This speech was part of a program entitled “Non-Interventionism: America’s Founding Foreign Policy” that was presented in Charleston, South Carolina on April 29, 2018.

Our country is enmeshed in permanent, ongoing foreign wars and interventions. The results of foreign interventionism have been catastrophic, not only in terms of massive death and destruction abroad, but also in terms of ongoing, ever-growing destruction of liberty, privacy, and prosperity here at home. It is time for America to do some serious soul-searching. The best place to begin is by examining first principles — especially the founding principle of non-interventionism on which our nation was founded and which remained its guiding principle for more than a century. There are few forces in the universe more powerful than ideas on liberty. They have the potential to sweep across a nation and bring monumental paradigm shifts in society. That’s what we aim to do with the idea of non-interventionism. It is an idea whose time has come, again. It is the paradigm that will help restore liberty, peace, prosperity, privacy, and harmony to our land.