Ron Paul, the 2002 Szasz Civil Liberties Award Winner

Some supporters of Ron Paul’s presidential campaign may not know that congressman Paul was a champion of civil liberties even in the era before the U.S. government legalized torture.

Paul won the Szasz Award for Outstanding Contributions to Civil Liberties in 2002.  He is the only politician to ever win the award (named after the legendary psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, one of the great heroes of modern liberty).

Here are the comments I made at the award ceremony in November 2002 in Washington: 

It is my honor on behalf of the Szasz award committee to present the award this year to Congressman Ron Paul.

     Ron Paul speaks truth to power.     Congressman Paul  takes the high ground – stands on principle – and he often stands alone.  

     Last year, Paul was one of only three Republicans to vote against the Patriot Act  and the only member of the House to vote against the money laundering provisions of the Patriot Act.   Paul denounced that portion of the bill as “a laundry list of dangerous, unconstitutional power grabs…”  The type of honesty that is   damn near nonexistent in Washington.

     Ron Paul has made it clear from Day One where he stands on the War with Iraq. He stands on the Constitution on this – not on the public opinion polls. He is not finessing the issue.

     One thing I like about Paul is that he is wiling to question people’s motives – something that happens far too rarely in Washington.
    
     Back in mid-September, I was flipping on the TV at the end of the day – after a few beers – trolling on C SPAN.  And I happened to come upon a House hearing on the pending war with Iraq.  I think I missed the first couple hours of the hearing because chairman Henry Hyde announced that it was Congressman Paul’s chance to ask a question.
 
Paul scorned the hearing as “very one sided” and said “This turns out to be more propaganda for war than anything else.   We’re willing to go to war over phantom weapons.”
     And then he asked the two witnesses – Richard Perle and James Woolsey – whether they would personally be wiling to risk their lives for the war they so strongly advocated.
     Woolsey answered first.  He mentioned that he “flew a desk” during his two years in the army – but then stressed that it was not up to private citizens to decide whether to go to war – it was up to Congress.
     Then Perle answered. Perle was in London at the time – and they had a giant video screen up there for him to be seen.   The hearing setting looked like a scene out of Dr. Strangelove.  And there was a giant flag just to Perle’s right  – sort of like the Fox News Network on amphetamines.
 
   Perle opined: “Well, I find the question a particularly troubling question because the suggestion is that somehow it is illegitimate to make recommendation with respect to what one believes is in the best interest of the country and all of our citizens except in some intensely personal context.  And if I were in a position to serve, I would do so. But, that seems to me quite the wrong question, Congressman.  The question is how do we best protect the citizens of this country.”
   Woolsey chimed in: “This so-called chicken hawk argument does seem to me to be an extraordinarily unworthy argument.  And I think Senator John McCain has put it exactly where it belongs.  For one thing it says that if an American women or an openly gay American man supports the war that an opinion is unworthy or an over age, military age, American man, that that is an unworthy and ought to be an unconsidered opinion because none of those people are going to serve in combat. And I join Mr. Perle in saying that I think that it’s an extraordinarily unworthy ad hominem argument.” 

     Now – congressman Paul had not accused the two distinguished witnesses of being chickenhawks – they were the ones that brought this up.   But simply to directly challenge them made both Perle and Woolsey go strutting as if they had suffered some terrible insult.  I mean – since they were advocating killing foreigners – of course they had good intentions, right?
 
     Paul has done great work for freedom as far back as the mid-1970s.  His foundation for  Foundation for Rational Economic Education (FREE) has done cutting-edge work- such as its recent publication of his speech,  “The Case Against the Police State.”   His Liberty Committee has worked mightily to educate fellow congressmen on the danger of Leviathan.

+++++++

Paul’s 2002 comments on “phantom weapons” is a reminder that there was plenty of evidence available to doubt the Bush administration’s WMD pretext for clobbering Iraq.  On the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Paul issued a series of “Questions that Won’t be Asked About Iraq.”  Unfortunately, very few other people in Washington had Paul’s courage to doggedly demand key information before the bombing began.

32 thoughts on “Ron Paul, the 2002 Szasz Civil Liberties Award Winner”

  1. I believe that Woolsey needs to take a course in how to speak clearly. These classes are offered in the government. I know that Booz-Allen (where he works) offers them as well.

    As for Perle, I don't know what the problem is.

    Why are these people offering opinions? Logic and rational debates are not their strong suit.

    1. You don’t know what the problem is with Perle? Hmmm. How about he was making profits on the Iraq war and that is the reason he was told to leave.

