Ron Paul Opposes Tobacco Tyranny on House Floor 6/12/09

http://www.house.gov/paul
http://CampaignForLiberty.com

"It's so exasperating at times because we always have two proposals here, or we have two ways of solving problems or dealing with tobacco. For decades, what did we do? We subsidized tobacco, and now we want to prohibit tobacco. Why don't we just let the people decide. This whole idea of either having to subsidize something or prohibit something shows a shallowness that I think we ought to challenge.

"One part of this bill that I find particularly bad, but it is pervasive in so much of what we do, about 100 years ago we took the First Amendment and 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. But we take commercial speech, and we put it over here, and we regulate the living daylights out of commercial speech. That's not a First Amendment. That's chopping freedom in half, and that just leads to more problems. But this will lead to prohibition, and it won't work. This will just give us a lot more trouble.

"You say, Well, how will these problems be handled if we just permit people to advertise? Well, you are not allowed to commit fraud; you are not allowed to commit slander; you are not allowed to commit any libel or slander or fraud. So there are prohibitions. But this approach can't work. 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, which is a total failure.

"And look at what happened to the prohibition of alcohol. You say, Well, no, this is not going to be a prohibition. It is going to be prohibition. This is a form of prohibition. When you have prohibition or even approach prohibition, what do you create? You create the black market. We will see the black market come. Already the taxes are opening up the doors of the black market.

"All I ask for is people to reconsider, believe that freedom, self-reliance and individualism can solve these problems a lot better than a bunch of politicians, bureaucrats and tobacco police here from Washington, D.C."
--Ron Paul

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• congressman
• ron
• paul
• speech
• house
• floor
• family
• smoking
• prevention
• tobacco
• control
• act
• cigarettes
• tyranny
• freedom
• police
• prohibition

[linnx88]

I love how Ron Paul speaks. He's a wonderful speaker! He start very quiet and timid like, then suddenly he strikes like a lightning and a thunder follows in your mind. How is it that we have come to have only one reasonable American in a house ruled by jaded crooks and special interest parasites?! Awake America!

[usagill]

Common sense does not work and our government is Fucked up.

[DarkprinX2500]

@tatomuck18 i wonder if he smokes..hehe

[KripDrip]

what was Ron Paul talking about in this video?

the $1 federal cigarette tax?

banning all candy flavored cigarettes except menthol?

requiring gross warnings of pictures on every pack of cigarettes like dead bodies and rotting lungs?

Banning the labels of "light" on cigarettes to make people think its safer?

or something else?

[marie1w]

Weres all the people..why everytime Ron talks nobodys there..i love Ron i hope he becomes president

[tatomuck18]

who would wanna go out of their way looking for a criminal dealer just to get cheap cigarettes that wont even get you high and just gives you cancer? The Black Market tries their best to maximize profits and not selling discounts. Its not worth it to sell low cost bargains if you risk going to jail. If im gonna get something off the black market, id get something like weed or smack or something that can actually get me high and feel good thats illegal?

[tatomuck18]

I guess Ron Paul loves people suffering from lung cancer and stinky cigarette butts littered everywhere and fires from idiots throwing them out their car window. I HATE cigarettes and cigarette smokers! They stink up all the good clean air and make me sick!

[NATIONALCOMMUNISM666]

@PoliticsAddict

homophobe!

[pjamesbda]

GROW YOUR OWN...fight back.

Find out how at:

heirloomtobacco (dot com of course).

[jimisixxx]

This is the man I want to be my President!

[PolicyFailed]

Ron Paul is a true American Patriot.