Ron Paul and Glenn Beck dissect the dangers of authoritarianism, arguing that excessive debt and Federal Reserve inflation amount to highway robbery harming the poor. They identify the World Economic Forum as an elite network controlling education and medicine while criticizing the military-industrial complex for enriching the wealthy. The discussion highlights the erosion of free speech by big business and social media collusion, comparing current support levels to the American Revolution's 8-9%. Paul emphasizes that political change requires shifting public attitudes rather than relying on politicians, citing the 1960s Vietnam protests as a model where attitude change preceded action against a fascist system. [Automatically generated summary]
Sure, these days there are plenty of Republicans with an authoritarian streak as well.
Today's guest has spent decades fighting authoritarianism in all of its forms, no matter the cost, no matter the party, because he recognizes that the bigger the government grows, the less freedom the individual has.
He fights for the middle class, the real America.
He said at one point, there's only one kind of freedom, and that's individual liberty.
Our lives come from our creator, and our liberty comes from our creator.
It has nothing to do with government granting it.
Amen.
He is the godfather of modern libertarianism.
He is a man responsible for the conversion of countless wayward minds, energetic Americans, desperate for a genuine politician to support.
He has converted more people, I guess, to libertarianism than maybe anybody in American history.
He's a doctor, a real doctor, not a, I've got a Ph.D. in Indigenous women's study kind of doctor.
He's a real doctor.
He made three White House bids.
He spent nearly four decades in the House of Representatives.
His farewell to Congress speech is the stuff of lore.
These days, he publishes a newsletter, heads a foreign policy think tank, serves as the senior fellow at the Mises Institute.
For many people, he's the best president we never had.
As the saying goes, when fascism goes to sleep at night, it checks under its bed for today's podcast guest, Ron Paul.
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Is this Glenn?
The Currency War Ahead00:15:54
Yes, it is.
Good to hear from you.
Yeah, I know.
The last time we were in the studio together was the day of my first grandchild's birth, and I had to leave in the middle of the interview.
I don't know if you recall that.
I had waited so long to interview you, and then the baby starts being born right when we start our interview.
Well, first things first.
Yeah, I know.
You have to do it.
But you know what?
I remember the interview too because you gave me a very nice interview because we were working at introducing our homeschooling program.
Yeah, yeah.
And you were very supportive of that.
Yeah.
So, Ron, I'm trying to organize my notes and the things I want to talk to you about.
And honestly, I can't decide where to begin with you because everything is on fire.
And a lot of the things that you said were going to be a real problem, and you better wake up are all happening.
So, what do you think the most important fire that we need to put out first is?
Well, we work real hard on the foreign policy and fighting needless wars.
And, you know, I got really involved in that when we were going to those many wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, all that stuff.
So, that's a big issue.
But the other big issue, which is involved with foreign policy, is the excessive spending.
I don't think people realize how serious that debt is.
And it's extreme.
It's going to be a big problem.
Although everybody should vote to try to reduce it, the odds of that happening aren't very good.
So the debt will get liquidated and we try to prepare people for it.
But it's not easy.
So let me start there.
Most people don't understand.
And that's because debt has been a part of this country's financial philosophy for a long time.
And everybody's been saying, oh, it's going to get bad.
It's going to get bad.
And I don't think people understand that there is a breaking point.
Can you describe what that breaking point looks like?
What does the average person's life look like when this goes bad?
Well, it's not totally predictable because each event will be somewhat different.
But there are certain rules in economics from the Austrian viewpoint, which I adhere to, that you can predict what is coming or assume it's coming, such as, you know, if you have too much debt and you just print money and counterfeit the money, that leads to problems and high prices and all the things that we're facing.
But some of us who have followed this thought maybe six months or six years ago it could have happened.
There's a subjectivity involved and when it's precipitated, what is the event?
And sometimes a war will precipitate it, and sometimes it will be an economic event and the people's trust.
And so that is unpredictable, but there's no doubt.
And in my opinion, though, the longer we can delay it or the officials delay these bad events coming, the bigger the bubble bubble gets.
And that's where the real problem is.
That, you know, yeah, well, you know, the Fed met yesterday and no catastrophe and wages went up a little bit, but that's still adding to the bubble.
And that's the big thing.
And it's a consequence, not of an accident.
You know, it all came from the university's teaching probably over the last hundred years.
I remember doing a monologue when I was in at CNN.
I did a series for a week on what I called, I think, the money bubble.
It's now known as the everything bubble.
And I said, we're going to hit this next problem.
And if we don't let it go, we're going to just keep adding to the bubble.
And I think 2008 is when we should have felt everything.
And then they just changed all the rules of economics.
And that's what's really weighing us down is we didn't pay the price in 2008.
Don't you think?
Absolutely.
And that's what they did.
They were able to get out of 2008, but that's what happened.
The bubble gets bigger and bigger.
But there are some rules.
When debt gets out of hand, debt has to be liquidated.
Not only the debt, but also people don't talk too much about malinvestment.
That when you have artificial interest rates and information that you can't rely on, you can't rely on our government for much good information.
