The great Austrian economist, Ludwig Von Mises, used to say that "Government is the negation of liberty." One of the most often used excuses by government to negate liberty is in the name of "national security." Ron Paul addresses this tactic on this week's edition of Myth-Busters.
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
The great Austrian economist, Ludwig Von Mises, used to say that "Government is the negation of liberty." One of the most often used excuses by government to negate liberty is in the name of "national security." Ron Paul addresses this tactic on this week's edition of 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 is the day we do mythbusters and with me today is co-host Chris Rossini.
Good morning Dr. Paul.
It's great to be with you again.
Today we're going to be covering the myths that surround the term national security.
Now as the late great economist Ludwig von Mises used to say, government is the negation of liberty.
And one of the main ways that it negates our liberty is by invoking something called national security.
Now by far the most popular way that they invoke national security is in war.
We're always supposed to be afraid at all times and throughout our entire life of foreigners, the latest foreign boogeyman.
So Dr. Paul, please explain how America's current foreign policy continually erodes away our liberty in the name of national security.
No doubt about it.
Some people inadvertently do it.
They cause wars for other reasons.
The state gets bigger and never really shrinks.
Other people have wars because it's in the process of expanding their empire.
So war is the health of the state.
But then also, you know, Smedley Butler, the well-decorated general who served many, many years, many decades in the military, finally came to the conclusion, and he wrote about it, that war is a racket.
He saw war as something that benefited the wealthy and the financial interests and the financial interests actually used the army.
At that time that he was involved, it involved, you know, going in the Central America and South America and throwing our way to run and using these tools.
But even in a war that might be more justified, you know, they do a lot of things and people say, well, we're at time of war.
We have to give up our liberties and give up our privacies.
And sometimes some of those things are reversed, but not always.
But certainly, war is the health of the state, and it's always a national security interest.
In recent history, in recent days, we're over in the Middle East, and we have to go in and get rid of a dictator, but he has to be painted as Hitler about to invade our country or kill a lot of people.
And it's most of the time built on lies, especially in the last 15 or 20 years.
So many lies have been told to build up the fear in the people for the people to go along with it because the people's instinct is to not want to go to war.
But if they're fearful enough, then they'll go along and they'll support the war.
And the other major problem with how we've gotten into these wars, the rules have changed.
They went from where we generally followed what the founders intended was go to war rarely, declare war with the Congress, making the declaration, which gave the people indirectly more of a say.
But today, since World War II, there's no official declaration of war, so it becomes an executive function.
And this was one of the things that the founders really detested about the British, and also when they wrote the Constitution, was they did not want the king, which is the executive branch and the president, to go to war on his own.
And yet it's done today.
It's done secretly.
And if anybody tells the truth and they become a whistleblower, they become the enemy.
And it just goes on and on.
And the wars are supported.
And it has a devastating impact because these wars cost a lot.
A lot of people die.
A lot of people are injured.
There's a lot of innocent people died.
And it seems like the American people have been willing to accept a lot of this because they don't know what's going on, just who's dying, you know, at the same time, how many people die at our hands.
Because when we go in and have regime change, whether it's in Libya or Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria or Ukraine, nobody really keeps tabs, but it's very, very devastating.
So they get away with it principally because they convince the people and the Congress it's national security.
We have to be safe.
And it's amazing to me that they get away more with that now than they did even in the Cold War, when I think it was a lot more dangerous.
Today people say, oh, no, it's much more dangerous today than when we had the Soviets had missiles in Cuba.
You know, I would argue that there was reason to have some concerns, you know, back then.
But it's always, always national security.
And if we put troops overseas or put missiles around a country, that is all done for national security.
We're protecting our people.
We want to fight them over there and not over here.
But we wouldn't dare tolerate any of that activity if a foreign nation came and did it to us.
So the American people have to be quite aware that when they talk about national security, it's a code war for not caring about national security and probably exposing us to a threat to our national security by doing exactly the opposite of what they ought to be doing.
Government Overreach and Liberty00:04:33
That's exactly right, Dr. Paul.
In fact, very predictably, we experience blowback as a result of these foreign interventions.
So the American people end up getting attacked from people that are seeking revenge against us.
And to make the matter even worse, the government then attacks us by, again, in the name of national security, increasing its grip via the surveillance state, whether it be through the internet or through our cell phones or the TSA, the groping that goes on every day.
So government capitalizes on blowback with surveillance.
Should we be sacrificing our liberty in the name of surveillance to a secretive government?
Certainly not, but it was very clear-cut, you know, after 9-11 of what happened because people were frequently saying, well, this is really, really bad.
