely fight nor win the war in which we now find ourselves. We must understand why the hatred is directed toward Americans and not other western countries.

In studying history, I, as many others, have come to the conclusion that war is most often fought for economic reasons. But economic wars are driven by moral and emotional overtones.

Our own revolution was fought to escape from excessive taxation but was inspired and driven by our desire to protect our God-given right to liberty.

The War between the States, fought primarily over tariffs, was nonetheless inspired by the abhorrence of slavery. It is this moral inspiration that drives people to suicidally fight to the death as so many Americans did between 1861 and 1865.

Both economic and moral causes of war must be understood. Ignoring the importance of each is dangerous. We should not casually ignore the root causes of our current fight nor pursue this fight by merely accepting the explanation that they terrorize us out of jealously.

It has already been written that Islamic militants are fighting a "holy war"- a jihad. This drives them to commit acts that to us are beyond comprehension. It seems that they have no concern for economic issues since they have no regard even for their own lives. But an economic issue does exist in this war: OIL!

When the conflict broke out between Iraq and Iran in the early 1980s and we helped to finance and arm Iraq, Anwar Sadat of Egypt profoundly stated: "This is the beginning of the war for oil." Our crisis today is part of this long lasting war over oil.

Osama bin Laden, a wealthy man, left Saudi Arabia in 1979 to join American- sponsored so-called freedom fighters in Afghanistan. He received financial assistance, weapons and training from our CIA, just as his allies in Kosovo continue to receive the same from us today.

Unbelievably, to this day our foreign aid continues to flow into Afghanistan, even as we prepare to go to war against her. My suggestion is, not only should we stop this aid immediately, but we should never have started it in the first place.

It is during this time bin Laden learned to practice terror; tragically, with money from the US taxpayers. But it wasn't until 1991 during what we refer to as the Persian Gulf War that he turned fully against the United States. It was this war, said to protect our oil that brought out the worst in him.

Of course, it isn't our oil. The oil in fact belongs to the Arabs and other Muslim nations of the Persian Gulf. Our military presence in Saudi Arabia is what most Muslims believe to be a sacred violation of holy land. The continuous bombing and embargo of Iraq, has intensified the hatred and contributed to more than over 1,000,000 deaths in Iraq. It is clear that protecting certain oil interests and our presence in the Persian Gulf help drive the holy war.

Muslims see this as an invasion and domination by a foreign enemy which inspires radicalism. This is not new. This war, from their viewpoint, has been going on since the Crusades 1000 year ago. We ignore this history at our own peril.

The radicals react as some Americans might react if China dominated the Gulf of Mexico and had air bases in Texas and Florida. Dominating the Persian Gulf is not a benign activity. It has consequences. The attack on the USS Cole was a warning we ignored.

Furthermore, our support for secular governments in the moderate Arab countries is interpreted by the radicals as more American control over their region than they want. There is no doubt that our policies that are seen by the radicals as favoring one faction over another in the long lasting Middle East conflict add to the distrust and hatred of America.

The hatred has been suppressed because we are a powerful economic and military force and wield a lot of influence. But this suppressed hatred is now becoming more visible and we as Americans for the most part are not even aware of how this could be. Americans have no animosity toward a people they hardly even know. Instead, our policies have been driven by the commercial interests of a few. And now the innocent suffer.

I am hopeful that shedding light on the truth will be helpful in resolving this conflict in the very dangerous period that lies ahead. Without some understanding of the recent and past history of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf we cannot expect to punish the evildoers without expanding the nightmare of hatred that is now sweeping the world.

Punishing the evildoers is crucial. Restoring safety and security to our country is critical. Providing for a strong defense is essential. But extricating ourselves from a holy war that we don't understand is also necessary if we expect to achieve the above-mentioned goals. Let us all hope and pray for guidance in our effort to restore the peace and tranquility we all desire.

We did a poor job in providing the security that all Americans should expect. This is our foremost responsibility. Some members have been quick to point out the shortcomings of the FBI, the CIA and the FAA and claim more money will rectify the situation. I'm not so sure. Bureaucracies by nature are inefficient. The FBI and CIA records come up short. The FBI loses computers and guns and is careless with records. The CIA rarely provides timely intelligence. The FAA's idea of security against hijackers is asking all passengers who packed their bag.

The clamor now is to give more authority and money to these agencies. But, remember, important industries like as our chemical plants and refineries do not depend on government agencies for security. They build fences and hire guards with guns. The airlines have not been allowed to do the same thing. There was a time when airline pilots were allowed and did carry weapons, and yet this has been prohibited by government regulation set to go into effect in November.

