Free Republic

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is decrying the "war on drugs" in a speech to supporters in Washington state. The Texas congressman told more than 1,000 people at a rally Thursday night in Vancouver, Wash., that Americans should be able to make their own decisions on such matters.

Nobody expects the Republican presidential nominee to be a libertarian purist, but it helps if he or she at least has a libertarian streak. In Rick Santorum's case, he's actively hostile toward libertarianism, and that's an obstacle not only to him winning the nomination, but also to having a chance in a general election against President Obama. With Santorum emerging as a true contender for the Republican nomination, he's been coming under fire for his many votes to expand government. He took earmarks, voted for the Medicare prescription drug plan and backed No Child Left Behind. He pushed dairy subsidies,...

Rick Santorum had a somewhat super Tuesday on February 7th. He won all three Republican presidential primaries, thereby reviving a campaign that had failed to follow up on his victory in Iowa. Santorum could become the sole alternative to Romney for the Republican nomination. If that happens, he could become the GOP nominee in 2012. Should libertarians vote for him? Here’s my (broad) definition of a libertarian. A libertarian cares about individual liberty and thus limited government. Those concerns lead to further commitments to free markets in economics, moral pluralism in culture, and realism and restraint in foreign policy. Government...

Every week someone sends me an idea on how to fix various housing problems.  Many want home prices to stop falling and many others want to bail out homeowners because banks were bailed out (as if two wrongs make a right). Others want to stop foreclosures even though the very best thing for most of the people in trouble would be to shed the albatross by walking away. The one thing they all have in common is a misguided proposal to bailout someone at the expense of someone else (typically the government but few figure out the government means taxpayers). ...

GOP stowaway reportedly handing-out fresh power-packs... They once planned to clean-up in SC Supporters wait anxiously for arrival of misguided pacifist Messiah Danger, Will Robinson, DANGER! Noot vs Wackadoodle Ron video/more at Reaganite Republican

LAKE JACKSON, Texas (AP) - The only trail where you might catch Ron Paul this weekend is the biking one here. While the other Republican presidential candidates were campaigning in South Carolina, the Texas congressman whose recent momentum is arguably second only to front-runner Mitt Romney's is home taking a break, just as his often belittled candidacy has never been taken more seriously. Paul's supporters say they don't begrudge the 76-year-old for stepping out of the spotlight after he really seized it. "It's totally OK," said Cindy Lake, 48, a volunteer passing out voter registration forms ahead of Nevada's primary...

Throughout the primary election season there's been a group unfairly villainized by the rest of the Republicans. Not the establishment (they can't be villainized enough for giving us McCain and trying to keep folks like Rand Paul from getting elected in 2010) -- I mean libertarians. Republicans like to villainize libertarians for infiltrating their party -- but refuse to acknowledge that being libertarian and being Republican are not mutually exclusive. I wish someone had told me, but apparently all self-identified libertarians are the same caricature of Ron Paul supporters who refuses to debate and instead just shouts "Neo-con! Neo-con!" at...

Fifty people have been accused of conspiring to sell the identities of hundreds of Puerto Ricans to illegal immigrants on the U.S. mainland in the largest single fraud case ever for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, authorities said Wednesday. Hundreds of birth certificates, Social Security numbers and driver's licenses were sold for up to $2,500 a set as part of a black market ring based in Puerto Rico that operated from since at least April 2009, according to ICE Director John Morton. (SNIP) About 80 percent of the documents involved were sold by Puerto Ricans whose names were on them,...

Seattle has a brilliant solution to their many police problems — refuse to release police dash-cam footage, then sue the person requesting said footage.

  The Ron Paul Phenomenon David C. Stolinsky Jan. 4, 2012 The strong showing of presidential hopeful Ron Paul is surprising many conservatives, who find his rigid view of the role of government to be narrow, even extreme. They find his former statements and associates to be questionable if not objectionable. They find his plan to cut the military drastically to be reckless. They find his notion that these cuts be executed by associates of George Soros to be dangerous. What next − Jane Fonda as secretary of Defense? Why not? Where, exactly, does Paul’s foreign policy of “blame...