      1. I meant, I don’t know what the problem (mental condition) is with this idiot. Obviously, Perle and Woolsey cannot string together a meaningful series of words–total doublespeak. Such as it is, these two characters who have been given a voice (and influence) in the policy debate (Perle at defense, Woolsey on intelligence) demonstrate very clearly that we Americans are living in an Idiotocracy.

  2. I did not know this but, but this doesnt surprise me one bit. Dr. Paul is a rarity in politics and I am glad to be a part of this revolution and hopefully take this country back, and get back to the rule of law.

    Thanks!

  5. This is the main reason I’m voting for Ron Paul. His consistancy. Go read his book. He has been talking about the same things for decades, he actually BELIEVES what he is talking about. Seriously, if you want to read an amazing book, Ron Paul: A Foreign Policy of Freedom.

    1. Ron Paul is the first candidate I’ve motivated to promote in a long time. He’s a rarity among politicians, integrity, intelligence, and a true desire to put the Constitution first.

  6. Here’s a boilerplate smear anthology by Mona Charen on a purportedly conservative website which has never once allowed Paul or any of his supporters to write an article in his defense, before or after attacking him:

    http://www.townhall.com/columnists/Column2.aspx?UrlTitle=too_close_to_kooky&ns=MonaCharen&dt=11/16/2007&page=full&comments=true&submitted=truef69bc0d2-8039-4468-add1-fca5fb817a08

    But look at the reaction in the comments, not all of it from Paulistas. The Republican base is beginning, at long last, to smell the Zionist rat.

  7. Ron Paul has integrity. He is and has been the only honest politician. Ron Paul has my vote and support. Thank you for this article. There are quite a few main stream media reporters that write articles about Ron Paul that are filled with untruths. I believe he is the only Candidate running for President that is For the People, and our Country. He does not pander to special interest groups or play the games that the other candidates do that the media goes into a frenzy over. His message of Liberty and Freedom is waking up the people that have been waiting for right man to run our country, and that is Ron Paul. The numbers of supporters are great, but you wouldn’t know it if read articles from the main stream media, the surprise will be on them when voting time comes.

  9. Fascinating. It would have been interesting if Dr. Paul had decided to point out that

    the gay or lesbian were being denied the ability to fight in the army due to governmental restrictions, not because they were not willing to fight.

  10. Dr. Paul is an awesome candidate for freedom. As for Richard Perl I do not know even his representation of himself as a chicken hawk is far more adequate than reasonable. Theses two people are treasonous criminals. They who walk the halls of power are personally responsible for the deaths of innocent people and a large number of those lives are Americans. When we get a attorney General with some guts and one who does not eat from the poison tree these two should be brought up on charges as foreign agent spying, traitors, conspiracy, violation of international laws and war crimes.

    Chicken hawks work for their living.. these people are parasite of the worst kind.

  11. I don’t know about Ron Paul, but Dr. Thomas Szasz is a true American heroe. He has stood up agasint psychiatric abuse and human rights violations for many years. As a young law student, I interned with a legal service organization inside a large state mental hospital. What I saw astounded me. If there is any group that is discriminated againast and abused it is the so called mentally ill and the psychitrists have enormous power in their lives and ours. Criminals are given more legal rights than the “mentally ill” and Thomas Szasz in his many books and works has fought against this type of psychiatric tyranny. As Dr. Szasz likes to say, “When people talk to God they call it prayer, when God talks back they call it scizophrenia.”

  12. What fabulous doctors and civil libertarians are both Paul and Szasz. How fitting that Paul should receive such a prestigious award. Thank you so much for this information.

  13. Tim R.- Citing Muslim atrocities in the context of an argument about the wisdom and morality of US foreign policy is neither illuminating nor exculpatory, particularly when the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia is supported by the United States. Reprehensible incidents involving Muslims can be adduced to dehumanize them when done without comparison or context, just as I could refer to the numerous abortion clinic bombings in recent years as proof of Christian “depravity”, but such cherry-picked anecdotes, even if we take them as somehow indicative of Islam as a whole, pale in comparison to the scale of suffering and destruction inflicted by American imperialism. Your frantic tone and liberal use of moral blackmail (question America and you’re with the terrorists!!!) don’t exactly help your polemical style, either. In the meantime, feel free to ruminate on the following:

    Who launched an illegal invasion of a sovereign country based entirely on lies that resulted in the death of 1.2 million people and the displacement of many more? Not the Muslims.

    Who fashioned the Rambouillet accords to create a pretext for bombing Serbia during the Kosovo War? Not the Muslims.

    Who continues to back repressive dictatorships like Ethiopia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Georgia? Not private Muslim organizations.

    Who supported the Khmer Rouge during the 1980s? (Hint: His initials were “R.R.”)