If the responsibility had been left with the airlines to provide safety they may have had armed pilots or guards on the planes just as our industrial sites have. Privatizing the FAA, as other countries have, would also give airlines more leeway in providing security. My bill, HR 2896, should be passed immediately to clarify that the federal government will never place a prohibition on pilots being armed.

We face an enormous task to restore the sense of security we have taken for granted for so long. But it can be done. Destroying the evildoers while extricating ourselves from this unholiest of wars is no small challenge. The job is somewhat like getting out of a pit filled with venomous snakes. The sooner we shoot the snakes that immediately threaten us, the sooner we can get safely away. If we're not careful though, we'll breed more snakes and they'll come out of every nook and cranny from around the world and little will be resolved.

It's no easy task, but before we fight we'd better be precise about whom we are fighting and how many there are and where they are hiding, or we'll never know when the war is over and our goals are achieved. Without this knowledge the war can go on for a long, long time, and the war for oil has already been going on for more than 20 years. To this point, our President and his administration have displayed the necessary deliberation. This is a positive change from unauthorized and ineffective retaliatory bombings in past years that only worsened various conflicts.

If we can't or won't define the enemy, the cost to fight such a war will be endless. How many American troops are we prepared to lose? How much money are we prepared to spend? How many innocent civilians, in our nation and others, are we willing to see killed? How many American civilians will we jeopardize? How much of our civil liberties are we prepared to give up? How much prosperity will we sacrifice?

The founders and authors of our Constitution provided an answer for the difficult tasks that we now face. When a precise declaration of war was impossible due to the vagueness of our enemy, the Congress was expected to take it upon themselves to direct the reprisal against an enemy not recognized as a government. In the early days the concern was piracy on the high seas. Piracy was one of only three federal crimes named in the original Constitution.

Today, we have a new type of deadly piracy, in the high sky over our country. The solution the founders came up with under these circumstances was for Congress to grant letters of marque and reprisal. This puts the responsibility in the hands of Congress to direct the President to perform a task with permission to use and reward private sources to carry out the task, such as the elimination of Osama bin Laden and his key supporters. This allows narrow targeting of the enemy. This effort would not preclude the president's other efforts to resolve the crisis, but if successful would preclude a foolish invasion of a remote country with a forbidding terrain like Afghanistan- a country that no foreign power has ever conquered throughout all of history.

Lives could be saved, billions of dollars could be saved, and escalation due to needless and senseless killing could be prevented. Mr. Speaker, we must seriously consider this option. This answer is a world apart from the potential disaster of launching nuclear weapons or endless bombing of an unseen target. "Marque and reprisal" demands the enemy be seen and precisely targeted with minimal danger to others. It should be considered and, for various reasons, is far superior to any effort that could be carried out by the CIA.

We must not sacrifice the civil liberties that generations of Americans have enjoyed and fought for over the past 225 years. Unwise decisions in response to the terror inflicted on us may well fail to destroy our enemy, while undermining our liberties here at home. That will not be a victory worth celebrating. The wise use of marque and reprisal would negate the need to undermine the privacy and rights of our citizens.

As we work through this difficult task, let us resist the temptation to invoke the most authoritarian of all notions that, not too many years ago, tore this nation apart; the military draft. The country is now unified against the enemy. The military draft does nothing to contribute to unity nor, as the Pentagon again has confirmed, does it promote an efficient military.

Precise identification of all travelers on all our air flights is a desired goal. A national ID issued by the federal government would prove to be disastrous to our civil liberties and should not be considered. This type of surveillance power should never be given to an intrusive overbearing government, no matter how well intentioned the motives.

The same results can be better achieved by the marketplace. Passenger IDs voluntarily issued by the airlines could be counterfeit-proof; and loss or theft of an ID could be immediately reported to the proper authorities. An ID, fingerprints, birth certificates, or any other information can be required without any violations of anyone's personal liberty. This delicate information would not be placed in the hands of the government agents but could be made available to law enforcement officers like any other information obtained with probable cause and a warrant.

The heat of the moment has prompted calls by some of our officials for great sacrifice of our liberties and privacy. This poses great danger to our way of life and will provide little help in dealing with our enemies. Efforts of this sort will only punish the innocent and have no effect on a would-be terrorist. We should be careful not to do something just to do something- even something harmful.

Mr. Speaker, I fear that some big mistakes could be made in the pursuit of our enemies if we do not proceed with great caution, wisdom, and deliberation. Action is necessary; inaction is unacceptable. No doubt others recognize the difficulty in targeting such an elusive enemy. This is why the principle behind "marque and reprisal" must be given serious consideration.