In a recent column, The Washington Post’s Fact Checker declared Rep. Ron Paul “a consistent champion of smaller government” who votes against “virtually every piece of legislation that could be interpreted as government overreach or interference with the free market.” There one small problem with the analysis: It ignores the fact that Paul is one of the biggest pork-barrel earmarkers on Capitol Hill. The Texas Republican defends his record, telling Fox News’s Neil Cavuto in a 2009 interview that “earmarks is the responsibility of the Congress. We should earmark even more.” And besides, he explained, he votes “no” on all...

The young Paulistas gathered to receive their marching orders. Get a haircut. Wear a tie. Be polite. Don't gratuitously annoy mainline Republicans. Leave the discussion of political philosophy to the candidate. Your job, they were instructed, is to win votes for Ron Paul. That was the scene as described to me in New York City this summer. Since then, it has become standard operating procedure for the activists once dismissed as the "Ron Paul kids" during their long march through the GOP. "No tats," one young Paul volunteer told the New York Times he was advised. No "fraternizing in the...

Stereotypes and broad brush labels are common in the current political climate. If someone says they believe homosexuality is a sin and that drugs ignite societal problems, they would almost immediately be placed in the “Christian right-wing” category. If another person says that the government should not be in the marriage business and that drugs should be decriminalized, then that person would likely be labeled a “liberal.” But what if a person believes both sides of the argument? Enter the Christian libertarian. A Christian libertarian is generally aligned with the core moral beliefs of Christian conservatives but emphasizes free will...

Highly-conservative former U.S. Navy chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt has done the leg work. He's connected the dots. He's put two and two together. He's milked the monkey for its simian wisdom. And he's finally willing to make public his shocking discovery: The Ron Paul campaign is little more than an insidious conspiracy between the libertarians and Democrats — who, as everybody knows, love each other — to take over the Republican Party… "In Iowa, the only reason Ron Paul is polling so high is because he’s getting crossover votes from the left-wing. And there are people who are trying to sabotage...

To "get" Ron Paul you have to understand libertarianism -- an ism every bit as delusional as Marxism. The National Libertarian Party, which first ran a presidential candidate in 1972, hasn't had many wins -- electing 4 state legislators in as many decades, as well as a planning commissioner here and an alderman there. Ron Paul is its greatest success. The Texas congressman is far and away the most prominent proponent of what I like to call rightwing utopianism. Libertarianism is to authentic conservatism what Barack Obama is to 19th century liberalism. Inspired by Ayn Rand (Ron named his son,...

As 2011 draws to a close, I wonder: Is freedom winning? Did America become freer this year? Less free? How about the rest of the world? I'm a pessimist. I fear Thomas Jefferson was right when he said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." That's what's happened. Bush and Obama doubled spending and increased regulation. Government's intrusiveness is always more, never less. The state grows, and freedom declines. But there were bright spots. We don't yet know what will become of what people call the Arab Spring. But this year, for...

Go to any Ron Paul event and the audience is part of the tale. They’re younger, rowdier, more socially diverse than Republican rally regulars. Any one of them might have driven across the state to see Paul speak or be able to riff at length about Austrian economic theory. Any one of them also might be a Democrat or an independent, a fact that’s poised to play a big role in Paul’s story in 2012. ...The fact that roughly half of Paul’s primary supporters are Democrats or independents is probably an asset in selling his general election viability, which his...

A former Ron Paul staffer named Eric Dondero, who worked closely with the Texas congressman and presidential candidate over the course of 15 years, has issued a statement in which he both defends his old boss from charges of racism and anti-Semitism and reveals damning new details about about the "sheer lunacy of [Paul's] foreign policy views". First, Dondero claims that his old boss is such an extreme isolationist that "he strenuously does not believe the United States had any business getting involved in fighting Hitler in WWII. He expressed to me countless times, that 'saving the Jews,' was absolutely...

Clint Bolick looks like any other high-powered lawyer, for the most part. But glance down at his index finger, which sports a scorpion tattoo, for first-hand evidence of his unconventional streak.Mr. Bolick has fought for the right of Arizonans to have their toes nibbled. After successfully defending a tattoo artist, he celebrated by having himself inked. From his perch here at the Goldwater Institute, a high-powered libertarian think tank, Mr. Bolick has even picked a fight with an entire professional hockey team.From a conservative point of view, there is no end to the government interference in individual liberties going on...

