Why Government Cannot “Make Us Safe” by Mandating Security
by Ron Paul
The terrible violence in Arizona last weekend prompted much national discussion on many issues. All Americans are united in their sympathies for the victims and their families. All wonder what could motivate such a horrible act. However, some have attempted to use this tragedy to discredit philosophical adversaries or score political points. This sort of opportunism is simply despicable. We are fortunate to live in a society where violence is universally denounced. Not one public official or commentator has attempted to justify this reprehensible act, yet the newspapers, Internet and airwaves are full of people trying to claim it was somehow motivated by someone else’s political rhetoric.
Most disturbing are the calls to use government power to censor certain forms of speech and even outlaw certain types of criticism of public officials. This was the completely apolitical act of a violent and disturbed man. How sad that the attempted murder of the Congresswoman who had just read the First Amendment on the House Floor would be used in efforts to chill free speech. Perhaps some would feel safer if the Alien and Sedition Acts were reinstated. Also troubling are the renewed calls for stricter gun control laws and for government to do something to somehow prevent similar incidents in the future. This always seems to be the knee-jerk reaction to any crime committed with a gun. Nonsensical proposals to outlaw guns around federal officials and install bulletproof barriers in the Congressional galleries only reinforce the growing perception that politicians view their own lives as far more important than the lives of ordinary citizens.
Politicians and a complicit media have conditioned many citizens to view government as our protector, leading to more demands for government action whenever tragedies occur. But this impulse is at odds with the best American traditions of self-reliance and individualism, and it also leads to bad laws and the loss of liberty. Remember, liberty only has meaning if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and more government security is demanded. Government cannot make us safe by mandating security any more than than it can make us prosperous by decreeing an end to poverty.
We need to reaffirm the core American value of individual responsibility. Consider the young man who had the courage to tackle the shooter and prevent further carnage because he himself had a concealed weapon. Without that gun he could have been yet another sitting duck. When peaceful citizens are armed they at least have a chance against armed criminals. Advocates of gun control would urge us to leave our safety to law enforcement, but eyewitness reports indicate it took police as much as 20 minutes to arrive on the scene that day.
Since police cannot be everywhere all the time, a large part of our personal safety depends on our ability to defend ourselves. Our constitutional right to bear arms does not create a society without risk or violent crime, and neither would the strictest gun control laws. Guns and violence are a fact of life. The question is whether it is preferable to be defenseless while waiting for the police, or to have the option to arm yourself. We certainly know criminals prefer the former.
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Comments on this should be shut down. The comment section has been hijacked by DHS. The stupid fascist rhetoric you see below is nothing more than DHs propaganda attempting to discredit the US Constitution the document that made America free and what kept dictators from running this country into the ground such as it is today. As for 77 i would rather have a 100 year old freedom fighter than a 30 year old dictator. DHS stop stealing comment post we caught you on face book too dumb ass feds
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Ron Paul wil be 77 in 2012. Get a GRIP!
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That is EXACTLY the kind of anti-socialist propaganda I am talking about. There is PLENTY to go around, and there are enough of willing workers to do the work for EVERYONE.
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As long as WE get to vote, and put an END to political bribery, everything will get better.
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Ron Paul wants us to return to the system of 1921 and 1922? TWO fucking years in the WHOLE history??? Remember how great those two years were? This is actually what he said, when confronted by REAL economists.
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To quote Ferris Bueller, “Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism’s in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, “I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.” Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I’d still have to bum rides off people”
Social order doesn’t need a belief system, just an agreement among the people that nobody is going to screw anyone.
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Yeah, I’m not seeing that. Journalists being assassinated in their apartment blocks and poisoned with Strontium 80 in London pubs?
The only reason Russia appears “passive” is because of 90 years of brutal state control, and a new form of plutocracy led by a resurgent KGB ruled government (putin and medvedev are 80′s KGB operatives).
As for China. You never read about the forcible evictions and riots between landholders and developers? Or about the western provinces?
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I dated a Russian girl about 15 years ago. She grew up under that “left” government. She got a good education, but her life was miserable. Not painful, but very deprived, grey, monotonous.
It isn’t a left or right thing. All great empires or civilizations had good times prior to being taken over by the elite and powerful. Were they left, or right? By what measure?