    Who has continued its blank check support for Israel, a country that has violated virtually every U.N. resolution aimed at attenuating the conflict between it and Palestine? Not the Muslims.

    Who saturated Vietnam’s forests with Agent Orange and dropped more ordinance thereupon than had been unleashed in the entirety of World War 2? Not the Muslims.

    Who poured billions into Al-Qaeda during the Soviet invasion while ignoring secular, democratic resistance groups like RAWA? Not the great bulk of Muslims, scraping as they must to get by under American-supported despotisms.

    I think this is enough to short-circuit your neural wiring for the day, so I won’t add any more.

    1. Kenneth, I was talking about my great admiration for Dr. Thomas Szasz, so I don’t know how this is relevant but I will take the bait:

      Illegal war? Last time I checked the United States Constitution, Article One, gives Congress the power to declare war. True, they have not done that since December of 1941 but they now issue “authorizations to use force” which is exactly what they did in 2002. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry both voted for it. So how is it an illegal war? Also, the United Nations Security Counsel voted to use for. So again, how was it an illegal war? And you say the whole thing was based on lies? Do you have proof of that? Perhaps a secret tape recording, similar to the Watergate Tapes, where the President and his team admit to lies? No, you have no such evidence, you have your own speculation. Well, speculation does not hold up in court. Maybe they did lie. But you have to proof of it. Also, was Bill Clinton lying when he too said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?

      Iraq as a “sovereign” nation? What a joke? It was a dictatorship, run by a cruel and inhuman tyrant. It was not a liberal democracy. Why should the civilized world recognize the right of a tyrant to control and brutalize innocent people?

      Christians bombing abortion clinics? Give me a break. That is an old one. How many specific fatalities can you cite? How many specific bombings? While utterly reprehensible,The number of Christians who do such things is tiny. The Muslim radicals have killed hundreds of thousands and I could cite pages and pages of their atrocoties. Remember something called the Armenian Genocide? Who perpetrated that? Oh yes, Muslims right? How about Muslims killing other Muslims? 400,000 are dead in Darfur. September 11th 2001 etc etc the list could go on and on.

      As to Saudi Arabia: I agree with you there, we need their oil so we make deals with the devil. It is deplorable that we call them our friends. They are our enemies and their government is inimical to everything we stand for.

      1. There really is no need to try and divide Christians and Muslims any longer. Neither wish to fight each other based on lies for israel.

      2. The legality, or illegality of the war, is a detail. What matters is that it was immoral.

        “And you say the whole thing was based on lies? Do you have proof of that? Perhaps a secret tape recording, similar to the Watergate Tapes, where the President and his team admit to lies? No, you have no such evidence, you have your own speculation. Well, speculation does not hold up in court.”

        Perhaps you’ve been living under a rock for the past several years, but the administration’s rhetoric about WMDs turned out to be false:

        http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6834079/
        http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/01/25/sprj.nirq.kay/

        It is also ironic that you would accuse me of making a case that “would not hold up in court” as you’ve shifted the burden of proof by effectively asking me to prove a negative- namely, that Iraq had no WMDs- a logical fallacy.

        “Also, was Bill Clinton lying when he too said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?”

        He most certainly was, and if I had my way he’d be facing trial at Geneva.

        “Iraq as a “sovereign” nation? What a joke? It was a dictatorship, run by a cruel and inhuman tyrant. It was not a liberal democracy. Why should the civilized world recognize the right of a tyrant to control and brutalize innocent people?”

        Possibly because by doing so you anoint yourself as the ultimate arbiter of morality and so open the floodgates to international anarchy?

        “Christians bombing abortion clinics? Give me a break. That is an old one. How many specific fatalities can you cite? How many specific bombings? While utterly reprehensible,The number of Christians who do such things is tiny. The Muslim radicals have killed hundreds of thousands and I could cite pages and pages of their atrocoties. Remember something called the Armenian Genocide? Who perpetrated that? Oh yes, Muslims right? How about Muslims killing other Muslims? 400,000 are dead in Darfur. September 11th 2001 etc etc the list could go on and on.”

        I notice you have sidestepped my juxtaposition of Islamic terrorism with US imperialism, possibly because the US makes the Muslims look good if the volume of death and destruction is used as the metric of immorality. I have cited a handful of atrocities in which the US has partaken whose collective toll far outweigh those of Islamic terrorism even when the Armenian Genocide (which, as I’d like to point out, was inflicted by committed secularists, the Young Turks) is included. Other than ahistorical babble, retroactive generalizations, racist smears with no basis in Islamic teaching (see http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/notislam/misconceptions.html for details), and generalizations that entirely abstract from the social conditions in which such events occur (causing you to falsely interpolate an Islam-driven “threat”), you’ve been unable to prove that Islam is the source of conflict. Proof? How about the recent Europol report: http://www.europol.europa.eu/publications/TESAT/TESAT2007.pdf . In all of Europe in 2006 there were 498 terrorist attacks, an astounding ONE of which was done by Islamists (and it failed).

