Rand Paul Quotes

37 Sourced Quotes

A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin. It is unenlightened and ill-informed to promote discrimination against individuals based on the color of their skin. It is likewise unwise to forget the distinction between public (taxpayer-financed) and private entities.

Rand Paul
If you think you have the right to health care, you are saying basically that I am your slave. I provide health care. … My staff and technicians provide it. … If you have a right to health care, then you have a right to their labor.

Rand Paul
Foreign aid goes from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

Rand Paul
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. 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.

Rand Paul
I told my constituents when I ran for office that the most important vote I would ever take would be on sending their men and women — the boys and girls, the young men and women in my state — or anywhere else in the United States — to war. To me, it's an amazing thing, an amazing thing that we would do this so lightly, without any consideration by this august body. To send our young men and women to war without any congressional approval.

Rand Paul
If you want boots on the ground, and you want them to be our sons and daughters, you got 14 other choices. There will always be a Bush or Clinton for you, if you want to go back to war in Iraq. But the thing is, the first war was a mistake. And I'm not sending our sons and our daughters back to Iraq.

Rand Paul
I do want to reduce the income tax and if possible, eliminate the income tax... The first thing you do is balance the budget, then reduce the size of government.

Rand Paul
We will not cut one penny from the safety net until we've cut every penny from corporate welfare.

Rand Paul
There is a systemic problem with today's law enforcement. 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. This is usually done in the name of fighting the war on drugs or terrorism.

Rand Paul
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. 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. The images and scenes we continue to see in Ferguson resemble war more than traditional police action.

Rand Paul
Some Republicans are not going to want to hear this, but I live near Fort Campbell, and there are 50,000 soldiers there. I tell people you have to truly imagine what your feelings would be if those soldiers were Chinese soldiers and they were occupying the United States. We wouldn't have it. Republican and Democrat, we'd be blowing up the Chinese with roadside bombs as they were coming off the base. No country wants foreign soldiers on their land.

Rand Paul
In cases of rape, trying to prevent pregnancies is obviously the best thing. The morning-after pill works successfully most of the time. Ultimately we do better if we do have better education about family planning.

Rand Paul
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.

Rand Paul
I would introduce and support legislation to send Roe v. Wade back to the states.

Rand Paul
Sometimes both sides of the civil war are evil, and sometimes intervention sometimes makes us less safe. This is real the debate we have to have in the Middle East. Every time we have toppled a secular dictator, we have gotten chaos, the rise of radical Islam, and we're more at risk. So, I think we need to think before we act, and know most interventions, if not a lot of them in the Middle East, have actually backfired on us.

Rand Paul
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.

Rand Paul
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.

Rand Paul
What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be someone's fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident that was very tragic and I've met a lot of these miners and their families. They're very brave people to do a dangerous job. But then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.

Rand Paul
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.

Rand Paul
I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court,

Rand Paul