The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : Search Results

What We Missed in the Hunger Games

Wednesday December 11, 2013

One of the first critics to miss the point was Laura Miller. Writing in The New Yorker in 2010, she claimed that “dystopian fiction exists to warn us about the dangers of some current trend,” and she went on to interpret The Hunger Games as “a fever-dream allegory of the adolescent social experience,” her idea being that coming of age in America is now a particularly scathing crucible, with foreboding trends, like bullying and near constant parental surveillance. It was a fine theory, but a bit of a stretch, as there are so many more obvious warnings. Suzanne Collins, author of the young adult trilogy, who also happens to be a Roman Catholic, rarely responds to what is written about her work, but she felt compelled to make a public clarification later in an interview with The New York Times.

Collins said: “I don’t write about adolescence. I write about war. For adolescents.”
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Veterans Day and Foreign Interventionism

Tuesday November 19, 2013

Commemorating Veterans Day, people honored Americans who have served in the U.S. military, especially those who have fought and died in America’s foreign wars. In doing so, however, it’s easy to forget the fact that what the soldiers fought for and died for in those foreign wars wasn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

Consider World War I. American soldiers fought and died in that war under the notion that it would finally be the war that would end all European wars into the future. It was also a democracy-spreading war — that is, the war that was supposed to make the entire world safe for democracy.

Alas, it was not to be. Within a relatively short time, Europe was it again, this time with World War II, which really was just a continuation of World War I.
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Thoughts on Veterans Day

Monday November 11, 2013

Of course I have a lot of thoughts on Veterans Day. It’s kind of hard not too, as you are basically hit with a torrent of gratitude, most of it applied with the same amount of care and specificity of a fire hose.

I wrote this last year, but it still encapsulates much of my feelings towards Veterans Day. I am less angry than I was a year ago, but that anger is still there and will always be. It is something I have recognized about myself and something I will have to manage the rest of my life.

A Few Days After Veterans Day

I get lots of notes thanking me for my service on Veterans Day. I am grateful and appreciative. My friends, both veterans and active duty service members, receive the same affections of respect and esteem and, of course, value those sentiments.

There comes a time, however, when a line is breached. I have difficulty receiving a message from a teacher thanking me for what I have done for my country. I blush at the hand shakes, emails, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets and banners from police officers, fire fighters, nurses, nonprofit organizers and volunteers, clergy, utility workers and good parents; people who do more on a daily basis for our nation than I have ever done.
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How Ron Paul Changed My Heart and Mind on War

Saturday August 10, 2013

My wife and I were in the middle of a three-month cross-country road trip in the Fall of 2011. We had just driven for over three hours to a small community center in northwestern Iowa where I found myself shaking hands with a man who had transformed my thinking. I was nervous, and the only words I could get out for my big moment of meeting Ron Paul were “thank you”. But maybe that was enough.

I grew up in a very conservative Christian home where timeless principles such as the Golden Rule were instilled in me at a young age. I didn’t get into fights, got along with pretty much everyone, and was known as a kind and honest person. That I would be drawn to Dr. Paul seems natural. Unfortunately, I spent the first few years of my adult life as an opinionated and vocal neoconservative (I had no idea what this meant), being mentored via talk radio by the likes of Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
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Washington’s Drive For Hegemony Is A Drive To War

Friday August 9, 2013

It was five years ago that the president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvilli, who was installed in power by the Washington supported “Rose Revolution,” launched a military invasion of South Ossetia, a break-away province under its own government. The Georgian attack killed Russian peace-keeping troops and numerous Ossetians.

The Russian military response overwhelmed the US trained and equipped Georgian army in 5 days to the embarrassment of Saakashvilli and his Washington sponsors.

Washington began the training and equipping of the Georgian military in 2002, and continues to conduct joint military exercises with Georgia. In March and April of this year the US again conducted joint military exercises with Georgia. Washington is pushing to have Georgia admitted as a member of NATO.
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Welcome to Post-Constitution America: The Weapons of War Come Home

Wednesday August 7, 2013

On July 30, 1778, the Continental Congress created the first whistleblower protection law, stating “that it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds, or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states.”

Two hundred thirty-five years later, on July 30, 2013, Bradley Manning was found guilty on 20 of the 22 charges for which he was prosecuted, specifically for “espionage” and for videos of war atrocities he released, but not for “aiding the enemy.”

Days after the verdict, with sentencing hearings in which Manning could receive 136 years of prison time ongoing, the pundits have had their say. The problem is that they missed the most chilling aspect of the Manning case: the way it ushered us, almost unnoticed, intopost-Constitutional America.
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President José Mujica Versus the United Nations

Monday August 5, 2013

Uruguay's President José Mujica is standing up to United Nations bureaucrats at the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) who are chastising Uruguay for advancing legislation that will allow the legal growth, sale, and purchase of marijuana for medical and recreational purposes. Mujica plans to defend his nation's marijuana law reform in a speech before the UN General Assembly in September. For a preview, read here excerpts from Mujica's Thursday radio address to Uruguayans after the marijuana reform law passed in Uruguay's lower house of congress.

In 2011, the INCB similarly chastised Bolivia for withdrawing from the 1961 United Nations Single Convention of Narcotic Drugs so Bolivia could rejoin the convention with a reservation protecting the traditional use of coca leaves in the nation. Later, Bolivian President Evo Morales defended before a UN anti-drug meeting in May 2012 his nation's choice to respect what he called "a millennia-old tradition in Bolivia."
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