Ron Paul's Speech at Iowa Straw Poll - Official Campaign Video

[JoshLowry]

Ron Paul speaks to an enthusiastic audience in Ames, Iowa, Aug. 11, 2007

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXkVJtz0bNI

Rate, comment, and favorite it!

[Electric Church]

I wouldn't use this as the official campaign vid because he'll scare off a lot of liberals by starting off his speech with the abortion stance....nice speech though but I prefer a speech where he starts off talking about Iraq and then goes into the other issues

[0zzy]

production is amazing.

[TheDuke]

The 9/11 part of his speech doesn't make sense to me... so the passengers should have carried guns on the planes.

[Razmear]

The 9/11 part of his speech doesn't make sense to me... so the passengers should have carried guns on the planes.

He didn't explain that as well as he did in previous speeches.
His point was that prior to 911 airlines were not allowed to protect their passengers by having firearms on board.
He made an armored car analogy in a previous speech saying that if the crew were allowed to carry firearms the hijackers never would have been able to crash the planes into the towers.

eb

[qwerty]

AWESOME ONE!

:cool:

[0zzy]

The 9/11 part of his speech doesn't make sense to me... so the passengers should have carried guns on the planes.

Pilots. :-[ duhhh.
<3

[Razmear]

Pilots. :-[ duhhh.
<3

He's not the only one who misunderstood the comment:

Ron Paul. He had thousands of enthusiastic supporters, with signs all over the caucus site at Iowa State and the parking lots as well. His people chanted loudly when the announcement of the results was delayed an hour (because one polling station's counter got jammed by a wet ballot and all the ballots there had to be counted by hand). Paul is an eccentric libertarian given to outrageous statements, like saying that September 11 could have been prevented if we properly observed the Second Amendment. (There is the kernel of an argument here: if pilots had been armed, as they are now, thanks to a law sponsored by among others California Sen. Barbara Boxer, the hijackers might not have succeeded; but it wasn't nonenforcement of the Second Amendment that prevented them from being armed.) Paul's supporters cheered loudly his fifth-place finish as if it were a great victory. Astonishing. I suppose he'll be around for quite a while.

http://www.iowavotes2008.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2379&Itemid=72

I think he should remove that argument from his speeches, along with the "I don't know how to run the economy" statement.

eb

[Kuldebar]

He didn't explain that as well as he did in previous speeches.
His point was that prior to 911 airlines were not allowed to protect their passengers by having firearms on board.
He made an armored car analogy in a previous speech saying that if the crew were allowed to carry firearms the hijackers never would have been able to crash the planes into the towers.

eb

He didn't draw a picture, but it was pretty clear. I listened to the speech for the 4th time, he clearly says what he means.

[DeadheadForPaul]

He made the same comment in South Carolina and my initial reaction was "oh jesus..."

Comments like that are ripe for misinterpretation

[Jon S]

He's not the only one who misunderstood the comment:

Ron Paul. He had thousands of enthusiastic supporters, with signs all over the caucus site at Iowa State and the parking lots as well. His people chanted loudly when the announcement of the results was delayed an hour (because one polling station's counter got jammed by a wet ballot and all the ballots there had to be counted by hand). Paul is an eccentric libertarian given to outrageous statements, like saying that September 11 could have been prevented if we properly observed the Second Amendment. (There is the kernel of an argument here: if pilots had been armed, as they are now, thanks to a law sponsored by among others California Sen. Barbara Boxer, the hijackers might not have succeeded; but it wasn't nonenforcement of the Second Amendment that prevented them from being armed.) Paul's supporters cheered loudly his fifth-place finish as if it were a great victory. Astonishing. I suppose he'll be around for quite a while.

http://www.iowavotes2008.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2379&Itemid=72

I think he should remove that argument from his speeches, along with the "I don't know how to run the economy" statement.

eb

well they got one thing right.
DAMN STRAIGHT he's gonna be around for a while. and so will we.

[Razmear]

He made the same comment in South Carolina and my initial reaction was "oh jesus..."

