Paul shines when he has more than a couple minutes to represent his position, especially on foreign policy. He makes a point to emphasize his philosophy is not one of isolation from the world, but one where we don’t stick our nose where it doesn’t belong.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW25hR6M8J0

The idea would be to trade in America’s my-gun-is-bigger-than-yours foreign policy for a more constitution-oriented, defense-focused effort. Sure, it would permit the terrorists to openly claim victory. So what? This is the kind of victory that, in the end, helps reduce terrorism. Once victorious, what is their recruiting incentive?

I know what you’re thinking: “But they hate us because we are free! They’ll just continue what they are doing!”

“They hate us because we are free” is the neo-conservative equivalent of the “truther” claim that “9/11 was an inside job”. Just because it becomes a convenient narrative for pundits on either side doesn’t necessarily make it true.

Read Robert Pape, Michael Scheuer (former head of CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit), or Osama bin Laden himself to find out that the real motivation for Al-Qaeda is our persistent interventions in the Middle East.

Even if the “freedom hate” argument were true, is that hate deep enough to turn non-extremist Muslims into suicide bombers? Successful suicide bombers do not live very long. New recruits are always needed. It’s an infinitely easier path toward graduating from the University of Al-Qaeda with a degree in suicide bombing if the instructors can point to America as an occupier, torturer, and murderer. Without America’s presence Al-Qaeda leaders would have zero credibility if they attempted to paint America with such a brush. Continuing our interventions gives their leaders perfect suicide bomber recruit-fodder.

I find it sadly humorous that Obama gets criticized from the Right on foreign policy. They label him weak, yet he’s merely continuing the same policies that made Bush a hero to those very same people. Hypocrisy abounds. The original Tea Party was made up of patriots who protested an overseas intervention. Today the Tea Parties are over-run with a faction, commonly called “tea-ocons”, that supports America behaving like Britain did back in the 1770’s. These are flawed principles unworthy of the Tea Party moniker.

Many people who oppose government-run health care love to point out how government is inept at everything it does. You’ll get no argument from me on that, but if that is true then why do many of these people also believe that the government can be successful in bullying the world toward freedom? It’s an absurd notion. To win the “War on Terror” we must withdraw and call it a tactic for victory rather than a strategy for admitting defeat.

Once the bully’s gun rises, liberty becomes impossible.

In 1773 it was Britain’s tea tax on the colonies that moved the American revolutionaries to protest by dumping tea into the Boston harbor. In late 2007 a tribute to that protest occurred on it’s 234th anniversary when $6.04 million was raised in a single day for Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign. In 2009 the Tea Party tribute reached some kind of critical mass with various protests all over America.

Did this happen because the U.S. citizens suddenly realized that their government no longer represented them? Or did this happen because they were just pissed that Barack Obama was elected President instead of Johnny “Maverick” McCain?

It’s important to look at the origins of this “movement”. It all goes back to Ron Paul, or rather, Ron Paul’s grassroots supporters. They were the nuts that commissioned a freakin’ blimp to fly up and down the east coast “advertising” their candidate. They were the nuts that littered America with signs (homemade and otherwise) in every city, town, and suburb. They were the nuts that organized following each debate to vote for their candidate in the post-debate text polls.

They were in your face and you either hated it, tolerated it, or loved it. No matter what your reaction, you can’t deny their dedication. I’m not sure I see that kind of dedication from the Tea Party movement yet. Even though they try to portray that they are angered at the growth of government, many seem to be dedicated to their dislike of Barack Obama and not much else. Bad-mouthing Bush now, comes off as merely lip-service or useless 20/20 hindsight.

