Protests after another apparent instance of police brutality has left Baltimore in chaos and violence. What are the real, underlying issues that have led to such divisions between the people and the police? And what role does race play in the equation?
Protests after another apparent instance of police brutality has left Baltimore in chaos and violence. What are the real, underlying issues that have led to such divisions between the people and the police? And what role does race play in the equation?
Protests after another apparent instance of police brutality has left Baltimore in chaos and violence. What are the real, underlying issues that have led to such divisions between the people and the police? And what role does race play in the equation?
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams, the co-host and also the executive director of the Institute for Peace and Prosperity.
Daniel, delighted to see you here again today.
Thank you sir.
Good.
I want to talk a little bit about what's really in the news right now and that has to do with the riots going on in Baltimore.
And we who preach nonviolence, you know, it raises questions.
When can you use violence to defend oneself?
And of course, some of our heroes when it came to social changes, like a Martin Luther King or Gandhi, did not want to use violence against the government.
Never heard them say anything specifically, but it seems to me like they would lean toward not having violence against citizens either.
But this does raise a question because even though we like the issue of nonviolence, we don't want people to say, well, he came into my house and he was robbing us and I didn't do anything because I don't believe in that.
So those are the kind of questions that we have to sort out and try to figure out what's the cause of these riots.
Yeah, I mean it seems almost like a contagion.
We've seen obviously in Ferguson.
We've seen problems in Brooklyn and South Carolina.
It always has to have similar factors, the militarization of police, you know, the more riots everywhere.
What do you think the cause, what are the real causes?
Well, I think there are a bunch of them, and you touched on some of them.
But I think first you have to have poverty, and then the poverty is used as an excuse to somebody owes me something, so an entitlement mentality says, you know, if I don't get what I want real fast, I'm going to, you know, go out and get it.
And actually, they learn that from the entitlement process.
They go to the very wealthy.
You know, people have been angry because when the crisis hit, the wealthy got their entitlements and got their bailed out.
So I think the poverty has a lot to do with it.
So in spite of the many different things that we might mention here that contribute to it, I think there could be a lot said that the basic understanding in a society on how an economy should run has a big factor in it.
If you're following, you know, authoritarian economic policies, if you're following socialism and welfare, and you use the deliberate destruction of money, it is expected and it's a policy that will lead to a real challenge to the middle class because the middle class never keeps up.
You know, some may make some money and there may be a stimulus, but right now the whole country is suffering from wages not going up.
But I think there's another one that we've talked about in the past that really contributes to the chaos in the city, and that has to do with war on drugs.
So we can't ignore that because that causes so much of the resentment.
People are very resentful on the way the police come in, and there's a militarization of the police.
But I think there's a militarization of the authoritarians at the federal level, and they've taken over police functions.
They've certainly taken over the abuse of our civil liberties.
They're supposed to provide for us the best chance to have a free society.
But here the federal government is the one that destroys the Fourth Amendment and our property rights.
And they come in and that mentality shifts over to the police.
And then the federal government helps support the police with equipment.
And yet that's a time bomb in there.
And we've seen a few recent one, the Ferguson and Detroit.
But you know, our opposition, and I emphasize this difference in opinion on economic policy, our opposition have taught for years that there's nothing wrong with deficits.
Deficits are good.
And if you don't run up a debt, the government should run up a debt.
And that just is not true.
And as long as they believe that, we're going to have somebody suffering the consequences.
So there's going to be more poverty compounded by this drug war.
Yeah, I noticed that the gentleman who was somehow killed in the custody of police, Freddie Gray, had been arrested, I think they said some 22 times since 2008.
So I went back and looked, and I think all but maybe one or two of them were for possession or distribution of narcotics.
So that almost might explain why he ran as was reported.
You might make the case that if we had a little bit of an enlightenment with our drug laws, we might not have created this individual who became very, very violent, especially in a city where he can't get a job.
He can't get a job doing drugs, and then the heavy hand of government and local police force come down on him, and it's a very, very difficult situation.
The other thing that I don't know the answer to, but there's been hints that some of the people who come in and really cause a lot of trouble aren't necessarily the neighborhood.
The people in the neighborhood, I mean, it wouldn't make any sense that they want to burn down their own stores and their own houses.
So there must be some agitators out there that like to come in and stir the pot and say, well, if we could just get, you know, taken care of better by the government, you know, more transfer of wealth, I think that is a lost cause.
And unless we decide that government has a major role to play in causing this, and economics are real important, I don't think we're going to be able to solve this because this country is getting poorer.
So I expect this problem to get worse.
What do you think about the role of the media?