This whole “left/right” thing is 19th and 20th century thinking. We can get beyond that, to civiliziation.
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100% agreed.
The media (ie government) is forever saying how X many cops have been killed today/last week, or othewise demonizing firearms- as if they CAUSE crime, as if passing more laws restricting access to firearms would in anyway have any influence on criminals that IGNORE laws by definition.
Criminals and governments are the ones that need disarming, not good common folk.
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100% agreed.
The media (ie government) is forever saying how X many cops have been killed today/last week, or othewise demonizing firearms- as if they CAUSE crime, as if passing more laws restricting access to firearms would in anyway have any influence on criminals that IGNORE laws by definition.
Criminals and governments are the ones that need disarming, not good common folk.
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100% agreed.
The media (ie government) is forever saying how X many cops have been killed today/last week, or othewise demonizing firearms- as if they CAUSE crime, as if passing more laws restricting access to firearms would in anyway have any influence on criminals that IGNORE laws by definition.
Criminals and governments are the ones that need disarming, not good common folk.
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Because the governments of China and Russia totally respect their citizen’s rights…
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The FIRST order of business in accomplishing these things, is putting an end to fear-mongering and anti-socialsist propaganda.
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One thing you should note about Russia, is the almost alarming absence of Civil unrest. They are the most passive society one could imagine. China seems to have that same sense of calm and stability.
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If America could Exorcise It’s imperialistic demons and Power lusting right-wing. We could adopt the social conscience of Marxism, bridled by the experience of liberalism to thwart corruption, and become models for the whole world.
(cont.)
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Russia went from having a 100% right-wing ruler called a Czar, to a MUCH further left; Communism.
Lives in Russia improved hundreds of fold as they moved to the left. They are trying to establish some form of Democracy now that I don’t really understand, but as long as they continue moving left instead of right, things will improve further.
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The same goes for Cuba and China. As long as they stay away from the despotism and Autocracy of the past, it will improve as they move left.
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You’re sort of right. No democracy has EVOLVED into a dictatorship UNTIL a priviliged class learned how to manipulate the system to thier advantage.
Rome was a democracy, until enough wealth and power accumulated with a small group. Then it drifted into dictatorship. Russia’s “revolution” might have resulted in “communism” but Lennon and Stalin had too much power, and they eliminated any opposition.
Despotism isn’t left or right, it’s “i got control, and I ain’t letting go”.
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Also, I have no problem with liberalism in the classical sense of the word.
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Stop looking for a hero or a savior in a politician. Look at your OWN power, through the democratic process that made this country GREAT.
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DOWN with LEADERS(Ron Paul) who want to change things, ANY other way than through a LEFT-WING process!
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No country that has tasted democracy, has EVER regressed back to the right, like a communism.
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Communism only has ONE problem. It has a RULER, which makes it a right-wing despotism in disguise.
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watch?v=JL9DXaXufh8
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I am not surprised that gun control advocates will take full advantage of the incident in Arizona.
There has been little said about the assailant’s motives other than mental illness. Some claim that Second Ammendment rights of “ordinary” citizens should not be affected but there needs to be increased restrictions placed on those that have a history of mental illness. The number of people that, we would generally consider to be “ordinary”, that have been treated for depression is staggering, and yes, depression qualifies as mental illness. Besides, what would happen to the right to privacy of medical information? A reasonable person, with common sense, knows that such restrictions, will not prevent random acts of violence. Maybe, lack of using common sense should be automatic disqualification for anyone in a position of influence or decision-making.
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I would love to hear the arguments against the idea that every man would rather be left alone to raise his family without ideologies, religions or party ideas interfering.
If everyone could rely on an order laid out in a constitution, without the greed and avarice of people who want to have more power or more money or more whatever, then the good people who just want to live thier lives could raise their families without angry people and greedy people screwing it up for them.
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The world really is a lot simpler than the pundits and journalists and politicians want us to believe.
All humans just want to have families and live in peace. Politics and Religions convince weaker minds that they need to struggle against other people and other ideas.
But that’s just bullshit. Give a man a chance to raise a family without any outside interference, and he could care less about what you believe or any of that bullshit.
conflict is profit, for some people.
