Ron Paul in Speech at 2011 CPAC conference

On Foreign Policy: We invested $70B in Mubarak; stop spending on puppets

[Egypt's President] Mubarak resigned today. People now say "what should our position be? What should our position be about finding the next dictator of Egypt?" And I would say "we need to do a lot less, a lot sooner, not only in Egypt but around the world."

Some people want to argue about that and say we have a moral responsibility to spread our goodness around the world and it's our obligation to do this. But let me tell you, fiscal conservatives should look at this carefully, how much did we invest in that dictator over the past 30 years? $70 billion, we invested in Egypt. And guess what? The government is crumbling and the people are upset, not only with their government by they're upset with us for propping up that puppet dictator for all those years. Now to add insult to injury, where do you think the money went? To Swiss bank account, that family, the Mubarak family had $40, 50, 60 billion--nobody knows--stashed away in other countries, other areas of your money and that is true.

Source: Speech at 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference Feb 11, 2011

On Foreign Policy: Exceptionalism shouldn't mean using force around the world

There's been talk lately about American exceptionalism; it's been the greatest country, most freedom, most prosperity. My concern is I'm afraid we're losing it, I'm afraid we've given up on our devotion to liberty, that's where our problem is. But where I think we go astray on this exceptionalism is there are some people and sometimes they're referred as neoconservatives and they're sort of neo-Jacobins where they believe that we have this moral responsibility to use force to go around the world and say "you will do it our way or else." Well, force doesn't work; it never works.

The best way to get people to act more like us if we're doing a good job, is for us to have a sound economy, a sound dollar, treat people decently, have a foreign policy that makes common sense, treat people like we want to be treated, and then maybe they would want to emulate us and say "freedom does work and we ought to try it." But we can't force it on other people.

Source: Speech at 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference Feb 11, 2011

On Homeland Security: We can't keep troops in 135 countries & 900 bases forever

Just remember the Soviet system did not collapse because we had to fight them, they collapsed for economic reasons. Guess where their final plunge was on their empire? Afghanistan. So it makes no sense for us to think that we can keep troops in 135 countries, 900 bases and think we can do it forever. So no matter how badly you want us to do that, it's time to reassess that foreign policy. It's time for us to bring troops home, we've had troops in Japan since World War 2 and in Germany, why are we paying for their defense?

Now, there's been a lot of talk about the budget deficit. The military is not equated to defense, defense spending is one thing, military spending is what Eisenhower called the "military industrial complex" and we have to go after that. Government is out of control and it's very hard for us to get a handle on it.

Source: Speech at 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference Feb 11, 2011

The above quotations are from Speeches to Conservative Political Action 2011 Conference. Click here for other excerpts from Speeches to Conservative Political Action 2011 Conference. Click here for other excerpts by Ron Paul. Click here for a profile of Ron Paul.
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Page last updated: Dec 03, 2018