It seems to me almost that they try to stir it up, and especially they try to stir up the race issue.
Do you think it's overplayed or underplayed?
Well, I think it's misplayed.
I think this is all an important issue, especially when you see the policeman literally killing somebody on the street.
So that's really bad, and they have a legitimate role in exposing that.
But fortunately, individuals now are doing a better job in telling us what's going on, and they're using their own video cameras and their cell phones to give us an idea of what's happening and what the police are doing.
But I think that the media tends to like the race issue.
Now, there's no doubt.
I mean, how many times have I talked about how unfair the drug laws are?
You know, 12% are black, 35% of the arrests are black.
55% of the people who get tried are blacks.
75% of the people who end up in prison, even though there's tremendous numbers more of whites, 75% are blacks.
So there is a race issue there.
But the other thing is, is I tend to accept these reports that were in the news, and they said that, yeah, the police kill black people, and it's very, very bad.
And they, percentage-wise, they kill more black people per 100,000 of white people, which is a point that you have to make.
But how many people have ever heard or saw a story on TV that said that the police killed a white person?
Even though number-wise, there's about twice as many.
So the media wants to emphasize this.
But the problem is, if you mention this, what they do, the Adela Sharptons will turn around and point your graces.
You're diminishing the problems that we have, and you have to only stick to the rules.
And that's why a libertarian message is so good.
It should be individuals.
I don't like thinking about people in groups unless they're getting the short end.
I mean, if they're getting the short end, you have to do it.
If there's a law against a group of people, then we have to change it.
But you should never grant benefits.
You can't grant rights to people and say that I belong to this group, so I have a right to certain things.
Every individual has to have their rights, and I think we could avoid a lot of this.
But we're living in a very violent society.
I think we're going to hear a lot more stories like this because we have a federal government that's out of control.
I mean, they're the ones who, if it's freedom that we're looking for, it's our federal government's our greatest enemy.
It's not al-Qaeda, I think you've mentioned where the number of the percentage chance of having Al-Qaeda get to us compared to one of our government agents is pretty slim.
Four Americans were killed all year in 2013, and that was just in the one Boston bombing, whereas I think there are more than 400 people a year killed by police of all races.
So if we were looking for a less violent society, we should look at home.
And of course, we've talked a lot about how our foreign policy contributes to the people who despise what we do.
And of course, the blowback phenomenon is absolutely anathema to these people.
They don't want to hear it.
They won't accept it.
It's always, you know, the jihadists, and we've got to stomp him.
And they just write it off as a radical religion.
And they refuse to look at what we might be contributing to this.
And so the foreign policy actually has an effect on what's happening.
And I just think that one important thing that we ought to try to remember is that, you know, when I talk about entitlements, they'll say, oh, we just don't want entitlements for poor people.
Well, the entitlements for poor people is minor compared to the entitlements that rich people get.
So there is this 99 and 1% phenomenon.
And I think that the poor and the liberals who push it more and more, well, we just don't get enough, are pushing the wrong thing because they didn't get help.
They're in the ghetto.
They can't have a job.
They're putting up with drug wars.
They're not allowed to own a gun.
If you're an honest citizen, you're not allowed to own a gun to defend yourself.
So it's one of those things where the wealthy end up running the show.
And that, I think, is so often.
But I'm always careful not to say wealth in itself is bad.
Wealth that is gained by an honest living and providing a good product.
And there's been no coercion, theft, or slander, and no laws broken.
But we buy a product.
So I think if somebody makes me a good cell phone and I subsidize that country, that's quite a bit different than the companies who get all these benefits and get all the bailouts.
So it's this violence of government that we have to watch.
But I don't think I've really answered the question, what would Martin Luther King say or do?
Because I'm not quite sure, but I think he would argue the case for the least violence possible.
I don't think I've ever read anything about what he does if somebody came into his house.
But I do like that approach, that I want to change government, but I do not preach the use of violence.
I wonder how much more powerful it would have been if maybe 100,000 people had a silent protest in the middle of the city.
I think that it would be better.
And that's the kind of thing I think that Martin Luther King would have argued.
The difficult decisions are made when you see the people in the city destroying automobiles and burning down buildings.
And I don't know, I'm sure people getting killed there, but we won't read too much about how many people were killed by the rioters.
Back to Economics: The Federal Reserve00:00:29
But anyway, it is difficult.
We've talked about this before, but I predict we'll probably talk about this again.
And I hope I know I will be challenged on the fact that, oh, just back to economics, back to that Federal Reserve.
Well, I'll tell you what, we wrote the other day about the middle class would be a lot better off without a Federal Reserve.
And when people come to understand that, we will have true reform.
Well, I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.