Rand Paul to outline ‘constitutional conservative’ foreign policy of peace

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul will deliver a wide-ranging foreign policy address at the Heritage Foundation next Wednesday, marking the tea party lawmaker’s latest foray into international affairs.

“At this lecture, Senator Rand Paul will discuss his vision of a foreign policy that respects the plain language of our Constitution, the legal powers of Congress and the important role of a strong presidency,” the invitation says. “It will stress the need for maintaining the strongest national defense among nations while also questioning what constitutes actual ‘defense.’”

Paul acknowledges the United States “presently faces national security challenges from hostile nations throughout the world,” but argues that “overextending our military forces by engaging in prolonged conflict throughout the Middle East and around the globe has not been an effective foreign policy. ”

“Sen. Paul will ask what qualifies as America’s genuine national interest,” according to the invitation. “He will also ask what aspects of our current policies do not.”

Paul recently returned from a trip to…

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Source: Daily Caller

Ron Paul's New Years Message to Congress

By Ron Paul

As I prepare to retire from Congress I’d like to suggest a few New Year’s resolutions for my colleagues to consider. For the sake of liberty, peace and prosperity I certainly hope more members of Congress consider the strict libertarian-constitutional approach to government in 2013.

In just a few days, Congress will solemnly swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They should read Article 1 Section 8 and the Bill of Rights before taking such a serious oath. Most legislation violates key provisions of the Constitution in very basic ways, and if members can’t bring themselves to say “no” in the face of pressure from the special interests, they have broken trust with their constituents and violated their oath. Congress does not exist to serve the special interests. It exists to protect the rule of law.

I also urge my colleagues to end unconstitutional wars overseas. Stop the drone strikes. Stop the covert activities and the meddling in the internal affairs of other nations. Strive to observe good faith and justice towards all nations, as George Washington admonished. We are only making more enemies, wasting lives and bankrupting ourselves with the neoconservative interventionist mindset that endorses preemptive war that now dominates both parties.

All foreign aid should end, which is blatantly unconstitutional. While it may be a relatively small part of our federal budget, for many countries it is a large part of theirs and it creates perverse incentives for both our friends and enemies. There is no way members of Congress can know or understand the political, economic, legal and social realities in the many nations to which they send taxpayers’ dollars.

Congress needs to stop accumulating more debt. U.S. debt monetized by the Federal Reserve is the true threat to our national security. Revisiting the parameters of Article 1 Section 8 would be a good start.

Congress should resolve to respect personal liberty and free markets. Learn more about the free market and how it regulates commerce and produces greater prosperity ever than any legislation or regulation.

Understand that economic freedom is freedom. Resolve not to get in the way of voluntary contracts between consenting adults. Stop bailing out failed yet politically connected companies and industries. Stop forcing people to engage in commerce when they don’t want to, and stop prohibiting them from buying and selling when they want to. Stop trying to legislate your ideas of fairness. Protect property rights. Protect the individual. That is enough.

There are many more resolutions I would like to see my colleagues in Congress adopt, but respect for the Constitution and the oath of office should be at the core of every single member’s of Congress due in 2013.

Senator Rand Paul Introduces 4th Amendment Protection Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Sen. Rand Paul took to the Senate floor to introduce and speak about his amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012, H.R.5949. The amendment, known as the Fourth Amendment Protection Act and co-sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) extends Fourth Amendment guarantees to electronic communications and requires specific warrants granted through FISA courts in order to obtain this information.

Below is a transcript and video of Sen. Paul's remarks today on his amendment.

I rise today in support of the Fourth Amendment Protection Act. The Fourth Amendment guarantees the right of the people to be secure in their persons, their houses and their papers and their effects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

John Adams considered the fight against general warrants, or what they called in those days 'writs of assistance,' he considered this fight to be when the child Independence was born. Our independence and the Fourth Amendment go hand in hand. They emerge together. To discount or to dilute the Fourth Amendment would be to deny really what constitutes our very republic.

