Thank-you Aquaries1111. That was an excellent clip. I like Ron Paul because he seems to know how to work within the system -- without being corrupted by it. I especially like his book 'A Foreign Policy of Freedom'. I went to a Ron Paul rally in Las Vegas several years ago at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas -- and I was amazed at the numbers and enthusiasm of the young people. I later wrote a Ron Paul speech and sent it to the campaign -- but I don't think they ever used it. It's posted on the 'United States of the Solar System' thread. I included massive doses of 'Responsibility-Language' to modify and moderate the 'Freedom-Message'. BTW -- an Ancient Egyptian Deity told me that Ron Paul would be bad for America!! They asked me what I thought about Alex Jones!! My answer was basically what I've said so far in this thread.
Proposed Ron Paul Presidential Campaign Speech (Not Used)
Fellow Americans! Friends of Freedom! Our beloved United States of America is suffering and languishing under the dark storm clouds of oppression and irresponsibility! Those who have been given the sacred trust of upholding the Constitution, with its guarantees of freedom and justice for all, have been derelict in their duties! A few short years ago, it was morning in America! The midnight of Viet Nam and Watergate were behind us! The sunrise was spectacular! A bright new optimism filled the land! Well, my friends, it’s midnight again! The Constitution and Freedom are in grave peril from irresponsibility and outright hostility!
My candidacy for the Presidency of the United States is a call for freedom! In ancient Egypt, as described in the Bible, Moses demanded that Pharaoh release the Israelites from captivity! Well, as Moses looked Pharaoh in the eye, I’m looking all of those who are opposed to the Constitution and Freedom, both nationally and internationally, intently in the eye, and exclaiming, “Let my people go!”
But freedom isn’t free! The price of freedom is responsibility! And often, sacrifice is the cost of doing responsible business in an often irresponsible world! Our courageous and noble men and women of the armed forces are a blood-stained testimony to the high price of freedom! We are indebted to them in ways which can never be fully repaid!
Having said that, we as a nation have irresponsibly squandered our capital of being the example to the world of the moral high-ground! Our nation is no longer the shining city on a hill that it once was! As a result, despite global warming, our world is experiencing an eerie chill!
But there is Hope for America, and for the World! It is the hope provided for us by our Founding Fathers, that by reverently obeying the Constitution of the United States of America, in both the spirit and in the letter of the law, the truth will set us free! And keep us free! We shall overcome!
The following is my 12 step plan to sober up a federal government, intoxicated with its own Power and Arrogance, and to restore Freedom and Responsibility to its rightful place in our nation and world:
Number 1: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to Racial Diversity!
Our nation is obsessed with racial group identities of us and them! This is the heart of racism! Government as an institution is particularly ill-suited to combat bigotry! Bigotry at its essence is a problem of the heart, and we cannot change people’s hearts by passing more laws and regulations! It is the federal government that most divides us by race, class, religion, and gender! Through its taxes, restrictive regulations, corporate subsidies, racial set-asides, and welfare programs, government plays far too large a role in determining who succeeds and who fails! Its excessive and inappropriate responsibility is actually irresponsibility! Sometimes to do less is to be more responsible! Government “benevolence” crowds out genuine goodwill by institutionalizing group thinking, thus making each group suspicious that others are receiving more of the government loot than they are! This leads to resentment and hostility among us! Incidentally, this principle is also applicable to foreign policy!
Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism! Simply, the mindset that throws people into stereotypical groups rather than viewing each person as a unique individual! Racists believe that all people who share superficial physical characteristics are alike! As collectivists, racists think only in terms of groups! To echo the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., they judge people by the color of their skin, rather than by the content of their characters! By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality, the advocates of so-called “diversity” actually perpetuate racism! To separate is to discriminate!
The true cure for the plague of racism is freedom! Freedom means having a limited, constitutional government devoted to the protection of individual rights rather than group claims! Freedom means free-market capitalism, which rewards individual achievement and competence - not skin color, gender, or ethnicity!
In a free society, every citizen gains a sense of himself as an individual, rather than developing a group or victim mentality! This leads to a sense of individual responsibility and personal pride, making skin color irrelevant! Racism will endure until we stop thinking in terms of groups and begin thinking in terms of individual freedom! The corrective lenses of freedom and responsibility make us color blind!
Number 2: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to Debt and Taxes!
Working Americans like lower taxes! So do I! Lower taxes benefit all of us, creating jobs and allowing us to make more decisions for ourselves about our lives!
