Socialism vs. Trumpism --- Where Are The Libertarians?
The U.S. government continues to steamroll over the freedom of American citizens. Under the Trump Administration, it's done in a less PC-manner, but the walls continue to close in on liberty in America. Meanwhile Socialists see this as an opportunity to put the final nail in the American Dream coffin. Will the ideas of Liberty rise up to oppose this tag team?
The U.S. government continues to steamroll over the freedom of American citizens. Under the Trump Administration, it's done in a less PC-manner, but the walls continue to close in on liberty in America. Meanwhile Socialists see this as an opportunity to put the final nail in the American Dream coffin. Will the ideas of Liberty rise up to oppose this tag team?
The U.S. government continues to steamroll over the freedom of American citizens. Under the Trump Administration, it's done in a less PC-manner, but the walls continue to close in on liberty in America. Meanwhile Socialists see this as an opportunity to put the final nail in the American Dream coffin. Will the ideas of Liberty rise up to oppose this tag team?
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Chris Rossini, our co-host.
Chris, welcome to the program.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
And we've talked a little bit on our programs about what went on with this recent election.
It's fascinating.
A lot of people are talking about it and we'll talk a little bit more about the significance of it.
The fact that Cortez is a 28-year-old young woman who will be the youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress, never been in office before, has beaten a 20-year incumbent Democrat who thought he was on his way to be the Speaker of the House.
It is pretty much newsworthy.
But, you know, once again, a lot of people will paint this as a world changer.
I think it's a significance about a philosophic challenge between different segments of our society.
But when you look at it in the narrow sense, you know, there were about 30,000 people voted, and it separated, the separation was about 22,000 votes.
So it isn't like it's a huge, huge thing, but symbolically, it's been very, very huge because it is the challenge, at least public relations-wise, who is going to represent the Democratic Party.
And Republicans go through this too.
When the Republicans were failing to do much in the Congress against Obama, then there was this populist movement and another approach to government, and now we have President Trump.
But others now on the left say, well, we have to do something just as dramatic.
We've got to really pull out the stomps and present something new.
And there's a lot of them excited and say, this is it.
It is socialism.
We had a tremendous popularity of Sanders.
Bernie Sanders did quite well with young people and the willingness to use the word socialism and did well.
And this same thing here, here's a woman that's used socialism.
In the old days, it used to be that that would scare some people off.
Americans aren't supposed to be socialists.
But the big thing is, is how significant is it?
Are the Americans now going to move towards socialism?
Or are they going to reassess their values?
Do you think Trumpism is the answer to it?
Or could it be possible that there's a lot of friction going on between these two groups, but they're not really representing where the philosophic disagreement is?
And I sort of take that approach, Chris.
I take the approach that this isn't the debate.
My debate that I want to have is non-intervention versus intervention, big government versus little government, liberty versus authoritarianism.
And right now, we haven't accomplished that.
I think we've made progress.
There's a lot more talk about libertarianism, but it seems like, you know, since the election, there's less emphasis on, of course, we're being challenged by the fact that nobody in the major media will want to talk about libertarianism, about liberty and the Constitution.
Oh, no, that's not what we're here about.
We're in for this battle.
How much socialism and how much cronyism can we have and how much corporatism can we have?
Libertarianism's Battle Cry00:14:41
So that's where we are.
But it still is interesting, Chris, I think, to try to analyze exactly who this candidate Cortez is and what her beliefs are.
Yes, it's a shame that socialist ideas of all the ideas are getting play these days because we're dealing with, and we have to think about where we are as a country.
We're the biggest government in the entire world that's ever existed, and it's broker than any government that has ever existed.
It's at 21 trillion and counting, and it's not stopping.
So I want to draw an analogy for our audience.
Imagine like a family, a father.
And this guy, he is broke himself.
He owes the IRS back taxes.
He owes loan sharks and banks.
And he comes home to his family one day and he says, you know what, everyone, we need a change.
Free cars for everybody.
I mean, how ridiculous would that sound if you take it to a micro level like that?
And that's what socialism is.
