Political Quotes

Rand Paul: today the Congress will collectively move our nation yet another step closer to a national police state by further…

On the recordJanuary 31, 2000
today the Congress will collectively move our nation yet another step closer to a national police state by further expanding a federal crime to include amongst the list of controlled substances that of GHB, a nutrient used for 25 years with beneficial effects for those suffering from cataplexy, insomnia, narcolepsy, depression, alcoholism, opiate addiction and numerous other conditions. Of course, it is much easier to ride the current wave of federalizing every human misdeed in the name of saving the world from some evil than to uphold a Constitutional oath which prescribes a procedural limitation by which the nation is protected from what is perhaps the worst evil, totalitarianism. Who, after all, and especially in an election year, wants to be amongst those members of Congress who are portrayed as being soft on drugs or rape, irrespective of the procedural transgressions and individual or civil liberties one tramples in their overzealous approach. Our federal government is, constitutionally, a government of limited powers. Article one, Section eight, enumerates the legislative areas for which the U.S. Congress is allowed to act or enact legislation. For every other issue, the federal government lacks any authority or consent of the governed and only the state governments, their designees, or the people in their private market actions enjoy such rights to governance.
Said by
Rand Paul
Republican · Kentucky

Editor's note · Context

Opposing the expansion of federal crime laws to include GHB during a congressional debate.

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