Sorry for the vanity. My son has returned from Left for Hillsdale College 1 1/2 years ago as a conservative and returned as a rabid Paul Supporter. (vanity)I am despondent after debating with him. He is lost.

Effective. A filial endorsement is endearing, if predictable, and Rand’s already prominent enough as a national figure that his stamp of approval qualifies as a rare “mainstream� thumbs up for his pop. The message is smart, too: No policy specifics, just a promise that Ron will stick to his principles because that’s what he’s been doing for 50 years. True enough; whatever his other faults, the fear that President Paul would “evolve� in office is absolute zero. Quite a contrast with the likely nominee.They’re going for the Iowa tea-party vote here, I take it, but I don’t know how helpful...

Thanks to glowing commentary from Ron Paul suppporters I have been called a coward, a traitor, a neocon, a nazi, that I'm sick and a 'demeanor' of the modern day Thomas Jefferson all because I said what a lot of Republicans are thinking but won't say: Ron Paul is a Libertarian and not a Republican. (For the record, with due respect to the Congressman, Ron Paul couldn't hold Thomas Jefferson's quill pen.) Congressman Paul turned his back on the GOP in 1987 and resigned. Instead of trying to fix the problems that he cites in his resignation, he bolts and...

  The Ideal Republican Candidate David C. Stolinsky Dec. 19, 2011 Many people are arguing about which of the current Republican candidates is preferable. But the bottom line is that none of them is ideal. If one were ideal, there would be a lot less arguing. So the first thing to do is to determine what is the ideal. If we can agree on that, we will be able to tell which candidate comes closest. The ideal candidate is a conservative. Yes, but what is conservative? To me, a conservative is one who is firmly grounded in Judeo-Christian and...

Ron Paul has gone Hollywood. Appearing on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” Friday, the presidential hopeful took a swipe at his GOP rivals telling the crowd that Michele Bachmann “hates Muslims.” When asked by host Jay Leno what he thought of his rivals, Paul shook his head, slowed his voice and said, “she doesn’t like Muslims, she hates them, she wants to go get ‘em” — in reference to the comments Bachmann has made on the campaign trail over her willingness to attack Iran over its suspected nuclear program. Bachmann, who is campaigning today in Iowa, rejected Paul’s comments....

This man is a rambling fool. Ron Paul's answer on the question of Iran is so far removed from common sense it isn't even funny. Bret Baier points out that his position is to the left of Barack Obama. Take a look at this video and keep in mind, Glenn Beck would consider voting for this clown over Newt Gingrich. Here's the video : Ron Paul Republican Iowa Debate on Iran

1. Paul’s intellectual mentor Murray Rothbard was the founder of anarcho-capitalism and opposed the legitimacy of all nation-states, including ours. 2. Paul openly proclaims himself a revival of the Old Right, the movement which opposed our entry in World War II. He and his followers proudly reject the New Right tradition established by William F. Buckley Jr., Ronald Reagan, and Barry Goldwater.  “When I was deciding whether or not to run for President as a Republican, I re-read Justin Raimondo’s Reclaiming the American Right and it gave me hope—that the anti-interventionist, pro-liberty Old Right, which had once dominated the party, could and...

Johnson has told a reporter that this is something he’s looking at and that he will be in New York tomorrow to do “as many media appearances as they can wind me up and send me in that direction.” But he said he wasn’t announcing the switch tomorrow. Stephen Gordon, who identifies himself as the Southern Regional Director of the Gary Johnson 2012 campaign, told me: “I personally spoke with Governor Johnson a couple of days ago and outlined many of the pros and cons of running for the LP’s presidential nomination. It’s my opinion that certain senior leaders within...

Ron Paul: Legalizing Marijuana Is a State's Constitutional Right Ron Paul recently told all 23 members of Air America's listening audience that he is strongly in support of state sovereignty concerning the legalization of the sticky icky pot weed… He said that he believes that the U.S. Constitution gives the fifty states the right to legalize hemp production or marijuana. He said the issue was a matter of personal liberty but added that drug users should not be entitled to government-funded treatment if they abuse legalized drugs. Not in a free market America, they shouldn't. That would make them...