Ron Paulers have been doing it since 2007 and are still doing it. The evidence is all around us. Ron Paul’s books are consistent best sellers. His Federal Reserve audit bill has 317 sponsors, including every House Republican and over 100 Democrats. That bill, in the form of an amendment, is contained within Barney Frank’s financial regulatory bill that passed the House and is now waiting for Senate action. Paul is omnipresent on main stream media outlets like CNN, FOX, and MSNBC. He’s a political celebrity that draws huge crowds for conferences and speaking engagements. Politicians seek endorsements from him. In a word, he is “hot” right now, politically speaking.

The best thing to conservatives was for Barack Obama to be elected President. It has galvanized and united many Republicans, libertarians, free market economists, and many independents disillusioned with America’s power elite. However, below the surface runs a very deep divide when it comes to foreign policy. This divide is between those like Ron Paul who support non-intervention and those that support our current policy, the Bush doctrine of preventive war.

Interestingly, this divide cannot be found between Democrats and Republicans. Fundamentally, both parties support the Bush doctrine of preventive war. They may disagree on the specifics of tertiary issues like which country to invade, but there is no difference on policy. This “invade or die” policy is the poison pill that will ultimately bring about our demise because we simply cannot afford it any longer.  Perhaps it should be rephrased, “Invade and die… eventually.”

The jury is still out whether the Tea Party Movement will last. I suspect it may dwindle away once a Republican is in the White House, likely 2012 at the rate Obama is going right now. It’s “cool” to be anti-government these days, but a non-interventionist foreign policy is still “that which will not be discussed”.

Neo-conservative interventionists firmly believe that “they hate us because we are free”. Liberty-conservative non-interventionists firmly believe that they hate us because we meddle in their affairs. How do we reconcile this divide? Is it even possible?

I believe it is, but I don’t think the reconciliation can come from Ron Paul. He carries too much negative baggage among neo-cons from his 2008 campaign. I think it could come from a candidate like Rand Paul. He frames the argument in a palatable way for interventionists. Lib-cons need a candidate like him to help avoid turning off the other side before the debate even begins.

In practice, the best argument for a non-interventionist foreign policy is not the cost argument. Yes it costs way too much, but die-harders don’t care about that. To them any amount is worth it.  The better argument is to ask them if they would enjoy having a random muslim family set up a camp in their back yard and use up their household resources (utilities) like water and electricity for as long as they feel is necessary. If someone knew of a best argument then there’d be a lot less interventionists walking around nowadays.

I keep hearing commentators like Glenn Beck tell us that the Tea Party movement is about values and principles and goes beyond partisanship. To his credit he is critical of John McCain, calling him a progressive. Yet he seems to be enamored with Sarah Palin, who to me is nothing more than a partisan pin-up girl of the interventionist neo-conservatives.

In her recent interview with Glenn Beck they discuss the need for Federal Reserve transparency. She actually says the following:

“It’s one of the things we are thankful for Glenn, that you are bringing this to light. And um, I don’t know anybody else who is.”

No mention of Ron Paul and his 317 cosponsors for HR.1207 and 30 cosponsors in the Senate for the companion bill. No mention of Ron Paul who has been shouting for Fed transparency for over 35 years. Palin is demonstrating where the partisanship truly resides. She is the Tea Party movement’s supreme double agent.

So is the Tea Party movement going to fade away and be considered the fad of 2009? Will the movement extinguish itself  if the Republicans win a significant number of legislative seats back in 2010 or if they win the White House in 2012?

I expect it will, but then again I’m a libertarian-leaning cynic and freedom-loving Ron Paul nut. So what the heck do I know about politics in our non-imaginary dystopian world?

Shortly past George Washington University and down a gentle slope loomed the Lincoln Memorial, huge and compelling even from blocks away. I had been there years ago in the daytime, mingling with crowds, and was somewhat impressed, but I had not anticipated the nighttime effect. Approaching the broad steps, I started to feel some unusual, primal emotions as the visual impact took hold. The structure atop the mound is a faithful copy of a Doric temple, not unlike a restored Parthenon. The exterior is illuminated with floodlights, and there is somehow a dark interior contrast to the emanations of the shining white marble statue of Lincoln within, which seemed to me to glow with power, like a captured being of fire, and to reach out between the spaces of the 36 massive columns. I realized that ancient psychoactive architectural techniques had been used with impressive effect. In fact, designer Henry Bacon had used as his general model the Temple of Zeus in Olympia. On the steps were light crowds, laughing and lively, but people became silent within. The sheer size of the statue in its huge vault would be enough to engender reverence, whether it were of Zeus or a politician.