But if you get bad information on economics, there's a lot of mistakes made.
And that has to be liquidated too to get back to square one where you can start seeing real growth.
What do you mean the debt has to be liquidated?
How do you liquidate $32 trillion?
By default.
You know, you could just default by just stiffing everybody.
But that would be a constitutionally.
Yeah, well, we can't do it the way we're doing it.
We're liquidating debt on a daily basis because, you know, if you owed a million dollars five years ago, you might be able to pay it off with 500,000.
You know, the money is liquidated by the value of the currency going down.
And governments know this.
This is why they work hard to keep a little bit of inflation there.
That's why we have to have at least the destruction of the value of the currency at 2%, but sometimes it goes a lot higher.
So real debt goes down by inflation, and that helps the government.
And some people like it too.
Oh, I can get a mortgage now and pay it back.
But it also causes distortions where it gets out of control and the real debt catches on.
It has to happen.
The best thing, the way you suggested it made me think of 1929.
You said, we probably should all live by 21.
1921, we had a depression.
And at that time, they were hands-off.
Republicans were in it.
They had not learned how to get out of the trouble by just printing tons and tons of money.
And the depression was very bad, very severe, and it lasted a year.
Hands off.
And they went back to the United States.
Right, into the roaring 20s.
So one of the things that I guess, you know, they had to sneak the Federal Reserve Act in.
I mean, it was very, very shady, as you know.
But what they said they were trying to avoid were these regular market resets.
I mean, it's the Kondrakia wave is, you know, the green shoots of the economy.
It's got to go into winter.
It's got to burn the deadwood out.
So we would have about every 10 years a very short depression.
It would crash and then it would come back.
And the Federal Reserve said that that's what they were trying to stop.
If you said to people that every 10 years you could lose everything, but then it'll start right back up again, people wouldn't be for that.
They like the security of the idea that somebody's watching out.
How do you sell a really true free market without the Fed?
Well, and that's the argument they used.
There were bank runs and all this, and the Fed was established to stop all that.
And you can stop it, but it's because they drifted away and they never fully obeyed the Constitution that nothing other than gold and silver would be used as legal tender.
And that was a little too sloppy.
Then they couldn't go to wars when they were unpopular and there was a limitation on taxation.
So they went to this thing, which is tempting.
It's all the way back to Roman times.
It's part of history that it's a sneaky way of taking government fraud and counterfeit.
If people thought of this as a counterfeit system, eventually it'll catch up to us.
So I think that people know it and they want it, but they have been conditioned, especially in our country and our educational system, because they really don't worry about that.
They talk about it.
Even Republicans talk about it a little bit.
Do you think the Republicans are the answer to deficits?
No.
Unfortunately, there's no good record.
You get only a few people like Thomas Massey and a few others that will really vote the vote, the clarity of the Constitution.
You wrote End the Fed, I think, in 2011, I think.
Sounds right.
Sounds right.
What would you add to that today?
I'd probably emphasize things a little bit differently.
I would say, well, what would you do, you know, if you're trying to present the correction?
I would emphasize the whole fact that if you had to have this Fed and you have it, first thing I'd do, I'd look to Jim Grant for some advice on it.
But the other thing you do, you put a rule in there that says that the Federal Reserve cannot buy government debt.
You know, that's the whole thing.
Then they get into manipulating.
And then they get into this astounding thing.
They're central economic planners by manipulating interest rates.
And then they get in at doing this.
And that is where the real problem is: the economic planning that they have and the pretense that they know what is there.
Just like this meeting of FOMC yesterday, they talk as if what they're saying is authentic.
And it's always, what can we say to calm the people's nerves?
And that's why I give them credit for being pretty shrewd for pulling the wolves over the lives of a lot of people.
And they've been able to do this for a good many years.
It just, you know, of course, makes that conditions much worse.
And, you know, when individuals do it, if you or I go overboard and we spend $5 million and all of a sudden the banks won't want us any more money, we have to declare bankruptcy.
We have to get another job or quit spending or do this.
Governments don't do that.
You have people, when they worry about what's happening and when they lock down government, oh, they're not going to send me my social security check.
Never worry about that.
They're always going to bail out now anybody's funds.
The FDIC is always going to bail people out, but they ought to worry about the depreciation and the destruction of the currency because never before, Glenn, has it been where a reserve currency was so embedded worldwide.
Everybody's involved in the dollar because most currencies are defined by dollars and a lot of other things.
And that's why it's big.
This is big time.
And we're seeing hence big cracks are occurring and there's no slowing up.
I don't think you could stop that exponential curve of debt going up there to 33.
And look at it.
And you said the right date 2008 when that real nonsense started.
So you look at where we're at, and you talk about the destruction of the currency and how many people are holding the U.S. dollar in their sovereign funds.
And we have a war of currencies that is now beginning.
Everybody keeps telling me, yeah, but we're the strongest one.
And I've said for years, that's assuming no one will get sane and pour gold into their coffers and reestablish a new system.
You know, it's great to be the best of the worst until somebody invents a better mousetrap.