We have to give up our liberties to be safe and secure.
And we say that we had to be over there to protect our liberties and our constitutions, not because we were doing some special interest protecting oil or for whatever other reason we were there, but we were there with the idea it was supposed to be for national security.
But it wasn't there to protect our Constitution and our freedoms.
This is what it was said, and that's why the jihadists hate us, because we're free and prosperous.
But the whole thing is the greatest threat to our liberties is our own government.
Immediately after 9-11, yes, something should be done.
We should have reassessed our foreign policy and a few other things and even dealt with those individuals who committed the vicious crimes.
But of course, out of the 19, you know, they all died.
So a lot of that was taken care of.
But the attack on American liberties became severe.
Within weeks, the Patriot Act was put up.
The Transportation Safety Commission came up.
We had TSA.
And that's another affront to liberty, which has accomplished nothing and has been a threat.
It's been a threat to our financial situation, but certainly to our privacy.
Our Fourth Amendment rights have just totally disintegrated.
So, yes, we're over there to protect our freedoms.
At the same time, our own government is doing this to it.
And there is a disconnect because if you ask the American people what they think about the federal government, 70% of the people say we don't trust them, we don't believe what they say, and they're very leery of them.
But 70% of the people have one side or the other of saying this is what we ought to do by using more power, which is a destruction from the liberties of the people here at home.
So, if people decide that they want to go overseas carelessly, there's unintended consequences.
And then there's a threat that, yes, some people may hate us and want to come over here.
And even that, even that is a danger, but it's blown way out of proportion.
You know, the fact that we have a 15 times more likelihood of being killed by lightning than by a terrorist, and we don't lie awake at night, we're in a violent thunderstorm.
So, this is designed to make people very fearful to continue the process that benefits the military-industrial complex, the special interests around the world, the religious interests that get involved.
And it's a terrible thing because the government shouldn't be involved in these wars, shouldn't be involved in attacking our liberties.
The government should be there to protect our liberties and put the responsibility on us.
We don't depend on a policeman at our doorstep to keep us safe.
We are kept safe because we have a responsibility to our homes and our family, and we know that we're allowed to have guns to defend ourselves.
But we don't depend on the police, and we shouldn't depend on militarized police, and we shouldn't depend on a police force of the federal government to make us safe and secure.
Unfortunately, we have been too careless, and our liberties at home have certainly been undermined as this progress goes, and it needs to be reversed because the fear of blowback and not understanding are willing to even open up their minds that blowback, that this is a retaliation for our policies.
Challenges of Government Protection00:09:20
If we don't accept that, we're going to have a lot of trouble ever getting back to a normalcy that would at least have the government protecting our liberties rather than deliberately destroying our liberties.
Yes, next we're going to cover one of the sneakier ways that national security is used, and that's with the too big to fails.
Now, we all know that the marketplace is very challenging.
It's a daily challenge to satisfy consumers.
A lot of times, entrenched businesses will lobby to get government protections.
So, they'll build a legislative moat around their business.
And what happens is they mushroom into these huge mega-corporations that become too big to fail.
And they must be bailed out by taxpayers in the name of national security.
So, what are your thoughts about this, Dr. Paul?
Well, you know, this is the enticement of saying, well, all we want is a safety net.
We don't want to have socialism.
We don't want to take care of the people.
We don't want to transfer wealth.
But there's always going to some people who need the help, and therefore we have to have a safety net.
So, that's 3 or 4% of the population.
And most people say, well, that's not all that bad.
But what happens when 50% of the people are dependent on the government?
But the safety net, the presentation of that is always to take care of poor people.
And when you subsidize something, you get more.
So we have more poor people than ever before and a shrinking middle class.
But once you endorse that principle, there's other people who want a safety net, and that's the big corporations.
And they become corporatists.
They want subsidies.
They want contracts.
They want protections.
Mistakes are made.
Then they want bailed out.
And then they want a Federal Reserve system that will print and give them money for free.
So one thing leads to another, and then they expect to be taken care of.
But this, of course, leads to bankruptcy, which is a threat to our national security.
But they will claim that we've got to protect our military interests.
They have to build these weapons.
But they build weapons.
They build old-fashioned airplanes and old-fashioned aircraft carriers that could get blown up with a single missile and are inefficient and aren't done well.
But that is continued.
Well, you don't want to put people out of work because we employ a lot of people, but they're not doing productive work.
So this whole idea that the government can plan the economy and take care of people, they don't understand what inflation does, which is a distortion of the economy, and also the many mistakes that are made.
And then there's also the insurance.
The safety net has to have literal insurance.
You have to have flood insurance and storm insurance.
