Issue date: 11/16/07 Section: News and Opinion

Congressman Ron Paul spoke at the amphitheater outside of the Strom Thurmond Institute at Clemson University on November 2 as part of his South Carolina presidential campaign tour. At the afternoon gathering, Congressman Paul talked about the ideas that have made him a popular candidate among college students and young people, many of whom Paul took the time afterwards to meet with, sign autographs, and pose for pictures.

Paul's speech primarily addressed American foreign policy. Drawing cheers and applause, he said that "Our country is ready for a new and different foreign policy." His foreign policy is not complex, but "rather simple," and it consists of minding our own business. He queried what Americans would do if a country like China was powerful enough to occupy the Gulf of Mexico to protect their oil interests and established military bases on American soil. "We'd all be annoyed, we'd all be unified, and we would not want their occupation of our territory, and we'd want to run them out," Paul argued.

Isolating the root of our foreign policy problem, Paul says that it is not entirely the fault of the current administration for our failures overseas. Rather, he says, it has been over the past 50 to 60 years that America has accepted a foreign policy that has "really gotten us into trouble." The problem dates back to the idealism of Woodrow Wilson when Wilson said that the purpose of our foreign policy is "to make the world safe for democracy." Although Paul believes that foreign policy is a great tool to spread our values of "peace, prosperity, and freedom," he believes that spreading it through force should be rejected and we should instead set "a good example," a statement that elicited "amen's" from the audience.

Paul directly addressed how to change things in the Middle East by saying that the best way to shift our goals from force to persuasion would be to bring our troops home immediately. Not finished, though, he told the group that if their generation decided it was a good idea, American foreign policy would be changed to a non-interventionist foreign policy which would pave the way for troops to come home from Korea, Japan, Germany, Colombia, and others that were lost amidst the swelling shouts of support. Paul believes that such a policy would be more sensible and reduce our threat of terrorism.

While there are those who do not agree with such a policy, Paul said they will soon be forced to accept it because America simply can't afford it anymore. His ideas on monetary policy augment his foreign policy stance, and he elaborated how economic issues have factored into our current situation abroad. America, he said, is "going broke and it is time to admit it." The reason? Low and declining values for our currency in international markets. Using the analogies of the Roman, Spanish, and British Empires Paul showed how countries are literally "brought to their knees" when the value of their currency is destroyed.

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