Rand Paul Quotes

I don't trust President Obama with our records. I know you gave him a big hug, and if you want to give him a big hug again, go right ahead.

Recently one of the members of President Obama’s administration — in fact, several members of them — and they’re complaining about encryption. We’re going to have to have some laws to prevent these companies from encrypting things. It’s like, don’t you get it?...The encryption is a response to a government that’s gone and run amok, basically collecting our information.

I tend to think young people get it. Young people, you see them, their lives revolve around their cell phone. They realize if I want to know about their life, I collect data from their phone...Do we want to live in a world where the government knows everything about us? Do we want to live in a world where the government has us under constant surveillance? They’ll say we’re not looking at it. We’re just keeping it in case we want to look at it. The danger is too great to let government collect your information. And I think there is a valid question whether or not simply the collecting of your information is something that goes against the Constitution.

Mr. President, there comes to a time in the history of nations when fear and complacency allow power to accumulate and liberty and privacy to suffer. That time is now. And I will not let the PATRIOT Act, the most un-patriotic of acts, go unchallenged.

The enemy is radical Islam. You can't get around it. And not only will I name the enemy, I will do whatever it takes to defend America from these haters of mankind.

To defend our country we need to gather intelligence on the enemy but when the intelligence lies to Congress how are we to trust them? The phone records of law abiding citizens are none of their damn business.

As a doctor I will make it my mission to heal the nation, reverse the course of Obamacare and repeal every last bit of it.

We could try freedom for a while. We had it for a long time. That's where you sell something and I agree to buy it because I like it. That is how we operate in most of rest of the marketplace other than health care. Now the president has said you can only buy certain types of health care that I approve of, and anything I don't approve of, you are not allowed to purchase. We could try freedom. I think it might work. It works everywhere else.

But we need to stand up for every minority. The Bill of Rights isn't for the prom queen. The Bill of Rights isn't for the high-school quarterback. They're gonna be treated fairly; they always do fine. The Bill of Rights is truly for those who might be unorthodox, who might have an unusual idea, who might not look like everybody else. … I said to him, "You could take an American citizen and send them to Guantanamo Bay with no trial?" and he said, "Yeah, if they're dangerous." So I said, "It begs the question, doesn't it, who gets to decide who's dangerous and who's not?" Anybody remember Richard Jewell, the Olympic bomber—the so-called "Olympic bomber" as it turns out? Everybody thought he was guilty; he was "convicted" on t. v. within hours—but it turned out he wasn't—it wasn't him, he wasn't guilty. But could you imagine if he had been a black man in the South in 1920, what would have happened to him? The Bill of Rights is to protect minorities, whether it's the colour of your skin or the shade of your ideology. We need to be the party that protects the rights of everyone.

The militarization of our law enforcement is due to an unprecedented expansion of government power in this realm. … Americans must never sacrifice their liberty for an illusive and dangerous, or false, security.

Anyone who thinks that race does not still, even if inadvertently, skew the application of criminal justice in this country is just not paying close enough attention. Our prisons are full of black and brown men and women who are serving inappropriately long and harsh sentences for non-violent mistakes in their youth.

When you couple this militarization of law enforcement with an erosion of civil liberties and due process that allows the police to become judge and jury—national security letters, no-knock searches, broad general warrants, pre-conviction forfeiture—we begin to have a very serious problem on our hands.<p>Given these developments, it is almost impossible for many Americans not to feel like their government is targeting them. Given the racial disparities in our criminal justice system, it is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.

There is a systemic problem with today's law enforcement.<p>Not surprisingly, big government has been at the heart of the problem. Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies—where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement.<p>This is usually done in the name of fighting the war on drugs or terrorism.

If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.<p>The outrage in Ferguson is understandable—though there is never an excuse for rioting or looting. There is a legitimate role for the police to keep the peace, but there should be a difference between a police response and a military response.<p>The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action.

I never, ever cheated [in medical school]. I don't condone cheating. But I would sometimes spread misinformation. This is a great tactic. Misinformation can be very important. We spread the rumor that we knew what was on the test and it was definitely going to be all about the liver. We tried to trick all of our competing students into over-studying for the liver.
"So, that's my advice," he concluded. "Misinformation works."