For a while it was enough to stand and gaze at the figure in silence. Then I started reading the inscriptions on the walls. First, the second inaugural address on the north wall, then the Gettysburg Address on the south wall. Finally I returned to the statue and read the inscription directly above Lincoln’s head (written by Royal Cortissoz, American art historian and art critic):

IN THIS TEMPLE
AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE
FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION
THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
IS ENSHRINED FOREVER

A temple! Here’s a quick review of what a temple is, per Webster: “ A building devoted to the worship, or regarded as the dwelling place, of a god or gods or other objects of religious reverence.”

I was almost dizzy at the implication: the unstated purpose of the Lincoln Memorial was to deify Lincoln. Was this kosher? I wondered. Certainly it went against the concept that “all men are created equal,” and separation of church and state, and the founding fathers’ break with monarchy, with its divine right of kings.

The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in 1922, when the Civil War was still a living memory for many. Was deification of Lincoln a means to solidify the North’s victory, the unification of the country and the emancipation of the slaves?

I pondered the other well known presidential memorials.

The Jefferson memorial, completed in 1943, was patterned by its designer, John Russell Pope, after the Roman Pantheon, a temple dedicated to all the gods.

The Washington Monument was built by Freemasons in the 1880’s to be, in part, a “shrine of the ancient craft.” Webster on the original meaning of “shrine”: “A place regarded as holy because of its associations with a divinity or a sacred person or relic.” Washington, himself a Freemason, is referred to as a “Worshipful Master,” though the Freemasons go to lengths to explain that the epithet “worshipful master” does not deify a person, which would be blasphemous, but only designates him as “venerable.” Dan Brown’s elaborations aside, the oft noted phallic nature of the Washington Monument might be a more productive approach. The world’s biggest lingam stone!

Anyway, the question is: With all the importance we place on our humanistic origins, where do we get off sneaking in deification of our mortal politicians?

From a governance point of view, deification seems practical. We are a gigantic republic, and we often have to use whatever is handy to keep our people together and somewhat obedient. Certainly if our founding leaders are now gods, then national cohesion would behoove us.

What about modern practice? Do we still deify presidents? Perhaps all the pomp and expense surrounding presidents while they’re alive is a form of deification. If so, that would be a modern version. In 1840, Edgar Allen Poe is said to have knocked on the White House door to discuss a government job with President John Tyler. He did meet with the president, though he, Poe, was drunk and the appointment did not ensue. Can you imagine a drunken poet knocking on the White House door today, asking to see the president and then seeing him? Well actually, you’d probably have to be a drunken poet to try it. We have made the president into the most important person in the country, with his own fiercely guarded giant mansion, jet plane, fleet of limos and the rest, when in fact he’s just our top bureaucrat. Perhaps we need to believe in an exaggerated importance of leaders for the sake of national identity, but that’s a weakness in the state, not a strength.

I don’t know if we need a second American revolution to bring us back to our original humanistic concepts. Revolutions stray notoriously far from their stated intentions. We’d probably end up deifying the people who led the charge, analogous to encasing the likeness of secularist Jefferson in a pantheon.

Would it be too much to hope, though, that an American president now and then could personally dispense with the excessive trappings and just do his job? Of course, the downside might be that if he were at all successful we’d probably deify him.

Doug Lasken is a retired L.A. high school English teacher and freelancer. Write to him at doug.lasken@gmail.com

If you want the Supreme Court to hear this argument please make a tax-deductible contribution for this purpose to the Downsize DC Foundation.

