As Hillary Clinton calls millions of Americans "irredeemable" and "deplorable," Ron Paul explains why those terms apply to American politics itself. Gang warfare and a sprawling government enforcer wasn't supposed to be the fate of the "land of the free." There is a better way to live. Don't miss today's Myth-Busters!
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
As Hillary Clinton calls millions of Americans "irredeemable" and "deplorable," Ron Paul explains why those terms apply to American politics itself. Gang warfare and a sprawling government enforcer wasn't supposed to be the fate of the "land of the free." There is a better way to live. Don't miss today's Myth-Busters!
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
Today's the day we do Mythbusters, and the co-host is Chris Rossini.
He is also the editor of the Ron Paul LibertyReport.com.
Chris, welcome to the program today.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
Great to be with you.
Good.
What kind of stories are we going to tell today and dispel myth here or there?
What do you have?
Yes, we're going to cover a little bit of democracy today.
There was some big news this week that Hillary Clinton branded millions of voters, or half of Trump's supporters, in her words, as irredeemable and a basket of deplorables.
Now, this is quite ironic because Hillary is running to be their president, is trying to get their votes as well.
And it's also ironic that the U.S. government tries to militarily force this system of ours, which has turned into a circus, onto other nations.
Now, is it any wonder that just maybe there are other nations out there that don't want this imposed on them, Dr. Paul?
I would think that we could find a few of those.
But I just wonder what percentage of those people that support Hillary might fall into that category as well.
There might be a few over there.
But the whole idea, I think what we're talking about here is how the campaign has deteriorated.
But if you look at what she's saying and saying that these are ugly people, terrible people, and they do these things and they believe bad things, you know, the only real measurement for us should be who's initiating the violence and the aggression and starting the fight.
And that's a different story.
You know, there was one episode, and obviously it was probably a Trump rally where two supporters or a supporter and a non-supporter got into a scuffle.
And I think the Trump supporter sought a guy.
And this was a big deal because it looks like, aha, you know, the Trump supporters are really, really bad people.
And they yelled and screamed about how horrible this guy was.
And of course, if I'm accurate in what I'm describing, obviously he's wrong.
They shouldn't be punching each other.
And that was an act of aggression.
But I wonder why they're never concerned.
You mentioned about some of the things that we force ourselves around the world.
But what about how the liberals and many conservatives think nothing of using force, physical force, but it's in a more subtle way because it's legal.
It's the IRS that comes or some bureaucrat or somebody that's enforcing some regulation, a bank regulation, arresting you for laundering money and all these things.
That's armed might, and they come in.
And if it's used for the transfer of wealth, especially, that we would never tolerate it if we allowed somebody to come into our house and take their fair share.
No, they're not allowed to do that, but they're allowed to send the government.
And if we use the same principle that they deplore, that these are terrible people, and they're forcing people to do certain things.
I mean, that's the nature of our business.
I mean, we're remaking the Middle East.
We run an empire.
We're involved in nation building.
And the more I read about and try to understand how the CIA is operating, not only internationally but domestically, that is even a force that's being used to change the system outside the political system.
You know, people don't even talk about it more so now than they used to, because a lot of people now think about the CIA and how they most likely were involved in the Kennedy assassination and various other scandals that we've had in this country.
So it is something that is very important to talk about, but it's the philosophy of it that makes people deplorable.
If you have a philosophy that it's legitimate to use government force to do bad things and think nothing of it and try to say, well, those people are bad because there was a scuffle.
Well, there shouldn't be a scuffle, but that is minuscule to the philosophy damage done by those who believe that it is the purpose of government to use force and intimidation and redistribute wealth and make everything fair and equal and make people behave better and make them culturally correct and political correctness.
I mean, that is the monsters that's faking us out here rather than to say that, well, if somebody is for building a wall, I'm against the building a wall, of course, but I don't go around saying, well, if you're in favor of the wall and think that you might have organized borders a little differently, I just don't put them in the same category of some of the things that our government does.
But if you have an opinion about somebody and you deal with people in categories, which you should not, all of a sudden you become the monster.
But I think this could be easily sorted out by thinking about the non-aggression principle and by thinking what the role of government ought to be.
And name-calling should be very unnecessary, then people shouldn't be accused of being deplorable.
They ought to look to themselves before they decide to call other people deplorable.
Yes, and let's talk about the blowback from this.
Because Hillary did go after millions of people.
Doesn't that engender resentment and revenge for those people?
And unfortunately, people run to government to use government power against the other gang.