Comments like that are ripe for misinterpretation

And guess what, that comment was the only clip aired by Greenville's channel 7 news that night. He has so many other good things to talk about that you think someone would have suggested dropping that talking point by now.

eb

[Kuldebar]

Well, even if he said what many Americans believe:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d124/Kuldebar/Sept11_c540.jpg

I would still find little fault with it.


But, all he actually said is that the airline should be responsible for their customer's safety and security, not the federal government.

[jblosser]

Why is everyone so quick to "clarify" that he only meant pilots? So what if airlines want to allow passengers to be armed? That's their business. If you don't like it, don't fly that airline.

The notion that a single bullet fired in a plane would immediately cause the plane to fall out of the sky is pure hollywood claptrap.

[Kuldebar]

Freedom is scary. You have to embrace all of it, or you won't get any of it.
==================================================
Why Did it Have to be ... Guns?
by L. Neil Smith
lneil@lneilsmith.org

Over the past 30 years, I've been paid to write almost two million words, every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and gun-ownership. Naturally, I've thought about the issue a lot, and it has always determined the way I vote.

People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single- issue thinker, and a single- issue voter, but it isn't true. What I've chosen, in a world where there's never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician—or political philosophy—is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.

Make no mistake: all politicians—even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership—hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician—or political philosophy—can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash—for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything—without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude—toward your ownership and use of weapons—conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?

If he makes excuses about obeying a law he's sworn to uphold and defend—the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights—do you want to entrust him with anything?

If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil—like "Constitutionalist"—when you insist that he account for himself, hasn't he betrayed his oath, isn't he unfit to hold office, and doesn't he really belong in jail?

Sure, these are all leading questions. They're the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician—or political philosophy—is really made of.

He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn't have a gun—but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn't you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school—or the military? Isn't it an essentially European notion, anyway—Prussian, maybe—and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about?

And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all along.

Try it yourself: if a politician won't trust you, why should you trust him? If he's a man—and you're not—what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If "he" happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she's eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn't want you to have?

On the other hand—or the other party—should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?

Makes voting simpler, doesn't it? You don't have to study every issue—health care, international trade—all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.

And that's why I'm accused of being a single-issue writer, thinker, and voter.

But it isn't true, is it?

http://www.lneilsmith.org/
==================================================

[Roxi]

The 9/11 part of his speech doesn't make sense to me... so the passengers should have carried guns on the planes.


not even the pilot or stewardesses are allowed guns. If this were the case 9/11 would have never happened. YES you can't really fire a gun on a plane without serious problems, but if all the captains and stewardesses had guns pointing at the heads of these people I can imagine they would have been more apt to stand down

I agree with Ron Paul on a great number of things, and I disagree with him on some of his personal beliefs. But I have never had more confidence that a politician would vote the opposite of his own beliefs if it were what was right for the american people.

[Kuldebar]

The reality of gun fire on airplanes has been scientifically addressed by by a Boeing engineer's testimony before Congress.


Ron Hinderberger, director of aviation safety at Boeing, noted in testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives:

Boeing commercial service history contains cases where guns were fired on board in service airplanes, all of which landed safely. Commercial airplane structure is designed with sufficient strength, redundancy, and damage tolerance that a single or even multiple handgun holes would not result in loss of an aircraft. A bullet hole in the fuselage skin would have little effect on cabin pressurization. Aircraft are designed to withstand much larger impacts whether intentional or unintentional. For instance, on 14 occasions Boeing commercial airplanes have survived, and landed, after an in flight bomb blast. source (http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/comment/comment-lott090203.asp)


The fears of guns on airplanes are exaggerated. The article also says, "Unlike police who have to come into physical contact with criminals while arresting them, pilots will use guns to keep attackers as far away as possible." And this all assumes the hijackers can gain access to the cockpit. A whole plane full of people being held captive and passive by a few thugs with box cutters is a problem.

We find it entirely acceptable to have armored truck drivers with side arms to guard a truck load of fiat currency, but people balk at the idea of having an airline hire a guard or arm one of its employees in order to protect their customers.

Only in America, where people are scared to do the right thing and continue to pay a hellish price for it.