Whether a tax cut reduces a single mother’s payroll taxes by $40 a month, or allows a business owner to save thousands in capital gains taxes, enabling them to hire more employees…that tax cut is a good thing! Lower taxes allow more spending, saving, and investing which helps the economy! Tax cuts benefit everyone, except the bureaucrats!
Real conservatives have always supported low taxes and low spending! Unfortunately, the neo-cons just don’t get it! They’re doing just the opposite! They are wolves in conservatives clothing! Or maybe a Trojan Horse would be a more fit description! Too many politicians and lobbyists are spending America into ruin! We are nine trillion dollars in debt as a nation! This is irresponsible and inexcusable! Our mounting government debt endangers the financial future of our children and grandchildren! If we don’t cut spending now, higher taxes and economic disaster will be in their future…and yours!
In addition, the Federal Reserve, our central bank, fosters runaway debt by increasing the money supply - making each dollar in your pocket worth less! The Fed is a private bank run by unelected officials who are not required to be open or accountable to “we the people!” What a strange arrangement! Go to the library and research the Fed’s beginnings! Make sure you’re sitting down!
Worse, our economy and our very independence as a nation is increasingly in the hands of foreign governments such as China and Saudi Arabia, because their central banks also finance our runaway spending! When we owe them, they own us!
We cannot continue to allow private banks, wasteful agencies, lobbyists, corporations on welfare, and governments collecting foreign aid to dictate the size of our ballooning budget! We need a new method to prioritize our spending! It’s called the Constitution of the United States! What a thought!
Number 3: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to American Independence and Sovereignty!
So called free trade deals and world governmental organizations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and CAFTA are a threat to our independence as a nation! They transfer power from our government to unelected foreign elites! Didn’t we have a revolution a few years ago to deal with this sort of thing?!
The ICC wants to try our soldiers as war criminals! Both the WTO and CAFTA could force Americans to get a doctor’s prescription to take herbs and vitamins! Alternative treatments could be banned! What’s wrong with this picture?!
The WTO has forced Congress to change our laws, yet we still face trade wars! Today, France is threatening to have U.S. goods taxed throughout Europe! If anything, the WTO makes trade relations worse by giving foreign competitors a new way to attack U.S. jobs! Sounds like unfair trade to me!
NAFTA’s superhighway is just one part of a plan to erase the borders between the U.S. and Mexico, called the North American Union! This spawn of powerful special interests, would create a single nation out of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, with a new unelected bureaucracy and money system! Forget about controlling immigration under this scheme!
And a free America, with limited, constitutional government, would be gone forever! This apparently is the goal!
Let’s not forget the UN! It wants to impose a direct tax on us! I successfully fought this move in Congress last year, but if we are going to stop ongoing attempts of this world government body to tax us, we will need responsible leadership from the White House!
We must withdraw from any organizations and trade deals that infringe upon the freedom and independence of the United States of America! It’s a matter of our survival as a free nation! It is irresponsible to stand idly by, and watch the United States being taken over by foreign interests!
Number 4: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to War and Foreign Policy!
The war in Iraq was sold to us with false information! The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it! We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies, the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them! This war has cost more than 3,000 American lives, thousands of seriously wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars! We must have new leadership in the White House to ensure this never happens again!
We need to leave Iraq immediately! We continue to keep our hands on a very hot stove, and we are burning our fingertips right up to our armpits! When a mistake is made, it should be admitted and corrected! This is the responsible thing to do! And despite the shrill cries, it is the honorable thing to do! Support and Liberate our troops! Bring them home!
Both Jefferson and Washington warned us about entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations! Today, we have troops in 130 countries! We are spread so thin that we have too few troops defending America! And now, there are new calls for a draft of our young men and women! To fight for the UN?!
We can irresponsibly continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, where we make enemies faster than we can kill them! Or, we can bring our troops home, and properly secure America! This is the logical and right thing to do! No war should ever be fought without a declaration of war voted upon by the Congress, as responsibly required by the Constitution!
Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations! Whose country is this, anyway?!
Too often we give foreign aid and intervene on behalf of governments that are despised! Then, we become despised! Guilt by association! Too often we have supported those who turn on us, like the Kosovars who aid Islamic terrorists, or the Afghan jihadists themselves, and their friend Osama bin Laden! We armed and trained them, and now we’re paying the price! Will we ever learn?!
