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Rand Paul

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The battle for liberty happens at all levels, federal, state and local.

Randal Howard "Rand" Paul (born January 7, 1963) is an American politician and physician. Since 2011, Paul has served in the United States Senate as a member of the Republican Party representing Kentucky. He is the son of former U.S. Representative Ron Paul of Texas. Paul has described himself as a Constitutional conservative and a supporter of the Tea Party movement and has advocated for a balanced budget amendment, term limits, and privacy reform.

Quotes

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1998

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  • The fundamental reason why Medicare is failing is why the Soviet Union failed; socialism doesn't work.
    • As quoted in Kentucky Tonight (16 June 1998), KET.

2002

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  • The Daily News ignores, as does the Fair Housing Act, the distinction between private and public property. Should it be prohibited for public, taxpayer-financed institutions such as schools to reject someone based on an individual's beliefs or attributes? Most certainly. Should it be prohibited for private entities such as a church, bed-and-breakfast or retirement neighborhood that doesn't want noisy children? Absolutely not. Decisions concerning private property and associations should in a free society be unhindered.
  • A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin. It is unenlightened and ill-informed to promote discrimination against individuals based on the color of their skin. It is likewise unwise to forget the distinction between public (taxpayer-financed) and private entities.

2008

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  • Some Republicans are not going to want to hear this, but I live near Fort Campbell, and there are 50,000 soldiers there. I tell people you have to truly imagine what your feelings would be if those soldiers were Chinese soldiers and they were occupying the United States. We wouldn't have it. Republican and Democrat, we'd be blowing up the Chinese with roadside bombs as they were coming off the base. No country wants foreign soldiers on their land.
    • Campaign rally for Ron Paul, 2008-01-31
    • on US forces in Iraq

2009

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  • I would introduce and support legislation to send Roe v. Wade back to the states.
  • I think term limits are a good idea.
  • I do want to reduce the income tax and if possible, eliminate the income tax...The first thing you do is balance the budget, then reduce the size of government.
  • We have people coming in by the millions...Am I absolutely opposed to immigration? No...We have to find a way to believe in the rule of law, believe in border control and at the same time, not villify the issue.
  • [I]f you think you have the right to health care, you are saying basically that I am your slave. I provide health care. … My staff and technicians provide it. … If you have a right to health care, then you have a right to their labor.
    • Town hall meeting in Lexington, 2009-11

2010

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  • In cases of rape, trying to prevent pregnancies is obviously the best thing. The morning-after pill works successfully most of the time. Ultimately we do better if we do have better education about family planning.
    • Lorie Settles (26 January 2010), "US Senate hopeful Rand Paul visits Middlesboro", Middlesboro Daily News, retrieved on 2010-11-17 
    • Posed question: "What about instances of rape or incest or where the outcome may not be death, but severe medical problems for the mother or child. Do you think that in these cases the decision should be left to the government rather than the families?"
  • Robert Siegel:  You've said that business should have the right to refuse service to anyone, and that the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, was an overreach by the federal government.  Would you say the same by extension of the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

    Rand Paul:  What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.

    Robert Siegel:  But are you saying that had you been around at the time, you would have hoped that you would have marched with Martin Luther King but voted with Barry Goldwater against the 1964 Civil Rights Act?

    Rand Paul:  Well, actually, I think it's confusing on a lot of cases with what actually was in the civil rights case because, see, a lot of the things that actually were in the bill, I'm in favor of.  I'm in favor of everything with regards to ending institutional racism.  So I think there's a lot to be desired in the civil rights.  And to tell you the truth, I haven't really read all through it because it was passed 40 years ago and hadn't been a real pressing issue in the campaign, on whether we're going to vote for the Civil Rights Act.

  • Rachel Maddow:  Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don't serve black people?

    Rand Paul:  I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form; I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race.  We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race.  But I think what's important about this debate is not written into any specific "gotcha" on this, but asking the question: what about freedom of speech?  Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent?  Should we limit racists from speaking?  I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it.  I think the problem with this debate is by getting muddled down into it, the implication is somehow that I would approve of any racism or discrimination, and I don't in any form or fashion.

    I do defend and believe that the government should not be involved with institutional racism or discrimination or segregation in schools, busing, all those things.  But had I been there, there would have been some discussion over one of the titles of the civil rights.  And I think that's a valid point, and still a valid discussion, because the thing is, is if we want to harbor in on private businesses and their policies, then you have to have the discussion about: do you want to abridge the First Amendment as well.  Do you want to say that because people say abhorrent things — you know, we still have this.  We're having all this debate over hate speech and this and that.  Can you have a newspaper and say abhorrent things?  Can you march in a parade and believe in abhorrent things, you know?

