Ron Paul in 2011 CNN National Security GOP primary debate

On Drugs: Cancel the drug war, and cancel its violence

PAUL: I think that's another war we ought to cancel, because it's to nobody's benefit. And that's where the violence is coming from.

Q: Does that mean legalize all these drugs?

PAUL: I think the federal war on drugs is a total failure. You can at least let sick people have marijuana because it's helpful, but compassionate conservatives say, well, we can't do this--the federal government's going in there and overriding state laws and putting people like that in prison. Why don't we handle the drugs like we handle alcohol? Alcohol is a deadly drug. The real deadly drugs are the prescription drugs. They kill a lot more people than the illegal drugs. The drug war is out of control. I fear the drug war because it undermines our civil liberties. It magnifies our problems on the borders. We spent, over the last 40 years, $1 trillion on this war. And believe me, the kids can still get the drugs. It just hasn't worked.

On Homeland Security: The Patriot Act is unpatriotic; it undermines our liberty

PAUL: I think the Patriot Act is unpatriotic because it undermines our liberty. I'm concerned, as everybody is, about the terrorist attack. Timothy McVeigh was a vicious terrorist. He was arrested. Terrorism is still on the books, internationally and nationally, it's a crime and we should deal with it. We dealt with it rather well with McVeigh. But why I really fear it is we have drifted into a condition that we were warned against because our early founders were very clear. They said, don't be willing to sacrifice liberty for security. Today it seems too easy that our government is so willing to give up our liberties for security. I have a personal belief that you never have to give up liberty for security. You can still provide security without sacrificing our Bill of Rights.

GINGRICH: Timothy McVeigh succeeded. That's the whole point.

On Immigration: Incentives like benefits create illegal alien problem

PAUL: Yes, we do have a national responsibility for our borders. We need better immigration services, obviously. But if you subsidize something or give people incentives, you get more of it. So if you give easy road to citizenship, you're going to have more illegals. If you have a weak economy, which is understandable and we should have prevented, that's understandable. But mandating to the states that we have to provide free medical care and free education, that's a great burden to all the border states. So I would say eliminate all these benefits and talk about eliminating the welfare state because it's detrimental not only to here but the people that come because that's the incentive to bring their families with them.

On War & Peace: Israel won't attack Iran, and neither should we

CAIN: If Israel had a credible plan that it appeared as if they could succeed, I would support Israel, yes.

PAUL: I wouldn't do that, because I don't expect it to happen. A Mossad leader said it would be the stupidest thing to do in the world. They're not about to do this. And you're supposing that if it did, why does Israel need our help? We need to get out of their way. When they want to have peace treaties, we tell them what they can do because we buy their allegiance and they sacrifice their sovereignty to us. And then they decide they want to bomb something, that's their business, but they should suffer the consequences. When they bombed the Iraqi nuclear site, back in the '80s, I was one of the few in Congress that said it's none of our business and Israel should take care of themselves. Why do we have this automatic commitment that we're going to send our kids and send our money endlessly to Israel?