Rand Paul: “our country was founded upon the concept and in the midst of a great boycott. At the time, we were boycotting British…”

“our country was founded upon the concept and in the midst of a great boycott. At the time, we were boycotting British goods and, most specifically, British tea. There is likely nothing more American than to protest, to dissent, and to boycott. In fact, our Founding Fathers--many of them, including Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty--gathered in 1773, dressed as Indians, and dumped 90,000 pounds of British tea into the harbor. Some of our Founding Fathers were actually involved with trying to smuggle and import Dutch tea to get around the rules and to get around having to be so dependent on England. But this was a boycott. The sad thing today is that we will be debating whether or not to place limitations on the First Amendment right to boycott, and we will do it because the vast majority of this body disagrees with the concept of what the people are boycotting over. I would argue that it doesn't matter what the issue is. In fact, the First Amendment is to protect issues of speech and issues of boycott that you may disagree with. I am not particularly enamored with--in fact, I don't favor--the boycott of Israel. I think Israel has been a good ally. Yet the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom to protest, and the freedom to boycott are fundamentally American. How can we give that up so easily? How can we just say: Oh, well, it is a good ally, and we don't want anybody boycotting them.…”