  • What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I've met a lot of these miners and their families. They're very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.

2011

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  • If President Obama had consulted Congress, as our Constitution requires him to do, perhaps we could have debated these questions before hastily involving ourselves in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. While the President is the commander of our armed forces, he is not a king. He may involve those forces in military conflict only when authorized by Congress or in response to an imminent threat. Neither was the case here.
  • I think this sets a very bad precedent, the president unilaterally on his own starting war without any consent from Congress.
    • Fox News, 2011-03-30
    • regarding U.S. participation in enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya
  • I told my constituents when I ran for office that the most important vote I would ever take would be on sending their men and women — the boys and girls, the young men and women in my state — or anywhere else in the United States — to war. To me, it's an amazing thing, an amazing thing that we would do this so lightly, without any consideration by this august body. To send our young men and women to war without any congressional approval.
    • Senate floor, 2011-03-30
    • regarding US participation in enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya
  • I'm not for profiling people on the color of their skin, or on their religion, but I would take into account where they've been traveling and perhaps, you might have to indirectly take into account whether or not they've been going to radical political speeches by religious leaders. It wouldn't be that they are Islamic. But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that's really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison.

2012

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  • The president recently weighed in on marriage, and you know he said his views were evolving on marriage. Call me cynical, but I wasn't sure his views on marriage could get any gayer. Now, it did kind of bother me though, that he used the justification for it in a Biblical reference. He said the Biblical golden rule caused him to be for gay marriage. And I'm like, what version of the Bible is he reading? It's not the King James Version, it's not the New American Standard Version, it's not the New Revised version; I don't know what version he's getting that from.
  • Technology revolutionaries succeeded not because of some collectivist vision that seeks to regulate “fairness”, “neutrality”, “privacy” or “competition” through coercive state actions, or that views the Internet and technology as a vast commons that must be freely available to all, but rather because of the same belief as America’s Founders who understood that private property is the foundation of prosperity and freedom itself. Technology revolutionaries succeed because of the decentralized nature of the Internet, which defies government control. As a consequence, decentralization has unlocked individual self-empowerment, entrepreneurialism, creativity, innovation and the creation of new markets in ways never before imagined in human history...Around the world, the real threat to Internet freedom comes not from bad people or inefficient markets -- we can and will always route around them -- but from governments' foolish attempts to manage and control innovation. And it is not just the tyrannies we must fear. The road away from freedom is paved with good intentions.

2013

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  • I’m for an independent, strong Israel that is not a client state and not a reliant state.
  • Foreign aid goes from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
    • [1], University of Kentucky, 3-27-2013.
  • I never, ever cheated [in medical school]. I don't condone cheating. But I would sometimes spread misinformation. This is a great tactic. Misinformation can be very important. We spread the rumor that we knew what was on the test and it was definitely going to be all about the liver. We tried to trick all of our competing students into over-studying for the liver.
    "So, that's my advice," he concluded. "Misinformation works."

2014

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  • If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off.  But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.

    The outrage in Ferguson is understandable—though there is never an excuse for rioting or looting.  There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response.

    The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action.

  • There is a systemic problem with today's law enforcement.

    Not surprisingly, big government has been at the heart of the problem.  Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies—where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement.

    This is usually done in the name of fighting the war on drugs or terrorism.

  • When you couple this militarization of law enforcement with an erosion of civil liberties and due process that allows the police to become judge and jury—national security letters, no-knock searches, broad general warrants, pre-conviction forfeiture—we begin to have a very serious problem on our hands.

    Given these developments, it is almost impossible for many Americans not to feel like their government is targeting them.  Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.

  • Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention.  Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for non-violent mistakes in their youth.
  • The militarization of our law enforcement is due to an unprecedented expansion of government power in this realm.  …  Americans must never sacrifice their liberty for an illusive and dangerous, or false, security.
  • But we need to stand up for every minority.  The Bill of Rights isn't for the prom queen.  The Bill of Rights isn't for the high-school quarterback.  They're gonna be treated fairly; they always do fine.  The Bill of Rights is truly for those who might be unorthodox, who might have an unusual idea, who might not look like everybody else.  …  I said to him, "You could take an American citizen and send them to Guantanamo Bay with no trial?" and he said, "Yeah, if they're dangerous."  So I said, "It begs the question, doesn't it, who gets to decide who's dangerous and who's not?"  Anybody remember Richard Jewell, the Olympic bomber—the so-called "Olympic bomber" as it turns out?  Everybody thought he was guilty; he was "convicted" on t. v. within hours—but it turned out he wasn't—it wasn't him, he wasn't guilty.  But could you imagine if he had been a black man in the South in 1920, what would have happened to him?  The Bill of Rights is to protect minorities, whether it's the colour of your skin or the shade of your ideology.  We need to be the party that protects the rights of everyone.
    • Rand Paul in North Carolina, 1 October 2014 