And that's exactly what's happening.
What does America look like if our reserve currency is no longer the reserve currency?
We're all going to get poor, and we're going to have a lot of inflation.
And there will be some substitute.
We see that at times under emergencies, like in wartime, world wars, and things.
What happens is when the currency quits working, they find a substitute immediately, something of real value that people know about in the past they've used to back out, all kinds of things.
But those are very, very temporary.
But no, my idea is that there's going to be totally chaos.
So, really, where the real fight is, is in the same fight that you're involved in, is trying to teach people what to do and where the answers are and what's going to happen.
So, we're going to have the major crisis, but what is going to help me and my family and the people that deserve some help are the people that have to be able to join us in redefining what the currency is like.
And a lot of work has already been done because if we look to the founder for some advice, it's pretty good.
And I think modern Austrian economics, which I have followed closely since Lou Rockwell started the Mises Institute, there's a lot of information there.
So that's where I'm optimistic.
I think it's occurring.
I think the homeschooling events are going on.
I think the talk shows and the type of work you do, we reach more people.
I don't think anybody knows because I bump into people that I feel like I'm just talking to people here and there.
And my voice knows who cares.
But I meet people that really have done things.
And I thought, well, you know, well, where'd you get that idea?
And they got it from you.
And I said, wow, I must have missed something.
And they started things and they do very well.
And of course, I tell them, you know, when we deal and talk about investments too, and I talk about investments, you know, with the metals and all.
I said, but the most important investment is our energy put into spreading the message of liberty.
And that you could take it all away from us, Glenn.
And if they just gave us our lives back, our freedom back, and they said, what would that be like?
Well, first off, you wouldn't have an income tax and you could do what you want as long as you're not hurting people.
No violence.
I said, boy, that's a wonderful place.
Why aren't we selling that message better?
Well, right now, they think there's still a free lunch, but the crisis comes when they say the free lunch is over.
And how many free lunches are getting, you know, are vanishing?
I can't believe what I see with pictures of San Francisco and Los Angeles.
This is more than I expected.
I thought it would come.
But the whole country can get that way.
But where the real danger is, there's going to be a group and there is a group.
Do you think Nancy Pelosi was worried about the gun issue?
She had guns all around her, all her life, these communities.
So the rich do better under this system.
Who Pays When Rich Countries Go Beyond Their Means00:15:52
And that means that when the harm comes, once again, who pays?
If you are inflating away the debt, who gets the worst benefit?
The poor people in the middle class.
Correct.
Because their prices go up much worse.
And if you're a billionaire, who cares what bread costs?
And that's why the violence comes.
And I expect that'll get much worse.
So do I, unfortunately.
Let me, before we move off money, one thing that I fear, because I do think violence is going to get worse.
I think that, you know, at least in my view, and correct me if you think I'm wrong, but we have the potential of repeating Venezuela's tale here that we were a very rich country.
We got off the wrong track.
We started, you know, socialism and playing all kinds of games with our money and then destroying our energy.
And you end up eating the animals in the zoo.
And I could see that as a destination here or a stop on the American story.
And when things like that happen with the technology that we have, And the answer I believe they think is a central bank digital currency, they lock everything down.
You go from you're thinking you're oppressed to actually in a cage.
Yes, and that is so important.
But some of the things that you can't predict whether we're going to be like Venezuela or Zimbabwe, it's going to be probably different.
And the timing why it's different is it depends so much on human action.
So if we're strong and halfway decent and we have the military power and we have a lot of wealth, you know, you can go a long way on that because the other countries are worse.
But eventually, though, a rich country like we have now go beyond its means and then we have to make the corrections.
Why we don't know exactly how it's going to be, whether it's Venezuela or not, it's the fact that human action, how do the people react?
What are their emotions?
When do they give up?
How much violence will be involved?
Some people may, some countries might be more complacent.
But generally speaking, there's usually violence and there's social violence where the rich and the poor end up in civil strife.
And I can't see how we can avoid that because it's so ingrained and the anger is growing.
But when it happens, it's real hard to predict.
But the whole answer is I still have the same approach.
Well, let's be thankful that we have some time.
Let's be thankful and see how successful we can be for spreading the message.
There's a great message out there.
The human race has a pretty good understanding of what should be done.
But to me, it's still a fight between good and evil.
And that's where the battle really is.
And I talk a lot about natural law and higher law versus the nihilists who say, there ain't no laws.
And you hear it.
Now they say it.
You can't know the truth.
And that's where the real fight is.
But that's been going on for thousands of years.
And that's just the human nature.
It just ebbs and flows.
We just happen to be in this collective zone here, like we were, the world was in the 30s and 40s.
And it's a very dangerous place when you start moving towards collectivism.
So as we look at things and what they could actually turn into with Ron Paul, let me remind you that the world is a crazy place.
These days, it seems like it's a little crazier than normal.
Disaster could come in many forms.
I feel like we're on the top of that building in New York and Dan Aykroyd is like, you didn't think Staypuff marshmallow man.
He was so great.