At the same time, we must not isolate ourselves! We must not be isolationist or interventionist! Both are highly dysfunctional international behaviors! We must engage in cooperation and constructive competition with every nation on the face of the earth! What an invigorating and interesting interaction! Constructive competition, such as trade and athletics, builds up! Destructive competition, such as war and terrorism, destroys! The generosity of the American people has been felt around the globe! Many have thanked God for it, in many languages! Let us have a strong America, conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations! We might even achieve world peace! After thousands of years of fighting, what would we do with all of the money and lives we would save?! It would take some serious readjustment!! We have to hate somebody…don’t we?!
Number 5: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to Unborn Life!
The right of an innocent, unborn child to life is at the heart of the American ideals of liberty! My professional and legislative record demonstrates my strong commitment to this pro-life principle!
In 40 years of medical practice, I never once considered performing an abortion, nor did I ever find abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman!
In Congress, I have authored legislation that seeks to define life as beginning at conception, HR 1094!
I am also the prime sponsor of HR 300, which would negate the effect of Roe v Wade by removing the ability of federal courts to interfere with state legislation to protect life! This is a practical, direct approach to ending federal court tyranny which threatens our constitutional republic and has caused the deaths of 45 million of the unborn! Didn’t something similar occur in the 1940’s?!
I have also authored HR 1095, which prevents federal funds from being used for so-called “population control!”
Many talk about being pro-life! I have taken direct action to restore protection for the unborn!
One more thing to think about…when heartbeats and brainwaves cease…a person is declared dead! When heartbeats and brainwaves commence…shouldn’t a baby be declared alive?! If someone then causes the baby’s heartbeats and brainwaves to cease, shouldn’t they be charged with murder?! Whether the baby is inside or outside of the mother should be irrelevant!
Abortion is an irresponsible way to deal with irresponsibility!
As an OB/GYN doctor, I’ve delivered over 4,000 babies! That experience has made me an unshakable foe of abortion! Many of you may have read my book, Challenge To Liberty, which champions the idea that there cannot be liberty in a society unless the rights of all innocents are protected! Much can be understood about the civility of a society in observing its regard for the dignity of human life!
Number 6: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to the Second Amendment!
I share our Founder’s belief that in a free society each citizen must have the right to keep and bear arms! They ratified the Second Amendment knowing that this right is the guardian of every other right, and they all would be horrified by the proliferation of unconstitutional legislation that prevents law-abiding Americans from exercising this right!
I have always supported the Second Amendment and these are some of the bills I have introduced in the current Congress to help restore respect for it:
* H.R. 1096 includes provisions repealing the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and the Federal Firearms License Reform Act of 1993, two invasive and unconstitutional bills!
* H.R. 1897 would end the ban on carrying a firearm in the National Park System, restoring American’s ability to protect themselves in potentially hazardous situations!
* H.R. 3305 would allow pilots and specially assigned law enforcement personnel to carry firearms in order to protect airline passengers, possibly preventing future 9/11-style attacks!
* H.R. 1146 would end our membership in the United Nations, protecting us from their attempts to tax our guns or disarm us entirely!
In the past, I introduced legislation to repeal the so-called “assault weapons” ban before its 2004 sunset, and I will oppose any attempts to reinstate it!
I also recently opposed H.R. 2640, which would allow government-appointed psychiatrists to ban U.S. veterans experiencing even mild forms of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome from ever owning a gun!
But responsibility is necessary to preserve freedom! Gun Responsibility Classes should be voluntarily taken by current and prospective gun owners! Rights and Responsibilities go hand in hand! Self-discipline is necessary to avoid State-discipline!
You have the right to protect your life, liberty, and property! As President, I will continue to guard the liberties stated in the Second Amendment!
Number 7: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to Social Security!
Our nation’s promise to its seniors, once considered a sacred trust, has become little more than a tool for politicians to scare retirees while robbing them of their promised benefits! Today, the Social Security system is financially broke and structurally broken!
Those currently in the system are seeing their benefits dwindle! Raising taxes and increasing the age of eligibility are NOT solutions! They are irresponsible betrayals!
Imposing any tax on Social Security benefits is unfair and illogical! In Congress, I have introduced the Senior Citizens Tax Elimination Act (H.R. 191), which repeals ALL taxes on Social Security benefits, to eliminate political theft of our senior’s income, and to raise their standard of living!
Solvency is the key to keeping our promise to our seniors, and I have introduced the Social Security Preservation Act (H.R. 219) to ensure that money paid into the system is only used for Social Security! Social Security has been an irresistible cookie jar for many irresponsible politicians to reach into with their dirty, money grubbing fingers! Hands Off!
