What did the Founders see as the role of government in our lives? What should we do with legislators who break their oath of office? Have we made progress since 1776? Where are the areas we can be hopeful? Ron Paul's July 4th thoughts...
What did the Founders see as the role of government in our lives? What should we do with legislators who break their oath of office? Have we made progress since 1776? Where are the areas we can be hopeful? Ron Paul's July 4th thoughts...
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
Happy 4th of July.
And with me today is Daniel McAdams.
Daniel, good to see you.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
Happy 4th.
Well, good.
There'll be a lot of partying done today somewhere along the way.
I wonder how many people will think about the significance of what was happening back then.
I can remember even being in high school.
There would be picnics and things, and they were great.
We race to have races and things.
There was a lot of excitement.
But even then, I got to thinking, I wonder if people think about what really went on back then.
So I was inquisitive, but you didn't hear great speeches or anything.
There was a little emphasis on it.
But we celebrate it every year, and most people realize it's a significant date.
But sometimes I think we have drifted a long way from the spirit that existed when the founders decided to make a declaration.
I think about the act of rebellion that it was and putting everything on the line of principles.
Right.
You know, the first sentence in the Declaration by Jefferson, he's a fantastic writer, even though he wrote long sentences, so I can't memorize all the sentences.
But he said when the conditions become necessary to dissolve the political bans, they have to make a declaration of independence.
And that's what it was.
It was dissolving a political ban, the attachment of our colonies to the British.
And they made a bold move.
And I want to go ahead and read a little bit more about his introduction to the Declaration of Independence.
We hold these truths to be self-evidence.
These are words that are very well known, of course.
That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.
That's pretty strong.
I guess if somebody said that, reword it, and said that in their speeches today, I imagine you might have somebody at our doorstep.
Maybe the FBI would be there or Secret Service or who knows what.
This is pretty radical attitude.
And what's interesting is that it's not this is a point in time because he's talking about something that goes into the future.
If at any point in the future, he wasn't saying here's a declaration, here's the end all.
He's talking about looking in the future.
I think he was in his early 30s, wasn't he, when he drafted this?
You know, and he actually was not overly optimistic about the success because he always figured power is going to rise up again and that every 20 years you might need a revolution.
He wasn't talking about just an intellectual revolution like we talk about, but he was serious.
He, you know, that there may be a time, at least what he was saying was every generation has to defend rights.
If you drift along and you don't have to really defend and state what your rights are and what the role of government ought to be, you might get ourselves into the mess that we're in today because I don't think people have concentrated on this whole idea of the role of government and what personal liberty really means.
I think your column this week really captures that idea that people are slumbering.
As you pointed out, the conditions were, at least in terms of taxation, were a heck of a lot better under the king than they are for us today.
You got what, one or two percent, I think you said.
Yeah, and yet it seems to be almost just relative.
It's back to boiling the frog in a pot.
If you gradually increase the heat, it doesn't jump out, but throw it in.
But the heat's been gradually increased to a very destructive level and to the point now where speaking out becomes politically incorrect.
And there's a lot of punishments for being politically incorrect and the distortion of what liberty is all about.
But I would have to say that even back then, the concept of liberty was a little bit confusing.
And I think people who point that out are correct because, you know, Adams was much better on the slave issue than Jefferson and Washington and these others because they accepted this.
But I think in many ways, you know, we have an equally good or even better, those of us who are in the minority or on the sidelines, not dealing with policy, that there is a better understanding about personal liberty, voluntarism, what liberty really means, the importance of non-aggression and applying that principle to government as well as individuals.
The founders were really great for their time.
And we've drifted from that.
But then subtly behind the scenes, I think the liberty philosophy is still doing quite well.
And whether it comes to the understanding of personal liberty or economic understanding.
I just think that there's been great advancement in further understanding economic policy because, you know, it was the 20th century there where we had fascism and communism, but we also had Mises and Hayek and Rothbard and all these other people who have laid the groundwork for the liberty revolution that's going on right now.
So it's, I think some people, including myself, sometimes I wonder, how can you stay optimistic when you look at what's going on in Washington?
But if you look at it with the issue of ideas, there are people out there and there are people still working hard and we're spreading this message, you know, through the internet.
So I come down on the side that, generally speaking, an understanding of what a free society is all about is improving the conditions that we have today or leftovers from some very bad ideas.
But how can I be optimistic?
Well, Hitler was a tragedy, but he ended the way he deserved to end.
And the Soviet system ended a better way.
It just collapsed and it was over with.
But I just think that the ideas make all the difference.
The founders were a group that were ideological.
I think they did a fantastic job.
But I still think that there's lots of seeds planted out there.
And there's no reason to think that the next generation or two can't further improve on it.
My problem is that we have to suffer the consequences of all the mistakes and liquidate the debt and that sort of thing.
But I think philosophically we're doing quite well.
To talk about the need for a revolution every generation or something of that nature, I mean, I think what you've expressed right now is almost that, but it's an intellectual revolution.
You know, the second set of founding fathers could be considered Mises and Rothbard and yourself, I have to say as well, who are ushering in a new intellectual revolution that might hopefully affect.
Intellectual Revolution00:08:21
You know, There's a difference between what is written, the rules that are written, versus the character of the people, either those who want to have special benefits or those individuals who become in charge, and then it's their character.
Yes, there are, well, we can even point out some shortcomings we think in a declaration, you know.