I think that could happen to us.
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Let's talk a little bit about war.
You have been very clear on foreign entanglements.
I mean, you have sounded much like Washington and our founders on no foreign entanglements.
You know, in 2001, I wasn't with you.
By 2008, I was absolutely with you on this doesn't work.
I started doing my homework and looking, the State Department really is responsible for a lot of our wars and the military-industrial complex.
And they're involved in all of our wars.
And that hasn't worked in 100 years.
And we just keep repeating the same mistake over and over again.
Is that accurate?
Yeah, it is.
But I'd add one thing, and that's the international governments.
We have our government to deal with.
But if you take some of the things that happened with the United Nations, and I point out, what was the first thing the United Nations, I was in grade school, but my teachers were propagandizing why the United Nations was a great thing.
So what was the first thing they did?
Truman said, well, we'll go to war over in Korea.
Oh, the people don't want another war so soon after World War II.
Oh, it's not a war like that.
This is a police action.
So, yes, we ended up with a stalemate there, but it really was a loss on what they were doing.
And look how it's how Korea has still been separated.
But then, of course, the same thing happened with Vietnam.
I had a lot of impressions put upon me in the 60s because I was in the medical school, I was in a residency, I got drafted, and there was all this emphasis that went on.
It was a horrible thing.
And how many years did it take for the American people?
How did it have to end?
Sadly, with a lot of demonstrations and harm done to our own country.
So that's why the founders said, be cautious, don't get into these wars.
Make the people have a say in it and let the Congress vote on it.
But it's executive orders now.
I know.
The power is just, and then it isn't only the executive orders, it's the United Nations.
We go to war still.
I remember George Sr., I think, said we had to go in here because of the, they said, we were supposed to have a vote in the Congress.
He says, that's not necessary.
I get my authority from the United Nations.
I was about to scream, but they do.
They do it.
And there's too much side.
That's why I go back to you have to have education.
And that's why, you know, I have the homeschooling.
And once again, Glenn, I know you're supportive of homeschooling.
And you said a few good things about my homeschooling.
I appreciate that.
The World Economic Forum, they are, I mean, truly frightening.
This is a group of elites that, you know, every conspiracy theory, every Star Chamber movie is almost like a parody of itself.
You know, they've got a guy with a German accent that leads it, a bald Bond villain.
And they are, they truly believe that they can take the world and violate all of human nature and make a new world.
What are your thoughts on the World Economic Forum?
Well, it should be disappeared, intellectually speaking, because yes, it is a powerful force, and they're using the same tools that I'm advocating for liberty.
I mean, you take a guy like Soros and others before the World Economic Council came, that They got a hold of the educational system and then they moved along from there.
Our universities were there.
And even with COVID, it looks like they've taken over completely the medical profession, which is really sad and scary.
But at the same sense, a few people have awakened and they know this.
And more people did, more people know what's going on during the lockdown than they did before the lockdown.
And they're looking like the American people are ready to resist that.
But just think, Glenn, how horrible this was.
That if you were a physician and you were speaking out and you happen to be associated with a university or a hospital, they say, well, you can't say that ivermectin can be used and you and the patient decide whether or not you want to have it.
You're out of here.
And a lot of people lost a lot of positions.
They get fired.
That is continuing too.
And that once again is the destruction of the doctor-patient relationship, which is part of all this World Economic Council, because they are the bad news.
And the only thing I can think of is counteracted with the good news of what liberty is all about.
So what is when you go to the World Economic Forum and you see what's happening?
Let's go into Ukraine.
You were early on the first revolution in Ukraine, ringing the bell, saying this is not on the up and up.
When the State Department did the next revolution, I think it was in 2014, I think, that was all the State Department and players like the Clintons and the Bidens and Obama and Soros.
Now we have this.
Tell me what you think is going on with Ukraine.
Why is this so important to the elites?
Because the American people are not for it.
Well, it's failing and people are waking up.
And I think early compared to how long it took people to wake up about Vietnam.
But no, I saw that as a position it wouldn't have happened without the United States supporting it.
And it's our empire, desire for empire, and people capitulating and say, well, we have to be part of the empire.
And Ukraine wanted to be part of it.
But it was a unique mess because about a third or more was really Russia.
It had a Russian language and Russian people.
And there was a border dispute.
And it went on.
But I think it was the expansion that we had promised that we would not put our missiles up.
Yeah, we broke our promises and did it anyway.
And so it got way out of whack on the PR.
Now the hatred and questions about Russia is just no rationality about it.
Yet when the Cold War ended, boy, I was delighted.
A lot of people were.
see some things.
We started traveling to Russia, trading with Russia.
They were building oil pipelines to Europe.
And I always argued, which our founders argued, trade with people and you're less likely to fight with them.
But all of a sudden, that was a challenge to the empire.
And the empire is very much, we're very much in charge of the empire.
And that's why we have the reserve currency.
But it also means that because that demonstrates how big it is, it seems like it's not as powerful as they thought.
There's no cakewalk in Ukraine.
A lot of people have suffered.
