Ron Paul said this weekend that he thinks Congress will continue to duck voting the ISIS War up or down while nevertheless voting for additional funding of the war. Paul’s prediction came during a conversation with Charles Goyette regarding the war and US foreign policy in Paul and Goyette’s most recent weekly podcast discussion.
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Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), at a Thursday hearing of the United States House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, challenged Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel regarding the ongoing US war on ISIS. In particular, Jones complains that the US is engaged in the war despite the lack of a constitutionally required congressional declaration of war.
Jones also warns that, if Congress does some day consider authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) legislation, Jones expects that, like the AUMFs for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the ISIS AUMF will allow military action to continue without end.
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Ron Paul, speaking Saturday at a Ludwig von Mises Institute event in Costa Mesa, California, presented his optimistic prediction for the future of the movement to ensure respect peace and liberty in the United States and around the world. Paul, who is chairman and founder of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, both observes “a tremendous growth in the ideas of liberty” over the last thirty years and advises that “the militarism of big government is coming to an end.”
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On this Armistice Day, taking place in the week after midterm elections that promise to buttress US foreign intervention and President Barack Obama’s announcement that he is sending 1,500 troops and desires $5.6 billion more in spending to escalate the war in Iraq and Syria, it seems fitting to consider Ron Paul’s explanation of how the Federal Reserve has helped finance US militarism.
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Reported efforts to begin following through on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2013 election promise to reduce marijuana arrests in the city has distressed Sergeants Benevolent Association police union President Ed Mullins. Mullins is quoted Wednesday in the New York Post lamenting that “If the current practice of making arrests for both possession and sale of marijuana is, in fact, abandoned, then this is clearly the beginning of the breakdown of a civilized society.”
The city’s apparent move to reduce the number of marijuana arrests comes soon after an October joint report of the Drug Policy Alliance and the Marijuana Arrest Research Project publicized that the number of marijuana possession arrests in New York City were on track to remain the same under de Blasio’s leadership, or even increase, compared to arrests under Michael Bloomberg, the preceding mayor.
Of course, the truth is that there is nothing civilized about arresting people and throwing them in jail for making the choice to use, buy, or sell marijuana. Such choices have been tolerated or accepted in much of the world for centuries and were legal under United States law for the majority of the nation’s history. US legal prohibitions and punishments were imposed in the 20th century, including with the enactment of laws such as the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 and marijuana’s inclusion in schedule one of Controlled Substances Act of 1970, thus applying the most expansive level of prohibition to actions involving the plant. In contrast, looking further back to the origins of the US, we find that Founding Fathers grew hemp on their farms, including George Washington at Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson at Monticello.
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Former United States House of Representatives member and presidential candidate Ron Paul is not mincing words in presenting his take on the Tuesday midterm elections. Speaking with hosts Ben Swann and Erin Ade on RT, Paul argues that the US effectively has “a monopoly of a one party system” in which the candidate elections are not bringing about fundamental change. Yet, Paul does express hope that marijuana ballot measures approved by voters in the election are a sign of how respect for liberty may be advanced in America.
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State and local governments continued going their own way on marijuana laws in elections Tuesday, with voters in the sates of Alaska and Oregon, along with United States capital city Washington, DC, approving ballot measures legalizing marijuana for recreational use. All three jurisdictions already had laws allowing medical marijuana use, while Alaska also already had legal recreational use but not legal sale of marijuana.
Also in the Tuesday elections, legalization of medical marijuana passed in the US territory of Guam and received a 58% majority vote in the state of Florida. The Florida ballot measure, however, did not pass because state law imposed a 60% supermajority vote requirement for victory.
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RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul, speaking with Charles Goyette during their most recent weekly podcast, addresses the military draft, which Paul refers to as “slavery,” and the psychological manipulation involved in requiring 18-year-old American men to register in the Selective Service System. The discussion complements Paul’s Sunday column analyzing the anti-liberty nature of conscription as well as other forms of mandatory “national service.”
Paul begins his analysis of the draft by recounting how he in 1979, as a United States House of Representatives member from Texas, helped hold off for a while the reinstatement of draft registration. Ultimately, however, mandatory draft registration was reinstated, justified by an argument that it was needed to respond to the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
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John Stossel, in a conversation Thursday with fellow Fox Business host Stuart Varney, demolished with three arguments the old saw that Libertarian Party candidates are “spoilers” for Republican candidates.
First, Stossel notes that, in the many races that are not close contests, trailing Libertarian candidates cannot affect who wins. Therefore, why not vote for who you like most?
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International affairs writer Eric Margolis, interviewed Wednesday on the Scott Horton Show, commented that he would not be surprised if the killers of Canada soldiers in Ontario and Quebec this week were motivated to react to the Canada government’s adoption of “a very, very hostile policy toward Muslims in general.” Margolis pins the responsibility for the adoption of this policy largely on Stephen Harper, who has been the nation’s prime minister since February of 2006, and some of the groups supporting Harper.
Continue reading at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.