I’ve seen many people incredulous that Ron Paul could somehow win the CPAC 2010 straw poll. I’ve seen it on Twitter, emails, blogs, and comments on blogs. I’ve read that people call him “crazy” or “liberal”. I even witnessed someone say they would vote for Hitler if he was running against Ron Paul. Yeah, and Ron Paul is the crazy one.
So if you believe Ron Paul is crazy on foreign policy I ask you to watch the following videos and learn why it’s quite possible Ron Paul is actually the sane and constitutional one on foreign policy.
If you don’t have 90 minutes to spare to watch both videos in their entirety then go to 16:55 of the 2nd video and just watch Jacob Hornberger’s speech. If you do have 90 minutes then please watch both parts in their entirety. This video is from last Saturday afternoon at CPAC 2010 from a panel discussion called, “Why Real Conservatives Are Against the War on Terrorism”.
The panel is made up of:
Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer.
Karen Kwiatkowski, retired U.S Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel whose assignments included duties as a Pentagon desk officer and a variety of roles for the National Security Agency.
Bruce Fein, associate deputy attorney general from 1981 to 1982 under President Ronald Reagan.
Bruce Fein. Well, obviously this is just some wishful thinking on my part. It does rival some other wishful thinking from others that the choice will be Judge Andrew Napolitano. No, none of us liberty lovers will get our choice among the nine. Obama will certainly get his choice, much to our unpleasantness.
After watching Bruce Fein in person deliver a lecture a few weeks ago I walked away with the opinion that every person in America should pay attention and heed his words of warning. Luckily, Fein appeared with Bill Moyers on PBS last week discussing torture, American empire, and executive branch overreach.
Interestingly enough his consistent view regarding prosecuting Bush/Cheney for war crimes is now carrying over to the question about what the Obama administration should do about it. Fein believes in the prosecution, but he also suggests that Obama pardons Bush/Cheney once the prosecution occurs in accordance with the law. Watch a great 30 minute discussion here at PBS and the extra web only 17 minute follow-up discussion.
For foreign policy see Bruce Fein. For free market economics see Robert Higgs. For history and economics see Thomas Woods. To support all of the above see Ron Paul.
On Monday a few of us here at Liberty Maven took the opportunity to attend a speech given by Bruce Fein at George Mason University as part of The Economic Liberty Lecture Series sponsored by The Future Of Freedom Foundation. I must admit I was surprised at how animated and passionate Fein was during his speech. I was expecting a more subdued speech after watching him testify on Capitol Hill and seeing him deliver the speech he gave at Ron Paul’s “Rally for the Republic” last year.
He spoke without notes and hammered home the ideas of foreign policy non-interventionism. The Q and A period following his talk was in some ways better and more passionate than the speech itself. Luckily the FFF recorded the entire event and has put it online for viewing.
It’s hosted at Vimeo which sometimes presents connection problems for me, but your patience with it loading will pay off in the end when you get to watch this foreign policy expert rip apart any notion of supporting the idea of American empire.
I’ve long held that just about every U.S. President and U.S. Congressman deserve to be hanged (or at least some sort of punishment) for violating their oaths of office.
Upon entering office, U.S. Presidents must pledge:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Similarly, members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives must affirm:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.
If our public servants aren’t held to their oaths, then the oaths are rendered meaningless.
In similar fashion, Bruce Fein has opined in the San Francisco Chronicle, that the actions of President Bush and Vice President Cheney have violated the Constitution in a variety of ways, and indeed deserve censure. Here’s a piece of what Fein had to say:
By wielding the threat of international terrorism, the Bush-Cheney team put the nation on a permanent war footing – the first time in history that war has been undertaken against a tactic. They maintained that the entire post-9/11 world is an active battlefield where United States military force may be used to kill suspected members of al Qaeda irrespective of international boundaries.
They claimed executive privilege and state secrets to conduct secret government – thereby circumventing political and legal accountability. This included directives to former White House officials Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to flout congressional subpoenas for testimony. They detained hundreds of people (including American citizens) as enemy combatants without accusation or trial. They authorized torture (waterboarding and extraordinary rendition), abductions, secret prisons and illegal surveillance of American citizens.
Like its immediate predecessors, the 110th Congress eagerly yielded its authorities – even the power of the purse – to the president. The Iraqi War Resolution, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments, and the declination to hold Rove in contempt of Congress were emblematic.
If left unrebuked, the Bush-Cheney usurpations of power will become part of the constitutional firmament and risk creating a safe harbor for future presidential abuses. Every member of Congress, moreover, is required to take an oath to “support (the) Constitution” pursuant to Article VI. There is no corresponding oath to support the Republican or Democratic parties or to subordinate the Constitution in the name of political harmony. Censure would be no novelty.
Bruce Fein, a laywer who specializes in constitutional and international law, gave what arguably could be considered one of the best speeches at Ron Paul’s Rally For The Republic earlier this year. He also testified at a Congressional hearing regarding the Executive Branch’s (i.e. Bush Administration’s) power-hungry ways. In light of Obama’s (and the Congress’) endorsement of Troubled Asset Relief Act of 2008 (TARA) — in addition to all the financial bailouts to date — Fein wrote an editorial in the Washington Times, railing against such ill advised interventions which he claims “reward political machinations inside the Beltway; distort economic competition by favoring some industries or companies over others; and, kill new jobs or innovation – earmarks of a healthy economy.”
Writing 220 years ago in Federalist 62, James Madison descried incessant changes in the law that altered the economic playing field. Legal instability confers on lobbyists and their clients a preferred position over men and women whose labors are economically productive. Anticipating modern-day Jack Abramoffs, Madison observed that mutability in government financial decrees gives “unreasonable advantage … to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uninformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY.”
Fein goes on to illustrate how Madison’s sage words fits today’s situation perfectly. Read the whole article here.
Liberty Maven
I’ve long held that just about every U.S. President and U.S. Congressman deserve to be hanged (or at least some sort of punishment) for violating their oaths of office.
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