Former Texas Rep. Ron Paul appeared on “The Independents” on the Fox Business Network Tuesday night, where he discussed a variety of subjects, including the government response to April’s Boston Marathon bombing.
Kennedy, host of “The Independents”: Welcome back to “The Independents” as we ponder over the failures and triumphs in the state and culture in 2013. And now a story that has people somewhat split: the police response to the Boston Marathon Bombings. 86% of Boston residents approved of the police response and lockdown after the attack. But congressman, you have said that when the government makes us feel safe, they can take our liberties away. Why do you disagree with the overwhelming respondents in Boston?
Ron Paul: Well, there are still powerful individuals promoting the PR — you know, scare everybody in order to get people to go along either with the war or giving up their liberties. But obviously if they had the facts they would not feel this way and maybe in time they will realize that it didn’t do any good. They had martial law imposed on the city really for the first time under the circumstances. Couple people were killed, that is true and it was terrible, but it was a police action. There are some weekends 10 or 15 people get murdered in one city but they don’t turn it into, you know, turn martial law on the whole city and lock it down. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until they got rid of the martial law and the lockdown, that information came out that private citizens gave information and private cameras found out who the bad guy was. And so it actually proves our point. At the same time, the people in Boston may have supported it but I think it is some of the stuff that contributed to those 72% of the people who are sick and tired of the big government because they always make these promises and I think that was overkill. I think it was way too much. And I do not believe for a minute that the responsibility of the government is to make us safe. The responsibility of government, if anything, is to protect our liberties.
