Gingrich Spars With Ron Paul After He Calls Patriot Act “Unpatriotic”
Breaking News, Headlines, Liberty Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
From: Real Clear Politics
GOP candidates Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul debate the merits of extending the Patriot Act to secure our country.
“The Patriot Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty,” Ron Paul said at the GOP debate in Washington, DC on Tuesday night. “I’m concerned as everybody is about [a] terrorist attack.” Transcript of Ron Paul below.
PAUL: I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty. I’m concerned, as everybody is, about the terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh was a vicious terrorist. He was arrested. Terrorism is still on the books, internationally and nationally, it’s a crime and we should deal with it.
We dealt with it rather well with Timothy McVeigh. But why I really fear it is we have drifted into a condition that we were warned against because our early founders were very clear. They said, don’t be willing to sacrifice liberty for security.
Today it seems too easy that our government and our congresses are so willing to give up our liberties for our security. I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights.
BLITZER: I want to bring others in, but do you want to respond, Mr. Speaker?
GINGRICH: Yes. Timothy McVeigh succeeded. That’s the whole point.
To read more, visit: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/11/22/gingrich_spars_with_ron_paul_after_he_calls_patriot_act_unpatriotic.html
Short URL: https://reteaparty.com/?p=4591
Dr. Ron Paul is correct; the patriot act is unpatriotic. Dr. Paul is a “rule of law” Constitutionalist.
Mr. Gingrich is a one world government member of the council on foreign relations.
I would support Dr. Paul except for his stands on Israel and Iran.
I support Herman Cain, another rule of law Constitutionalist because he supports Israel.
I agree with you except regarding Ron Paul not supporting Israel. Constitutionally speaking, he supports Israel as much as one can at the federal level. As a practical matter, his stances on foreign aid are far more supportive of Israel than our current setup not to mention he was the only member of Congress who didn’t vote to condemn Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s nuclear facilities back in the 80s. So… by my count he’s incredibly pro-Israel, practically and Constitutionally.
Best,
Audra
what paul is saying about mcveigh is that we got a conviction with the rule of law. there are already laws regarding terrorism, because terrorism is just a type of crime. It is vandalism and piracy. What is so magical about the word ‘terrorism’ that makes fake conservatives want to destroy the bill of rights? You are nearly 4 times more likely to slip and die in your bath tub than to be killed by a terrorist.
the founders left us with the tools to combat ‘terrorists’ and it is spelled out in the constitution. It is called a “Letter of Marque and Reprisal” and it is in Article I Section 8 as a responsibility of Congress. We don’t need the TSA, we don’t need the ‘patriot act’, we don’t need water boarding or nationbuilding or undeclared wars. all we need is in the Constitution.
I can see both points. We want to be safe, but at what cost? Ron Paul is right that you can never be perfectly safe in a free society. Instead we need to take away the motives and not sacrifice freedom like we always so carelessly do.
Gingrich made his point…… “McVeigh succeeded” The Oklahoma bombing was a despicable act by a US citizen against his fellow citizens – an act of treason! Had he been on a watch-list the massacre of innocent people might have been avoided. Ron Paul is an isolationist of a bygone era. It would be wonderful if we could wrap our borders tightly around the country and not let the rest of the world affect us. Our national security depends upon maintaining a strong military, improving our economy and above all making sure that we remain a sovereign nation, beholden only to God.
Ron Paul is right. Gingrich is advocating a police state. You cannot stop a Timothy McVeigh before it happens without being a police state and being into all of our homes and bedrooms, and to that I say a resounding NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gingrich is a Kissinger/Brzezinski clone and a new world order globalist, and I will never vote for another one! Ron Paul 2012.
McVeigh is alive living under an assumed name with mild reconstructive surgery. He was a tool to be used to set in motion certain types of legal and criminal legislation.
Josh: You brought up a number of excellent points, and I thank you for your refreshing look at this.
Have you heard of a 3rd-year law student at OU named RJ Harris? He’s a Constitutional Libertarian pursuing the Libertarian Party nomination for the Presidency of the United States. A 20-year veteran and Air Traffic Control Officer in the Oklahoma Army National Guard, he has been on three combat tours (plus one peacekeeping), is married and the father of five children.
To that end, I would encourage you to check out RJ and his website at www-dot-rjharris2012-dot-com and see where he stands on the issues.
Let me know how it goes…***
Ron Paul is not an isolationist. He is a non-interventionist. McVeigh on a watch list wouldn’t have stopped McVeigh. Ya, he succeeded, so did the World Trade bombers, the USS Cole bombers and countless embassy bombings around the world. Somali pirates have been pretty successful too. The point is, we are either going to adhere to the Constitution as the rule of the land or we aren’t. Grace, you say our national security depends upon maintaining a strong military, improving our economy and above all making sure that we remain a sovereign nation. What in your sentiment goes against what Ron Paul stands for? Nothing, because he is for all that. Ron Paul believes in a strong military, he just doesn’t believe we need to the form of bases around the world. The US spends as much in military as the rest of the countries on the planet combined, almost a trillion a year. How much is enough?