But somehow along the way, we became lazy and haphazard in our vigilance. We allowed Congress and the courts to diminish our Fourth Amendment protections, particularly when we gave our papers to a third party. Once you gave information to an Internet provider or to a bank. Once we allowed our papers to be held by a third party, such as telephone companies or Internet providers, the courts determined that we no longer had a legally recognized expectation of privacy.

Now, there have been some dissents over time. Justice Marshall dissented in the California Bankers Association v. Shultz case, and he wrote these words - "the fact that one has disclosed private papers to a bank for a limited purpose within the context of a confidential customer-bank relationship does not mean that you have waived all right to the privacy of your papers."

But privacy and the Fourth Amendment have steadily lost ground over the past century. From the California Bankers Association case to Smith v. Maryland to U.S. v. Miller. The majority has ruled that your records, once they are held by a third party, don't deserve the same Fourth Amendment protections. Ironically, though, digital records seem to get less protection than paper records. As the National Association of Defense Attorneys has pointed out, since the 1870's, the government must get a warrant to look and read your mail, as is the case of Katz v. The United States, the government has been required to have a warrant to tap your phone. However, under current law, your e-mail, your text messages and other electronic communications do not receive the same level of protection as your phone calls do. Why is a phone call deserving of more protection than your e-mail or your text? Justice Sotomayor in U.S. v. Jones, the recent supreme court case that says the government can't put a GPS tracking device on your car without a warrant says this - "I for one doubt that people would accept without complaint the warrantless disclosure of the government to the government of a list of every website they have visited in the last week, month or year. I would not assume that all information voluntarily disclosed to some member of the public for unlimited purpose is for that reason alone disentitled to the Fourth Amendment protections.

Justices Marshall and Brennan, dissenting in Smith v. Maryland said in emphasizing the dangers in giving up Fourth Amendment protections, they wrote -- "the prospect of government monitoring will undoubtedly prove disturbing, even to those with nothing illicit to hide. Many individuals, including members of unpopular political organizations or journalists with confidential sources, may legitimately wish to avoid disclosure of their personal contacts."

In Miller and in Smith, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment did not protect records held by third parties. Sotomayor wrote in the jones case that it may be time to reconsider these cases, reconsider how they were decided, that their approach is, in her words, ill-suited to the digital age in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks.

Today, this amendment that I will present, the Fourth Amendment Protection Act, does precisely that. This amendment would restore the Fourth Amendment protection to third party records. This amendment would simply apply the Fourth Amendment to modern means of communications. E-mailing and text messaging would be given the same protections we currently give to telephone conversations. Some may ask well, why go to such great lengths to protect records? Isn't the government just interested in the records of bad people?

Well, to answer this question, you must imagine your Visa statement and imagine what information is on your Visa statement. From your Visa statement, the government may be able to ascertain what magazines you read, whether you drink and how much, whether you gamble and how much, whether you're a conservative, a liberal, a libertarian, whom do you contribute to, who is your preferred political party, whether you attend a church, a synagogue or a mosque, whether you see a psychiatrist, what type of medication do you take. By poring over your Visa statement, the government can pry into every aspect of your personal life. Do you really want to allow your government unfettered access to sift through millions and millions of records without first obtaining a judicial warrant? If we have people who are accused of committing a crime, we go before a judge and get a warrant. It's not that hard.

I'm not saying we won't be allowed to look through records, but I'm just saying that the mass of ordinary, innocent citizens should not have their records rifled through by a government who does not first have to ask a judge for a warrant before they look at your personal records.