It is fundamentally unfair to give benefits to anyone who has not paid into the system! The Social Security for Americans Only Act (H.R. 190) ends the drain on Social Security caused by illegal aliens seeking the fruits of your labor!
We must also address the desire of younger workers to save and invest on their own! We should cut payroll taxes and give workers the opportunity to seek better returns in the private market! This step would bring the incentives and rewards of free market capitalism to the stagnant Social Security system!
Excessive government spending has created the insolvency crisis in Social Security! We must significantly reduce spending so that our nation can keep its promise to our seniors!
Let’s get our priorities straight!
Number 8: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to Education!
The federal government does not own our children! Yet we act as if it does by letting it decide when, how, and what our children will learn! We irresponsibly allow the federal government to irresponsibly program our children! We have turned their futures over to lobbyists and bureaucrats! They are unfit step-parents!
I support giving educational control back to parents, who know their children better than any politician in D. C. ever will!
The federal government has no constitutional authority to fund or control schools! I want to abolish the unconstitutional, wasteful Department of Education and return its functions to the states! By removing the federal subsidies that inflate costs, schools can be funded by local taxes, and parents and teachers can directly decide how best to allocate the resources! This step would include elimination of all unfunded educational mandates by the federal government!
To help parents with the costs of schooling, I have introduced H.R. 1056, the Family Education Freedom Act, in Congress! This bill would allow parents a tax credit of up to $5,000 (adjustable after 2007 for inflation) per student per year for the cost of attendance at an elementary and/or secondary school! This includes private, parochial, religious, and home schools!
Another bill I have sponsored, H.R. 1059, allows full-time elementary and secondary teachers a $3,000 yearly tax credit, thus easing their financial burden and encouraging good teachers to stay in an underpaid profession! The best and the brightest should teach our children today, if we want our children to be the best and the brightest tomorrow!
Many parents have already shown their desire to be free of federal control by either enrolling their children in private schools or home schooling them! And students enrolled in these alternatives have consistently performed better and tested higher than those in state-run schools! Each child is a unique treasure! We should do whatever works to maximize the realization of their potential! How many genius’s have been lost in the cracks of our mass produced, cookie cutter educational system?! A mind is too precious of a thing to waste in a terrible school!
My commitment to home schooling as an educational alternative for American families is unmatched by any Presidential candidate!
Returning control of education to parents is the centerpiece of my education agenda! As President I will advance tax credits through the Family Education Freedom Act, which reduces taxes to make it easier for parents to home school by allowing them to devote more of their own funds to their children’s education!
I am committed to guaranteeing parity for home school diplomas and advancing equal scholarship consideration for students entering college from a home school environment!
We must have permanency in the Department of Defense Home School Tier 1 Pilot Program, providing recruitment status parity for home school graduates! I will use my authority to prevent the Department of Education from regulating home school activities!
I will veto any legislation that creates national standards or national testing for home school parents or students! I’m not a big fan of No Child Left Behind! But I’m even less of a fan of No Politician Left Behind! I believe that, as long as No Child Left Behind remains law, it must include the protections for home schoolers included in sec. 9506 (enshrining home schooler’s rights) and 9527 (guaranteeing no national curriculum)! Every student is unique, and should not be stifled with a one-size-fits-all mold!
Federal monies must never be used to undermine the rights of home schooling parents! I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency to encourage a culture of educational freedom throughout the nation!
Years of centralized education have produced nothing but student failures and frustrated parents! We can resurrect our public school system if we follow the Constitution and end the federal education monopoly! Let our children go!
Number 9: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to Border Security and Immigration Reform!
The talk must stop! We must secure our borders now! A nation without secure borders is no nation at all! It makes no sense to fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked! This is irresponsibility, bordering on treason!
This is my six point plan:
1. Physically secure our borders and coastlines! We must do whatever it takes to control entry into our country before we undertake complicated immigration reform proposals!
2. Enforce visa rules! Immigration officials must track visa holders and deport anyone who overstays their visa or otherwise violates U.S. law! This is especially important when we recall that a number of 9/11 terrorists had expired visas!
3. No amnesty! Estimates suggest that 10 to 20 million people are in our country illegally! That’s a lot of people to reward for breaking our laws! The definition of freedom does not include freedom from obeying the law! And disregarding the word illegal is the beginning of the end of law and order in our society!
4. No welfare for illegal aliens! Americans have welcomed immigrants who seek opportunity, work hard, and play by the rules! But taxpayers should not pay for illegal immigrants who use hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and social services!