But we look at this and we think, well, you know, the whole problem has been that the individuals, whether it's the people or the people that are in charge, they lack character is the way I see it.
You know, they say every one of them takes an oath of office.
I wonder what the American people would say.
Don't you get reassured when you see the president do this and when you see the congressman do this?
Don't you feel, wow, I can rest now.
We have a new government and they've all taken an oath and we all know what the Constitution says and they will protect our liberties.
I don't think it even crosses their minds.
It's such a ritual that has so little meaning and the only time that it has significance on what you say is if you're under oath to a government agency and if you make a mistake, you're in big trouble.
You can't do that.
But if you make a promise to the people that I am going to uphold the office of such and such office, you know, and they don't do it, I one time thought that there should be something like legislative malpractice.
Kiddingly, of course, that if they don't live up to their promises or their oath of office, they ought to be able to take them to court.
Of course, our court is the electoral process, but then you get so many people who are benefiting that they have no interest in doing that.
As long as we're consuming wealth and as long as there's wealth, that's going to happen.
But right now, we're at an impasse because the wealth represents debt, and the debt has to be liquidated, and that's why we're seeing the problems that we're seeing in the country.
Yeah, I like that idea, maybe a penalty box for misbehavior.
Something like that.
Right.
You know, the one thing that Jefferson mentioned here is that the rights come from the consent of the people.
And I like that.
You know, the people should consent, but there are some good libertarians who challenge this.
So Lysander Spooner was one.
He says, they didn't speak for me.
They didn't come and ask me.
I didn't consent for them to do that.
Have we consented for the IRS to come into our home?
Well, the law got passed and this sort of thing.
But I think that needs a further discussion, too, because if you had very limited government, you knew you couldn't hurt or steal from anybody else, and everything should be done voluntarily, and governments couldn't use force to have their way.
You don't have to have a consent.
It would almost be negative.
We're not going to touch you if you, who are supposed to be in the government, recognize it's my life, it's my liberty.
I can do what I want as long as I don't hurt people, and you go your own way.
But I'm not going to consent to you to build up these armies or build national police forces and police the world and subsidize the military-industrial complex run-up deficits and support all the weaponry and weapon industry.
This would be a different story.
And the other interesting part of it, too, is this whole notion of how the federal government has exploded.
I think in the Declaration there was a lot of emphasis on states, weren't there?
I mean, individuals.
And I sort of want to conclude with this, and I'll give you a chance to have your conclusion.
But I'll sort of conclude on that because the last part of the Declaration is one of my favorites, too, because the middle part lists all the abuse, and there were plenty.
But like you said, they're minimal compared to what we're putting up with today.
How long would our list be today?
Oh, my goodness, we'd have to have 1,000 pages.
You exhausted your whole column on just a couple of years ago.
Take the 70,000 pages of the IRS code, and those are the abuses.
The reason I like the last paragraph is they talk about who's declaring independence.
And they don't say when they're talking about the colonies, the United Colonies, they never say it.
It's always we.
It's always we are, we are.
And the phrase that they use actually appears three times in the last paragraph.
And they talk about the people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and independent states.
And a little later, that as free and independent states, they have full power, you know, this sort of thing.
So I think it was very clear in their mind they weren't creating, you know, really the monster that we have now at the federal level that wheels and deals with the international levels.
And we live up to the, you know, NATO, United Nations.
Of course, the last election was very encouraging, so we heard encouraging words about maybe we shouldn't be in all these international organizations, but so far we haven't seen much shift in policy.
So what can you say about our declaration and where do you think we stand?
Well, I think one of the, you know, the exciting part really to me is the first sentence because it establishes the principle.
The first line talks about secession and how important secession is.
And I know our friend Jeff Dice, our colleague Jeff Dice, talks a lot about the need to secede at every single level, at every single opportunity to see, to evolve into smaller units.
And I think if that's a process taking from what they said in the Declaration of Independence, we would be going in the right direction.
Yeah, and I think closely connected to that would be the principle of nullification.
Seceding is a bold, but I think it should be a right and used if necessary.
But if you didn't want to do that and you wanted to work our way out of this, we should renew the principle which Jefferson was a champion of, and that's nullification.
If the government gets out of hand, that should be last resort.
If you can't trust your House or Senate or the President or the courts and they don't do anything, you should have the people at the state level protecting the rights of the people at the state and nullify and not just say, look, we don't believe that's a good law and we're not going to follow it.
The problem is that all the states are beholden to the federal government financially.
They can give you money.
They get you drawn in, very dependent.
And if you say, well, we don't want to do what you say, all right, we're taking away your money.
Oh, you can't do that.
So it goes on and on.
But we will have our opportunity.
I think maybe there will be smaller units of government worldwide.
I think there's going to be a lot more nullification because we did make some advance in nullifying federal laws.
Unfortunately, some of that is being reversed again.
But when conditions get worse, there is going to be a lot more demand for secession.
Leave them alone.
Let us take care of ourselves.
And ultimately, the real secession, secession, is that of independent individual, independent sovereignty, not sovereignty alone of the states and this sort of thing.
What we want is independence of individuals.
As long as they do no harm to other people, we should be sovereign individuals that have responsibility for taking care of ourselves and no right to take away rights of other people in order to enhance our lifestyle or whatever we want.
Those conditions would be a true revolution.
It'd be a great declaration to have.
That's my declaration, and that is what I work for.
And hopefully, someday we'll see it.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.