They're promising free stuff from a government that is in no position to offer anything to anybody.
You know, I think the argument has been going on for a long time, and I think it's part of what's going on here, is that people want power and they want to divvy up the loot.
They have their special interests, and it's supposedly the Democrats are for poor people, and we need redistribution of wealth.
And if you look at Protestant's platform, that's exactly what it is.
But the other side is crony capitalism.
Who do you bail out and who benefits from this corporate system?
Who benefits from corporatism and the financial system and fiat money and the Federal Reserve and all these deficits?
It's just different groups, but they're only dealing with the same principle.
And that is the reason sometimes when they get to Washington, there is an overlap of it and there's a compromise.
Because I've heard and I've seen it in operation where a Pelosi will deal with a John Boehner and say, okay, John, this is what we're going to give you.
You can have more money for dropping bombs.
And they'll pretend we don't drop bombs.
And then we'll say, you give us more money for our poor people.
And then it'll look like we're really caring about the poor people.
The truth is, if you look at Crowley or Hillary, they were in a position where they talked about that that they are the only ones who cared about poor people.
At the same time, they were taking a lot of money, if not more money.
This was the case with Crowley versus Cortez.
He got the big money.
He got the Wall Street money.
He was an establishment.
And she got the little money because she was running as an independent, which was very good.
But philosophically, I can't see a whole lot of difference.
It's just the victims.
The victims might be different.
And the beneficiaries might be different.
But the one thing for sure that seems to permeate both of these arguments is spending is a good idea.
You lose on this business of cutting back spending.
And that was one thing that the supply siders did wonderfully.
They would come along, and well, the Republicans always were more conservative.
Democrats would get credit for passing social programs.
And the Republicans come along and they were fiscal conservative.
Well, we're going to raise taxes and balance the budget and cut here and that.
Well, supply siders said, don't worry about too much deficit because what we want is a healthy economy.
And that will pay for.
We'll project that there'll be great wealth that we can pay for all these bills.
And we can take care of the crony capitalists who want to be protected as well as the poor people.
And the whole thing is, is both sides of this argument essentially don't care about deficits.
They've been taught that.
They might have skepticism about it on the conservative side, but they never do anything about it.
And if you look at big government programs, even the big medical programs, they came from the Republican Party as much as the Democratic Party.
And I think what we're seeing now might be very healthy.
You know, that instead of this crony capitalism and welfarism where they trade votes, if you get a pure socialist coming in and getting some more socialistic, that this might demonstrate exactly where they are.
Take a look at Bernie Sanders, but I'm not so sure where he stands now because he was a devout socialist, at least he called himself.
I didn't put that label on him as strongly as he did.
But guess what?
In the last two years, he made a million dollars each year.
So he might like his kind of socialism, and maybe it blends together with corporate welfarism and crony capitalism.
So, Chris, what I'm anxious to do is get the debate going and get it academically inclined of defending certain positions.
But somebody has to get out there and get a libertarian message interjected here instead of just one type of cronyism.
I think that right now the debate between Trumpism and socialism is going on and is getting vicious.
And because there are a lot of poor people out there, they have to blame somebody.
And there's a lot of anger going on, but they're not touching it.
Both sides are interventionists, and both sides are building up deficits.
Both sides depend on the printing press.
So how are we going to manage this?
How can we get them to really think about the differences and why we do have to challenge the fundamentals, not only of this nonsense about socialism in the pure sense, as Cortez describes it, versus, you know, the type of spending that's going on with our administration?
There's no hesitation now to spend money.
Yes, we need more people to speak out.
You know, libertarians will tend to be more silent because we're basically going against this huge wave of just government intervention on all angles, but you have to speak out.
And this Cortez, she's young, and she's appealing to millennials who I feel sorry for because they're getting taken for a ride.
And while they're all responsible for themselves, I lay a lot of responsibility on America's universities who should be ashamed of themselves because with the history of socialism, with the massive hundreds of millions dead and the starvation, you'd think that they would have more sense, but they peddle Marxism completely.