And the people who suffered weren't the ones that said, you know, let's get together and have a war.
I mock that attitude because I said, all these wars, who fight the wars?
The kids, 18 to 25.
I said, do the 18-year-olds to 25 get together from the 18-year-olds in Russia and they say, oh, you know, life is boring.
Let's have a war.
No, it's these scoundrels.
These scoundrels are going to make billions of dollars building airplanes like the F-35 that doesn't work.
Oh, that doesn't matter.
It's good for jobs.
And Republicans say that.
They say, you know, the military budget is good because there's a lot of jobs, but it's robbery.
It's highway robbery.
It's stealing from the poor people, paying through it with fraudulent money and undermining the wealth of the poor people.
And that's why you're going to see a lot more people living in the streets.
So what was it our incompetence, this administration's incompetence, that sent the signal to Russia?
Was it a backdoor deal for some reason or another with this administration?
We were laundering money.
What is really behind that?
Well, a lot of it wasn't as clear-cut and written, but the conversations were very clear.
And it was under H.W. Bush.
And it started really after World War II, but then later on another one.
But it was very well known that we were to keep our weapons away from Eastern Europe.
And we kept encroaching and encroaching.
And then it looked like the big battle for how far we can get away with it was Ukraine, because it was the last rapid country.
But all of us knew, is that just absolute incompetence and stupidity on the president's part?
Brainwashing the Deep State00:10:50
Because, I mean, we all knew, we all watched it happen.
It's like a slow-motion train wreck.
We're like, well, tell them that they can't get into NATO.
We've already promised that.
What are you doing?
I think they brainwash themselves.
They come to believing their own lies.
But I think they're drunk on power.
And then there's the people who are drunk on power are the politicians, and they go along with the people who are drunk on money.
And the military industrial, you've already mentioned military-industrial conflict.
That is a big deal.
And we could do with a lot less of that.
And this is why when I had to deal with what are your proposals, how are we going to get back to a balanced budget?
I said, well, you need to use a little common sense.
If you want to do it, why don't you cut foreign aid and some of this militarism and all these profits that go to these companies and don't cut food stamps first.
You know, that's what they're currently talking about.
I wouldn't vote for food stamps program.
But right now, we had food stamps at that farm and food program.
That's both poor people's food stamps and rich people's food stamps.
But we shouldn't have any.
But if you're trying to work toward addition, I never wanted to say, well, the first thing I'm going to cut are food stamps to poor people and medical care to poor people.
It makes no sense if you're trying to work with people and wean them off.
But unfortunately, everybody's going to be weaned off except the very, very super powerful who will pick up all the pieces and walk away with maybe the gold or who knows what, unless we wake up.
So talk to me about the deep state, your understanding of the deep state.
I mean, I always thought that there was a problem with these people that just stay in Washington.
I've always thought that there was an arrogance of the State Department.
They really didn't care.
But when Donald Trump talked about the deep state, at first I was a little uncomfortable with that because I was like, that sounds like a star chamber.
And I don't think it, how I'm not sure.
I don't think it's a star chamber, but it's just arrogant people who think alike that are moving in their direction, no matter who's elected or what's done.
And now they're becoming extraordinarily dangerous with the intel being a part of that.
What is your understanding of it?
Well, I don't think there's 12 or 15 or 20 people that we hear about their meetings that they get together.
I don't think they have board meetings and lay their plans out.
I don't think it's like that.
I think it's philosophic and that it's ingrained in the system through our universities.
And that is what they do.
They come up with these wild screams like ESG.
And what is amazing is the people who go along with all that stuff.
But it's a group of people.
I think George Soros, I would put him in the deep state.
Yes.
But they're associated people, and it's not as monolithic as I think some people think, but they're very, very powerful.
And believe me, the deep state, those very, very wealthy bankers who controlled things maybe just through finances, they were very much involved in bringing about the Fed, you know, establishing the Fed, of course, they had a major victory in 1913.
And Glenn, if we could do anything, why don't we just cancel 1913?
Get rid of the IRS and get rid of all the bad money.
And Woodrow Wilson.
Yeah, there you go.
I was just going to think of that.
Our minds are thinking the same.
Yeah, making the world safe for democracy.
Of course, the founders didn't even like the word democracy because when you have the 51% put together by the deep state, they could do anything they want to the minority.
And who's in most favor?
The liberals who are supposed to be taking care of the minority and the people that are hurting.
No, it's not a good system.
And I think ideas are so powerful.
And I think good ideas, when they come along, cannot be stopped.
The armies can't stop them because even with or without the internet, I think good ideas will filter through and eventually have, you know, have an influence.
But the problem is it's very slow and it's very tedious and it's very uncomfortable.
But I say the only way I tolerate the problems with trying to bring about change is I try to think, you know, you should try to find people who are like-minded and convert people and try to have a good time doing it.
I think going to conferences and things and meeting other people, we won't all be different.
We'll all be libertarian-like and get together and meet people that have the same goals.
Speaking of libertarianism, I think it was 2014, the New York Times said, has the libertarian moment finally arrived?