2015

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  • We could try freedom for a while. We had it for a long time. That's where you sell something and I agree to buy it because I like it. That is how we operate in most of rest of the marketplace other than health care. Now the president has said you can only buy certain types of health care that I approve of, and anything I don't approve of, you are not allowed to purchase. We could try freedom. I think it might work. It works everywhere else.
  • Mr. President, there comes to a time in the history of nations when fear and complacency allow power to accumulate and liberty and privacy to suffer. That time is now. And I will not let the PATRIOT Act, the most un-patriotic of acts, go unchallenged.
  • I tend to think young people get it. Young people, you see them, their lives revolve around their cell phone. They realize if I want to know about their life, I collect data from their phone...Do we want to live in a world where the government knows everything about us? Do we want to live in a world where the government has us under constant surveillance? They’ll say we’re not looking at it. We’re just keeping it in case we want to look at it. The danger is too great to let government collect your information. And I think there is a valid question whether or not simply the collecting of your information is something that goes against the Constitution.
  • Recently one of the members of President Obama’s administration — in fact, several members of them — and they’re complaining about encryption. We’re going to have to have some laws to prevent these companies from encrypting things. It’s like, don’t you get it?...The encryption is a response to a government that’s gone and run amok, basically collecting our information.
  • Sometimes both sides of the civil war are evil, and sometimes intervention sometimes makes us less safe. This is real the debate we have to have in the Middle East. Every time we have toppled a secular dictator, we have gotten chaos, the rise of radical Islam, and we're more at risk. So, I think we need to think before we act, and know most interventions, if not a lot of them in the Middle East, have actually backfired on us.
  • If you want boots on the ground, and you want them to be our sons and daughters, you got 14 other choices. There will always be a Bush or Clinton for you, if you want to go back to war in Iraq. But the thing is, the first war was a mistake. And I'm not sending our sons and our daughters back to Iraq.
  • If I were president, I would try to be one who says, you know what, I'm a Reagan Conservative. I'm someone who believes in peace through strength, and I would try to lead the country in that way knowing that our goal is peace, and that war is the last resort, not the first resort. And, that when we go to war, we go to war in a constitutional way, which means that we have to vote on it, that war is initiated by congress, not by the president, that we go to war electively (ph). That when we go to war, we don't fight with one arm tied behind our back, we fight all out to win, but then we come home.

2016

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  • It's been an incredible honor to run a principled campaign for the White House
    Today, I will end where I began, ready and willing to fight for the cause of liberty.

2017

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  • It’s a minority position, yeah

2018

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  • I don't think either one of them literally want to incite violence. But they have to realize that when they tell people to get up in your face, that there are some crazy unstable people out there. There are truly people who have anger issues. The guy that shot over two hundred rounds from a semi-automatic weapon at us at the ballfield, was an angry guy. He was a guy that would go down to the city council and yell and scream and get angry and red in the face. He once hit a neighbor with the butt of his gun. He had all of these anger issues. But then when people stoke that and say "get up in their face", "go to Washington". He showed up at the ballfield that day, and as he started shooting at us he yelled "This is for healthcare!", and then when they were finally able to kill him in his pocket was a list of five or six conservative republicans that he came there intending to kill. So instead of saying "get up in their face", we should say let's have constructive dialog. Let's forcefully present our position in a verbal way and in an intellectual way.
  • While I’m not for foreign aid in general, if we are going to send aid to Israel it should be limited in time and scope so we aren’t doing it forever, and it should be paid for by cutting the aid to people who hate Israel and America
    Each time I’ve tried to stop giving aid to enemies of the U.S. and Israel, I have been thwarted. Often by groups that claim they are pro-Israel
    Why would supposedly pro-Israel groups oppose my legislation to end aid to the Palestinian Liberation Organization? Maybe it’s because they fear any debate on anyone’s foreign aid threatens a broader debate on whether we should be borrowing from foreign countries simply to send the money to other foreign countries.