5. End birthright citizenship! As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be citizens, the incentive to enter the U.S. illegally will remain strong!
6. Pass true immigration reform! The current system is incoherent and unfair! But current reform proposals would allow up to 60 million more immigrants into our country, according to the Heritage Foundation! This is insanity! Legal immigrants from all countries should face the same rules and waiting periods! There should be reasonable numbers of responsible immigrants! There should be zero illegal, irresponsible or dangerous immigrants! And no one should be allowed to cut to the front of the line!
Number 10: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to Privacy, Personal Liberty, and Private Property!
The biggest threat to your privacy is the government! We must drastically limit the ability of government to collect and store data regarding citizen’s personal matters!
We must stop the move toward a national ID! A national ID with new tracking technologies means we’re heading into an Orwellian world of no privacy! I voted against the Real ID Act in March of 2005!
To date, the privacy focus has been on identity theft. It was Congress that created this danger by mandating use of the standard identifier (currently your SSN) in the private sector! For example, banks use SSNs as customer account identifiers because the government requires it!
We must also protect medical privacy! Right now, you’re vulnerable! Under so-called “medical privacy protection” rules, insurance companies and other entities have access to your personal medical information! This is the epitome of irresponsibility!
Financial privacy? Right now depositing $10,000 or more in cash in your local bank account will generate a federally-mandated report to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network at the United States Department of the Treasury!
And then there’s the so-called Patriot Act! As originally proposed, it:
* Expanded the federal government’s ability to use wiretaps without judicial oversight!
* Allowed nationwide search warrants non-specific to any given location, nor subject to any local judicial oversight!
* Made it far easier for the government to monitor private internet usage!
* Authorized “sneak and peek” warrants enabling federal authorities to search a person’s home, office, or personal property without that person’s knowledge!
* Required libraries and bookstores to turn over records of books read by their patrons!
The Patriot Act is more about monitoring and controlling law abiding citizens, like you and me, than it is about detecting and apprehending terrorists!
I have fought this fight for many years! I sponsored a bill to overturn the Patriot Act and have won some victories, but today the threat to your liberty and privacy is very real! We need leadership at the top that will prevent Washington from centralizing power and private data about our lives!
We must stop special interests from violating property rights and literally driving families from their homes, farms and ranches!
Today, we face a new threat of widespread eminent domain actions as a result of powerful interests who want to build the NAFTA superhighway through the United States from Mexico to Canada!
We also face another danger in regulatory takings: Through excess regulation, governments deprive property owners of significant value and use of their properties--all without paying “just compensation!”
Property rights are the foundation of all rights in a free society! Without the right to own a printing press, for example, freedom of the press becomes meaningless! The next president must get federal agencies out of these schemes to deny property owners their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property!
The American people are being treated like a herd of cattle! The scary part is that many of us are getting used to the abuse, and don’t seem to mind! Trust me, this is only the beginning!
Number 11: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to Health Promotion and Health Care!
Americans are justifiably concerned over the government’s escalating intervention into their freedom to choose what they eat and how they take care of their health!
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in order to comply with standards dictated by supra-national organizations such as the UN’s World Food Code (CODEX), NAFTA, and CAFTA, has been assuming greater control over nutrients, vitamins and natural health care providers to restrict your right to choose the manner in which you manage your health and nutritional needs!
I have been the national leader in preserving Health Freedom!
I have introduced the Health Freedom Protection Act, HR 2117, to ensure Americans can receive truthful health information about supplements and natural remedies! Just the facts Uncle Sam!
I support the Access to Medical Treatment Act, H.R. 2717, which expands the ability of Americans to use alternative medicine and new treatments! Not just drugs and surgery!
I oppose legislation that increases the FDA’s legal powers! The FDA has consistently failed to protect the public from dangerous drugs, genetically modified foods, dangerous pesticides and other chemicals in the food supply! Meanwhile they waste public funds attacking safe, healthy foods and dietary supplements! Whose side are they on? Do I have to tell you?!
I also opposed the Homeland Security Bill, H.R. 5005, which, in section 304, authorizes the forced vaccination of American citizens against small pox! The government should never have the power to require immunizations or vaccinations! Again, the herd of cattle analogy seems to apply!
The federal government decided long ago that it knew how to manage your health care better than you, and replaced personal freedom and responsibility with a system that puts corporate interests first! Our free market health care system that was once the envy of the world became a federally-managed disaster! Beware of the Federal Medical Industrial Complex! Do you feel safe or lucky?
