[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7871-7872]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE LAST NAIL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Paul) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, the last nail is being driven into the coffin 
of the American Republic. Yet Congress remains in total denial as our 
liberties are rapidly fading before our eyes.
  The process is propelled by unwarranted fear and ignorance as to the 
true meaning of liberty. It is driven by economic myths, fallacies, and 
irrational good intentions. The rule of law is constantly rejected and 
authoritarian answers are offered as panaceas for all our problems.
  Runaway welfarism is used to benefit the rich at the expense of the 
middle class. Who would have ever thought that the current generation 
and Congress would stand idly by and watch such a rapid disintegration 
of the American Republic?
  Characteristic of this epic event is the casual acceptance by the 
people and the political leaders of the unitary Presidency, which is 
equivalent to granting dictatorial powers to the President.
  Our Presidents can now, on their own: order assassinations, including 
American citizens; operate secret military tribunals; engage in 
torture; enforce indefinite imprisonment without due process; order 
searches and seizures without proper warrants, gutting the Fourth 
Amendment; ignore the 60-day rule for reporting to the Congress the 
nature of any military operations as required by the War Powers 
Resolution; continue the Patriot Act abuses without oversight; wage war 
at will; treat all Americans as suspected terrorists at airports with 
TSA groping and nude x-raying.
  And the Federal Reserve accommodates by counterfeiting the funds 
needed and not paid for by taxation and borrowing, permitting runaway 
spending, endless debt, and special interest bailouts.
  And all of this is not enough. The abuses and usurpations of the war 
power are soon to be codified in the National Defense Authorization Act 
now rapidly moving its way through Congress.
  Instead of repealing the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military 
Force, as we should now that bin Laden is dead and gone, Congress is 
planning to massively increase the war power of the President.
  Though an opportunity presents itself to end the wars in Iraq, 
Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Congress, with bipartisan support, obsesses 
on how to expand the unconstitutional war power the President already 
holds.
  The current proposal would allow a President to pursue war any time, 
any place, for any reason, without congressional approval. Many believe 
this would even permit military activity against American suspects here 
at home.
  The proposed authority does not reference the 9/11 attacks. It would 
be expanded to include the Taliban and ``associated'' forces, a 
dangerously vague and expansive definition of our potential enemies.

                              {time}  1040

  There is no denial that the changes in section 1034 totally eliminate 
the hard-fought-for restraint on Presidential authority to go to war 
without congressional approval achieved at the Constitutional 
Convention.
  Congress' war authority has been severely undermined since World War 
II, beginning with the advent of the Korean War, which was fought 
solely under a U.N. resolution.
  Even today we're waging war in Libya without even consulting with the 
Congress, similar to how we went to war in Bosnia in the 1990s under 
President Clinton.
  The three major reasons for our Constitutional Convention were to: 
guarantee free trade and travel among the States; make gold and silver 
legal tender and abolish paper money; and strictly limit the executive 
branch's authority to pursue war without congressional approval.
  But today: Federal Reserve notes are legal tender, gold and silver 
are illegal; the Interstate Commerce Clause is used to regulate all 
commerce at the expense of free trade among the States; and now the 
final nail is placed in the coffin of congressional responsibility for 
the war power, delivering this power completely to the President--a 
sharp and huge blow to the concept of our Republic.
  In my view, it appears that the fate of the American Republic is now

[[Page 7872]]

sealed, unless these recent trends are quickly reversed.
  The saddest part of this tragedy is that all these horrible changes 
are being done in the name of patriotism and protecting freedom. They 
are justified by good intentions while believing the sacrifice of 
liberty is required for our safety. Nothing could be further from the 
truth.
  More sad is the conviction that our enemies are driven to attack us 
for our freedoms and prosperity, and not because of our deeply flawed 
foreign policy that has generated justifiable grievances and has 
inspired the radical violence against us. Without this understanding, 
our endless, unnamed, and undeclared wars will continue and our 
wonderful experiment with liberty will end.

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