If America is to remain free, we must prudently devote attention and appropriate resources to national security. In fact, it is the primary constitutional duty of the federal government to provide for the common defense.

However, it is also crucial to ensure that our national security strategies use American dollars wisely in a challenging economy. It is further imperative that we preserve or even enhance constitutional rights and freedoms through our national security, rather than undermining and curtailing them. Being a well-protected people becomes virtually meaningless if we allow our own government to rob us of our economic and personal liberties in the process.

BOLD SOLUTION A: Build a Tech-Savvy Fence and Properly Man Our Borders

We know good fences work where they are implemented, including in California. Yet vast stretches of our border remain unprotected, an invitation to criminality and violence. The federal government wastes billions of dollars on counter-productive bureaucracy every year. Yet, it somehow repeatedly fails to allocate wise dollars toward erecting tech-savvy fencing that would help to properly secure our borders and responsibly protect Americans.

American citizens should not be left to contend with the dangers encouaged by an open border. Border security should no longer be considered an optional item in our federal budget. In Washington, I will work to ensure that the federal government reassesses its budget, steps up, and finally does the job it is, in fact, constitutionally obligated to do.

For additional thoughts related to our national borders, please visit my Bold Solutions page on Immigration policy.

BOLD SOLUTION B: Honestly Assess Foreign Relationships and Act Accordingly

America has many enemies intent on doing her harm. She also has many good friends. But our federal government seems to have become deeply confused about which is which.

Our foreign aid policy, for example, is positively schizophrenic. We fund nations friendly to us, while simultaneously funding the enemies of those friends in order to appear “fair.” Meanwhile, we also fund countries that are actually hostile to us in the impossible hope of buying their good will.

The current administration, further, seems bent on undermining relationships with historic allies, while bolstering and celebrating ties to tyrants.

We have failed to provide moral support to Iranians attempting to over throw the dangerous theocracy of the mullahs. At the same time, we have leapt before looking in Arab nations by supporting revolutions likely to end in additional theocracies that will oppose us.

It is time to end the insanity.

I thoroughly support a careful reassessment of our foreign relationships and funding. We must adopt a comprehensive, cohesive foreign policy that actually makes sense for our national interests and security.

Just for starters, America is broke. At a bare minimum, I advocate eliminating all foreign aid to nations currently unfriendly to us. These American dollars are utterly wasted. Instead, we should consider useing some of this funding to build the fence and hire the border guards suggested in Bold Solution A.

BOLD SOLUTION C: Safeguard American Sovereignty

Unless the U.S. remains independent and free to make its own decisions, the federal government will actually have very little say over our national security and the protection of American citizens. Yet, certain factions in Washington and around the world want to strip the U.S. of its sovereign status, making it just one more country in the “global community.”

The American people, through their elected representatives, currently retain the constitutional right to determine the course of the nation, through their elected representatives. That includes decisions about our national defense and security–whether or not we build a fence, go to war, build or employ certain types of weapons, etc. If we subject ourselves to treaties, international courts, or other avenues that compromise our sovereignty, we cede our authority, undermining or entirely destroying our ability to self-govern–to self-determine.

If we are to maintain our liberty and national security, we must ensure that our internal policies and foreign agreements never compromise our national sovereignty.

BOLD SOLUTION D: Move America Toward Greater Energy Independence

The more we move America toward energy independence the safer we will ultimately be. For more extensive thoughts on this matter, see my Bold Solutions page on Energy policy.

BOLD SOLUTION E: Reassert Constitutional Principles and Procedure over Deployment of Our Military

I fully support the right of our federal government to declare war when and where necessary in order to protect American lives and interests. However, the military is a finite resource. We can only stretch it so far before leaving our nation in serious jeopardy.

Therefore, I also support a wise restoration of constitutional principles and procedures, concerning where, when, how, and why our military is deployed.

Congress alone has the authority to declare war. It is the people who pay the costs of war–in dollars and in lives. It is therefore the people, via their congressional representatives, who must retain the prerogative of deciding whether their interests are served through military engagement.

Our nation has long strayed from this shrewd prescriptive. Over the past 70 years, Congress has repeatedly bypassed the authority of the people, wrongly ceding to the executive branch power not delegated to it by the Constitution.

Insisting that Congress reassume its constitutional responsibility and authority will help to ensure that our military is engaged only with the consent of the people. It will also help to maintain better focus in the use of our military, solid support of our fighting men and women, and enhanced national security for all citizens.

As a former U.S. Marine, I have a strong investment in making every effort, before any war is declared or military troops deployed, to ensure that:

• Overall military objectives and timelines are clear and achievable
• Our troops are fully enabled to achieve their objectives efficiently and safely
• Our troops are returned home to their families in the most timely manner possible

BOLD SOLUTION F: Roll Back Federal Measures that Threaten American Citizens

National Security is about keeping the bad out. However, it is also about ensuring that our own government cannot become a domestic threat, capable of imposing tyranny on its own citizens.

An increasing number of actions at the federal level have begun to call into serious question whether our government remembers who its real enemies are. The U.S. faces national security threats from a host of enemies that range from radical Islamists to the Chinese. Instead of focusing on these potential threats, Congress and the executive branch now seem intent on enacting measures that, in fact, place the constitutional freedoms of American citizens in jeopardy. Disturbingly, all of these actions have been taken in the name of making us safer.

The Historical Review of Pennsylvania of 1759 records a quote by Benjamin Franklin that bears remembering: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I am committed to repealing or properly amending any legislation that compromises the constitutional rights and freedoms of American citizens under the pretext of national security. U.S. national security is strongest when American citizens are free.