Ron Paul Is Sole Dissenter From Resolution Supporting Iranian Protests
The House voted 405-1 today for a resolution in support of the Iranian dissidents and condemning the ruling government. And the one man who opposed it was...Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).
Paul said in his floor speech that he was in "reluctant opposition" to the resolution -- that he of course condemns violence by governments against their citizens. On the other hand, he also doesn't think the American government should act as a judge of every country overseas, and pointed out that we don't condemn countries like Saudi Arabia or Egypt that don't even have real elections.
"It seems our criticism is selective and applied when there are political points to be made," Paul said. "I have admired President Obama's cautious approach to the situation in Iran and I would have preferred that we in the House had acted similarly."
Check out Paul's full floor statement, after the jump.
I rise in reluctant opposition to H Res 560, which condemns the Iranian government for its recent actions during the unrest in that country. While I never condone violence, much less the violence that governments are only too willing to mete out to their own citizens, I am always very cautious about "condemning" the actions of governments overseas. As an elected member of the United States House of Representatives, I have always questioned our constitutional authority to sit in judgment of the actions of foreign governments of which we are not representatives. I have always hesitated when my colleagues rush to pronounce final judgment on events thousands of miles away about which we know very little. And we know very little beyond limited press reports about what is happening in Iran.
Of course I do not support attempts by foreign governments to suppress the democratic aspirations of their people, but when is the last time we condemned Saudi Arabia or Egypt or the many other countries where unlike in Iran there is no opportunity to exercise any substantial vote on political leadership? It seems our criticism is selective and applied when there are political points to be made. I have admired President Obama's cautious approach to the situation in Iran and I would have preferred that we in the House had acted similarly.
I adhere to the foreign policy of our Founders, who advised that we not interfere in the internal affairs of countries overseas. I believe that is the best policy for the United States, for our national security and for our prosperity. I urge my colleagues to reject this and all similar meddling resolutions.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
405 idiots.
June 19, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wha? I'm getting the creeping feeling that there is actually a knee-jerk reluctance on the part of the leftists (like myself) to speak up on behalf of foreign policy idealism simply because Republicans have made a botch of foreign affairs idealism over the past eight years. People - we liberals need to reclaim the mantle of international idealism eventually. Have to start somewhere, and the folks demonstrating in Iran are (despite what the equivocators in the US news are saying) more liberal-minded than the powers that are trying to put them down.
June 19, 2009 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Presidents Wilson, FDR, Truman, LBJ, and Clinton ALL said that they wanted to make the world safe for democracy (or something similar). They all desperately wanted to go to war. And in case you didn't notice, they're all Democrats.
Obama signed the largest military budget in the history of the world. Why do you think he wanted that much money to go to the military? It's because he's a warmonger.
One day, America will realize that Bush was simply copying the foreign policy of the leftist statists who believe that interventionism in EVERYTHING will solve the problem, instead of looking to freedom for the answer.
June 20, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ron Paul, speaking up for sanity.
Who knew?
June 19, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yay for Ron.
Proves somebody in there is actually awake.
June 19, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
House Foreign policy resolutions are nearly as risible as SF Board of Supervisors FP resolutions
June 19, 2009 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
That Ron Paul is the lone voice of reason here truly truly scares me. When will Democrats stop knee-jerking national security one-upmanship with the Republicans?! Dems: the election of President Obama means the American people are no longer buying the (wrong) argument that Dems are not up to the task on National Security. Please please please(!) will you start voting with your brains and leave the damn knees out of it?!
June 19, 2009 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wouldn't put too much stock in Ron Paul's occasional lapses into sanity. I doubt there is anyone else in the House with a district as safe as his, and he has made a career of being the lone vote to oppose actions of the House. When he was the Congressman with the Space Center in his district he still routinely voted against the budget for NASA because the space program is not named in the Constitution as one of the powers the federal government is authorized to exercise.
June 19, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Richard - I'll happily (and gratefully) give you the point. I still wonder about well worn Democratic ruts though... Seems striking.
June 19, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ron Paul: the single voice of reason in the House.
Wow, now there's a sentence I never thought I'd think, much less type.
June 19, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is just sickening. Thank you, Rep. Paul, for being a true American. BTW, though I disagree with you on many issues, you were the only person running for President on the repug ticket I wouldn't have been afraid,no,terrified, to see elected.
June 19, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
wow. you must not know much about ron paul.
June 19, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats have PTSD. So many years of being slapped around by Republicans, they don't know how to stand up and do the right thing. They're too scared. Asshats.
June 19, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm normally a loyal Dem but on this issue I'm afraid I have to agree. I think they were all afraid republicans would use a no vote against them in the future. "Dems are soft on Iran!"