The patriot act was just another way to control the people and take away our freedoms. Ron Paul is right on this issue. The Patriot Act needs to be repealed right along with Obama Care.
Flip-Flopping Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich’s chronic flip-flopping almost makes the ever-malleable Mitt Romney look consistent. Here’s a compilation from MSNBC and please note, this is just the tip of the iceberg:
Health-Insurance Mandate:
Flip: “Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it.” — June 2007
Flop: “I am against any effort to impose a federal mandate on anyone because it is fundamentally wrong and I believe unconstitutional.” — May 16, 2011
Cap-and-Trade:
Flip: “I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system, much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for investing in the solutions, that there’s a package there that’s very, very good. And frankly, it’s something I would strongly support.” — February 2, 2007
Flop: “A carbon cap and trade system … would lead to corruption, political favoritism, and would have a huge impact on the economy.” — April 21, 2008
Climate Change:
Flip: “I think is that the evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon-loading of the atmosphere.” — April 10, 2007
Flop: “I actually don’t know whether global warming is occurring.” — November 8, 2011
Paul Ryan’s Budget Plan:
Flip: “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering… [Paul Ryan's Medicare proposal] is too big a jump.” — May 15, 2011
Flop: “I made a mistake…” — May 17, 2011
Libya:
Flip: “Exercise a no-fly zone this evening … Provide help to the rebels to replace [Qaddafi] … All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes.” — March 7, 2011
Flop: “I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Qaddafi … I would not have used American and European forces.” — March 23, 2011
Criminal Court Trials for Suspected Terrorists:
Flip: “Well, I think if [members of the Bush administration] believe they have enough evidence to convict [Jose Padilla], going through the process of convicting him and holding him, I suspect, may be for the rest of his life without parole would not be — would hardly be seen as a loss. I think this administration is still wrestling with what are the real ground rules for dealing with people who are clearly outside of normal warfare? They’re not wearing a uniform. They’re not part of an army. They are openly threatening to kill thousands or even millions of people.” — November 22, 2005
Flop: “Why would you take a Nigerian national who just tried to blow up a plane over Detroit … Why would you take that person, put them in the American criminal justice system, give them an attorney, read them their Miranda rights?” — January 4, 2010
Gingrich, of course, is fully behind the plan to implement carbon taxes under the ruse of climate change, but will turn in an Oscar performance in order to trick the voting public. If elected, he will turn on a dime, pull an Obama, and go back on his disavowal of the climate change agenda.
Gingrich likes to parade as a constitutionalist. In fact, he is a sworn enemy of the Constitution. His Contract With America was one of the most unconstitutional pieces of legislation to ever come down the congressional pike. It proposed amending the Constitution with a “balanced budget amendment,” a completely unnecessary proposal if Congress would only act on constitutional programs.
Gingrich’s Contract also allocated a ton of money to unconstitutional “federal crime-fighting measures, despite the Constitution’s prohibition on federal involvement in police matters outside of piracy and treason. Countries that do not have such strict constitutional safeguards on federal police end up with Gestapos, KGBs, and Departments of Homeland Security,” notes Terrell.
Newt has also expressed his contempt for the concept of a Fourth Amendment when he told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly that Americans should be subjected to drug testing. He cited the advanced police state of Singapore as an example of the sort of drug policy the United States should have.
Finally, in order to understand just how dedicated Gingrich is to destroying the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, consider that he described himself as a “conservative futurist” who enthusiastically recommended as Speaker of the House his colleagues read Alvin Toffler’s 1980 book
The Third Wave.
In the book, Toffler wrote a letter to America’s “founding parents,” in which he said: “The system of government you fashioned, including the very principles on which you based it, is increasingly obsolete, and hence increasingly, if inadvertently, oppressive and dangerous to our welfare. It must be radically changed and a new system of government invented – a democracy for the 21st century.” According to Toffler, our constitutional system is one that “served us so well for so long, and that now must, in its turn, die and be replaced.”
I remember well the coverage of April 19, 1995 when the Murrah office building was blown up, I watched the coverage for several hours that day on tv. There were two or so other unexploded bombs that were reported as being found inside the building. The coverage of those bombs stopped after a short time, and were not talked about again in the corporate mass media. Therefore the official story is the one truck bomb and put in place by McVeigh with some support of Terry Nichols.
It would have been heresy for Ron Paul to bring this point up the night of the debate to Gingrich.