We have examples in the past, in our own country, of abuses of government. During the civil rights era, the government snooped on activists. During the Vietnam era, the government snooped on antiwar protesters. In a digital age where computers can process billions of bits of information, do we want the government to have unfettered access to every detail of our lives? From your Visa statement, the government can determine what diseases you may or may not have, whether you're I impotent, manic, depressed, whether you're a gun owner, whether you buy ammunition, whether you're an animal rights activist, whether you're an environmental activist, what books you order, what blogs you read, what stores or Internet sites you look at. Do you really want your government to have free and unlimited access to everything you do on your computer?

The Fourth Amendment was written in a different time and a different age, but its necessity and its truth are timeless. The right to privacy, and for that matter, the right to private property, are not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, but the Ninth Amendment says that the rights not stated are not to be disparaged or denied. James Otis, arguably the father of the Fourth Amendment, put it best when he said one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle, and while he is quiet, he is as well-guarded as a prince in his castle. Today's castle may be your apartment, and who knows where the information is coming from. It may be paper in your apartment, but it may be bits of data stored who knows where, but there is a reason why our government should be restrained from invading a sphere of privacy that is a timeless concept. Over the past few decades, our right to privacy has been eroded. The Fourth Amendment Protection Act will go a long way to restoring this cherished and necessary right.

I hope that my colleagues will consider supporting, defending and enhancing the Fourth Amendment, bringing it into a modern age when modern electronic and computer information and communications are once again protected by the Fourth Amendment. Thank you, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Source: Paul.senate.gov

Neoconservative Fallacies in Aggressive Foreign Policy

By Zach Foster, resident writer of A Blogging Spot

Many neoconservative Republicans enjoy using the same amount of straw man arguments and slippery slopes that leftists use against the GOP’s libertarian/Constitutionalist faction.  Their methods are often the same while only the content of their rhetoric differs.  One of the neoconservatives’ main criticisms of the liberty faction is the fallacious slippery slope that not having American military bases all over the world will lead to constant terror attacks against the homeland and possible invasions by foreign armies.

Many neoconservatives who most fanatically support a foreign policy of imperialism under the euphemism of Pax Americana will tout their own military service from a bygone era, most often occurring during a time of peace.  Discussions with actual combat veterans reveal that those who fought in America’s wars tend to be warier of an aggressive foreign policy, being fully conscious of the possibility that the beloved country for which they fought and bled may begin to resemble the aggressive evils they fought against.

Neoconservatives with veteran status often attempt to…  (Read more)

Source: A Blogging Spot

Your golden opportunity NOW to bring Ron Paul supporters into the LP

Dear fellow Libertarian,

A lot of former Libertarian Party members have campaigned for Ron Paul for the Republican Nomination for President.

Thousands of potential LP supporters have campaigned for Ron Paul’s nomination.

We have a huge opportunity before us to get them to join, and rejoin, the Libertarian Party. And we need your help now.

The gallant efforts of Ron Paul supporters to clinch the 2012 Republican nomination for president will soon come to an end – at the Republican Presidential Nominating Convention in Tampa, Florida at the end of August.

As Ron Paul himself has said, he will likely fall short of the delegates he needs to win the GOP nomination.

When it’s over, where will his supporters go?

God forbid they go to Republican Mitt Romney, Democrat Barrack Obama or any of the many “conservative” or “liberal” organizations that give lip service to liberty – while working to destroy it.

We have an opportunity to attract these true Ron Paul, liberty supporters to the Libertarian Party. But we must act today.

Several Ron Paul events are planned for August 24-26th in Tampa in conjunction with a major rally organized by Ron Paul himself on Sunday, August 26th, just before the GOP convention which begins on the following Monday.

The Libertarian Party has an opportunity to have a presence at these rallies.  Our presidential nominee, Governor Gary Johnson, is already booked to speak at one on Saturday.

We want LP advertisements, banners and promotional materials at booths, on stage, and everywhere we can get them at these festivals. We want additional LP speakers so that everyone who attends hears the message that the Libertarian Party is the place for them to be.

To do this we must buy a sponsorship package and commit to participate. But the window for this opportunity may close any time in the next few days. Which is why we must raise funds and commit to buying a sponsorship immediately.