You have to have too big to fail insurance.
And the assurance that the Fed will always be there and Congress will be there.
They certainly had a bit of a scare in 08 and 09, but they were able once again to keep this very fragile system together by the same old tricks.
But they're running out of room because we're down to zero rate interest rates and sometimes negative, always claiming that we can protect the people because it's so important that we keep this economy healthy by planning it and bailing out people and making sure that they're taken care of.
But they always do it.
They always couch it in terms of national security.
Don't you care about America?
Don't you care about the troops?
Don't we need these weapons?
Don't we need these jobs?
Don't we need the food stamps?
No, we need liberty.
And believe me, there will be more prosperity and there will not be this dependency which is epidemic and one of the reasons that we're in a real mess.
And quite frankly, the reason why the current election is totally chaotic because they're not quite understanding what it is.
It's two factions which agree on the principle of government intervention, but they're arguing over which way to use government.
You know, should it be managed economy for the special interest and use the Federal Reserve for a different reason and have protectionism and then bail them out if we have trouble.
So they've given up too often the people in charge with the principles of liberty.
But as I always mention, the spirit of liberty is still alive and well, and we won't go quietly away because there's going to be a great need and demand and the people are already looking for something else.
They're not finding it in today's election, but eventually the message of liberty will be heard and we will have a different system much closer to what the founders envision.
And hopefully that comes soon because otherwise things are going to get much worse.
And the sooner we do it, the better for us all.
Finally, Dr. Paul, let's end on a philosophical note.
You've always said throughout the many years that Americans should never sacrifice liberty in exchange for some phantom government security.
Now there were never any footnotes to that quote.
You should never sacrifice that liberty.
So if you could please explain to Americans how they can ditch these artificial fears that are fed by government and reclaim the liberty that is rightfully theirs.
You know, one of the things that I had pleasure in doing was when I talked to the college audiences.
When I would make that statement, I would make it emphatic because they were well aware, the students were well aware of the encroachment on their personal privacy and too much interference, although they might not have connected at all to a low interest student loan from the government.
But when I was emphatic about that, you never have to give up liberty for safety and security.
That usually drew the loudest applause.
That was very encouraging.
But not enough people are saying that, nor do they understand it.
So I think liberty is the real issue, the understanding of that.
It's a natural right.
And we're not giving anybody anything.
We're just taking away the burden that has been placed on people that undermines their liberty because people, when they know they have to take care of themselves, will be self-sufficient.
One thing that I think is great about that system, there's a sense of self-satisfaction.
Somebody who's successful and they become productive and they take care of themselves and their family, then more people are taken care of, but they feel good about it.
But even those who are totally dependent on government, say, I can't live without it, I need this and all that, they're not happy people.
They're usually the people that if they're largesse, if their benefits and the welfare is challenged, they get very angry and go to the streets.
And also, the very wealthy whose positions are challenged, they are threatening too when there's more fraud and corruption in government.
So they act out in a different manner.
And I think we see both of that today.
We see the riots in the inner city by the poor who have been made poor by government policy.
But we also see the terrible expression of the special interests behind the scenes buying, influencing government, and literally paying for special privileges and all.
And so it is a very, very corrupt system.
And the only answer to this is a new and renewed interest in individual liberty, understanding what it is, that it's natural to us, and that everything would be better if we had liberty.
And they say, well, that sounds good.
It's idealistic.
But everything they do is idealistic too.
But the whole thing is, it's very, very practical.
Because if you live with a free market and you live with these principles, it is the system that throughout history has created the most amount of wealth and prosperity in the largest middle class.
And when people are wealthy and they've earned it, you know, for the most part, they're very generous.
And our country is still very generous.
So I have no doubt that that system can be restored.
And in my early medical career, most of the hospitals, many of them, were still owned by churches and people were taken care of.
And throughout our history, some of the greatest hospitals and the greatest universities were all started with private money.
But this whole idea that nothing can happen unless the taxpayers and the inflationists pay for this, the government will take care of us.
They never stop and think, okay, the government should do this, this, and this.
But they never ask, where's the government going to get the money?
Well, they're either going to tax somebody else and rob them, or they're going to borrow it and rob the next generation, or they're going to print the money and just destroy the economy like they have.
So, of course, everybody knows where my vote is.
My vote is to reject the notion that you ever have to sacrifice any liberty.
If you sacrifice only a little bit at a time, soon it adds up to be a significant amount, and that's where we are today.
So we need to re-emphasize and reinforce our beliefs that liberty is what made America great, and we are less great now, mainly because we do not have a clear understanding and motivation to protect liberty.
Chris, I want to thank you for being with us today.