And it kind of felt like that.
It really felt like that at the time.
And now it seems that So many people, they might hate the deep state or they hate the big government, But they want to keep it so we can turn it around and use it on our foes.
What happened to the, no, this is a really bad idea, unconstitutional.
It's not America.
Dismantle.
What happened to those freedom fighters?
Well, I think what has happened, the people who have been made dependent on all these programs, they get worried and they don't hear the other side of the story and they become more aggressive and the politicians, you know, react to that.
But I think there's been a crack in this.
I just don't think it's quite that bad because I look toward, you know, the people who are teaching better economics and there's a lot.
And, you know, people said, how can you stand going out there to those college campuses?
And I loved it because college kids, I think they're more open-minded.
I don't know if you ever found that out.
The young people are very open-minded to some of our viewpoints.
That's critical and that's wonderful.
And if you go, I say, yeah, I'd rather go talk to a bunch of college kids at Berkeley campus where I had a good reception than I would to the Chamber of Commerce because the Chamber of Commerce people, they're the ones, as I campaigned in my district and around the country, they say, well, how are you going to protect this for me and this for me?
And protectionism, they're the ones who want to say, well, keep out those Japanese cars because we're having trouble selling our cars.
It's all protectionism, which I'm obviously not a fan of.
And we want competition.
We want freedom and we want rewards for doing a good job.
But all the arguments are on our side.
So I keep telling people, I don't know why we're losing this.
It must be our fault.
We must not know how to present the case for liberty well enough to get more people.
But I do think, Glenn, that there are a lot of people out there.
I think they're quiet and I think they're waking up.
I think there are, yeah, there's the World Economic Forums that are around and several of those monstrous things.
But there's also libertarian groups.
I don't think they're loudmouths.
And I don't think they're, I think they're smaller.
I don't think our numbers are crucial.
You don't have to have 51%.
You need 15 or 20% of the people saying, you know, I do believe in liberty.
And they influence people outside of that.
And that influence means you eventually have to convince the electorate that it's a good idea to defend your liberties rather than saying, all I need is more government.
I make fun of the issue on inflation.
You know, the government, we run up all these debts for war and welfare, and then they print too much money, and we hand the prices go up, and the people don't exactly understand it.
So they come to Washington and they say, you help me out, help me out.
Give us more money if the prices are too high.
But that's the cause.
It's too much money.
And there's pretty good statistics to show that when they do that, the devaluation and the value of your currency goes down faster than you can get your wages to go up.
It never can keep up.
And then you have the social turmoil that comes along with all this and the anger, which is something I get very concerned about.
Back with Ron Paul here in just a second.
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First Amendment vs. Anti-Semitism00:12:25
I'm concerned, especially here recently, after October 7th, the wild anti-Semitism that is coming out of the college campuses.
It is, you know, it's happening all over the world where they're, you know, they're painting stars of David on people's houses and their businesses in Paris, France.
It seems a little unreasonable.
I have no problem standing up for the Palestinians, standing up for the Jews when they're right, when they're wrong, you know, we work things out.
But when you start to look at terror tactics and say terrorism is justified, going into somebody's house and killing their children, raping their wives or kidnapping somebody in the family, that's terrorism.
And you once said, we can't wage war against a tactic because terror is a tactic.
How do we fight this hatred?
That is happening.
Well, to me it's a moral issue and uh, politicians don't have much control of that uh, other than maybe the, the good ones, can set a, set a standard.
Uh it's, it's.
Uh, it's for libertarians, it's not difficult.
For me, because it's a principle of non-aggression, and that means you can't initiate force if you're going to be moral, if you want to be, and that fits into my religious beliefs, it fits into my economic beliefs and my foreign policy beliefs that you can't have aggression, and uh, the big problem though, is that uh, it gets a little bit confusing.
Who was the first aggressor?
What have they been fighting for 300 years?
Who started this fight?
But uh aggression, if there's any calm which you aim for, the people should not.
It's an immoral wrong and you're doing the wrong thing if you initiate aggression, and you know people, people generally like that, I don't.
I've had a rather good experience with neighborhoods and where i've lived, you know in Pennsylvania, and the military and schools and all this, and i've never had to.
Nobody ever walked into my house and said okay, move over and bump me around and say, you have three cars, i'm taking one.
No, they don't.
They don't do that, and I think Bastiat explains this that you can, you can do, you can't.
You can't give the government the right to do what you're not allowed.
Correct, and I think most people understand.
You don't walk into your neighbor's house, especially in Texas, and take something that you like.
I mean it.
There would be some protection against that.
But if you do this uh it's, it's a, it's a, it's a big Deal.
But what we have done is we've given the government the authority and they get rewarded for it.
And then this generates all this lobby and stuff.
One of the things that I like the best or was proud of the most, it sort of tells, puts me in a certain category, is that people say, How do you put up with the lobbyists?
I said, I never have lobbyists come to my door.
They never bother me because they already have the answer.
And I think that's what we need.
We need to, we should not give that power and authority to the Constitution.
So it comes down to a legal issue and a moral issue.