2019

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  • Yet it is groupthink around here. Everybody is so paranoid and saying: Oh, we can’t object to this lobby. Because this lobby is so powerful, we can’t object to them. Look, it isn’t about the ideas; it is about the freedom of speech.
    • 4 February 2019 about jewish lobby in ‘Combating BDS Act’ in the Senate
  • As both sides debate the path forward on reforming our immigration system, the BE SAFE Act provides a constitutional answer that guarantees funding for our needs on the border without taking away from other priorities or increasing the burden on American taxpayers
  • Endless war weakens our national security, robs this and future generations through skyrocketing debt, and creates more enemies to threaten us. For over 17 years, our soldiers have gone above and beyond what has been asked of them in Afghanistan. It is time to declare the victory we achieved long ago, bring them home, and put America’s needs first
    over 2,300 military members have sacrificed their lives in the war, with another 20,000 wounded in action. In addition, the Afghanistan war has cost the United States $2 trillion, with the war currently costing over $51 billion a year
  • the battle for liberty happens at all levels, federal, state and local
    My friend Glenn Jacobs not only made a name for himself in the world of WWE, but for years has labored as a community activist eager to bring more freedom and prosperity to as many people as possible.
    his small government and pro-liberty philosophy of government – on education, the economy, regulation, taxes and more – is exactly what we need more of in our politics
    It’s why I think Glenn would be an excellent choice for mayor of Knox County.


2020

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  • We Shouldn't Presume That A Group Of Experts Somehow Knows What's Best.

2021

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  • The debate over whether or not there was fraud should occur, we never had any presentation in court where we actually looked at the evidence.
    Most of the cases were thrown out for lack of standing, which is a procedural way of not actually hearing the question.
    What I would suggest is that if we want greater confidence in our elections -- and 75% of Republicans agree with me -- is that we do need to look at election integrity.
    There's been no examination -- thorough examination -- of all the states to see what problems we had and see if they could fix them.
    There were lots of problems and there were secretaries of state, who illegally changed the law and that needs to be fixed, and I'm going to work harder to fix it and I will not be cowed by people saying 'oh, you're a liar'
    Now, let me say to be clear, I voted to certify the state electors because I think it would be wrong for Congress to overturn that.

Quotes about Paul

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2010

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2011

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  • In essence, Paul, who said he detested racism in any form, wondered whether other means, such as boycotts, may have been effective in forcing an end to non-governmental racial discrimination. Paul focused on the fact that the Fourteenth Amendment to U.S. Constitution provides the federal government only with the power to stop racial discrimination by state and local governments. Our nation will continue to be divided along racial lines until we bring an end to the Democrats' despicable race-baiting by holding Democrats accountable for their racism - past and present.

2014

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  • [A]t some point Paul will be asked to explain this complete about-face — and break the news to the UC-Berkeley kids that he's in favor of war, just like Hillary Clinton is, in the Middle East.  The turnaround is so sudden and so at odds with all he has written and said in the past few months that the question will naturally arise: Is he jettisoning his worldview to revive a presidential campaign?  …  One Republican operative backing another 2016 contender wisecracked, "He is starting to put John Kerry to shame when it comes to flip flops."  …  Paul's about-face also raises the question as to what his beef with Clinton now is.
  • At The National Journal, Peter Beinart has a good riposte to those pols and pundits who raise the specter of isolationism whenever someone wants the U.S. to reduce its burdens around the world.  …  Beinart analyzes Rand Paul's foreign policy positions, noting that they were not isolationist even when Paul first joined the Senate and have moved still further from the isolationist pole since then.  I don't agree with everything Beinart says—not surprisingly, since my basic orientation is more anti-interventionist than his—but his central argument strikes me as both clearly true and widely underappreciated.

2015

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  • In meetings, I've heard Republicans say to me that black people are Republicans, they just don't know it yet. I don't need you to tell me I'm conservative because I go to church. What I like about Rand Paul is that he doesn't make that presumption. He has taken affirmative steps to become more aware of how black people view certain issues. But he has been forthright about what he is willing and capable of doing.
  • I was a little bit skeptical based on some things I've heard and I've seen from other Republicans. I wanted someone to pick up on that Jack Kemp model and I wanted him to understand that it's the justice issues, or the injustice, that keep black people from voting Republican. He has listened and learned and has been able to take on things that most Republicans would be afraid of.

2016

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2018

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  • Rand Paul, a Republican Senator, regularly cites the Romans, who conquered the world only to lose their empire in thrall to bread and circuses, a dire warning for an American empire addicted to welfare and a corrupt mass media.
  • When Rand Paul pulls a stunt like this, it easy to understand why it’s difficult to be Rand Paul’s next door neighbor.

2019

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"Rand Paul, the most conservative Senator"
  • I’m extremely proud to be endorsed by Senator Rand Paul, the most conservative Senator in the U.S. Congress.

2021

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  • Paul won’t say the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, calls for investigation of fraud

2022

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  • Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and former Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard have been listed by Ukraine among a number of American politicians, academics and activists Kyiv claims have promoted "Russian propaganda."... The list was compiled by the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, founded in 2021 by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky... In April, Paul said President Joe Biden provoked Russia to invade its neighbor by advocating Ukraine's entrance into NATO. He also said: "You could also argue the countries they've attacked were part of Russia. Or part of the Soviet Union."
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