So you have two gangs using government against each other, and government just gets more and more powerful.
What do you think about that?
Well, I think that's absolutely true.
That's what happens because it's acceptable to go to the government.
If you feel like you have been put upon and you lost some advantage or something, you go and get yourself a lobbyist.
You get a group that you can influence your congressman and get a law passed.
And they always use that.
But name-calling, I think, represents ignorance as much as anything.
And it's just demagoguery.
It's just trying to get a point.
And unfortunately, it sort of serves that purpose.
If you do that and convince enough people, they'll paint people in groups.
This is why I detest painting people in groups.
I don't believe people should have any benefits as a group.
And I don't think people should ever be punished as a group.
And here, what Hillary's been doing is putting him in certain groups and putting the groups together and saying, well, they're all deplorable and they're evil without dealing with some of the other groups.
But it is, if it's a power struggle between the different groups.
But the name-calling has been going on for a long time.
I remember the 60s very well when the freedom of speech movement was going on on the campuses.
And they were, the leftists, the hippies, and the anti-war people were involved, which was okay with me.
But some of them were really ugly.
It was free speech.
And freedom of speech meant you could say anything, any place, as ugly as you want, even if you were on private property like a university, but you could still do it.
They didn't understand that freedom of speech has a property element to it.
But I remember one guy got up, I can't remember who the speaker was, but he was a well-known speaker, and he was going to speak on the campuses.
The leftists came in to disrupt his speech.
And the guy got to the microphone and he just tore in.
Vulgarity, it was just horrible.
And he ran it for two or three minutes, and it was to just see how vulgar you could be and get away with it.
And the speaker just very calmly says to him, He says, Now that you have stated your name, what is your question?
And that was a perfect answer because people do a lot of shouting and yelling and name-calling, and they should deal with what is the question?
What is the problem?
You know, if there is inequity in this country, and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, what is the problem?
What is the economic rules that we're defining?
How does the Federal Reserve create all these inequities?
So there's a different way of approaching it.
Just name-calling is not the answer.
So I often think about the way that speaker handled this, that when people get really, really ugly, you know, in the appropriate time, you can say, all right, now that you've told me your name, do you have a decent question for me?
Yes.
Next, this runs against the voting propaganda that we're always told.
I mean, we were told that we have a sacred right to vote and that when you vote, you're making your voice heard.
Some people even feel guilty if they don't vote.
That's how deep it runs.
Now, Hillary Clinton called all these people who want to make their voice heard deplorable.
Now, does voting only apply to approved voices?
And what if Trump supporters were actually for liberty and peace?
What would she have called them then?
Well, the people who believe in political correctness have an arbitrary definition of your right to speak.
So if you're not saying using the right words, they'll destroy you.
You can lose your job.
You can be sued and all these other things.
So yes, that is the way it is.
Now, if you're promoting liberty and peace, which a few of us on this channel do quite frequently, and they have to find a name, it's going to be more difficult because I think when you skirt on the edges and you yourself participate in some of the demagoguery that can be twisted and made to look negative, people are anxious to paint you in a bad way.
But your question really is, how can you paint a group of people what we believe in is liberty and what we believe is in peace.
And yet we do still get called names.
For instance, they're able to figure out something.
So if you believe in liberty and peace, you might be for free trade.
Oh, and then you're an isolationist.
You hate the world.
You don't want to ever help anybody.
The people are starving.
The people have been under tyranny in this country.
And therefore, they twist it around and make you look very negative because of it.
But I think that they will still use these bad words.
And if you happen to believe that you have a right to your life and you have a right to work and an obligation to take care of yourself, and you say that you have a right to keep what you earn as an extension of your life, then, oh, you're just one of those selfish, liberal libertarians or free market people.
You're not willing to sacrifice for other people.
And of course, their fights they're talking about is sacrificing your money, not their own, because many people who advocate this and condemn libertarianism, they themselves are taking care of themselves and insisting that somebody else take care of the poor, and yet they will resort to name-calling and trying to blame them.
But they've come up with a negative.
But still, I think the point here is we who believe in liberty and peace, it is up to us to do a better job because they shouldn't be able to get away with that.
Why should they be able to get away with saying, oh, you guys just believe in liberty of peace, and then what they'll do is they'll distort.
And of course, they can do that if they don't have an understanding of economics, because if you're not for the welfare state, then you don't care about poor people.
Well, maybe if you really cared about poor people, you would have free market economy and property rights, and you wouldn't tempt people to go on welfare.
