The elephant in the living room? Foreign policy. No one wants to really talk about it. Washington is hoping the rest of us won’t blurt out that the emperor has no clothes, that US interventionism is making us poorer, less free, and less safe.
Even when candidates like Donald Trump talk about it, they don’t talk about it. No nation-building, he said recently. But if we happen to see a country with some oil we should take it. “To the victor go the spoils!” is not a great slogan if you are running on the idea of restraint.
Hillary Clinton doesn’t talk about it because her track record of hyper-interventionism speaks for itself. She thinks President Obama has been far too timid and reluctant to use military force overseas. He has not sufficiently weaponized the State Department.
The “reformers” pretend to criticize foreign policy. They like to point out that it costs a lot to run the world, that we should not intervene everywhere, etc. But scratch the surface and in most cases you will see that they philosophically back the idea that the US has the right — and the obligation — to tell the rest of the world how to live.
At the Ron Paul Institute we take a different view. We believe that US foreign policy is not flawed in its execution, in the selection of targets, in the balance between “soft power” and “hard power.” We think it is rotted to its philosophical core. And our mission here is to try our best to do something about it.
This September 10th, the Institute will hold its first public conference, ‘Peace and Prosperity 2016.” We are taking our case to Washington just two months before the US presidential election and just one day before the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — attacks that launched the endless “war on terror.” We are taking on the idea of endless war. We have assembled a spectacular group of speakers, most of whom we have known and worked with for many years. We do not all agree on everything. But we agree that a change is needed. We would love to see you there. Let’s make our voices heard.
Ron Paul Institute ‘Peace and Prosperity 2016’ Conference
September 10, 2016. Dulles Airport Marriott. Check in, 9:30 AM. Conference, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM. Tickets: $75, lunch and refreshments included.
Draft Program
Opening Remarks:
Daniel McAdams
“The Case for Doing Nothing”
Special Address by US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)
Presentations:
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
“War: The Surest Route to Tyranny”
Lew Rockwell
“How War Warps and Deforms—Morally and Materially”
Jacob Hornberger
“Republic, Not Empire”
Philip Giraldi
“The American Deep State and the Persistence of an Interventionist Foreign Policy”
Panel Discussion:
John Sharpe
“The Burden of Patriotism and the Sanctity of the Civil Law: Anecdotes and Explorations”
Paul-Martin Foss
“The Symbiotic Relationship Between Central Banking and Total War”
Brian McGlinchey
“Revealing Foreign Policy Hypocrisy 28 Pages at a Time”
Jessica Pavoni
“Individual Accountability in Times of War: A Case for Conscientious Objection”
Keynote Address:
Fmr US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)
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Photo: eddiedangerous