Why this is important

Statism is the belief that politicians and bureaucrats should have broad powers to use force against citizens. In its most virulent forms Statism killed more people in the 20th Century alone than all of the individual non-governmental murderers in the history of the world, COMBINED!

Professor R.J. Rummel estimates the total murderous death-toll of Statism at about 170 million people!

Not even the Black Death of the Middle Ages, or the Flu epidemic of 1918, can approach these numbers, even if you combine the totals from those two epidemics and reduce the estimate for the total number of murders committed by governments.

But the terrible statistics for Statist murder still only tell part of the story. We must add to them the statistics for the mass theft, imprisonment, and torture committed by governments against innocent people. These measurements of State criminality are even more vast, so much so that they are literally incalculable.

The State, and the belief-system that fosters its criminality — Statism — are the great scourges of human existence, against which no other source of death and destruction can remotely compare.

Of course, in reaction to all of these blood-curdling facts the fool argues that such things could never happen in this country. The same foolish belief was held by people in Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, and a hundred other places, before such things DID happen in those countries. But such naivety is also exposed by one other crucial fact . . .

Murderous and violent crimes by the State have already been committed by our government, on a massive scale. A partial list would include . . .

• Our government’s eviction of the law-abiding Cherokees from the South Eastern U.S., the confiscation of their property, and the “Trail of Tears” Death March to Oklahoma that followed
• Repeated massacres of Indian women and children by U.S. Army death squads throughout the 19th Century
• Two hundred years of State-enforced, multi-generational captivity for Africans, and the continual rape and torture that accompanied this enslavement
• One hundred years of State-enforced segregation of Africans over broad stretches of the United States, including the unofficial collaboration by police in lynchings and beatings against unarmed African-Americans
• The mass murder of Filipinos in a campaign of colonial subjugation following the Spanish-American war (which was supposedly fought against colonialism!)
• The internment of innocent Japanese-Americans in concentration camps during World War II

The United States is indeed special, but not as special as blind, adolescent patriotism wants to believe. And what remains of our specialness is under relentless and increasing pressure. We have argued elsewhere that . . .

• President George W. Bush laid the basic infrastructure for a future police state, and that .
• President Obama has retained, and in some cases expanded, all the Bush-era policies — the PATRIOT Act, warrantless spying, REAL ID, imprisonment without due process, extraordinary rendition, etc.
• Some future crisis, or series of calamities, could deploy this infrastructure in a freedom-crushing, and perhaps even murderous way

What has made America special are the controls that our Founders erected against the kind of Statist thuggery so-loved by President Bush, President Obama, and nearly all politicians. It is true that these controls have always been incomplete, and have failed repeatedly, as in the examples cited above. But it is also true that . . .

They have worked better than any other system yet devised by mortal man.

To remain special, and to become more special, we must preserve and even enhance every protection we have against State criminality. Some of these protections could be thought of as a series of boxes . . .

• The ballot box
• The jury box
• The mail box (which DownsizeDC.org is using in its modern electronic forms because the ballot and jury boxes have become so corrupted)
• And finally, as a last resort, the cartridge (ammo) box

Cartridge boxes are what . . .

• Jews, Gypsies, Poles and Russians needed against the Nazi Statists
• Russians, Chinese, Cambodians, and countless others needed against the Communist Statists
• Filipinos and many other peoples needed against American and other colonial Statists

Cartridge boxes may also be what Americans need someday, against their own government, if current trends explode into the kind of mass Statist gangsterism that so many other societies have suffered.

Our Founders gave us the Second Amendment for exactly this purpose. They were not thinking of self-defense against individual criminals when they wrote the Second Amendment the way they wrote it, though they did not exclude that purpose. Instead, they were thinking about Statist thugs . . .