Ron Paul is the wild card in the Republican presidential deck—and that makes him one of the most important cards of all right now. ....If Mr. Paul does well in Iowa, he could so muddy the waters that there is no clear winner. An inconclusive outcome would be a boon for Mr. Romney, who hasn't done all that well in Iowa, and who is counting much more heavily on winning the New Hampshire primary a week later. A murky Iowa result would reduce any momentum the upstart Mr. Gingrich might enjoy heading into New Hampshire. New Hampshire, in turn, is...

The Illinois African American Libertarian Alliance (IAALA) is home to hundreds of Chicago African American conservatives and has decided to endorse Newt Gingrich for the upcoming 2012 election. “Newt Gingrich represents the values of many conservatives—White, Latino, or Black. He is honest about who he is and is the perfect person to turn a falling country around,” says IAALA President David Lemar.

Are Ron Paul libertarians tolerant conservatives, or just people who want to legalize everything, thus inviting big government to clean up the mess? Find out what AlfonZo Rachel thinks.

Rep. Ron Paul rarely makes news, and his candidacy is frequently ignored by Beltway reporters. But headlines, his aides say, are overrated. In fact, the Texas Republican’s low-key autumn was strategic. As Paul’s competitors stumbled and sparred, he amassed a small fortune for his campaign and built a strong ground operation. And with January fast approaching, his team is ready to surprise the political world and sweep the Iowa caucuses. “This was a movement when he first started running in 2008,” says Trygve Olson, a senior Paul adviser. “Now it’s turned into a highly professionalized campaign, but the energy from...

Elderly, iconoclastic Rep. Ron Paul, the longtime champion of meaningless straw polls, is now doing it where it counts in the ongoing struggle for the Republican presidential nomination. A brand-new Iowa Poll, just published by the Des Moines Register, reports the often-dismissed 76-year-old Paul has surged past one-time front-runner Mitt Romney and moved into second place, with his sights set on the current front-runner Newt Gingrich. According to the new poll results, Gingrich leads the pack at 25% of likely caucus-goers with less than a month until they're held. Paul is second with 18% and Romney now trails with 16%.

The Tea Party’s limited-government, constitutional heart is in the right place. But it needs much better guidance about how the Constitution works in wartime. The defense-authorization bill currently under congressional consideration contains some unremarkable, largely redundant provisions about the treatment of enemy combatants. Naturally, the now-familiar alliance of leftists and libertarian extremists — self-proclaimed “constitutionalists” all — attacked with their signature “sky is falling” equanimity. On Wednesday, my column addressed some of the more hysterical arguments posited by Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano. The real action, however, was taking place on the Senate floor, where Tea Party favorite Rand Paul...

A Long Island man was stunned to find out that his 4-year-old twins weren’t an accidental pregnancy at all — his desperate girlfriend secretly stashed away his sperm and used it for an in-vitro procedure, he charges in a lawsuit. Elmont resident Joseph Pressil, 36, wasn’t planning on having children with Anetria Burnett, with whom he was in a relationship for six months in 2007, he said. So she took matters into her own hands, he told The Post, in order to remain in his Texas house and make a legal bid for half of his possessions. -snip- The real...

A top Russian female newsreader who appeared to defiantly show US President Barack Obama her middle finger during a live newscast has been fired.

Rep. Ron Paul may not win the Republican nomination for president, but the prospect of him running as a third party candidate in the general election is not off the table, he says. Paul, long a favorite of the Libertarian Party, is drawing enthusiastic support from its leaders, who are openly pushing him to consider a third party run for the White House. “Absolutely, that would be fabulous,” said Jim Lesczynski, media relations director for the Manhattan Libertarian Party. Lesczynski says his party agrees with Paul on most of the major issues, calling him an “ideal candidate.” He added that...

For decades, parents have worried about dangerous substances being put into what their children receive while Trick or Treating. On Friday evening, HBO's Bill Maher actually called for people to "put drugs in the Halloween candy"

70 minute VIDEO- Former President of Mexico Vincente Fox speaks on ending the drug war.