Few people realize that Congress forced Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) on us! HMOs rose to prominence through federal legislation, incentives, and coercion!
Now, the Food and Drug Administration’s bias toward large pharmaceutical companies enlarges their power, limits treatment options, and drives consumers to seek Canadian medicines! Regulations from D.C. make it virtually impossible for small business owners to cover their employees! The unemployed often cannot afford insurance, meaning those who need basic medical attention overcrowd emergency rooms and drive up premiums!
The federal government will not suddenly become efficient managers if universal health care is instituted! Government health care only means long waiting periods, lack of choice, poor quality, and frustration! Many Canadians, fed up with socialized medicine, come to the U.S. in order to obtain care! Socialized medicine will not magically work here in the United States!
Health care should not be left up to HMOs, big drug companies, and government bureaucrats!
It is time to take back our health care! This is why I support:
*Emphasizing an ounce of prevention, rather than a pound of cure!
* Making all medical expenses tax deductible!
* Eliminating federal regulations that discourage small businesses from providing coverage!
* Giving doctors the freedom to collectively negotiate with insurance companies and drive down the cost of medical care!
* Making every American eligible for a Health Savings Account (HSA), and removing the requirement that individuals must obtain a high-deductible insurance policy before opening an HSA!
* Reform licensure requirements so that pharmacists and nurses can perform some basic functions to increase access to care and lower costs!
By removing federal regulations, encouraging competition, and presenting real choices, we can make our health care system the envy of the world once again!
Number 12: Apply Freedom and Responsibility to the Environment!
The federal government has proven itself untrustworthy and irresponsible with environmental policy by facilitating polluters, subsidizing logging in the National Forests, and instituting one-size-fits-all approaches that too often discriminate against those they are intended to help!
The key to sound environmental policy is respect for private property rights! The strict enforcement of property rights corrects environmental wrongs while increasing the cost of polluting!
In a free market, no one is allowed to pollute his neighbor’s land, air, or water! If your property is being damaged, you have every right to sue the polluter, and government should protect that right! After paying damages, the polluter’s production and sale costs rise, making it unprofitable to continue doing business the same way! Currently, preemptive regulations and pay-to-pollute schemes favor those wealthy enough to perform the regulatory tap dance, while those who own the polluted land rarely receive a quick or just resolution to their problems!
In Congress, I have followed a constitutional approach to environmental action:
* I consistently vote against using tax dollars to subsidize logging in National Forests!
* I am a co-sponsor of legislation designed to encourage the development of alternative and sustainable energy. H.R. 550 extends the investment tax credit to solar energy property and qualified fuel cell property, and H.R. 1772 provides tax credits for the installation of wind energy property!
* Taxpayers for Common Sense named me a “Treasury Guardian” for my work against environmentally-harmful government spending and corporate welfare!
* I am a member of the Congressional Green Scissors Coalition, a bipartisan caucus devoted to ending taxpayer subsidies of projects that harm the environment for the benefit of special interests!
Individuals, businesses, localities, and states must be free to negotiate environmental standards! Those who depend on the land for their health and livelihood have the greatest incentive to be responsible stewards!
In Conclusion:
The Democrats and Republicans have become two sides of the same corrupt coin! In recent years, the coin of the realm has become blood money!
Democrats: your party’s presidential candidates are not Democrats in the tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt or John Fitzgerald Kennedy! The New Deal has become the Raw Deal!
Republicans: your party’s presidential candidates are not Republicans in the tradition of Lincoln and Reagan! Conservatism has become Globalism!
We need to regain a sense of rugged individualism! In the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you! Ask what you can do for your country!” They say that the bottom line is the bottom line! People often sell their souls for the bottom line! Some would say that this is why our society is riddled with corruption! This may be true! But I submit that the bottom line needs to include freedom and responsibility! And that we will find, as a society, that if and when we do this, that the numerical portion of the bottom line will exceed our wildest dreams!
Democrats and Republicans: Embrace Freedom and Responsibility! Repulse Tyranny and Irresponsibility! Rise above petty party differences and squabbles! Step up to the plate, and do the right thing! This thing is bigger than all of us put together! We stand at a crossroads as a nation and as a world! Will we choose to live in a world at war, governed by Tyranny and Irresponsibility?! Or, will we choose to live in a peaceful world, governed by Freedom and Responsibility?! I have confidence that we will make the right choice! Join the Revolution!
Thank-you fellow Americans for your prayers and your support! God bless you! And God bless the United States of America!