June 19, 2009 2:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is truly pathetic. I'd really like to hear why the cowardly Democrats went along with this grandstanding resolution? What is behind the scenes on this? I'm extremely disappointed in my Democratic Rep. who stupidly voted for this.
June 19, 2009 2:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The man has integrity that is otherwise practically unknown among our legislators.
Few of his colleagues even know it when they see it.
June 19, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I guess expecting politicians to courageously stand with integrity and vote based on principals is as unlikely and naive as ..., ah..., um..., er..., expecting politicians to courageously stand with integrity and vote based on principals.
June 19, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even Keith Ellison only had enough guts to vote "present" rather than "no". God help us.
June 19, 2009 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a muslim Keith Ellison already has a target on his back so no need to call attention to himself over something as ridiculous as this house resolution.
It would have done more good if they had worked out a cheer routine with pom-poms and little skirts and performed it on the house floor in support of the Iranian disidents.
June 19, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dr Paul said this the other day about the Democrats in the house the other day:
"I wonder what happened to all of my colleagues who said they were opposed to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wonder what happened to my colleagues who voted with me as I opposed every war supplemental request under the previous administration. It seems, with very few exceptions, they have changed their position on the war now that the White House has changed hands. I find this troubling. As I have said while opposing previous war funding requests, a vote to fund the war is a vote in favor of the war. Congress exercises its constitutional prerogatives through the power of the purse."
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=20105
June 19, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
While it is true that Ron Paul is basically a crackpot, it is also true that he is true to his stated positions of nuetrality and noninterference in the affairs of other countries. The one thing you can say about Ron Paul is that he does have the courage of his convictions. The same cannot be said of most members of Congress.
June 19, 2009 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some commenters seem to find it galling to acknowledge their agreement with Ron Paul, so qualify their surprising alliance with the tired and typical resort to the ad hominem attack (i.e., "but he's a crackpot!"). Guess what - Ron Paul doesn't care if you agree with him or think he's a space alien. He's just doing his job, as described in the oath of office, to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States..."
June 19, 2009 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't always agree with Rep. Paul's stances regarding domestic policy but that is slowly changing at times but his foreign policy has always been sound and exactly right I feel.
June 19, 2009 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
"It seems our criticism is selective and applied when there are political points to be made."
A House Resolution has no force in law, so, ... duh!
"I adhere to the foreign policy of our Founders, who advised that we not interfere in the internal affairs of countries overseas."
It's not meddling/interfering, so Paul is wrong on that count too. CIA covert ops would be interference/meddling as would sanctions (where did Paul stand on sanctions for Iraq?), embargoes, etc. It is "free speech" without force of law.
Paul again proves himself the fool. He's at best a radical anti-pragmatic idealist but in this case he's not even that.
June 19, 2009 4:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ron Paul can be very sane but this is a somewhat extreme position. The fact that he keeps repeating that he doesn't know what the Iranian government is doing suggests to me he just doesn't want to know or doesn't want to understand.
Not that he should agree to the resolution since it's a bit silly but his argument is a lazy, stubborn, cop-out.
June 19, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I admit I'm confused. I must have read the wrong resolution, because the one I saw was pretty tame. It's not going to change our foreign policy, it's not going to piss off the Iranian regime, and it will be forgotten in a week. All it says is that violence is bad and freedom is good. A bit banal, admittedly, but who cares? Y'all are an excitable lot.
June 19, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Ron Paul that as a general policy we should not advocate for any political group. I do think that a resolution that stated that the cause of democracy was harmed by the injury of peaceful dissenters would have been acceptable because of its truthfulness and could not be misinterpreted as an attempt to interfere with Iranian politics.
Obama's statement that the whole world is watching is even better.
Republicans strut their feathers and are mocked by the world. Obama has taken a different approach. We do not know if he will be successful. We know from the past that Republicans have made a mess of things including Iran.
June 19, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The obvious lack of knowledge of history has once again become front and center with this House res.
Getting involved in Iran's mess backfired in 1979..made the entire Mid East worse than ever and here we go....lets get "involved"...
Pres. Obama was showing a true grasp of the situation but Mccain et.all had to jump in like they "KNEW" something....
Wow...1953..The Sha...yeah that worked..Saddam...how'd that work out?...despots dictators...we installed them and rewarded them....now we have some of the worst possible scenarios ever....great job.
Oh yeah first speach by the "supreme" leader on this issue goes right for the US and Brits...big surprise....
June 19, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rep. Paul highlights a glaring yet deliberately ignored truth about our government's "official" outrage over other countries' misdeeds. And nowhere is this more the case than in his example of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is the most extreme, brutal dictatorship --a family-owned theocracy barely above North Korea as the most cult-like nation on earth.