The American people were to be armed as a final defense against Statist aggression, both foreign AND DOMESTIC. There is a mountain of evidence to support this view, and we want to see the Supreme Court exposed to this evidence. Do you?

The Downsize DC Foundation is joining with Gun Owners of America and several other organizations in the MacDonald case, which challenges the handgun ban in Chicago — also being called by some, “Heller II.” With your help we will be the ONLY GROUP submitting an amicus curiae brief making the argument that the Second Amendment is much more than permission to have a handgun in your home.

If you want to see this evidence presented to the Supreme Court, please make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE contribution for this purpose. You can do so here.

Jim Babka, President
Downsize DC Foundation

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h
is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

Decorated Marine, Foreign Service Official resigns

We’re lost — that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here,” said Specialist Raquime Mercer

The soldiers’ biggest question is: what can we do to make this war stop. Catch one person? Assault one objective? Soldiers want definite answers, other than to stop the Taleban, because that almost seems impossible. It’s hard to catch someone you can’t see

The chaplains said that many soldiers had lost their desire to help Afghanistan. “All they want to do is make it home alive and go back to their wives and children and visit the families who have lost husbands and fathers over here. It comes down to just surviving,” said Captain Masengale.

Full Article

Speaking of Robert Higgs, he will deliver a lecture on Monday evening at George Mason University. The event is free and is hosted by the Mason Economics Club and the Future of Freedom Foundation. For more details see the FFF web site and scroll down to the events section.

…Hamilton looks pleasant enough in his portrait on our $10 bill, but he was an arrogant egomaniac.

Hamilton was a determined opponent of Jefferson’s laissez-faire philosophy at every turn. When it came to trade, he demanded high protective tariffs because he thought, in the mercantilistic tradition, that if a nation produced “its own” goods rather than purchasing them from “other countries” it would become stronger. Mercantilism was inseparable from economic nationalism — the foolish and destructive idea that political boundaries have great economic significance. (We still suffer grievously from this idiocy, of course.) Individual American consumers would be harmed by artificially high prices for items they might have bought less expensively from producers in other countries, but Hamilton was not concerned about the problems of individuals. His obsession was with “strengthening” the nation.

In the early years of the United States, Hamilton battled against Jefferson’s reading of the Constitution as placing severe limits on federal authority. To Hamilton and his Federalist allies, the wording of the Constitution, especially the enumerated powers of Congress, meant nothing more than an intellectual game of trying to invent interpretations that gave the government “inherent” powers that it was not specifically given. Contrary to the sensible, restrictive reading of the Constitution defended by Jefferson, Hamilton insisted that the General Welfare and Commerce Clauses were meant to give the federal government almost limitless powers.

Leef then goes on to discuss the traitorous presidencies of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and disasters in the form of the 17th Amendment, the income tax, and the Federal Reserve Act.  I highly recommend reading the entire article.

The Constitution imposes on the government numerous burdens that we as individuals do not have. For example, I can tell my nephew to keep quiet at the dinner table because I don’t like what he said about grandma, but the First Amendment prevents the government from keeping him silent on a street corner when he criticizes it. Similarly, I can give a gift to some of my nephews and nieces because they are great kids, but I don’t need to give gifts of equal value, since I can spend my money on gifts however I wish. But the government has some burdens here that individuals do not. The Constitution requires that the government treat all persons similarly situated in a similar manner. This is the essence of “Equal Protection,” which the Constitution requires of the states and the federal government.

Napolitano goes on to cite case-law in which the Supreme Court has ruled that states may not deny people the right to an education based on citizenship status, and undoubtedly  “an education is in the same class of social benefits as providing health care.”  He points out that Obama with all his collegiate accolades certainly must know this.

Can anyone really suggest that the Harvard Law School-educated University of Chicago-employed professor of constitutional law did NOT know the law when he contended that the Congress can keep universal health care away from illegals? He must have known that, short of amending the Constitution to re-define “persons” and “Equal Protection”, whatever the Congress makes available by way of social services to the general population, it must make available to all persons.