        “[The Saudis] are our enemies and their government is inimical to everything we stand for.”

        Torture, mass murder, repression, foreign intervention- I’d say the two dovetail quite nicely.

        1. Even if Iraq has weapons of mass destruction–so what? So did all of the nations around it. Why pick on Iraq since it did not even make an threats to the US or anyone? Oil!

  14. No wish to divide Christians and Muslims? You should tell that to the Muslims who rampaged through the streets and burned churches and killed a nun just because the Pope suggested that Islam might not be peaceful. The only peace in radical Islam is spelled “piece” as in pieces of human bodies being blown up.

    1. And even if that were true, what are you gonna do about it exactly?

      When answering, please consider your use of “Muslim” in the first line and the bait-and-switch operation to “radical Islam” in the last.

      Funny thing is, in a few thousand years, those religions will have gone the way of Anubis. Why are we all getting upset?

      1. This would-be lawyer might want to consider a new vocation, given his tenuous grasp of elementary rhetoric as well as a sloppy, scattershot debating style that does not suggest a great deal of intellectual maturity, much less polemical prowess. The US military faces acute recruiting shortfalls, and I daresay he might find a decent job with all living expenses defrayed fighting against “Islamofascists” (these world war two comparisons never lose their luster, eh?)- provided, of course, that he has the physical courage to do so.

      2. You want evidence that he lied? Ha! Go to http://www.dowingstreetmemo.com for the evidence:

        If I had lost a loved one fighting in Iraq or currently had a soldier over there, I would be enraged over the Downing Street Memo. The Downing Street Memo is the recently leaked minutes from a 2002 British government meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior national security team. The memo told of how Bush’s decision to strike was already set prior to his presenting the plan to Congress. The former head of British Secret Intelligence Services, Richard Dearlove (who had just gotten back from meetings in Washington, D.C.), was sure Bush wanted to “remove Saddam Hussein through military action … But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy.” Facts “fixed”? Isn’t that like manufacturing evidence? How do you explain that to kids who signed on to fight evildoers and secure their WMDs, only to come home in flag-draped boxes to a nation where, according to a recent Gallup poll, almost 60 percent of its citizens now feel the war was a total mistake? How do you explain it to grieving parents who thought their sons and daughters died in a war where military power had been used only as the absolute last resort — like Bush said it would be? How do you explain the lost sons and daughters because of a callous president who lied?

  15. To all progressives,

    Ron Paul is a consevative in the true sense of the word. I consider myself a leftest. I’m for a women’s right to choose while Paul is decidedly anti-choice. But I respect Paul’s positions even where our principals diverge. Most importantly, Ron Paul has pledged to end the imperial war our tratorious “leaders” never will.

    I plan to vote for Ron Paul if he runs in the national election. I hope all voters of principle will as well.

    James C. Willeford
    Durham, NC

  16. And to add to the refutation to the declaration that Muslims are more violent than other religious, sticking to recent history, what about the millions of Christians, mainly Catholics, Rwandans, killing millions of other Christians, mainly Catholic Rawandans.

  17. Ron Paul is the favorite Internet candidate for president. Obviously, there is a great deal that the Internet bloggers don’t know about him. They don’t know that he is adamantly against Roe vs. Wade; he introduced a bill to limit the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court on issues of religion, privacy, and gay marriage; he is anti choice; he voted to allow the bigoted Alabama judge to post “Ten Commandments” on the courthouse lawn; he opposes hate crimes laws; and he voted for an amendment that attempted to block the DC Government from allowing same-sex partners to adopt. Ron Paul–the epitome of a right-wing conservative and a worthy successor to George Bush II.

  18. Ron Paul, Republican candidate for president, has an outstanding record as an ultra-conservative. For example, taken from his congressional website, he opposes federal funding for stem cell research; he is anti-UN taxation; he favors tax cuts, nearly all of which go to the rich; he is against corporate accountability; he glorifies Ronald Reagan; he attacks gun control in DC; and he is anti-union. He is the perfect candidate–for the 19th century.

  19. Well, if the choice is between Hillary’s wishy-washy warmongering and Gouliani’s over the top bloodlust, I’ll gladly vote for an eccentric Texan who thinks we should bring the troops home.

  20. Likewise. Better a socially somewhat conservative candidate than a bunch of gung-ho imperialists who’ll ensure that there is neither life nor choice.

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