Rand Paul Thinking Quotations

I don't think I've ever used the word 'gay rights,' because I don't really believe in rights based on your behavior.

I think what happened during the Great Depression was that African Americans understood that Republicans championed citizenship and voting rights but they became impatient for economic emancipation.

What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.

I think we need to treat everybody with dignity.

I don't think I'm really open to having Washington change me.

I think a lot of things could be handled locally.

I think that most manufacturing and mining should be under the purview of state authorities.

We've gone too far in thinking we can re-create an American democratic paradise in the Middle East.

I think those who have wanted regime [of Bashar Assad] change have made a mistake.

I think we defeat terrorism by showing them that we do not fear them.

Still people want to topple [Bashar] Assad. And then there will be chaos, and I think ISIS will then be in charge of Syria.

Whether or not regime change is a good idea or a bad idea. I don't think because I think the regime change was a bad idea it means that Hussein was necessarily a good idea.

I think it's a huge mistake. I think regime change in Syria, and this is what - I've been saying this for several years now. In 2013 when we first went in, I said, you are going to give arms to the allies of al Qaida, to radical jihadists? That's crazy.

I think when we think about the judgment of someone who might want World War III, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because they don't like their friends;

I think that if you believe in regime change, you're mistaken. In 2013, we put 600 tons of weapons - us, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar - into the war against [Bashar] Assad. By pushing Assad back, we did create a safe space.

[Marco] Rubio says we should collect all Americans' records all of the time. The Constitution says otherwise. I think they're both wrong. I think we defeat terrorism by showing them that we do not fear them.

I think there's a racial outcome to a lot of what goes in America, but I don't think race is always the reason.

When we toppled [Muammar] Gadhafi in Libya, I think that was a mistake. I think ISIS grew stronger, we had a failed state, and we were more at risk.

When you ask yourself, whoever you are, that think you're going to support Donald Trump, think, do you believe in the Constitution? Are you going to change the Constitution?

I think if Russia is really an honest signatory to the chemical weapons ban, if Syria wants to be, ultimately someone has to be responsible for killing civilians. And that's the hard part out of this.

I think the entire world knows, and North Korea knows, that if they used any weapons on our soldiers they would be obliterated. And it would be an overwhelming response.

I think if we ban certain religions, if we censor the Internet, I think that at that point the terrorists will have won.

I think we ought to quit sending [help] to countries that burn our flag.

I think most people, in their lifetime, have seen somebody who has the ability to use force lord it over other individuals. I see a lot of those videos, and I am disturbed by people being yanked out of their cars, and it seems to be a disproportionate amount of young black men. I'm disturbed by it.

I think that we have to be very careful about who comes here from the Middle East.

I think what we've had in the past is the government has said, "Well, we need to collect the whole haystack." And the haystack is Americans' privacy. Every Americans' privacy. We have to give up all of our privacy.

I don't think we're actually using the constitutional tools that we have in an appropriate fashion.

If you are accused of being associated with terrorism, which could mean you are an Arab- American and you've sent e-mails to a relative in the Middle East, you should get your day in court, and I think you should get a lawyer and a trial, and I think most Americans agree to that.

I think the vast majority of the American people say you shouldn't be able to collect my phone records if I'm not suspicious, if you don't have probable cause.

I would have handled it differently than the mayor of Baltimore, that's for sure. I think it's a mistake to say, hey, guys, you can pillage the city for a while and we'll let that go, and we'll be sort of standing back. I think it's also important to know some of the underlying causes of why there's unease in our country.

I think Saudi Arabia often finances radical Islam and the teaching of hatred to the West and hatred of Americans. I think it is important that we know that. It's important that we know that there is a threat within and a threat without. I think we can stop it with more aggressive use of actual constitutional tools.

I think we're never fully protected, but I think we need to do everything we can to stop threats to us.

We have to decide whether our fear is going to get the better of us. Once upon a time we had a standard in our country that was 'innocent until proven guilty.' We've given up on so much. Now, people are talking about a standard that is 'if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.' Think about it. Is that the standard we're willing to live under?

Let's say tomorrow that there was a president, that we elected a president that eliminated the bulk collection of data. Let's just say it happened. What do you think would happen? People are like 'the sky would fall. We would be overrun with jihadists.' Maybe we could rely on the Constitution. Maybe we could get warrants. ... If you make the warrant specific, there's no limit to what you can get through a warrant.

Any time someone tries to tell you that metadata is 'meaningless, don't worry, it's just who you call, it's just phone records, it's not a big deal' - realize we kill people based on metadata. So they must be pretty darn certain that they think they know something based on metadata.

I think we've made the collection haystack so big, no one's ever getting through the haystack to find the needle. What we really need to do is isolate the haystack into a group of suspicious people and spend enormous resources looking at suspicious people, people who we have probable cause.

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 don't think we're doing an adequate vetting process of those who are coming to our country.

I think this sets a very bad precedent, the president unilaterally on his own starting war without any consent from Congress.

[I]f 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.