There is no question that under the present law, Congress simply cannot pick and choose which “persons” to whom it will afford social benefits and to which “persons” it will not. How could the president not have known that?

Read Judge Napolitano’s article at FoxNews.com.

I was lucky enough to acquire an advanced copy of the movie. It went straight from the mailbox into my DVD player. You are going to adore this movie. In fact, you are going to EVOL this movie.

Without revealing too many details (I don’t want this to be a spoiler) it covers all of the major grassroots events, efforts, and activists that were the essence of the Ron Paul Revolution. It begins right around the time Ron Paul announced his candidacy and culminates with the Rally for the Republic.

The creators utilize the “Walk4Freedom” (perfectly I might add) as an avenue to tie the “story” together. The story is told by the grassroots activists themselves, individuals such as Michael Maresco  (Walk4Freedom, Ron Paul Rider, Ride For Honesty), Lawrence Lepard (Full Page Ron Paul Ad purchaser and organizer), Trevor Lyman (Money bomb promotion, Ron Paul Blimp), and many others.

The campaign was assisted greatly by the ability of the Internet to disseminate information quickly. Michael Nystrom, founder of The Daily Paul, is showcased. Also, Bryan and Josh of RonPaulForums are featured throughout along with several others.

Also appearing are some pundits, politicians, and radio show hosts. These include British MEP Daniel Hannan, Tom Woods, BJ Lawson, Jack Hunter, Doug Wead, Tucker Carlson, and more.

Perhaps the most important thing about the movie is that it highlights how change can happen beginning at the grassroots level if the message is right. It effectively demonstrates how these “crazy Ron Paul people” aren’t so crazy after all. This is hammered home with what has happened in America since the end of Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign: the economic crisis, Obama’s march toward socialism, the trans-partisan effort to audit the Federal Reserve, and so on.

Near the end of the film Ron Paul is seen in a video message ending his campaign for President. He tells us it is not the end but the beginning.  Today, there are some indications he was right.

His son, Rand Paul, is clawing his way into a Senate race in Kentucky by running on a similar platform and utilizing his father’s network of supporters. There are many liberty-minded candidates running for office in various races throughout the country. These people were all inspired by Ron Paul’s campaign. The great ones open doors for their followers to be even greater. I think this will be one of Ron Paul’s heroic legacies.

If the future be bleak with Orwell’s (or is it Obama’s?) “1984″ vision, rest assured this documentary will be banned from existence and illegal to own. And being banned in such an environment is the highest honor bestowed upon any work of art. I hope this extreme is never realized but if such an evil time is on the horizon I will keep this movie safely hidden. Gold is to the preservation of monetary value as this movie is to the preservation of liberty.

In Obama’s world communities need organizing. In Ron Paul’s world communities organize themselves. This is the open secret of the Ron Paul Revolution. It is a microcosm of the principles that founded our country: No central planning, individuals govern themselves and trade with each other. Of course, it’s not perfect, but it’s certainly better than the path we are on today.

This is not just a story about the Ron Paul Revolution. It is a blueprint for a better America.

That blueprint is a lot like the Kevin Costner character’s message in the movie, “Field of Dreams”. Instead of “Build it and they will come”, Ron Paul’s voice tells him: “Offer freedom and they will come.”

This movie proves that they have come and they aren’t going to fade away anytime soon.

——————————————-

Order your own copy of “For Liberty: How the Ron Paul Revolution Watered the Withered Tree of Liberty” right now.

It is scheduled to start shipping on September 23rd.

Bulk orders are available at a significant discount. The film is 115 minutes in length. The final production DVD will be stuffed with bonus material as well. See the list of bonus material below.

