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Ron Paul Challenging Government Secrecy and the “Truther” Label

Monday, August 25, 2014 10:32

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TND Guest Contributor: Adam Dick |

Ron Paul, speaking Friday with Charles Goyette in their weekly podcast discussion, decries the trend of the US government keeping more and more information secret. Paul also laments that people trying to discover the truth — whether about the September 11, 2001 attacks on America, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, or other matters regarding which the US government is keeping much information classified and thus out of sight — are disparagingly labeled “truthers.”

Turning things upside down from our nation’s constitutional foundation, Paul notes, the US government now claims excessive secrecy for itself while subjecting Americans to a mass spying program in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Paul, the chairman and founder of RPI, explains in the podcast that the current extensive secretiveness of the US government is inconsistent with the republican form of government that the US Constitution is supposed to guarantee.

Americans’ ability to control the US government and keep its powers limited is restrained by the vast amount of government secrets.

The problem of government secrecy is exacerbated by the attacks people are subjected to when they seek to uncover the truth in areas where the government maintains many secrets. When someone tries to find out the truth about the September 11, 2001 attacks on America or the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, for example, he is sure to be referred to pejoratively with a label such as “conspiracy theorist” or “truther.”

In a similar manner, a person who opposes the US entering into a new war or who supports ending any of the US government’s ongoing sanctions or military actions will be attacked as an “isolationist.”

The “truther,” “conspiracy theorist,” or “isolationist” label is often used as a substitute for using facts or a logical argument to dispute what someone says. For example, you may hear someone respond to Paul’s warnings against US intervention in Iraq or Ukraine by saying “Don’t pay any attention to what he says; he is just an isolationist.” You can watch here one manner Paul responds to this attack.

Paul succinctly explains in the podcast discussion the absurdity of disparaging someone as a “truther”:

I was always amazed, you know, if you question and you want the truth how they took a word like “truther” and turned it into a terrible word. It’s sort of like taking the word “liberty,” “liberal,” “libertarian” and trying to turn it into something bad and evil. But, they certainly have done this. To look for the truth is now considered overkill when the people need to know something and deserve to know something.

Paul also discusses in the podcast his new “#Declassify campaign” that urges people to use social media to call for the declassification of 28 pages redacted from a 2002 US House of Representatives and Senate Intelligence Committees report on the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.

While the media is largely silent regarding the effort of Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) (an RPI Advisory Board member) and other US House members to make public the 28 pages, RPI has reported on the story since Jones’s legislation was introduced in December of 2013. Read the RPI coverage here, here, here, here, and here.

Listen here to Paul and Goyette’s complete podcast discussion.

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The above appeared at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity website and is reprinted with permission. To visit the website, click here. Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is a project of Dr. Paul’s Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (F.R.E.E.), founded in the 1970s as an educational organization. The Institute continues and expands Dr. Paul’s lifetime of public advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties at home. The Institute mobilizes colleagues and collaborators of Dr. Paul’s to participate in a broad coalition to educate and advocate for fundamental changes in our foreign and domestic policy. To support the institute’s important work, click here.