However You Vote, The Secret Government Always Wins
Much is made of voting and elections in the US. But what if voting means very little, if anything? What if a permanent government is really in control of Washington that is not affected by elections? The existence of a "deep state" is no conspiracy theory. In fact members of the permanent government operate in the open. What can be done to bring back liberty and accountability?
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
Much is made of voting and elections in the US. But what if voting means very little, if anything? What if a permanent government is really in control of Washington that is not affected by elections? The existence of a "deep state" is no conspiracy theory. In fact members of the permanent government operate in the open. What can be done to bring back liberty and accountability?
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
Much is made of voting and elections in the US. But what if voting means very little, if anything? What if a permanent government is really in control of Washington that is not affected by elections? The existence of a "deep state" is no conspiracy theory. In fact members of the permanent government operate in the open. What can be done to bring back liberty and accountability?
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams.
Daniel, good to see you again today.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
Well good.
There's an election going on.
I don't know if you've noticed that or not, but I wanted to talk about how important these elections are.
You know, everything hangs on the balance.
This is the most important election in all of history.
You know, you frequently hear this.
This is the most important election.
And I guess you could make a case that we live in critical times and maybe elections could be or should be important.
But quite frankly, I've always downplayed the importance of elections because, you know, I've been on the receiving end of distorted results and this sort of thing.
And really overall, it doesn't matter a whole lot.
But if anybody raised these questions before, it was either, I saw grapes, they didn't win, so they're complaining.
Or that's conspiracy stuff.
So they don't ever consider the fact that elections, you know, probably aren't nearly as important as they think.
And I think very often that we put way too much emphasis on, is it going to be a Republican president or a Democrat president?
We've spoken many times on this subject and whatever, nothing ever really changes.
But I want to start off with talking about an article written by Jordan Michael Smith.
He had it in the Boston Globe several months ago.
And he talks about Michael Glennon, I believe his name, that has a book, it's National Security and Double Government, arguing the case that the people in government don't really run things.
It's the people behind the scenes that really run things.
And that might be one of the things that's happening today.
A lot of people are waking up to this fact that the government's broken and somebody else is running it.
Nobody knows what's going on, so that's why we need our might to take control of things.
But the title to his article in the Globe was, Vote All You Want, The Secret Government Won't Change, which is pretty striking.
But there are others, you may have heard this, don't vote at all because it only encourages them.
Obviously, I have a somewhat different position because I thought voting was a worthwhile venture to try to change people's minds rather than thinking that my election was going to change the world.
But if it's a vehicle for getting information out, I always thought it was a worthwhile effort to do this.
So right now, we're looking at it.
So what do you think is the importance of having this election?
How can we get something good out of what's going on because it's a circus as far as I'm concerned on so much what's happening in the presidential primary?
Well, what Glennon points out in his book that came out a couple of years ago is very similar to a new book that's out by Mike Lofkin.
And Mike is a fellow that I've known over a number of years.
We both worked in the House and then Mike went over to the Senate side.
Mike's book is The Deep State, The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government.
So they both have very similar themes and interestingly enough they both came from a congressional background.
So they saw a lot of things up close that you saw and that I saw.
And the point that Mike makes in a recent interview in Salon magazine is that, you know, despite how the title may sound, this is not a conspiracy about a secret government.
This operates in broad daylight.
The military-industrial complex, the Pentagon, contractors, the Homeland Security apparatus, Treasury, Justice Department, the courts, FISA, these all operate out in the open.
And the people that are behind them with the power who move in and out of the so-called private sector and in government, they operate according to their own interests and completely independent of who is elected to elected positions.
So the elected positions are almost like a Potemkin village of a pseudo-democracy when you have a permanent class in D.C. that runs things.
You know, H.L. Mencken had a famous quote about elections.
He says election, he didn't think too much of them either.
He says an election is just an advanced auction on stolen goods.
And money is a big deal on this.
You know, the people who run the government, like you mentioned, the military-industrial complex, maybe big medicine and big media and all these things, they get influence and they're able to get control and it's money and power.
But I've always said that it's very important what people think and do outside the government because ultimately it's the philosophy of government that influences those people in Congress.
They are not thinkers, so to speak.
They're not the philosophers.
And therefore, I work on the idea that we should change ideas and opinions, which I still think is true.
But there's two groups out there.
There's those of us who would like to change people's attitudes and understanding why you want very, very little government versus the other.
We want government to be big and we want to control it.
And we'll go through this pretense that our elections are real, real important.
But I think this comes, the one thing that has generated this mess is the principle that we follow.
It's almost a sacred principle of democracy.
You know, something that the founders abhorred, something that they didn't put in the Constitution.
They put liberty in the Constitution and protection of our freedoms.
But they never idolized the concept of democracy.
So we have this system.
We concede, unfortunately, philosophically, that the government can steal money.
Government has nothing.
They produce nothing.
The only thing they can do is steal it from somebody.
So we set up a system where all you have to do is have the majority vote.
And you build coalitions and everybody is up for grabs in what they can get.
And lo and behold, all they have to do is have a majority vote.
So to me, it's such an evil.
And the people who love democracy the most are the ones who represent the minorities.
Well, if you're going to represent a minority, the minority opinion has to be protected against the majority.
So I see this concept that they can just rig the vote.
And that's why elections are important.
And unfortunately, we're in this mess.
And the subject of is the answer in populism.
Do you think that can solve our problems?
Well, Mike Lofgren has a good point in a recent article that he also did, actually in a recent article he did for The Guardian.
And I think he talks about the rise of Trump.
And he makes some interesting points.
And I'm going to actually just read one sentence because he points out the rise that people do instinctively understand that something is wrong, that they aren't having any control over what happens no matter how they vote.
And he thinks that Trump is sort of a symptom of this, but people are turning to him.
He said, but people instinctively sense there's something deeply wrong with the status quo, and therefore they're attracted to someone who pretends to be ready to smash down the status quo.
See, I think the system is there.
It's supposed to serve the interests of those representing the Democratic vote.
So if they need food stamps and they vote it, they get their food stamp.
If they need a military-industrial complex, scare the people, and then they vote for all this militarism.
But I think you have to change the nature of government.
You shouldn't have anything up for sale.
The government should be expected to protect our freedoms of choice and to protect our freedoms of our earning capacity, our life, liberty, and property.
That's what the government should be for.
But they say, well, no, that's daydreaming.
You know, you can't do that.
The founders were dreamers too, but they had given us a pretty good outline.
But this system, you would say, well, Ron, why don't you give it a little break?
You know, because we'll get noble people.
We'll get people of high character who will go in and spread their wealth fairly and not allowed the military-industrial complex to coerce them into building weapons that aren't necessary.
So I think even that, even if you put those very responsible people, you know, people are so fallible and they make mistakes when you're in government and you make these mistakes, but you're always influenced by ideas, you know, and the propaganda there is, ISIS is coming, ISIS is coming, we got to stop it, you know, we've got to stop it.
And they say, well, we have to spend the money.
So I think that we should work for the ideal of restraining government to be able to pass out these favors and make it very, very narrow.
And the big challenge for us is, is that a viable option?
How many people are going to listen to it?
I happen to think more today than yesterday.
And I think that's the problem.
Some of our friends on the left to identify this problem.
And many do.
I mean, Bill Moyers has done a lot in his career about the secret government and this sort of thing.
Unfortunately, I think they often miss the real point.
They sense the problem, but they start, they will blame the money and capitalism as such, not recognizing the distinction between how that money is gained.
Is it gained in manipulating government, manipulating government contracts?
You look how Washington works.
The think tanks produce papers talking about dangers of a terrorist threat.
The media picks up on these and runs it through.
And then next thing you know, you have a contract with a large military contractor.
But if you look at where the contractor spends his money, he puts money into the think tanks that put out these scary reports.
So they'll spend a million on a think tank and get a billion-dollar weapon system.
See, I don't think they see it as I do that we shouldn't have government with so much authority.
The authority is okay as long as you have good people doing good things here at home and not fighting wars like a liberal might do.
But they do not accept this principle.
We have some very good allies on the war issue, but they would use more government authority to steal from one group and give to another and saying, well, it's necessary.
It has to be fair.
And look at what would happen if you didn't have socialism and welfarism and having a fair system of redistribution.
But they were using the armed force of government to do this.
They don't look at it and say, you know, they're really stealing.
They're stealing in the name of the people, and they're doing it for humanitarian reasons.
Well, we have to go to war in Syria.
Do they say we have to go to war for Syria for fun?
No, it's always couched in humanitarian terms.
We have to go there to save the Syrian people from this monster.
And of course, an imperfect leader or dictator of a country isn't necessarily the worst because once you get involved, then you destroy the very people that they pretend to do this.
So I think it's basically looking at this whole principle of authoritarianism, the use of aggression, and the unwillingness to concede that people are quite capable of working in a voluntary society and sorting out these problems in a different way.
Far from perfection, but when you take the imperfection of man and place him in charge of a lot of people and a lot of money and everything that goes on, not only in our country, but in our courts as well as internationally and controlling international organizations.
And like we just talked about just recently, about the authority to go to war, you know, anytime, any place, and having a worldwide military state.
So this is why the fundamentals have to be to attack this principle.
Why have we granted to the government this use of aggression and the use of guns in a most illegal, immoral manner?
Yeah.
You know, talk about going to war with this declaration.
Ideology And Government Power00:03:14
It reminds me of another thing that both of these authors wrote about that I appreciate, and I know you do because both of us spent a good portion of our careers working in Congress, working in the legislative branch.
And they both point out the congressional role in this deep state.
One of the Michael Glennon points out that Congress often defers to experts, and the experts are people that have been permanently employed in Congress.
The average member is too busy worrying about being re-elected every two years or six years.
And Michael Ofgren points out that there are certain people in congressional leadership that really do control things.
Certain committee chairs.
He points out defense and intelligence committees.
I would add permanent staff.
And I remember this over the years that I was there.
The permanent staff never changed.
The permanent staff drafted the legislation, changed the legislation, wrote the manager's amendments.
All of these things were happening behind the scenes.
And they were there for their entire careers.
And some of them had their own personal agendas that they were able to slip through here and there.
So I would say definitely Capitol Hill is a place where the secret government is alive and well.
You know, one temptation by many is to the solution is an in-between.
Government's bureaucratic and inept and they get out of control and are influenced.
But they come up with this idea that the function of government ought to be privatized, private prisons and private military and all these kinds of things.
But I don't see that as a solution at all.
I think that's another combination of big government and corporations.
This whole idea that so much of our military is run by private sources and they make big profits doing this.
So I don't see that as a solution.
I see the solution as reducing the size and scope and power of the government.
Well, let's hope these two books will start a conversation on that.
Yeah, there you go.
But I would like to thank everybody today for tuning into the Liberty Report.
I would like to just close by making a point that we're complaining about outside sources, financial interests, people who have power, people in the military-industrial complex, the people in secret, whether it's the CIA, are really in charge, and elections don't mean a whole lot.
Elections too often can be rigged.
And when you look at how powerful the media is, it's a system that doesn't lend itself to the preservation of liberty.
But I think very seriously that the outsiders are really always the ones who influence government, both good and bad.
Today we're seeing the bad influence of outsiders getting control of government and enriching themselves.
But I think ideas have consequences.
So if the ideology of liberty, the ideology of sound money and private property and free economic policies, this is what eventually infiltrates to the minds of men and to a whole generation.
And those individuals who are in Washington, they won't automatically buy into this notion that government should be allowed to use force to redistribute wealth and pretend they can rule the country and tell people what to do.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.