Ron Paul: “Madam Speaker, I have a few questions for my colleagues.
What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interest?
What if we wake up one day and realize that the terrorist threat is the predictable consequence of our meddling in the affairs of others, and has nothing to do with us being free and prosperous?
What if propping up repressive regimes in the Middle East endangers both the United States and Israel?
What if occupying countries like Iraq and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the hatred directed toward us?
What if someday it dawns on us that losing over 5,000 American military personnel in the Middle East since 9/11 is not a fair tradeoff with the loss of nearly 3,000 American citizens no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistanian, Afghan people are killed or displaced?
What if we finally decide that torture, even if called “enhanced interrogation technique”, is self-destructive and produces no useful information and that contracting it out to a third world nation is just as evil?
What if it is finally realized that war and military spending is always destructive to the economy?
What if all war-time spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil process of inflating and borrowing?
What if we finally see that war-time conditions always undermine personal liberty?
What if Conservatives who preach small government wake up and realize that our interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government?
What if Conservatives understood once again that their only logical position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire throughout the world?
What if the American people woke up and understood that the official reasons for going to war are almost always based on lies and promoted by war propaganda in order to serve special interests?
What if we as a nation came to realize that the quest for empire eventually destroys all great nations?
What if Obama has no intention of leaving Iraq?
What if a military draft is being planned for for the wars that would spread if our foreign policy is not changed?
What if the American people learned the truth, that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security, that it never changes from one administration to the next?
What if war in preparation for war is a racket serving the special interests?
What if President Obama is completely wrong about Afghanistan and it turns out worse than Iraq and Vietnam put together?
What if Christianity actually teaches peace and not preventive wars of aggression?
What if diplomacy is found to be superior to bombs and bribes in protecting America?
What happens if my concerns are completely unfounded?
Nothing.
But what happens if my concerns are justified and ignored?
Nothing good.
And I yield back the balance of my time.”
What if the soundtrack is so loud that you can’t hear the speech?
Here it is without the soundtrack: http://www.ronpaul.com/2009-02-13/ron-paul-asks-congress-what-if/
I think Ron Paul will go down in history as the last principled statesman of our era. All of his warnings have more or less been ignored. Now we are reduced to choosing sides and biding our time.
This was possibly the sinlge most important speech delivered in the history of the US Congress…. and it fell largely upon deaf ears.
Shame.
Shame that is also fell upon deaf “conservative” ears as well.
Since this speech the USA has been doubling down and trippling down upon “stupid” –and will continue to do so until collectively we all wake up face down in the gutter covered in our own vomit… and still then we will not make a realization of our ill-ways.
The “rah-rah, sis-boom-bah, hurray war” zipperheads and globalists have managed to take control of this country–and keep a strangle hold upon it despite our alleged “revolution” last November with our new “hero” …who now seems to have been co-opted into their program.
I am wondering just where the policy of “peace and prosperity” has gone too.
Oh–that’s right…. it got flushed down the shitter.
Soon we will wake up one morning to the fact that the USA has suffered a massive “Pearl Harbor” style pre-emptive attack… and gone will be our overseas bases, carrier fleets and all the other means by which the USA has been enforcing the “dollar tyranny” for the last seven decades since WWII.
The retard flag wavers will respond by standing in a groups on street corners shouting, “USA-USA!”
Cue Lee Greenwood.
“What if” imaginary situations don’t mean much in the real world, “what is” is the only thing that counts and the only thing that can be dealt with concerning existing real conditions and actions that can be taken about them.
It’s not right to dismiss Dr. Paul, Anon. Put your mind back into the bush years. gwb will go down as the dumbest president in our history, but the scum around him kept dissent in the repug party at near zero. It takes a man to stand up to that. Paul did. He will be remembered as the Paul Revere of our time. The world has moved on, some of the problems aren’t exactly the same, we have a guy now methodically chewing up the clinton/bush/bongo economic structure. Ron Paul didn’t have any answers, his time has passed, but without his sounding the alarm, where would we be today? Someone had to go through the door first, and take the bullet
I never and still don’t like bush, but I’ve always considered Ron Paul to be on the impractical and innefective side even though I like him and even supported his attempt at the Presidential nomination.
What has he actually accomplished outside of his talk (which I admit has awakened a decent number of people to some real issues that need addressing).
For good or evil, I am and will remain a pragmatist by nature, what works is real and everything else is simply a waste of time and effort that could be better used elsewhere.
That’s my point. He doesn’t need to accomplish anything more. He did what needed to be done at the time. I’m much happier with a smashmouth guy like Trump, you get more done. But Paul swam alone in some pretty unfriendly seas for a long time, pretty remarkable stuff.
“I’m much happier with a smashmouth guy like Trump, you get more done.”
Oh fuck yes, you get more done for the neocon agenda for sure. Only a neocon can back Trump at this point.
Um, woke up millions of people. Nitwit.
Didn’t I point that out?
Do you not read before you reply and call someone a “nitwit” then make the same point yourself?
A hundred years from now Ron Paul might be remembered as the ONLY statesman (or principled politician) of this era.
As far as being listened to?
Not only when pigs fly, but when they fart gold nuggets for propulsion.
We seem satisfied to bomb them, rebuild them, and invite them to move here.
Prosecute wars on a whim, and then just hard enough to feed the meat grinder, expend weapons, and recruit for our enemies. ROE written by idiots. The same idiots who got us involved in the first place.
What if…. you told the truth and got called a crazy old koot?
Ron Paul would be the choice of a free, moral and virtuous people. Americans are not such a people.
What if…………
…Ron Paul was/is right?
…our owners and (s)elected leaders KNOW he is right?
…our owners and (s)elected leaders have already chosen which side they are on?
…that side is not the side of the USA and its citizens?
…our (s)elected leaders don’t care because they already have their marching orders?
The Dems are trying to squelch their Ron Paul.
“Prominent Dems Call 4 Anti war Congresswoman To Be Ousted From Office”
http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/10/prominent-democrats-call-for-anti-war-congresswoman-to-be-ousted-from-office/?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=TheDC%20Morning&utm_campaign=TheDC%20Evening