Political parties are banned. Trade Unions and public demonstrations are illegal. It is a crime to practice or promote any religion other than Wahabbi/Salafi Islam. Non-Muslims cannot testify in criminal court. The government uses flogging, amputation, and public beheadings to punish law-breakers --including the death penalty for "practicing witchcraft."
Gender Apartheid is the rule of law: women are not allowed to vote and cannot travel alone unless escorted by a male relative. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are prohibited from driving or riding bicycles in public, and whose Olympic Team had no female delegation.
Yet the US media routinely describes its leaders as the Saudi "Royal Family" as if they were comparable to the House of Windsor. Senators and Rep's demand boycotts of Venezuela when Hugo Chavez calls Bush schoolyard names, then go fill up their cars with Saudi oil...
I think if Ron Paul were smart, he would introduce a comparable resolution condemning the Saudis for denying women the vote, then take his colleagues to task when they vote against it.
June 19, 2009 10:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ron Paul's dissent in the House is not only admirable, but also showing his political stand against US policy of foreign intervention without due process of international law.
Ron has, time and again, shown his undisputed credibility as a leading figure in the antiwar movement in America.
Bravo Ron Paul!
June 19, 2009 11:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gotta hand it to Ron on this one, he is absolutely right.
June 19, 2009 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is mind-boggling that our country is so myopic and malleable that the bogus results of presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 were shoved down our throat, with all vestige of moral outcry such as we are so ready to heap on sovereign nations, stifled and deemed "un-American" by the fawning corporate media and beltway pundits. We really should tend to our own house of cards...
June 20, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bingo.
June 20, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ron Paul was against the sactions of Iraq and all other sanctions, if you followed history you would understand that they never have worked in history. In fact they usually have the opposite effect. Keeping in power the very people we try to get out of power. Also, the C.I.A. gave us Saddam, Castro, the Shah of Iran while causing the wars in Vietnam, and the Iraq war.
So Ron Paul is not some wacko doctor. But a man that looks at this country rationally and sees us going into a oligarchy or worse a dictatorship. The congress delegated out its authority on monetary policy causing out of control spending that is weaking our currency meanwhile we are funding an empire that we can no longer afford all in the name of freedom. But it is not freedom but the begining of the end of the Republic.
In Rome they had a large empire that they couldn't maintain they started coining money devalueing ther currency meanwhile they a large population on wealfare and heavy trade deficits we other countries military that lost its idealism for the Republic and the we know happened after that.
June 20, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't it amazing the voice of reason seems to be the only one people don't want to hear. Mr Paul is right on in his views. When your backyard is so dirty why do you go and try to clean a neighbors thousands of mile away. All the while freedoms we have taken for granted just slipped away. Who ever made up the story we are the police of the world. Yes horrible things are done to others Are you aware or have you forgotten that the Bush family have been in bed with the Saudis if so read blog by Munguza above. I for one don't want to throw rocks at anyone have a hard enough time keeping myself in line. Thats what Ron Paul has been saying all along. Go Ron you always speak up for what you believe in I admire that. You are a man of honor maybe why people have a hard time recognizing politian and honor seldom go hand and hand.
June 20, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Four hundred and five congressman voted to make themselves feel good and look good at the expense of the Iranian demonstrators. One congressman voted to actually help the Iranian demonstrators by keeping his mouth shut.
June 20, 2009 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Voting against a bill sponsored by Mike Pence is always a safe bet.
June 20, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is rare that I find myself at odds with my fellow TPM commenters, but I don't agree with any of this.
What do we (liberals) stand for if not for human rights, both at home and abroad? I find the encroachment of civil liberties (e.g. Gitmo, wiretapping, etc.) and the assaults on our democratic process ('00 election, voter ID laws, etc.) completely abhorrent, so why would I cling to some false notion of neutrality when looking at the circumstances of the Iranian people.
I detest religious extremism in the US, and I detest the religious oppression in Iran.
I find nothing cowardly in the U.S. House of Representatives acknowledging their support for the people in Iran who just want what we (most of us) have come to demand of our own government.
This is not to say that I support military intervention. I opposed (and still oppose) the war in Iraq. I think the cardinal rule of foreign policy should be "first, do no harm". But a policy of detached isolationism, as Rep. Paul would have us adopt, is heartless, and downright un-liberal.
I stand with liberals, like Wilson, FDR, and Clinton, who used their foreign policy, and at times, military policy, to better the world for all of its inhabitants, even when we could have looked the other way and been no worse for it, except morally.
Clinton's biggest foreign policy mistake was not his interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo (which were hugely successful military actions from a humanitarian/liberal perspective), it was his failure to intervene in Rwanda.
If George W. Bush has made us (liberals) reject "freedom" and "democracy" as the glittering platitudes that they were when he used them to justify imperialism and greed, then that may be the most destructive accomplishment of his entire presidency.
June 21, 2009 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink