Race 4 2008 is pleased to present the following interview with Rep. Ron Paul.

Rep. Paul received his M.D. degree from Duke University in 1961. After serving in the U.S. Air Force as a flight surgeon, he established his medical practice in Lake Jackson, Texas specializing in Obstetrics and Gynecology and would eventually deliver over 4,000 babies. In lieu of accepting Medicare or Medicaid, he would render medical service to his needy patients for either vastly lowered fees or free or charge.

Rep. Paul is currently serving his 10th term representing Texas’s 14th Congressional District, to which he was reelected by a twenty-point margin in 2006.

Paul formally announced his candidacy for the 2008 Republican nomination on March 12th, 2007.

This interview was originally published on June 4th, 2007.

___________________________________________________________________________________

KWN: Since the last debate you have been asked about 9/11 and the Iraq War at the beginning of each interview. To avoid asking you the same questions with different phrasing, I thought I would begin by simply asking you to state your stance on the role the U.S may have played in 9/11 and your thoughts on the execution of the War on Terror.

Rep. Ron Paul: Well, it’s a broad question for me because I talk in terms of not mismanagement of a particular war or some incident. I talk about a foreign policy of interventionism, which we were strongly advised not to follow by the Founders. So my complaint is that foreign interventionism, getting involved in the entangling alliances and internal affairs of other nations, is detrimental, and it comes back to hurt us. And I think that this has been true not just for this administration but for possibly the past 100 years. So I say that policy has a lot to due with those who would like to do us harm.

Now what I have been accused of is being less than a true American and unpatriotic because I suggest this. But those who attack me for that is sort of like saying that well, if someone is being murdered and I want to check into the motives of why someone might have been murdered in order to understand what happened, that therefore I am blaming the person that’s murdered is ridiculous.

So policy is very important. And this whole idea of “blowback” is something that the CIA has talked about for decades, and various CIA agents now have come to my defense saying, “Ron Paul is exactly right.” There are consequences, unintended consequences, there are “blowback” consequences, and we very often can suffer consequences that we don’t like because we are doing things that are perceived by other countries as being very detrimental.

The most important thing we can do as Americans is to try to put ourselves in their place and [think] how we would react if a foreign power had done to us exactly what we have done to others. And I think then they can better understand what I am talking about.

KWN: Do you feel that radical Islam in and of itself poses a threat to the U.S. or the American people?

Rep. Ron Paul: Not by itself. I think it’s something that we should study, be concerned and look at to see how that does also influence people towards suicide-terrorism, but it’s not the main motivating factor because the countries that have been most radical in their religious beliefs or the most radical Islamicists have been Iran and I think in Sudan. But none of them have attacked us. A country that is one of our closest allies and that we have protected since World War II, Saudi Arabia, that is where the radical Islamicists came from. Ironically, we paid…our CIA was very much involved in establishing the schools which preached and taught radical Islam as a technique of trying to confront Communism. And that to me is another example of good intentions eventually coming back to haunt us. Because it was during those years that Osama Bin Laden was actually on our side trying to defeat the Soviets. But we were teaching, preaching, and encouraging radical Islam. And now it’s coming back to hurt us because radical Islam teaches that we just don’t want occupation; whether it’s the Russians, or the Europeans, or the Americans.

KWN: Many people may be unaware that you have already had nearly 500,000 Americans cast votes for you for President of the United States. Can you tell us a little bit about your time at the top of a national ticket as the Libertarian Party’s nominee in 1988?

Rep. Ron Paul: Well, it was an activity that I considered very important. I was also very much aware that third parties are under a great handicap because the laws are written by Republicans and Democrats which make it virtually impossible to compete because you can’t get into the debates [and] you spend all of your time and money trying to get on the ballots. The monopoly wants to be protected.

But nevertheless I still spent approximately a year traveling the country talking about the things I thought were important to me which is individual liberty, and the Constitution, and balanced budgets and all of the things I still talk about; and quite frankly all the things that conservative Republicans claim they believe in. So it’s not so strange… But the vehicle I used back in 1988 was the Libertarian Party and today it’s the Republican Party. I’ve been in Congress for ten terms and am going into my eleventh term as a Republican.

KWN: Why do you think the Republican Party suffered such losses in 2006 of libertarian voters who normally would align themselves with GOP?

Rep. Ron Paul: Well, just going around the country, I wouldn’t claim that I know the answer to that, we ask people when we go around the country why do you think this is happening and why they think that is happening and people do polls, and you can have your personal opinions. But my impression from having talked to a lot of people, and it was probably more impressive in New Hampshire because the wipe-out was so great in New Hampshire, the answer was: “The War, The War, The War.” It wasn’t deficits and the entitlements [which] bother me a whole lot, there are a lot of things that bother me: the size of government and the government’s intrusion into privacy and these are various things that we are supposed to be opposed to [like] the Department of Education. But in New Hampshire and elsewhere it’s always the war. It didn’t mean that they took a position; their reason was that the war is why Republicans did so poorly.

KWN: Some people in the Democratic Party have contended that they should be actively targeting these libertarians who normally vote Republican. Do you feel there is a risk of a significant number of defections in the longterm, and do you feel that the Democratic party is a viable option for these kinds of voters?

Rep. Ron Paul: I think philosophically that could be the case because freedom has been split in two parts. Civil liberties and foreign policy seem to be more libertarian in the Democratic Party and economic policy is more libertarian in the Republican Party. But if you look at the overall rhetoric, the Republican Party and their platform are much more libertarian than the Democrats. The Democrats are welfarists you know. They don’t even pretend to worry about deficits. Republicans at least say, “well, we don’t like deficits”, but then they go and do them anyway.

But I think that the image of the Republican Party is that it is more open to freedom’s ideas in the positions they hold but do not always follow through on. And I think that’s why it’s going to be much more popular if there are a lot, and I am discovering that there are a lot, of individuals who are independent and moderate and some in the Democratic Party that are much more likely to look to the Republican Party in order to get this message heard.

But the difficulty there is that this [2008] is going to be a tough year. Because the economic problems that exist, and are going to get worse by next year, plus the war that probably won’t be over by next year…it’s going to be blamed on the Republicans. That’s why I have predicted that if we even want to be in the game at all next year we have to change the policy. There is just time for a change in our foreign policy and in our attitude on what we should be doing in the Middle East.

KWN: Has your pro-life position ever brought you into conflict with other libertarians?

Rep. Ron Paul: You know, it’s surprising, not a whole lot. I mean, they disagree but there is a Libertarian for Life organization. Ironically and interestingly enough it is run by someone who claims to be an atheist. Yet the woman is very friendly and we talk a lot and have worked together. She actually uses Ayn Rand as a defense for her position — individual responsibility argument. My defense of pro-life as a libertarian is that killing a live fetus that is viable and can breathe and has a heartbeat and brainwaves; to kill that fetus is an act of aggression, and that [is against] the whole principle of libertarianism.

It’s a tough problem to deal with. There’s a minor split in the Democratic Party, a significant split with Republicans, and a major split within Independents. Everybody has a disagreement on it. And that is why the answer can be found in our traditions and in our Constitution, because there is not going to be one answer. I don’t endorse a national police force for curtailing abortion. I think it should be done by the states and the states would handle it differently. I even believe there should even be a difference between the day-after pill and the day before birth protection. These difficult things should best be worked out by local governments.

What I don’t like is the federal government, either through a law or a court order like Roe v. Wade [which] the Supreme Court did, and have a national solution, and writing legislation [regarding] what you can do in the first trimester, the second trimester, and the third trimester; writing laws which have really torn this country apart. That is why I call for the repeal of Roe v. Wade and no police force in Washington.

But I think that most libertarians hear that story and say, “that it doesn’t sound too threatening to me”. Even others in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party who are pro-abortion aren’t overly offended by that.

KWN: Being from Texas, the issue of illegal immigration must be one that you have thought about in some depth. What is your opinion of the Senate immigration compromise?

Rep. Ron Paul: Well, from what I know of it I wouldn’t support it because I do believe that even though they won’t call it amnesty it really is because they are rewarding people who came here illegally. There are some definite things in that bill that actually further promote the Security and Prosperity Partnership, and that’s part of the continuation of the NAFTA plan to unify the three countries into the North American Union and have a single currency. So they are incrementally moving in that direction. I strongly oppose that. The people who like amnesty and the obliteration of borders are also very much involved with the move towards a North American Union. There is a growing number of people who are discovering this issue, not in Washington, but outside of Washington and are objecting to this.

Recently the Senate and the House in Texas overwhelmingly, with just a few dissenters, voted to put a moratorium on this so-called NAFTA highway that is suppose to go from Mexico to Canada and really open up the doors to this integration which is a lot more than just trading with other countries.

KWN: You have stated in the past that you feel that it is imperative that free trade is fair trade. This doesn’t seem to be an issue that registers that highly with the American public. What do you think Americans are not understanding about this issue?

Rep. Ron Paul: Well, it’s a mixed-bag because some, including my friend Pat Buchanan, are protectionists. They like to put on tariffs and they believe in protectionism, and they not embarrassed. But that is an old fashioned mercantilistic idea that you should tax American people when they want to spend their money buying cheap products from overseas. They ought to have a moral right to do it. Economically, it’s beneficial for everyone to get the best price from wherever. That is what free trade is all about.

But the so-called free traders in Washington, who promote Fast Track, NAFTA and WTO, they are promoting international government. They are promoting “managed trade.” They are promoting a government body where you go to get permission to put on tariffs.

And it’s also a government that can come back and put pressure on us. For instance, we have already had to change our tax code because the WTO instructed us to, that we would be literally kicked out if we didn’t follow the rules. So our Congress and our President were obligated, we had to change our tax laws which literally raised some taxes on some of our corporations.

So that’s the part that I don’t like. I don’t like another level of government above our federal government. I’m annoyed enough with the status of our federal government let alone having another one. I don’t want that. That to me isn’t free trade. Free trade is allowing you as an individual to spend your money any you want. I shouldn’t be taxing you in order to manipulate what I think is better for the overall economy.

KWN: How would you overhaul our nation’s tax system?

Rep. Ron Paul: Well certainly I’d get rid of the income tax. The overhauling of the tax system is very difficult unless you overhaul the entire principle of government. You can’t really do a good job in just eliminating the income tax and reducing taxes unless you change the role of government. As long as the American people accept the idea that we should and we have the authority to police the world and that it’s a good idea, then is going to be hard to cut spending. And as long as the majority of the people think the government should take care of all of us from cradle to grave, then it’s not going to happen.

But since it’s not likely to happen soon, what I’m fearful of is that this country’s going to go bankrupt and the younger generation is going to suffer the most because they are the ones that don’t have any savings and have to work to take care of everyone who has retired. I’d reduce taxes eighty-percent if I had the size of government I wanted. The bigger job is reducing the size of government.

KWN: How do you envision the future of your campaign? What lies on the road ahead between now and the Iowa Caucuses?

Rep. Ron Paul: Well, I think we continue to do exactly what we are doing. We are pleasantly surprised that even though we started off slowly it has sort of exploded with the attention we have gotten with the debate. The Internet has served us well. Fundraising has accelerated. We’ll continue to do the same thing and if the funds keep coming in as they have been we are going to be able to hire more personnel and just do a better job.

Our biggest problem has been that we have just been so overwhelmed with emails and phone calls and interviews and invitations that we haven’t been able to keep up. Some people have been annoyed with us for not being efficient enough. And yet that is a good sign because it would be terrible if there were two [people] in the office and they weren’t busy. So things are going well.