So shame on them.
And it's as if they were teaching the kids that the earth is flat and they're just drilling it into them.
You would be like, what are you doing?
Why are you teaching them the earth is flat?
And that's what it is with socialism.
It's a dead idea, but they're keeping it alive because of one word, and that's power.
And also, she did have a platform.
She told us what she believed in, and I think even more clearly so than even Bernie did.
And she was explicit, like free everything, free food, free jobs.
Everybody had a job, cradle the grave, education, medical.
The whole works.
And never once they say, how do you pay for it?
Where does this come from?
Can it lead to bad things?
Did anybody bring the questions?
That's the reason a guy like Rowley is then going to preach there and say, hey, don't you know what you're talking about?
Is you're driving this country into Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
That's what socialism brings us to.
And we're on the verge of it.
Different natures.
But this country is a mess because people are so angry because the system that we have today has made the distribution of wealth so out of whack.
And that's where the anger comes from.
So that hasn't solved the problem.
The biggest problem I think In presenting this, is what they have accomplished is the continued belief in Santa Claus.
You know, when we're young, we tend to buy into that.
That's a neat little trick about, oh, we get presidents and Santa Claus.
But this is, Santa Claus is still out there.
They almost have this blind loyalty to Santa Claus that is going to come from the sky and whatever is needed.
Nobody's going to suffer.
And all they have to do is listen to big government planning, and this is going to work out.
But she, the best I could tell, she didn't talk about who's going to work.
They're going to give her everybody who gets a job.
Well, what are they going to do and what are they going to get paid?
Well, nobody knows what job they're going to get.
Nobody will know what the payment should be.
And it'll be a mess.
And the system is built on debt.
And there's going to be, if we've already practiced this to a degree and we have this such division in the distribution of wealth, it's going to get much worse.
You say, oh, no, socialism, bring them together.
That's what happened.
That's not true.
There was always an elite in the Soviet system, all socialist systems.
And do you think the president of Venezuela ever had to suffer for not having something?
No.
It's always a gimmick to try to convince people, brainwash people, Santa Claus is with us, Santa Claus is real.
And like you suggest, why do they believe this?
And yet they do.
And when you have a serious discussion about, well, we're interested in that.
We have a system where we can distribute wealth much better and we can protect personal liberty and personal choices.
We talk about this.
Where is the support for that?
Would they have a serious talk about competition now with a libertarian society?
I mean, the Democrats love Trump to bash, you know, say this, this, and all the bad stuff, but they don't want to get this into a libertarian issue.
And Trump is raised on that.
I mean, if you talk about his platform versus Cortez's, he's much closer.
At least he says, you know, we ought to have less regulations.
And, you know, we ought to, you know, at least cut back on what we're doing.
And this is much better and cut taxes.
So there is a difference, but that is minor compared to the big picture of what do we do with our foreign policy and what do we do with the military spending.
Right now, there are no restraints.
In the past, even if you had one or two Democrats maybe expressing a desire to be in a progressive situation and cut back on that, the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership, they endorse all this stuff.
So these battles, unfortunately, are personality battles and a power struggle, but they are not battles over philosophy, even though people can point out, well, Democrats are going to raise your taxes, Republicans won't do it.
But that's not always true.
You know, Republicans will give you your medical care control back.
Well, over the years, the Republicans were lousy on building government medical care.
So it goes on and on.
So that's why, Chris, if there's nothing else that we can do or suggest is we need to get people not seeing that the only battle is between a new socialist coming into the Congress who speaks well and very bright and knows how to spend Santa Claus versus the continuation of populism where we'll take care of everybody.
We know how to, we know, really know how to use tariffs to make everybody happy and make America great again.
I'm interested in making America free again, and then the American greatness will come automatically.
Yes, great analogy.
I'll finish, Dr. Paul.
That Santa Claus analogy was fantastic because it's true.
And socialists, they're really, they're the ones who exploit.
They love to throw the word exploit around.
They're the exploiters because, you know, as human beings, we want what we want, whatever it is, with the least amount of effort and time involved.