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I tried to get my dad to watch Bill Maher, but he was convinced by Fox News that he’s an anti religion pot smoking liberal. So he wouldn’t watch it.
He had David Stockman on, Reagan’s Budget Director, and Steve Moore, Republican economist from the Wall Street Journal.
The extremist right media convinces people they cannot listen to valid discourse because they need their viewers to stay in lock step. Real time was informative, but it might have lost them a few viewers. It wasn’t liberal
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i suggest people fight the income tax and property tax (and requirements of licenses and permits to drive, carry guns, marriage and open businesses, etc.)…think about it, as if i need to tell you to.. you cant work for a living or own property without the government threatening you with imprisonment and violence, if you dont hand over a portion of the products of your labors…what do you call that besides slavery? i just cant believe how stupid people are
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If you want an ACCURATE picture of what the modern left is about, try the horse’s mouth. Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein are a good place to start. They all have good books that represent what the modern left is about. Read these FIRST, then come back and talk the same trash. I DARE you.
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Gun control is just retarded. Will the criminals turn in their guns? Will criminals not legally allowed to buy guns stop buying them off the black market? Only law abiding citizens would be adhering to gun control.
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Run Ron Run
Run Ron Run
Run Ron Run
Dr. Ron Paul Hope for America!
for info visit Daily Paul and Liberty Poet
websites
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“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
“If the passengers had been armed, 9/11 would never have happened. Arm the people, disarm the government.” ~ L. Neil Smith
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The voice of sanity Dr. Ron Paul!
Lefties in Europe would go bananas with this kind of retoric. LOL!
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Why doesn’t Ron Paul tell his supports to quit paying taxes and quit using Federal Reserve Notes?
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WELL SAID. DR. RON PAUL!!!!!!
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Thank you Dr Paul for the hope of return of free and just USA!
And for being a source of news effectively censored by lefties-controlled European media.
“No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session” – Gideon John Tucker
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I know this is terrible to say but the main stream Zionist’s don’t seem to like it when Zionizam shoe is on the other foot
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You can liken FDR’s NRA to the renaissance. Every so often a Left-wing visionary rises up and inspires the people’s passions for nurturing and generosity.
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This always leads to GREAT collective achievements, through a shared governing process. The GREEDY wealthy right-wing HATES this and always manages to infiltrate and destroy the accomplishments through prejudice propaganda and selfish cynicism.
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The TEA-Party is but the latest iteration of this, the astroturf won’t hold up forever, though.
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I would hope that John Sununu has a weapon that he trained his wife to use, for her own protection. Would she be arrested for possessing a weapon within 1,000 yards of a federal official?
Nobody wants to see a representative killed, but nobody wants to see anyone killed, either.
Why not write a law to protect eveyone, instead of themselves? Or! maybe why not just enforce the laws we already have? Does the private prison lobby have that much sway? We don’t need more laws. You know.
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Morning PhilLesh69
That’s correct, you and I are just ordinary schmucks [subjects] and are not entitled to protection.
Our representatives are “super-humans” able to leap over the law in a single bound… more powerful than… you get the picture.
We the People are the “problem” that needs to be “contained” !
Their solution has always been, and will always be to disarm and control. Thus anyone who exercises his 2nd Amendment Rights becomes a Criminal by default.
Soon the only place a gun will be tolerated will be in the mountains of Montana, 10 miles from the nearest telephone line.
So a disarmed “citizen” simply becomes a “subject” to be herded into containment pen when the time is right.
Beware of these “well intended” Wolves !
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I’m pretty sure that John Sununu lives less than a football field away from my townhouse.
If Burton and King’s bill passes, would I have to get rid of my gun? I would be possessing a firearm within 1,000 feet of a federal official (retired), and I wouldn’t be able to keep that weapon for my own family’s protection, even though I bought it legally and have a valid concealed carry permit approved by the chief of police of Fairfax County?
This is getting silly. Replicans writing gun laws.
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I can understand a limit against guns at political events, but any law that says you are automatically a criminal if you possess a gun near a federal official is just another “drunk in public” law. It’s a blanket law that gives police a “catch all” law to arrest people.
If I have a valid conceal carry permit, and I’m at the grocery store, or if I’m open carrying, and a congressman or senator’s aid shows up, could he have me arrested just because?
And former senator sununu lives a block awy
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