• Walk4Freedom extended director’s cut
• Delivering the blimp flag to RP in DC
• Campaign finance with Brad Smith (this is fascinating)
• Iraq Veterans Against the War w/ Adam Kokesh
• R3volution truckstop
• Thomas Woods’ “Lectures On Liberty” from the RP BBQ
• The High Tide CFL version (with optional subtitles for the hearing impaired)
• Making of The High Tide
• Restore the Republic w/ Gary Franchi
• The Philosophy Of Liberty
• Original teaser and trailer

Pledge to donate now! Then be sure to DONATE on August 20th.

Yesterday a new scientific poll was released showing that Rand Paul trails the establishment GOP candidate by only 11 percentage points. Rand showed up with 26% to Trey Grayson’s 37%. This is a very strong showing for an anti-establishment candidate challenging a career politician. There are still 9 months to go before the May 2010 GOP primary in Kentucky. This poll proves the viability of Paul. Grayson now has to prepare himself for a dogfight. A lot can happen in 9 months.

Here is our short interview with Rand Paul from earlier this week.

LM: Starting off with a bit of a personal question, what was it like growing up in the Ron Paul household? Was he as strict with his children as he is with following the Constitution?

Rand Paul: All the kids were into sports. My older brother was a nationally ranked swimmer and my younger brother played baseball in college. I swam for a non-scholarship program at Baylor. My earliest memories are of discussing politics with my father’s friends. I always gravitated to the adult conversation.

LM: Who is your favorite Founding Father and why?

Rand Paul: Jefferson. Of all the founders, he seemed to be able to articulate the message of liberty and limited government best. Like many of us he was imperfect and I wish he had been more committed to liberty for all without regard to race. Jefferson also, was personally not so fiscally sound with his own finances. While I am repelled by Adams support for the Alien and Sedition Acts, I do admire his New England work ethic and personal frugality.

LM: Who is your favorite American President and why?

Rand Paul: same (as above)

LM: You’ve mentioned that you support term limits in recent interviews. Does this mean you support a Constitutional amendment to institute term limits or are you of the opinion that term limits should be a personal decision for each office holder? If you get elected, how many terms will you serve?

Rand Paul: I support both a Constitutional amendment and/or legislation if it could be done Constitutionally. Voluntary term limits have not worked because the good Congressmen kept the pledge and went home and the creeps broke their pledges and stayed. Also, only a very small percentage, maybe ten to fifteen, ever were elected with a voluntary pledge.

LM: Health care reform is the latest fight on Capitol Hill. Recently, the Obama administration has modified its position a bit on the “public option” by suggesting they’d be open to non-profit health insurance cooperatives. Is this compromise something you could vote for as a Senator?

Rand Paul: No

LM: Why or why not?

Rand Paul: I am opposed to the government deciding what kind of insurance policies are legal. I have a Health Savings Account, presumably this policy will not be approved by the government coop.

LM: What can you say to your potential constituents to ease their minds about the potential for Washington corrupting you as it has done to so many in the past?

Rand Paul: I am not a career politician. I will vote against pork barrel spending and happily return to my job as a physician if the electorate tires of that stance.

LM: On your web site’s issues page, you have some very strong words favoring gun rights and the 2nd Amendment. Would you vote for any kind of restriction on guns such as trigger locks, waiting periods, background checks, or closing the “gun loophole”?

Rand Paul: No

LM: Are you a gun owner?

Rand Paul: Yes.

LM: Your father has signed on to a bill (HR.2267) sponsored by Barney Frank. This bill, in essence, makes online poker legal, but regulates/licenses it at the federal level. Do you support such bills? What is your view on this bill and Internet regulation in general?

Rand Paul: I am opposed to Federal regulation or taxation of the Internet.

————–

If you are a liberty-loving American supporting Rand Paul truly is a no-brainer. With the publication of this interview we at Liberty Maven officially endorse his candidacy in the 2010 Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Kentucky.

With a little luck and a lot of money (please donate to his campaign!) we hope to be endorsing him in the general election this time next year.