I often hear people say, “I’d vote for Ron Paul if it weren’t for his lack of national defense and foreign policy.” I realize that people who make this statement have fallen prey to the clever and effective political spin that twists a candidate’s message inside out. The truth is that Rep. Ron Paul has the most moral, rational, and constitutional approach to protecting the U.S. and interacting with the world. Consider this from his website: “In Congress, Ron Paul voted to authorize military force to hunt down Osama bin Laden and authored legislation to specifically target terrorist leaders and bring them to justice.” Dr. Paul wants to “[m]ake securing our borders the top national security priority” and “[a]void long and expensive land wars that bankrupt our country by using constitutional means to capture or kill terrorist leaders who helped attack the U.S. and continue to plot further attacks.” Does that sound like someone who doesn’t care about national defense?

The U.S. needs to stop giving money we do not have to other countries, and we need to stop sending our citizens (fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, wives, daughters, and mothers) to be slaughtered or injured unnecessarily. The U.S. debt is currently at $15.6 trillion, or over $50,000 per person.

The last time the U.S. formally declared war was for World War II in 1941. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya were not formally declared. But look at this chart to see the numbers of deaths and wounded soldiers over the history of the United States. There are often four to 10 times as many soldiers injured as are killed. If we are going to deprive parents of their children, children of their parents, husbands of their wives, wives of their husbands, etc., don’t we owe it to the families who will suffer that loss to only send their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers into a real, legitimate war? Dr. Paul is the only president who will honor this serious and sacred responsibility.

The wounds that soldiers return with, from physical limitations to psychological trauma, can last a lifetime, just like the loss of a grown child or parent in combat. Veterans have a much higher rate ofsuicide. They suffer brain injuries, blindness, and traumatic amputations, and their families suffer. We owe it to the people who chose to defend our country to only risk their lives in the actual defense of the United States.

Dr. Ron Paul is the only candidate, Democrat or Republican, who is a veteran. Dr. Paul saw the horror of war and would only risk American lives overseas if war were formally declared. To whose campaign is 87 percent of the active military contributing? Ron Paul.

That is reason enough to vote for Ron Paul over all others. The U.S. must stop electing politicians who so carelessly devastate American families.

“I love peace, and am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by showing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war, which is as much a punishment to the punisher as to the sufferer.”
—Thomas Jefferson

“Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.”
—Abraham Flexner