Live Tonight at 6: Brian Doherty and Rand Paul

By David Boaz

Tonight at 6:00 pm ET, Brian Doherty will discuss his new book Ron Paul’s Revolution: The Man and the Movement He Inspired, with comments by Sen. Rand Paul, in Cato’s Hayek Auditorium. You can, as always, watch it live at www.cato.org/live. But if you prefer the old-fashioned, 20th-century technology of television, it appears that C-SPAN [...]

Live Tonight at 6: Brian Doherty and Rand Paul is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog

Recalculating Romney’s Four Percent Gimmick

By Christopher Preble

I have a new piece up at ForeignPolicy.com on Ron Paul and the Republican Party, focused in particular on the strong support that Paul draws from young people, with some additional speculation about where those young people will end up, if and when Paul steps back from his very public role. My instincts are that [...]

Recalculating Romney’s Four Percent Gimmick is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog

Scribecast: AEI’s Marc Thiessen on Dangers of the Obama Doctrine

President Obama’s use of drone strikes to target terrorists is depleting U.S. intelligence on al Qaeda and making America less safe in the process, according to Marc Thiessen, an American Enterprise Institute fellow. “The Obama administration has completely eliminated live capture of terrorists and bringing them in for interrogation,” Thiessen said. “As a result, we are not getting insight into the inner workings of al Qaeda.” Thiessen, author of “Courting Disaster” and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, spoke at Heritage about the Obama Doctrine. He joined us … More

The Ideology of Isolationism

Supporters of Ron Paul have re-launched an old ad promoting the old idea of American isolationism.  “We now are a nation known to start war,” Paul is quoted as saying.  “We feel compelled because of our insecurity that we have to go over and attack these countries to maintain our empire.”  The message here (and repeated elsewhere) is that Paul’s isolationism is aligned with the Founding Fathers and “what is truly American and truly constitutional.” Not only is this refrain a gross misrepresentation of American history but it offers dangerously … More

GOP Candidates Unanimously Denounce Anti-Internet Piracy Bills

During a presidential debate on Thursday night, all four Republican candidates denounced pending legislation aimed at combating online piracy. Their responses came in the midst of mass congressional defections, especially among Republicans, as major websites protest the bills. The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate companion, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), would give the Justice Department expansive powers to shut down sites that host content infringing on American intellectual property laws. While most of the bills’ opponents acknowledge the need for IP enforcement, they argue that its powers … More

Tonight on Stossel: Ron Paul, War, and Military Spending

By Christopher Preble

The GOP presidential candidates will participate in yet another debate tonight from South Carolina in anticipation of the primary there on Saturday. I hope that the moderator, CNN’s John King, will bring up some of the major national security issues at hand, namely military spending. Out of all the GOP contenders, it is clear that [...]

Tonight on Stossel: Ron Paul, War, and Military Spending is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog

Getting the Facts Straight on the Taliban

The relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda was one of the hot topics of Monday night’s presidential debate. Candidate Ron Paul downplayed the dangers of the Taliban, declaring the “Taliban used to be our allies when we were fighting the Russians… The al-Qaeda wants to come here to kill us. The Taliban just says we don’t want foreigners.” The Taliban came on the scene in Afghanistan in 1994, several years after the Soviets departed. Taliban (which translates to “students”) were made up mainly of Afghan refugees who had grown up … More

The New Yorker Misunderstands Ron Paul (Again)

By David Boaz

In the New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann frets over Ron Paul’s “hostility to government” in an article titled “Enemy of the State.” I wonder if Lemann, who is both a long-time writer at a great magazine and the dean of a great school of journalism, would think “Enemy of the State” was red-baiting or otherwise inappropriate [...]

The New Yorker Misunderstands Ron Paul (Again) is a post from Cato @ Liberty – Cato Institute Blog

Republican Presidential Candidates Embrace Medicare Premium Support

Earlier this week in New Hampshire, Republican presidential candidates touted the benefits of a Medicare premium support system — the approach to entitlement reform embraced by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and The Heritage Foundation. Ryan’s recent partnership with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) helped thrust the idea of premium support back into the national spotlight. Their bipartisan framework represented a breakthrough on Capitol Hill after liberals spent much of the year making false charges about Ryan’s plan. Given the misleading information about premium support, let’s first take a moment … More

Strong National Security–the Prerequisite for Peaceful Commerce

The slogan “War breeds war. Peace breeds prosperity” has become a favorite idea of the anti-war faction on the right. Unlike their anti-war allies on the left, who favor protectionism, those like Congressman Ron Paul (R–TX) are rightly committed to economic freedom. Their mistake lies in thinking that commerce and security are separate issues. Nothing could be more at odds with the experience of American statecraft. In 1789, the blessings of liberty secured by the Constitution began to manifest themselves (see chart) as imports (light blue) and exports (dark blue) … More