The founders were exceptionally clear on, yeah, we're giving you a republic and we're giving you some liberty and this could work.
But if the morality of the people disintegrates, so will your republic.
And I'm afraid we're there, but I'm not giving up and thinking they can't be reformed.
Right.
Because on an individual level, I've seen so many people do things, even since I've been not literally in politics.
I've been to a lot of people who have done a lot of good.
And I think that's doing this.
It's growing.
And it's not the kind of thing you're going to hear on the news.
And but I think that is what we have to encourage.
And besides, once they grasp that, and I've had a lot of young people come up to says, you know, I finally get it.
And he's the one, one, one comment I enjoy is, you know, Ron, it's just common sense what you're talking about.
And I would hope that it's common sense because if it isn't, they're not going to listen.
So when you look at the Constitution, I've been saying this for a long time.
I'll stand with any man if you can give me the Bill of Rights.
If we can't agree on the Bill of Rights, then I don't know if I have enough in common.
I don't know, because that's what I'm fighting for, that everybody is treated the same under the law.
Justice is blind.
You have a right to say.
And as my father used to say, I really disagree with Ron Paul, if you would, for this case.
I really disagree with him, but I'll fight to the death for his right to say it.
We've lost that.
And now with social media, we've lost freedom of speech with the White House influencing that.
We have 20 somethings, 30 somethings now that think that there are limits on free speech.
Make the case for the Bill of Rights.
Yes, and number one, we can start with number one, because as I was leaving Congress a couple years ago, I had a little talk to give, and I used the First Amendment as the lead-in to what you're talking about, because the First Amendment is supposed to give us the right to speak out.
I always tell people, we don't have the First Amendment so we can talk about the weather.
I say, we have it because we have the right to criticize our government if the government is not following the rules.
And you've already pointed out, Glenn, where it's been abused.
And it has been, I mean, it is a fascist system now because governments have been directing the FBI and other government agencies, working with the social medias to punish them.
And that all came out of the lockdown.
And you say, well, why don't you throw in the towel?
How are you ever going to do that?
With a better idea.
And because this system isn't going to work.
So there's going to be an opening.
And I think the openings are occurring.
And I just think there are more people.
When I went to Congress first time was in 76, and it was over the economic issues.
And I talked about the Federal Reserve and stuff.
People say, what in the world are you talking about?
But guess what, Glenn?
You and others talk about the Federal Reserve, and you've done it for a good many years now.
And you can use that for the illegal, unconstitutional use of fraud to send messages around the country and get people to do these kind of things.
But no, the Bill of Rights is a good summary of what we should do.
And of course, they fought over that to bring it in.
People argued that we shouldn't have a Bill of Rights.
And those were the people who tended to want bigger government.
Correct, correct.
You have seen so much.
First of all, you've run for president three times.
The first time, and what a different world we would be in if you would have won in 88 instead of George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush.
You ran again in 2008 and then 12.
What do you think of the current set of politicians?
Do you see anybody on the horizon that gives you hope?
Bits and pieces.
Every once in a while, almost every one of them said something and say, that's good.
That's good.
And I know I'm pretty cynical about the political action from year to year.
And this year, it's harder to say it than ever.
That doesn't make any difference.
And then when you look at some of the scandalous things done on one hand and none on the other hand, but who are we going to elect?
You have to have the support by the people and the intellectual community.
But can we pick, can you and I agree?
And then we'll start a rally for the individual that is dedicated 100% to get rid of the Federal Reserve.
That's too much.
You can't take that on.
Oh, okay, we're going to do away with welfare, right?
We're going to do away with the executive orders that allows presidents to do almost anything they want.
And we would go on and on.
And I don't have anybody like that because I think the deficit's going to continue.
There's no one person in there if he's elected.
And people say, well, what would you have done then?
I said, the truth is, you suggest, what would it have been like if I won ADA?
Well, about 88, and one month later, they say, get rid of this guy, one way or the other.
Because they wouldn't be ready.
That's why you have to get people ready.
And that's why they're working very hard.
And when I see the collusion of big business working very closely with social media, and then we have a tougher time defending the right of free speech on social media.
But now the evidence is out, the social media is not independent.
They're not just the newspaper, you know, reporting the news.
They're in there as participants.
And it is a form of fascism that's going on here.
And that's why the Bill of Rights is so important.
That's why the First Amendment is important.
But I still believe that good information can spread.
I don't think they can stop the good information.
And you say, well, there's not enough yet, Ron.
It's not 51%.
Well, you know, the founders probably had about 8 or 9% of the populations in support of the challenge to the British Empire.
So, you know, the ideas are important, but you still have to get support from the people.
And I talk about calling that a prevailing attitude.
The people have an attitude.
And when the attitude, so the attitude had to change, say, in the 60s, against the Vietnam, first ignore it totally and then complain a little bit and then have to riot in the streets.
The attitude finally changed and the politician finally woke up.
And I think our job ought to be, Glenn, is to try to wake people up before they get involved in this stuff.
It's much harder to stop.
How do you stop this spending?