I think you'll find that these are measures that have great bipartisan support, and so I expect, not only did we do well in the primary, I think we'll win by a wide margin in the fall because we're going to get a lot of independents and conservative Democrats coming to us.

I think we have a Tea Party mandate, and that Tea Party mandate is for good-government type of things, things like term limits, things like a balanced budget amendment, things like read the bills for goodness sakes, things like that maybe Congress should only pass legislation that they apply to themselves as well.

I think there is some overreach in the sense that the EPA now says: if Congress doesn't pass greenhouse emissions regulations or testing, we'll simply do it on our own. I think that's an arrogance of a regulatory body run amok.

This whole sort of 'war on women' sort of thing, I'm scratching my head because if there was a war on women, I think they won.

I think if you have a two-story office and you hire someone who's handicapped, it might be reasonable to let him have an office on the first floor rather than the government saying you have to have a $100,000 elevator.

I think really that you shouldn't run as a conservative if you're not.

I went to my first national convention in 1976, when my family supported [Ronald] Reagan over [Gerald] Ford, so we've always been Republicans, but we've always wanted the Republican Party to be the party of fiscally conservative, limited-government types. And I think, sometimes, we haven't done that as well.

I've thought for some time that the answer to a lot of problems in the Middle East, including Iran, include an active role with Russia. And I think, in some ways, we've taken show votes in the U.N. that are guaranteed to failure before we take them.

I think we can't be naive in dealing with the Russians or dealing with the Syrians. But at the same time, I think we could try to encourage - and I think this is what diplomacy should do - encourage the self-interests of all parties to believe that it is in their best interest to get evil actors or rogue actors such as Syria or Iran, if you try to have less belligerent and less bellicose behavior.

I think that, most importantly, when I see issues of war, I see them in a personal vein, and I am reluctant to go to war unless there's a real, valid American interest because I've seen the wounded soldiers.

I am pleased though that there's a possibility of a diplomatic solution [in Syria]. I remain somewhat skeptical, but I am pleased that it's a possibility and I think people like myself who've been arguing for delaying this bombing, have allowed this diplomatic possibility to occur.

I think it's a conundrum. If we have no laws on this, people take it to one extension further, does it have to be humans, you know?

Every chance at destabilizing [Bashar] Assad... the bombing campaign causes a flood of refugees into Jordan, there's already half a million in Jordan. I think a bombing campaign - I think it's hard to argue that a U.S. bombing campaign is going to cause less refugees. And I think it causes more refugees and more of a humanitarian disaster. I think it causes, or allows, the risk of Israel being attacked with a gas attack to go up, if we attack Assad. So there's all kinds of bad things.

I think we can all agree [Bashar] Assad is a bad and evil actor, but I'm not so sure that we want the Islamic rebels to be in charge of Syria either.

I'm not opposed to letting people work and labor in our country, but we shouldn't provide an easy route to citizenship. We're the only country I know of where a person can come in illegally and that baby becomes a citizen and I think that should stop also.

Republicans who criticize the use of two languages, I think, make a great mistake.

The 11 million, I think, are never going home, don't need to be sent home, and I would incorporate them into our society by giving them work visas and making them taxpayers.

I think my dad has helped me tremendously.

We have to think before we act.

Any time you make an analogy to horrific people in history, Mussolini or Hitler, people say, 'Oh, you're exaggerating, you're talking about, it's hyperbole.' Maybe it is. ... But I would say is that if you are not concerned that democracy could produce bad people, I don't think you're really thinking this through too much.

I don't like the idea of telling private business owners - I abhor racism. I think it's a bad business decision to exclude anybody from your restaurant - but, at the same time, I do believe in private ownership. But I absolutely think there should be no discrimination in anything that gets any public funding.

Well, I think a handshake is something that honorable men do. Before we had contracts we had handshakes that expressed that we were making an arrangement that was based on our honor. And I don't think I can shake the hand of someone who shows and lacks honor by attacking a man's faith.

I think ultimately that the rules that you make for gun control, people who are intent on killing themselves aren't too concerned with the rules. Law-abiding citizens are.

To put everyone in government housing and food stamps and bring them in from around the world I think is a mistake. To give of your own money, I've given to my church. My church has helped people that came from Bosnia. That's a good thing.

I think that by arming the allies of ISIS, the Islamic rebels against [Bashar] Assad, that we created a safe space or made that space bigger for ISIS to grow.

I think women have come a long way. Women are in positions not because they're women, they're in positions because they're intelligent and they should be equal to their counterparts and treated equally.

The GOP of old has grown stale and moss-covered. I don't think we need to name any names, do we? Our party is encumbered by an inconsistent approach to freedom. The new GOP will need to embrace liberty in both the economic and the personal sphere.

I think if we want to defeat terrorism, I think if we truly are sincere about defeating terrorism, we need to quit arming the allies of ISIS. If we want to defeat terrorism, the boots on the ground - the boots on the ground need to be Arab boots on the ground.

I really think that discrimination and racism is a horrible thing. And I don't want any form of it in our government, in our public sphere.