While President Obama was starting and expanding unconstitutiona l wars overseas, Bradley Manning, whose actions have caused exactly zero deaths, was shining light on the truth behind these wars.

[Political] conventions lend themselves to pandering, as few politicians can resist the temptation to tell a national television audience how well they will run the country if elected. The problem is that government is not supposed to run the country - we're supposed to be free.

The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free.

I think Israel should be treated as an independent nation and not a puppet of our state.

Governments have nothing. They can't create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we ought to challenge that concept.

Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it's wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I once again find myself compelled to vote against the annual budget resolution for a very simple reason: it makes government bigger.