Not very easily, because if you cut it off, I think I mentioned that you have to cut it off wisely, something like foreign aid before children's health.
I'm not very optimistic that optimism doesn't leave me that's going to happen.
No, we should put as many people as we can to spread the message.
But at the same time, it's going to come elsewhere.
And it's going to come from, you know, in the early 80s, you may recall, there was a strong attack against homeschooling and also private schooling.
And right now, you could still do it.
And I think, you know, lockdown, there was a tremendous boost in that type of education.
Oh, yeah.
So that's good.
That's good.
So the numbers are secondary.
The 1957 Stock Market Boost00:05:39
In your vast career, I mean, you graduated college, I think, in 1957, and you have been active in so many different things.
What is the most significant event in your lifetime that you look at that you witnessed, you saw, you were a part of, or just alive for?
What was the most significant event?
And I think you're thinking along political and education.
No, anything.
Anything.
Okay, my most significant event was: I got married in 1957 and I graduated from college in 1957.
In 1957, I started medical school.
Those were significant, but those were personal.
That didn't quite qualify for your question.
But no, I think the event, even though I got involved in the study of economics, say in the 60s, I know when I was in medical school, I was reading about this.
This is fascinating stuff.
And then I got to meet some of the big names in Austrian economics.
I heard a thesis lecture.
I knew Murray real well.
And so Sense Holtz, these people, that really, and they were making predictions about it can't last.
The Bretton Woods system is going to break down.
So I was sitting watching television on August 15, 1971.
And guess what?
Nixon came on with a special message.
And he said, no, no, no more honoring the dollar at a dollar with gold, even though the American people still weren't allowed to own it.
But at least we were trying to limit our money so foreigners would use it, building our reserve status.
So he got rid of that.
He put on wage and price controls and he put on tariffs.
And wow, I was jumping up and I what in the thunder?
And there was only one poor person in the whole town where I lived that another doctor that understood this stuff.
So I called him.
I was like, dude, look at what they're doing.
But I went to a chamber.
I already made a critique of Chamber of Commerce, but that's, you know, no, I know.
That's a sore subject for me, too.
I was a member for a long time.
So I was attending one of our legislative meetings, which was routine on August.
Nixon talked on a Sunday.
So Monday, I went to my legislative committee meeting at the chamber, and the chamber came out and they were so excited.
They said, this is wonderful.
What?
And then I looked at the stock market.
And the stock market, up until that time, went up more in one day ever before.
So the stocks, they were fooled into it.
And it was, I thought, this huge step.
Watch out.
Things are going to change.
Because at that time, gold was $35 an ounce.
Now it's a couple dollars more than that.
Ready to do a lot more.
We haven't learned our economic lessons.
And just as I thought and anticipated, I thought it was a good idea.
We could still buy silver.
Silver was in circulation in 1971.
So you could still, you know, and silver, I was saving silver.
It was $1.29 an ounce back then.
So I started doing that.
But it had a major, that was in 71.
In 74, I started speaking out and I ran for office in 74.
And my wife, Carol, said, What are you going to do that for?
You know, that's not necessary.
And I said, well, don't worry about it.
I said, I'm not going to get elected.
I said, this is just, this is just therapy for me.
So I'm going to talk about it.
She said, no, she says, people are going to believe what you're saying, and they're going to elect you.
A year or so later, they did.
So I had a very, very low anticipation rate.
And for that reason, I thought I could just say anything I want if I believed in it.
And I think that was the best asset I had because people came around to thinking, well, we like this idea of hard money.
And I found out there were a lot of, I was impressed with the fact that a lot of working people came and because their wages were being eroded.
So that excited me.
And so I ran in those years over the economic issue, the spending and all the debt we had and sound money.
But as I learned more about it, I got more fascinated with non-interventionist foreign policy.
I had already, one of the reasons I gave for going to medical school was, well, I didn't have long-term plans.
I got to be a doctor.
I got to be a doctor.
But in the midst of all this, I said, I didn't like the idea of seeing what was happening in Vietnam and how many people were getting killed.
And I said, I can't shoot people.
So I think I'll go into medicine.
I know I'll be drafted.
If I'm a doctor, at least I won't be shooting.
I'm not going to take a gun.
And lo and behold, 1972, during the missile crisis and with Vietnam, or with Vietnam, I was drafted.
I ended up in the military for five years.
Why I Chose Medicine Over War00:01:18
Wow.
Last question.
If you could only read about one president, good or bad, that you would learn the most from to restore or to understand America's principles and somebody who really screwed it up or somebody who really had it right, which president would you pick?
I would pick Jefferson, you know, and I see him sometimes.
And when I look at a thing that maybe I wouldn't agree with wholeheartedly, but who do you find that you happen?
No, I think he understood the Constitution and he had to challenge the people back even then, Hamilton.
He had to have a few debates and he did away with the first national bank.
And so I would stick with Jefferson and that would be the best choice I could come up with.
Yeah.
Ron, thank you for everything that you've done and are continuing to do.
Thanks for educating so many people, including myself.