You are all entitled to your own opinions, but personally I think this is the greatest speech I have ever heard anyone make, ever.
And in my humble opinion, this man is a true American hero, not a fake American hero like Giuliani, who says "9/11" every other word in order to draw constant attention to how heroically he handled the attacks... which was so poorly that firefighters refused to ride in the same vehicle with him. And after all, what exactly did Giuliani do on 9/11 anyway that was so heroic? He never "stood up to the terrorists" like he keeps saying he did, over and over. Nor did he ever handle any foreign relations, for even with all his talk of the need for a President who understands foreign policy, he was only a mayor, so he never dealed with foreign policy. He never even read the CIA's 9/11 Commission Report, and has been proven blatantly wrong when discussing the motives of the attackers.
Nor, in my own humble opinion, is this man a fake hero like John McCain, who continually exclaims that he is a hero of the Vietnam War who received twenty three "medals of valor" for his twenty hours of service in enemy territory (during which he leaked vital information to enemy troops) although he doesn't tell you the full truth - that this was only because his father was the head of military operations in Vietnam. This injustice has angered thousands of true Vietnam veterans, who have banded together in founding the Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain organization.
In the words of Ron Paul, true patriotism is not blindly following a government, but opposing a government of injustice and tyranny.
Sooner or later, Americans will wake up to the fact that our nation is six trillion dollars in debt, and our government is borrowing $10,000,000 a day from China in order to pay for our radical foreign policy of sprawling our military forces over 86% of the countries in the world, in order to protect the interests of big corporations over the interests of the common man. If our government actually cared about the common people, it wouldn't be imprisoning people without a trial under the Patriot Act, nor would it be torturing prisoners, using your taxpayer dollars to fund dictatorships in Third World nations, or waging wars that violate the very foundational principles of the U.S. Constitution.
Sooner or later, Americans will wake up to the fact that every single day our government is digging its people ten billion dollars deeper into a hole of debt... a debt that will plague or society for generations if we don't do something about it now. And yet, Ron Paul seems to be the only candidate in either party who is concerned about balancing our federal budget.
Republicans like Giuliani want to pour another ten billion dollars into the war effort. If we were actually making progress, why would we need to do this? The Democrats like Hillary Clinton want to provide free health care to all Americans. That sounds great, but how are we possibly going to pay for it when we're six trillion dollars in debt? All the candidates are talking about lower taxes, and yet, with the exception of Ron Paul, they all support increased spending. You can't increase spending AND lower taxes. If you do, you're just setting yourself up for an economic crisis.
This is why Ron Paul's policy of cutting federal programs makes sense. It is the only way to lower taxes and pay off the national debt. Period. It doesn't mean that the programs won't exist. It just means that they won't be run by the federal government.
This is also why Ron Paul's policy of withdrawing our troops not only from Iraq, but from all around the world makes sense. Our constant global policing not only places an enormous burden on our own taxpayers, but it fuels anti-American hatred. It is childish to think that terrorists want to attack the United States because they "hate freedom". After 9/11, Osama Bin Laden himself declared (as documented in the CIA's 9/11 Commission Report - go read it for yourself) that the attacks were made in revenge against the U.S. troops that had been occupying Saudi Arabian holy ground. Why are our military forces constantly patrolling Middle Eastern nations that only want to be left alone? All it is doing is fueling terrorism.
There didn't used to be Al-Quada in Iraq. Now, they're everywhere. In Afghanistan, the War on Terror started out as a search for Osama Bin Laden, but it went astray and turned into what I would consider (in my own humble opinion) to be nothing more than an Afghani killing spree. I recently read about the U.S. bombing of Jalalabad, where many civilians died. It was accidental, of course, but if we just minded our own business for once and never invaded Afghanistan in the first place, it never would have happened. One Afghani boy lost his eyes and arms in the U.S. bombing. The doctor at the local hospital told a reporter, "They must have thought he was Osama. If he is not Osama, why would they do this to us?". Why are so many Christians in support of this war? What happened to "love your enemies" and "do good to those that persecute you"?
Everyone is all upset about the 4,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq, and while this is indeed tragic, why is no one talking about the 1,220,000 Iraqi civilians that have been killed in the war? Iraq only has a population of 27 million. So if you were an Iraqi, approximately one out of every four people you know would now be dead, thanks to the U.S. invasion. Wouldn't this make you a bit angry? Wouldn't a lot of those angry people hate the United States? And wouldn't a percentage of those who hate the United States act out their hatred in the form of terrorism? It's that simple, and yet there are still politicians who are telling us that the terrorists want to attack the United States because they "hate freedom"... and amazingly, people are still buying it.
Sooner or later, Americans will wake up to the fact that the best way to defend our nation from attack is to do just that... DEFEND, by bringing our troops home so we can focus on national defense, not by sending our troops overseas to invade, occupy, and then defend foreign nations while leaving our own nation wide open. And sooner or later, Americans will wake up to the fact that we will face an economic crisis if our government doesn't change it's reckless spending habits.
I can only hope and pray that this happens sooner rather than later... when it is too late. This is the premise of the Ron Paul Revolution. It is not a campaign made by a politician. It is a movement made by the American people. And even if Ron Paul does not win the election, the movement will continue....
(less)
