House Proceeding on Jun 12th, 2009 :: 1:52:50 to 1:56:25
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1:52:46 to 1:53:06( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: to the floor and saying we're doing it for the children when in fact the opportity was there and you did not. i yield right now three minutes to the gentleman from texas. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas is recognized for three minutes. >> i thank the gentleman for

1:52:50 to 1:56:25( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Ron Paul

1:53:07 to 1:53:27( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: yielding and i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. >> i don't think we can argue about the intentions of this proposal of this bill. there's no question that cigarettes are very, very harmful. the question for me here is the process. and i find the process here atrocious because it assumes

1:53:28 to 1:53:49( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: that author tarianism is right -- authoritarianism is right and proper and education and self-reliance and depending on one's self to take care of one's self is a proper approach. we total reject our free society and assume that if we just have tobacco police roaming the country that all of

1:53:50 to 1:54:10( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: a sudden bad habits are going to be cleared up. we're dealing with bad habits and these are bad for health. but let me tell you, i can bring you laste here of dozens -- a list here of dozens and dozens of things that lead to death. as a matter of fact, one of the things we ought toonsider is, you know, how many people die from our drug war? we have a drug war because

1:54:11 to 1:54:32( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: about 3,000 people die from the use of illegal drugs. we have a drug war going on. and tens of thousands of people die. it's so exs aer -- exacerbating at times. for decades, what did we do?

1:54:33 to 1:54:53( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: we subsidized tobacco. and nowe want to prohibit tobacco. why don't we just let the people decide? this whole idea that you have to subsidize something or prohibit something shows a shallowness that i think that we ought to challenge. one part of this bill that i

1:54:54 to 1:55:14( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: find particularly bad but it is pervasive in so much of what we do. about 100 years ago we took the first amendment and the freedom of speech and chopped it into two pieces. we have political speech. of course, we like that. we're in the business of politics. and we have commercial speech and we put it over here. and we regulate the heck out of commercial speech.

1:55:15 to 1:55:35( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: that's not a first amendment. that's chopping freedom in half. and that just leads to more problems. but this is -- will lead to prohibition. and it won't work. and this will ust give us a lot more trouble. you say, well, how will these problems be handled if we just permit people advertise? well, you're not allowed to

1:55:36 to 1:55:56( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: commit fraud, you're not allowed to commit slander. you're not allowed to commit any libel or slander or fraud. this approach can't wo. it is assumed that people are total idiots, that they won't respond to education, that we have to be the nanny state, we want to expand the war on drugs

1:55:57 to 1:56:18( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: which is a total failure. and look at what happened to prohibition of alcohol. you say, oh, no, this is t prohibition. it is going to be prohibition. it is a form of prohibition. if you have a form of prohibition or approach prohibition, what do you create? you create the black market. we will see the black market come. already the taxes are opening

1:56:19 to 1:56:25( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Paul: up the doors of the black market. all i ask for is people to reconsider, believe that freedom and self-reliance and