You would make sure that everybody could get a job because in a free society, there are a lot of jobs.
It's just that you can't regulate the price of that labor.
But if you want freedom, if you want a big middle class and you want prosperity and peace, you have to go with a different system.
But you have to convince people that that is what we really believe in and make those who want to call us names look like the real jerks they are.
See, I can call them a name too.
Finally, Dr. Paul, let's step out of the circus tent because surely this is not what America's founders envisioned.
Let's talk about what a constitutional government would look like, what elections would look like if the non-aggression principle was deeply rooted in the minds of Americans.
Of course, I think basically our Constitution was aimed to do exactly that.
But I'll talk more theoretically about a Constitution that would endorse the non-aggression principle because I think our Constitution has been just ignored and circumvented.
Just take, for instance, the declaration of war.
It was explained to me when I was in Congress that when I told people they should declare war if they want one.
Oh, that part of the Constitution is anachronistic.
We don't pay any attention to that anymore.
So this is something that we could visualize exactly what it would be like.
But we need a government.
We need to ask the question, what should the role of government be in a society like that?
It should be to protect liberty.
That's it.
Protect liberty.
That means that if somebody invades our country, you'd have a responsibility.
But protecting liberty means you keep restraints on the government because most liberty in this country is taken away from us by our government.
You know, since 9-11, a lot of trouble has been still existing in the world, and we have become more aggressive overseas.
But the greatest danger to our liberties hasn't been by somebody who invaded us.
The people who committed 9-11 atrocities, they didn't land and take over and cause the problem.
No, our own government did it.
Government Overreach and Liberty00:02:08
The people did it.
They begged for it.
Take care of us.
We want to be safe.
It might happen again.
So, yes, but the government should be designed to protect liberty, never to undermine that liberty.
And that's why the founders tried very hard, like with the Fourth Amendment and the Fifth Amendment, to protect privacy and property.
But it hasn't worked very well.
I saw a statement the other day of a country that they said it was in a mass because there was a contest going on in the country between democracy and despotism.
And who's going to win, democracy or despotism?
And most people know despots don't sound too good.
That might be like Hitler or somebody.
We certainly don't want a despot, but we don't, many people don't realize you can have despotism without a Hitler in charge.
You can have that with bureaucrats acting like despots and enjoying it too, and people writing and reinterpreting the regulations.
And they say, well, yeah, we got this authority from the Congress.
The Congress passed this law and said that we can do such and such.
And the IRS, of course, overreacts and all these things.
But democracy can be despotism too, because then it becomes the dictatorship of the majority.
So I think democracy, which the founders couldn't stand, they say, we don't want a democracy because it becomes very authoritarian.
All you have to do is convert 51%.
In this day and age, it's not difficult.
Put all your special interest groups, conservatives and liberals, put them all together, and you get 80% of the people, you know, are for using the government to their benefit.
And then they split the loot.
They have agreements.
You will vote for these programs, this one.
Right now they're talking about a new budget.
And I understand the true conservatives, the constitutionalists in Congress are very upset because it looks like another deal made between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership.
And the closer we get to the end of the year and the election coming up, the more likely it is that the compromise will be more spending and democracy will reign.
New Budget Deal?00:01:42
The majority will agree to it.
And that is the reason in a free society, the government is very limited, very small.
You don't have gigantic bureaucracies.
You don't have bureaucrats carrying guns.
And you don't have a standing army that's marching all around the world.
You don't get into nation building.
It would be strictly limited.
But once again, in order to have that, the people have to ask, what should the role of government be?
The founders asked that question.
They did their very best.
They cave our Constitution, gave us our Constitution.
It hasn't worked very well.
You could help rebuild on that.
But I think that we're going to go through a lot more difficulties before the people wake up and decide that we need different rules.
But I think we will.
I think there's a fertile ground out there and more people are looking at it.
I think that eventually the people are saying, you know, we're sick and tired of all these wars.
Let's bring these troops home.
We can't afford it.
And I think they're going to see when the financial crisis comes that this whole effort of the welfare redistribution is nothing more than a tool of the bankers and the Federal Reserves and secret society that controls our government, the state, the silent state.
So that is a brief outline, but I think the most important thing is to understand what liberty is.
That means you have a right to your life.
You have a right to your liberty, and you ought to have a right to keep the fruits of your labor.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today.
And Chris, thank you for being with us.
Thank you, Dr. Paul.
Good.
And to the audience, I appreciate very much you being with us.