In retaliation, an unintended consequence of a policy of wanton destruction without benefit to our cause, could result in the overthrow of moderate Arab nations by the radicals that support bin Laden. This will not serve our interests and will surely exacerbate the threat to all Americans.

As we search for a solution to the mess we're in, it behooves us to look at how John F. Kennedy handled the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Personally, that crisis led to a 5-year tour in the US Air Force for me.

As horrible and dangerous as the present crisis is, those of us that held our breath during some very tense moments that October realized that we were on the brink of a world-wide nuclear holocaust. That crisis represented the greatest potential danger to the world in all of human history.

President Kennedy held firm and stood up to the Soviets as he should have and the confrontation was resolved. What was not known at the time was the reassessment of our policy that placed nuclear missiles in the Soviet's back yard, in Turkey. These missiles were quietly removed a few months later and the world became a safer place in which to live. Eventually, we won the cold war without starting World War III.

Our enemy today, as formidable as he is, cannot compare to the armed might of the Soviet Union in the fall of 1962.

Wisdom and caution on Kennedy's part in dealing with the crisis was indeed "a profile in courage." But his courage was not only in his standing up to the Soviets, but his willingness to re-examine our nuclear missile presence in Turkey, which if it had been known at the time would have been condemned as an act of cowardice.

President Bush now has the challenge to do something equally courageous and wise. This is necessary if we expect to avert a catastrophic World War III. When the President asks for patience as he and his advisors deliberate, seeking a course of action, all Americans should surely heed his request.

Mr. Speaker, I support President Bush and voted for the authority and the money to carry out his responsibility to defend this country, but the degree of death and destruction and chances of escalation must be carefully taken into consideration.

It is only with sadness that I reflect on the support, the dollars, the troops, the weapons and training provided by US taxpayers that are now being used against us. Logic should tell us that intervening in all the wars of the world has been detrimental to our self-interest and should be reconsidered.

The efforts of a small minority in Congress to avoid this confrontation by voting for the foreign policy of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and all the 19th century presidents went unheeded. The unwise policy of supporting so many militants who later became our armed enemies makes little sense whether it's bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. A policy designed to protect America is wise and frugal and hopefully it will once again be considered. George Washington, as we all know, advised strongly, as he departed his presidency, that we should avoid all entangling alliances with foreign nations.

The call for a non-interventionist foreign policy over past years has fallen on deaf ears. My suggestions made here today may meet the same fate. Yet, if truth is spoken, ignoring it will not negate it. In that case something will be lost. But, if something is said to be true and it is not and is ignored, nothing is lost. My goal is to contribute to the truth and to the security of this nation.

What I have said today is different from what is said and accepted in Washington as conventional wisdom, but it is not in conflict with our history or our constitution. It's a policy that has, whenever tried, generated more peace and prosperity than any other policy for dealing with foreign affairs. The authors of the Constitution clearly understood this. Since the light of truth shines brightest in the darkness of evil and ignorance, we should all strive to shine that light.

Sometime in the mid-1800's the human population exceeded it's ability to sustain itself without industrialization of farming, storage, processing, and transportation. For the subsequent 150 years (and undoubtedly continuing into the future for some indeterminable time), science has provided improvements in farming, storage, processing, and transportation that has kept pace with or exceeded the demand.

There have been exceptions including the chronic near-starvation in the Sahel and the blundering centralized planning of the USSR and Red China. Taken together, these natural and made-made events cost the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Absent industrial farming, storage, processing and transportation the chronic starvation we witness in the Sahel would expand beyond Africa and become planet-wide, until the human population returned to about half of our present population. That's a lot of rotting meat.

Currently, oil is the #1 source of hydrocarbons for fuel, pesticides, and lubricants. About 75% of the proven petroleum reserves occur in one location: the Middleast. http://www.rff.org/rff/News/Features/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&PageID=10701 Without that source the world would depend on petroleum from the rest of the planet until it could develop outer sources or alternative methods for industrial farming, transportation, storage, and manufacturing. Given several years lead-time we could probably adjust, even though the world economies would all collapse, leading to a cascade of subsequent and related problems. It would be far, far worse than the 1927 crash and would affect every person on the planet, even without starvation.

It would imperil the stability of the governments of all nations. The people everywhere on the planet would demand one thing of their various governments -- secure supply of petroleum.

In time the industrialized nations could adapt to the changes, but the transition would undoubtedly involve crushing poverty and starvation for millions, perhaps billions.

Bin Laden and others recognize this weakness and have been seeking to destabilize the countries of the region. Iran recognizes this weakness and along with Venezuela's president, has been calling for OPEC to exercise it's power while it can. Several years ago there was another president of an oil-rich state calling for a pan-Arab oil state to confront the oil-dependent states. He had tried and failed to invade one oil-rich state in pursuit of that goal. He tried and succeeded in militarily conquering a different one a few years later. He, along with Al Qaeda, called for regime change in ALL oil-rich Arab states except his own, of course. Despite long-term blockades he continued to plan for eventual conquest of the oil-rich Gulf states.