This will be a golden opportunity for the LP to get our message out and show Ron Paul supporters that, should he not win the GOP nomination, the Libertarian Party is the bar-none, highest leverage, best way possible to keep the flame of liberty alive right through the General Election in November - and beyond.

The Libertarian Party is the only party that for forty years:

·         has fought to end the Federal Reserve and reckless fiscal policy

·         has fought to draw down high taxes and high government spending

·         has fought to get the U.S. out of foreign wars

·         has fought to end the destructive War on Drugs

·         has cleared the mine field and made it safe for others to stand up for the right of consenting adults to marry whomever they choose.

·         has fought against the Patriot Act and other infringements of civil liberties.

Ron Paul supporters have embraced these ideals and goals – ones that the LP has been fighting for since Day One, forty years ago.

The establishment parties and their candidates give lip service to these ideals – but they betray their supporters when it comes to casting votes.

Why they need us – and we need them

Whereas Ron Paul supporters have taken the battle for liberty inside the GOP establishment, the Libertarian Party has been the all-important outside competitive threat that helped to make their success possible.

Without outside competition, the GOP has no reason to listen to liberty candidates and Ron Paul supporters within their own ranks.

Just like the free market, competition is the essential element that makes change possible.

The Libertarian Party threat limits what Democrats and Republicans can get away with. We force them to listen to the liberty factions within their own parties.

The notable successes that Ron Paul supporters have achieved this year – winning a majority of Republican delegates in Iowa, Maine, Minnesota and Louisiana and winning key positions in Republican states committees such as in Iowa, Alaska, Nevada, Colorado and Massachusetts, to name a few – would not have been possible without the Libertarian Party.

Without the possibility that LP candidates could spoil an election for a Democrat who promises to stay out of war – and then escalates war – the Democrats will continue to keep us at war. Barrack Obama’s partial withdrawal from Iraq may never have occurred without the LP.

Without the possibility that LP candidates could spoil an election for a Republican who promises to cut taxes and spending – who then raises them both - the Republicans will spend us into oblivion. The fact that real spending cuts are finally being talked about may never have happened without the LP.

The competitive threat of the Libertarian Party is one of the biggest forces to stop outright tyranny in the United States today.

Ron Paul supporters need to know this. They need to understand this dynamic – lest they get swept away by forces within the Democrat and Republican parties that are trying to scare them into voting for the “lesser of two evils."

Ron Paul supporters need the Libertarian Party. And the Libertarian Party needs them.

We need this vital energy, this rising tide of supporters and voters, to grow the LP and grow that outside competitive threat until the day comes when we can reverse today’s Big Government. End wars. Dramatically cut government spending and taxes. Restore civil liberties.

We need to be at these festivals. We need a wide and unmistakable presence that gets our message across to every Ron Paul supporter who attends -- and to the wide range of media that will be covering these festivals.

Will you help?

We need to raise $20,000 immediately to buy a sponsorship package, create materials for this event, get speakers there and to advertise.

The more we raise, the greater our presence will be, and the more Ron Paul supporters we can attract.

But we cannot wait. We must commit ASAP to our participation in these events, or our opportunity for a sponsorship will be lost. We need your donation today.

Would you please make your most generous donation right now?

We need one $5,000 donor. Will you be this person?

We need five $1,000 donors. Could you please help today?

We need twenty $250 donors. Will you be one?

And we need forty $125 donors. Will you be one of forty $125 donors?

Every donation of any size will help.

Please donate now to the Libertarian Party here and write “Tampa Ron Paul events” in the “Comment” box at the bottom of this form.

Let the R3VOLution CONTINUE – and let it energize the Libertarian Party in 2012!

With your help, we’ll take liberty to the General Election and make the Libertarian Party a driving force in politics for years to come.

Please donate today.

Yours in liberty,

Carla Howell
Executive Director
National Libertarian Party