2012 voter guide: Ron Paul

Ron Paul is a Republican representative from Texas in his third presidential run. He is a medical doctor who has a private practice as an obstetrician. Read a full biography of Ron Paul by the Atlanta Elections Examiner here.

Campaign website: ronpaul2012.com

Supporting PAC: revolutionpac.com

Georgia website: ga4ronpaul.com

Georgia 2008 results: 2.9 percent/fourth place (Real Clear Politics)

Latest 2012 Georgia poll results: 5.0 percent/third place (Real Clear Politics)

Taxes: Paul supports a constitutional amendment to end the income and death taxes. He would also repeal the capital gains tax. He supports a flat tax or the Fair Tax as a replacement for the current tax system. He believes that a zero percent tax rate can be achieved with cuts in spending. Paul would abolish the Federal Reserve and establish a new gold standard.

Obamacare: Ron Paul would repeal Obamacare and enact a tax credit for health insurance premiums and medical expenses. He would allow the sale of health insurance across state lines. Paul favors health savings accounts and tort reform. He opposes a taxpayer-funded national database of health records and the government “interfering with Americans’ knowledge of and access to dietary supplements and alternative treatments.”

Energy: Ron Paul opposes federal interference in the energy markets and cap-and-trade. He would repeal the federal gasoline tax and ease government restrictions on coal and nuclear power. Paul would create tax credits for alternative fuel technologies.

Life: Paul would pass a “We the People Act” to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue of abortion to the states. Paul would pass a “Sanctity of Life Act” that would define life as beginning at conception. He opposes taxpayer funding of abortion.

Iran: Ron Paul does not believe that Iran threatens U.S. national security (ABC News).

Immigration: Ron Paul supports secure borders, while opposing amnesty and REAL ID laws. He supports an end to birthright citizenship and opposes government benefits for illegal immigrants.

National Security: Ron Paul opposes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would avoid future nation-building. He opposes the PATRIOT Act and would end all foreign aid. Paul would “revitalize” the military by eliminating waste in the military budget.

Spending: Ron Paul would refuse to raise the debt ceiling, forcing Congress to live within its means. Paul has proposed $1 trillion in spending cuts. He would eliminate the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Interior, and Housing and Urban Development. He would also abolish the TSA, return most spending to 2006 levels, and cut ten percent of the federal workforce. Paul would take a salary equal to that of the average American in lieu of the president’s current salary of $400,000. (Yahoo)

Entitlements: Ron Paul points out that “entitlements are not rights.” (Washington Post)

Second Amendment: Ron Paul believes that the second amendment is the “guardian of every other right.” He would repeal the Brady Bill and the assault weapons ban. He would end U.S. membership in the U.N. “to ensure American tax dollars are not used to fund global gun control schemes like the so-called ‘Small Arms Treaty.’”

Gay marriage: Paul opposes federal efforts to redefine marriage, but opposes a federal marriage amendment. Paul voted to end Don’t Ask-Don’t Tell. (Yahoo)

Where possible, the positions of the candidate were taken from the campaign websites cited above. When this was not possible, the source of the information presented is cited in parentheses and linked.

Read this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/elections-2012-in-atlanta/2012-voter-guide-ron-paul

Are American Civil Liberties Threatened?

The NSA and other US intelligence agencies exist to protect the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. It has become fashionable to opine that civil liberties are deteriorating in the United States, but that is a notion not supported by fact.

Contrary to what many people believe, the US government has no interest in your personal phone calls, email, library books, or other aspects of your personal life unless you are communicating with known terrorists or planning a terrorist attack yourself. The surveillance programs are aimed at the very real threat of terrorist cells, both those abroad and hidden among us, not your plans for the weekend or your conversations with your spouse.

The NSA's so-called "warrantless wiretap" program is actually on solid legal ground. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 provided a secret court to issue warrants for surveillance. It also specifically allows the President to authorize warrantless wiretaps if "there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party". (50 U.S.C. 1802(a)(1)). Additionally, FISA also contains a provision that states that FISA is to apply "unless authorized by statute."

Congress' Authorization To Use Military Force Against Terrorist provides just such a statutory exception. The Authorization states in part that the president may "use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." Such an authorization would reasonably include intelligence gathering operations to prevent future attacks.

The Bush Administration advised members of both parties of Congress about the nature of the surveillance program. In doing so, they complied with their duty to notify Congress under the National Security Act of 1947. These notifications also seem to indicate that the Bush Administration fully believed that the program was legal. A Congressional Research Service report states that limited notifications were permitted to protect intelligence gathering methods.
It is also interesting to note that none of the members of Congress who were notified were reported to have any problems with the surveillance program prior to its publication in the New York Times.

The Bush Administration is caught between a rock and a hard place with their critics. When an attack occurs, they are criticized for intelligence failures and for not doing enough to stop the terrorists. When they do take strong and decisive actions to go on the offensive against the terrorists, they are criticized for curtailing civil liberties.

The NSA's domestic surveillance programs are not a threat to civil liberties, but a valuable tool in the war against the terrorists. Making these programs public was a great disservice to the nation and makes it harder for our military and law enforcement personnel to do their jobs. I would be much more concerned if our government were not listening on the conversations of terrorists.

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantle ss_surveillance_controversy