So, socialists, they go, we'll give you free stuff.
And it's nonsense.
There is no free, especially from government, because they have to take it from someone else.
And theft, if you believe in morality, is wrong.
But they cloud it.
They use words like sharing and share the wealth.
Do your fair share.
This is exploitation of people that just don't know.
They don't know any better, but they want what they want very quickly and without effort.
So we have to do a better job, as we talk about every week.
And number one, there is no free lunch.
As long as it's voluntary, if you get something voluntarily from someone else that's free, that's fine.
But that's not what government is all about.
And responsibility and free markets, sound money, liberty.
Someday, hopefully, this message will get out to a larger audience.
Well, and I think that's a very good point.
And matter of fact, the socialists who use it all the time.
And I think in a sincere way, because I understand what they're talking about, even though it was caused by something different than they think, because they're disgusted with the corporate world getting free stuff.
You know, they get the bailouts, they get the contracts, and they get to sell military weapons.
They get to promote our foreign policy to make all this money.
So they're getting free stuff too.
So they have the same emotional and moral argument.
Well, they're getting free stuff.
We need to get free stuff.
So they are endorsing the same principle.
I think where we fail as free market people and libertarians is we have not been able to convince enough people that freedom is actually very, very practical.
It's authoritarianism which is corrupt, corrupt, and the people just, you know, if their power is there and their wealth is there to distribute it.
The bad people who like this idea end up in government so that they can run the show.
So this is the problem that we have is we believe that government's responsibility is there.
So in order to stop that, we need to take this whole philosophy that government is there to redistribute wealth.
Endorsing Freedom's Principle00:03:16
We got off on a tangent.
That is not what the Constitution says.
That's what it tried hard to prohibit.
And it's only been the last hundred years.
The philosophic beginning of this was with the progressive era.
Income tax and foreign policy interventionism, the Federal Reserve System, social welfarism.
All these things started in the last hundred years and endorsed by Republicans.
Yeah, both of them.
And there was always others that say that we want to be pure socialists, but they were getting what they wanted.
You know, some people used to point out, they took the Communist Manifesto and they would list it and they say, one, two, three, four, hey, we've endorsed just about every one of their basic principles in the communist manifesto.
But you say that and you say, oh, you're way out and you're not talking in practicality.
But I tell you what, the practicality is the system we have is not working.
It doesn't work because of this conflict, because of a misunderstanding of why we have more and more poor people and more and more rich people who are upset.
And one thing that fascinates me is we are the richest country in the world.
We're doing very, very well.
Our dollar continues to be stronger than it deserves, and yet we're able to have an administration go out and say, you know, we are being ripped off and we are going to do this and we want a better deal.
Because we have the deal, we get to print all the money of the world.
And we get to pass that out and buy stuff.
Causes trade imbalances.
And then we blame the trade imbalances on the fact that people sold as stuff and they're investing back in our country.
So that's so far cry, you know, from what a free market is like, or what sound money is like, or what it would be like if we could just get rid of the principle of the central bank and especially, of course, the Federal Reserve.
So we have a long way to go, but the encouraging thing is, in the last 30 years of me working on this, we have a lot more interest in this going on.
You know, a different principle.
We don't want just more crony capitalism and socialism, that they want personal liberty.
And I think the needs are going to be greater.
We're going to have to do something.
The opportunities are going to be there, but somebody has to define what it's all about.
And for me, it's not complex.
It boils down to one principle: that liberty goes to individuals and not to groups.
And the government's not there to divvy up the loot that they steal.
Liberty provides the incentive for people to go out and be motivated to take care of themselves and their families.
And that there will be a super amount of wealth that many people will be taking care of through a voluntary organization rather than this coercive organization that turns a country like ours and could turn it into a country like Venezuela, because that generally is what happened in the past.
So we here at the Liberty Report channel, we advocate personal liberty, personal responsibility, private property, freedom of exchange and contracts.
Believe In Liberty's Rules00:00:12
Believe me, they're miraculous if people would believe in it and respect the rules that they are based on.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.