Congress, International, Politics

Ron Paul Speaks about Wikileaks on the Floor of the House

Recently, Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas took to the floor of the House to talk about Wikileaks, transparency in government, and the case of Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers, and the New York Times. He spoke about how the Iraq War was based on lies.  He asked how the U. S. government should prosecute a citizen of Australia for publishing classified U. S. documents that he did not steal. Paul also said the following: “Revealing the real nature and goal of our presence in so many Muslim countries is a threat to our empire, and any revelation of this truth is highly resented by those in charge.”

Paul posed a number of questions at the end of his talk:

Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?

Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?

Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?

Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?

Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?

Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?

Thomas Jefferson had it right when he advised ‘Let the eyes of vigilance never be closed.’ I yield back the balance of my time.

 Source: Huffington Post

– Elaine Magliaro

588 thoughts on “Ron Paul Speaks about Wikileaks on the Floor of the House”

  2. Blouise,(aren’t you lucky I love a challenge) why shouldnt children be allowed to seek employment or even start their own businesses? Dont kids start up lemonade stands and take up paper routes and odd jobs to earn money for penny whistles and moonpies, or whatever those dang kids do for fun nowadays? Dont we put kids in the movies and on tv shows, and arent they adorable? Why not give these youngsters credit for their initiative, creativity and hard work?

    Ohhhhh your talking about the dirty cruel jobs we force those third world kids to do like knit sweaters and nike shoes and clothes for kathy lee gifford. Hmmm I dont suppose youd be comparing their domestic alternatives to the alternatives available to the children of this country? Of course kids get to go to school here, their parents can make enough money to make ends meet and put food on the table. We have a highly developed economy here, we can afford to forgo wages earned by children. Suppose you couldn’t? Perhaps making nike shoes for 8 hours a day without a bathroom brake earns you 3 dollars a day? How horrible you say, but wait, the average income of your country is somewhere between 1 and 2 dollars a day. Not only are you earning higher than the average wage, but making nike shoes would be damn preferable to being what children, denied the opportuniy of gainful employment in the face of abject poverty, are reduced to: vagabonds, beggars, tramps, robbers, and prostitutes. Of course these conditions are awful but opposed to what, the agonizing choice between child prostitution and watching family members starve?

    Heres a handy history lesson about child labor in the idustrial revolution as well

    http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/child-labor-and-the-british-industrial-revolution/

    “Child labor was virtually eliminated when, for the first time in history, the productivity of parents in free labor markets rose to the point that it was no longer economically necessary for children to work in order to survive. The emancipators and benefactors of children were not legislators or factory inspectors, but factory owners and financiers. Their efforts and investments in machinery led to a rise in real wages, to a growing abundance of goods at lower prices, and to an incomparable improvement in the general standard of living. “

  3. If those people were clamoring for laws it is not because they could not find a free market solution, it is because they were not looking for one. They valued their jobs more than they valued their safety or they would have found alternative employment, or even started their own firms with safer working conditions and attracted their former coworkers.

    =============================================================

    Children? (child labor laws) … never mind … the argument is ridiculous … no pearls dropping from ekeyra’s satchel

  4. Tony,

    Free market solutions are limited only by the imagination and ingenuity of human beings. If those people were clamoring for laws it is not because they could not find a free market solution, it is because they were not looking for one. They valued their jobs more than they valued their safety or they would have found alternative employment, or even started their own firms with safer working conditions and attracted their former coworkers. The fact that they didn’t, in no way invalidates the free market.

    Hmmm “The Jungle”…..

    http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=7229

    “The inspectors Holbrook refers to as being mentioned in Sinclair’s book were among hundreds employed by federal, state, and local governments for more than a decade. Indeed, Congressman E. D. Crumpacker of Indiana noted in testimony before the House Agriculture Committee in June 1906 that not even one of those officials “ever registered any complaint or (gave) any public information with respect to the manner of the slaughtering or preparation of meat or food products.” ”

    “Historians with an ideological axe to grind against the market usually ignore an authoritative 1906 report of the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Animal Husbandry. Its investigators provided a point-by-point refutation of the worst of Sinclair’s allegations, some of which they labeled as “willful and deliberate misrepresentations of fact,” “atrocious exaggeration,” and “not at all characteristic.” ”

    Welcome to the conversation Mike.

    Ill be back tommorrow to address the BP issues. Im sure you all wait with baited breath. Nevertheless the actions of a few companies do not refute the fact that BILLIONS of individuals and the vast majority of companies go about their daily lives harming noone. The same cannot be said of any government of any geographical, cultural, or historical category.

  6. Mike A and rafflaw, ” BP was really looking after our best interests in the Gulf earlier this year…”
    (Hi Mike A, I’m glad to see you posting the last couple of days, I’ve missed you.)

    And the government is really looking out for the troops in conjunction with all that care BP is bestowing on us:

    “Armed services are urged to stock kitchens with Gulf seafood”

    http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/12/armed_services_are_urged_to_st.html

  7. FFLEO and SwM,

    New Mexico … one of my most favorite places on earth

    Here’s my idea of the perfect cowboy:

  9. Swarthmore mom: “…I am thinking of the smell of the pinon wood burning.”
    ________

    You are making me homesick for SW Colorado.

  10. “…I am thinking of the smell of the pinon wood burning.” You are making me homesick for SW Colorado.

  11. Mike A.,
    You are right about the Jungle and what it exposed in the meat packing industry here in Chicago. BP was really looking after our best interests in the Gulf earlier this year,didn’t they?!

  12. FFLEO: You must have very good memories of that song if you still play it. I wish that I were going to New Mexico for Christmas. I am thinking of the smell of the pinon wood burning.

  13. Swarthmore Mom,

    Me too! That is why the song is a favorite 50s oldie of mine. On one of our many trips through there, between Colorado and Texas, the song was playing on the car radio when we were several miles from Tucumcari. As a kid at the time (about 1959) I thought that was a Twilight Zone moment. Even now, I listen to the song several times a week.

  14. I respectfully suggest that anyone who truly believes that an unregulated free market provides the best protection against adulterated food and dangerous products should spend a little time reading the history of industrial development in this country. I believe that to be the best cure for assorted free market solution fantasies. And if you find history texts boring, simply read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.”

  17. Blouise,

    Instead of goin’ To Morrow, that guy simply should have given up and gone to Tucumcari…it was only 12 more miles…besides there was a yeller-haired gal a’waitin’…

  18. None of the citizens demanding drugs be inspected and tested for safety and efficacy before being sold to the public profit from that any more than any other citizen, but they all profited by stopping the lies and fraud that was killing people.”

    Hmm… the same FDA that has fought and won in the courts for the power to deny dying children with ALS access to experimental drugs? Safety concerns, you know.

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