Had he succeeded he would have controlled 75% of the world's proven oil reserves.

B

Thank you for your succinct response. Given that assessment, why isn't this country's number one priority (as in emergency status) to eliminate our dependance on middle east oil? For example why aren't we spending as much to develop fusion energy as we are in the middle east?

For the long-term, what you suggest is the most rational path. If I'm not mistaken, every president since Richard Milhouse Nixon has tried to enact a long-term energy policy to address the problem of international dependence. Most of the really meaningful proposals come with a good bit of pain to the voters. Congress likes to give voters pretty colors and shiny things, not pain. So Congress (whichever party runs it) removes the painful stuff and enacts the portions with pretty colors and shiny objects. The major parties take-up the battle against each other and argue through mischaracterization of the plan(s) and ad hominem attacks. Then the president & congress declare victory and return to jousting over inconsequential things like flag burning. This inability to do a damned thing feeds conspiracy theorists who think government couldn't possibly be so incompetent and shallow, so there must be a gov behind the scenes that actually runs things.

Since in the long term we have no plan, we absolutely must protect ourselves from megalomaniacal dictators in the short term. Else, the world spirals into economic ruin and starvation.

B

I have thought for a long time one unspoken goal is to use theirs first.....saving ours for last.

Still developing alternative sources of energy is an excellent idea.

Tom W

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Same here, although we need to do more than that, as you recognize in your comment.

I have never understood how drilling in ANWAR makes us more secure in the long run. Aren't we better off saving that oil for a rainy day?

What is short-term?

What is long-term?

We would all love to see viable alternatives to burning fossil fuels, why isn't there 1 or more NOW?

Let's say short term is the time, in months that it would take to deplete all oil reserves within the jurisdictional boundary of the USA, at the current rate of consumption. Anybody know what that is? I don't. So let's say it is 5 years. Also, let's constrain that by saying an alternative must cost equal to or less than 2x what petroleum costs, and must pollute less than or equal to oil.

What technology is there that could be a substitute, given the above constraints? I bet if we dammed every stream and used every bit of geothermal energy, and bio-fueled up to the point of infringing on food crops, and put windmills, and nuked our little hearts out on every suitable place, that we would still come up short. There simply is no alternative within the constraints that could be on line in 5 years.

So let's fudge a bit and relax the pollution constraint. Let's say we build all of the above PLUS we have coal that can be mined as a substitute. We could also build facilities to produce liquid fuels from coal.

Any other alternatives that could be up and running in 5 years?

What if we don't have 5 years? What if Al Qaeda or Iran successfully blocks the straights of Hormuz and topples several key governments -- we might have a few months to do something before industrial farming, produce storage, produce processing, and produce transportation starts to attenuate. What do we do then?

Bot

PS Concerning ANWR ... There is there a model that we can use to determine the liklihood of impacts due to development at ANWR. How much enviro damage has been done in Alaska due to development of the Prudoe Bay and North Slope fields? Is there reason to believe that ANWR would be worse, the same, or better?

I don't know. Even if the environmental harm caused by drilling at ANWR is slight, national security interests say that we keep that oil for future reserves.

That's my amateur's viewpoint of ANWR. I'm sure that it is simplistic, but I have never heard a proponent of drilling in ANWR respond to it.

Use it now or use it later, it's all the same to me.

If drilling started today I doubt a drop of oil would enter the market for several years.

The argument that it "only" supplies X months of oil is a non-argument to me. The same could be said for any number of oil fields in the USA and around world. In aggregate, they add-up to decades of oil. If we followed the argument all the way to absurdity, we shouldn't burn any of it since it is all non-renewable.

My great hope is that someday we (humanity) will develop controllable, economical fusion power. However, I wouldn't bet on it happening. I think there's a very large chance that controllable, economical fusion is impossible.

A far more prosaic (and far more likely) source of hydrocarbon fuel is from photosynthesis. At this point we depend on plants to do the dirty deed. If we could photosynthesize without the crusty middleman (plants), we could produce 6-carbon molecules using sunlight, the atmosphere, and water. Energy would be from the Sun -- cheap and abundant. It could also be useful in long voyages in spacecraft.

B

I think we could approach a savings of 50% in buildings and in automobiles. I doubt that there is anywhere near that amount of savings available from improving effeciency of trucks.

I wonder what percentage of our oil is used making plastics?

Tom W

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.