I used to be a huge fan of Ann Coulter's

As the above poster notes, Big-Government is a joke. The bureaucracy and its pet processes have expanded to the point government has become mostly incompetent (except the military, which has a clear and unwavering command structure that keeps individuals from diluting the purpose and focus of the overall group). Big-Government incompetence is everywhere – and was the root cause of the economic implosion we experienced in 2008. Housing values, 401k’s and many other repositories of a life time of work and saving were wiped out by liberal nonsense. When Democrats Dodd & Frank used Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

Kokomo — Sheriff deputies arrested one of four people believed to be involved in a child-selling case in which a baby was traded for $17,000 and drugs. Deputies arrested Stephen P. Lynch Jr., 31, Thursday afternoon on a warrant charging him with a Class A felony conspiracy to deal in a narcotic and D felonies conspiracy to commit child selling and profiting from an adoption. According to a probable cause affidavit filed in Howard Superior Court 1, Stephen Lynch, along with another person, gave another couple $13,000, a 1996 Lincoln Mark VIII valued at $3,531 and numerous drugs in exchange...

Today, the Occupy Wall Street protestors decided to finally list their demands. Mixed in with some generic references to items like restoring Glass-Steagall which has been called for by many on the left, are a series of unachievable and cryptic utopian demands. From forgiving all debt and eliminating the debt and credit system in general, to making wars ‘pay as you go’ and granting every person a minimum living monetary allocation so they can choose not to work, the demands seem to be a mishmash of societal changing goals. If one steps back and looks at the big picture of...

There are differences of philosophy between progressives and libertarians, but we CAN agree on at least four issues upon which we can make immediate and concrete demands. Success on these demands would go a very long way toward saving the United States and prevent us from falling deeper into serfdom and slavery. We may never have a better chance than right now.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) was one of only four House Republicans to break rank from the party and request earmarks despite a Republican Conference earmark moratorium. Paul sent 41 earmark requests totaling $157,093,544 for the 2011 Fiscal Year. His largest single request was $19,500,000 for a naval training ship at the Texas Maritime Academy in Galveston, followed by a $18,126,000 to provide maintenance on the Matagorda Ship Channel. For Fiscal Year 2010, Paul requested 54 total earmarks, adding up to $398,460,640 in pork that the former presidential candidate sought to bring home to his district. These requests were made...

Ron Paul says he'd consider putting Dennis Kucinich in his Cabinet By Justin Sink - 09/21/11 12:02 PM ET Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) says he would consider putting the liberal congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in his Cabinet if he wins the presidency in 2012. Paul said his libertarian political philosophy helps him connect with some on the far left — including Kucinich, who shares Paul’s general anti-war stance. Paul joked that if he brought the Ohio congressman aboard in his administration, he might have to create a "Department of Peace." "You've got to give credit to people who think," he...

Oh, this guy is funny. And he pretty much nails it. "Taken to a logical extreme, this sort of political pageantry ratchets up the degree of difficulty for a quality candidate with strong ideas and sound principles, especially if the candidate in question looks like an aging college professor (Representative Ron Paul) or a guy who cuts his own hair (former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson). As 2012 approaches like the T-Rex chasing the Jeep in “Jurassic Park,” we are welcomed to the aforementioned logical extreme. For those who think I’m overstating the case, say hello to the current field...

Colorado Springs State Bank was last in state publicly doing business with the industry . The last bank in the state of Colorado that was publicly doing business with the medical marijuana industry decided it will be closing all of those accounts by the end of September, leaving dispensaries across the state scrambling. The Colorado Springs State Bank sent out a letter last week to its medical marijuana account holders requesting them to have their bank accounts closed by Sept. 30. "There are unresolved issues with regulations, law enforcement and other agencies that need to get resolved before the industry...

His exact words: "Libertarians would much rather see/let people DIE and then SUE, before letting the government regulate drugs." He then quickly moved on to marijuana and has previously provided jokes as to "toking up" in regards to Alexis de Tocequville(the french historian known for explaining Democracy in America) while of course garnering attention and laughs from the young adults in this class.

August 31, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Many Americans have been shocked by reports about a recent pro-pedophilia conference in Baltimore in which psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, representing institutions like Harvard and Johns Hopkins, sought to present pedophilia in a sympathetic and even positive light. But why should this surprise us? Academic articles in scholarly journals have been presenting pedophilia in a sympathetic light for years, and, as Matthew Cullinan Hoffman noted, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) released a report in 1998 “claiming that the ‘negative potential’ of adult sex with children was ‘overstated’ and that ‘the vast majority of...