What does Independence Day mean to us in 2018? What did it mean to the Founders? Independent states? Ron Paul gives us a bit of history on this July 4th. What does Independence Day mean to us in 2018? What did it mean to the Founders? Independent states? Ron Paul gives us a bit of history on this July 4th. What does Independence Day mean to us in 2018? What did it mean to the Founders? Independent states? Ron Paul gives us a bit of history on this July 4th.
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New Independence Movement
00:07:20
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| Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in today. | |
| Today with me is Daniel McAdams, our co-host. | |
| Happy Independence Day Dr. Paul, how are you? | |
| Well very good and to our viewers happy Independence Day and I guess they'll be all lining up to have a big party on 4th of July and fireworks and the whole work. | |
| But we want to talk a little bit about what we are celebrating and what we do and whether or not the message has been lost. | |
| But it never hurts to restate the message of what the independent movement was all about because the whole purpose was of course to get rid of a tyrant and the king was a tyrant. | |
| And it became pretty annoying to those who had learned to live in a much freer open society and it finally came to blows. | |
| But you know the one thing that I like in the Declaration really comes at the end because there's one particular emphasis that I like because on three occasions in the last paragraph they talk about free and independent states. | |
| They didn't talk about the United States having an independent movement and they're declaring their independence. | |
| They talked about the group together. | |
| They were free and independent states. | |
| And it was mentioned on three different occasions. | |
| But you know it didn't take long and at the early history it was always referred to the United States R. | |
| But that was changed. | |
| It was changed. | |
| I don't know when, but it soon became United States is. | |
| It became a unit. | |
| And certainly that's what the Civil War in many ways was fought about. | |
| It was an R or an is. | |
| But from the very beginning there was an effort to move to centralize our government. | |
| And there were many back then that complained about the shortcomings of our Constitution not protecting the independent states. | |
| And now look at where we are today. | |
| If you say, well, I'm running on the states' rights positions. | |
| I'm for states' rights. | |
| You know, what do they do? | |
| Immediately say, oh, you must be for slavery or something like that. | |
| They destroyed it. | |
| So even say in states' rights, you can't use that. | |
| They've canceled that out. | |
| But instead of having independent states taking care of their business, keeping government at home as best they can, what we have done is we've gone in the wrong direction. | |
| Not only has our federal government gotten very, very big in spite of the goal of the Declaration of Independence and the so-called goal of the Constitution, because many of them felt that this was the best we could do to keep the states independent. | |
| But it has gone further than that. | |
| Now it's the United Nations is. | |
| It isn't United Nations are. | |
| They've never even used that. | |
| But think of all the international organizations that we have. | |
| We have the IMF and the World Bank and the WTO and NAFTA and all this. | |
| And the empire is pretty solidly in place. | |
| I do not believe if you listen to some of what John Quincy Adams wrote about don't go about the world searching for monsters to destroy. | |
| We have an empire, we're searching for monsters, we control the world, we have this empire, we control the world currency, and it's all run on fictitious economic theory. | |
| So I think we have drifted a long way from where it was started and the goals that they had, although it was very high-minded goals. | |
| You know, I don't know. | |
| Obviously, the support from the people was strong enough for the war to be won, even though it was the thought leaders of the time, the 8% or 10% of the people who knew and understood it. | |
| The founding fathers understood it, and they were able to lead a rebellion against this authoritarianism and this violence committed against them. | |
| So there's much to look at in a very positive way. | |
| It had an influence in our society and our area of the world, but the rest of the world, you know, for many times have looked up to us for this reason. | |
| But in some ways, I don't think that we're quite at the same point of this seriousness about presenting the case for independence and the protection of personal liberty. | |
| I think we need maybe a new declaration one way or another. | |
| Yeah, and with all the things that you point out about how we're moving in the wrong direction, you got me a little bit depressed. | |
| So I had to think in my mind, I've got to find something optimistic. | |
| Dr. Paul's depressing me. | |
| So I was just thinking, as you were saying that, I think there are subtle ways that just sub-rows or just under the surface, there are some positive movements in the other direction. | |
| Look at how the states are moving on marijuana laws. | |
| They say, forget the federal government. | |
| We're moving on our own. | |
| We're going to change our laws. | |
| And that is becoming something even Texas, Adam Dick with the Ron Paul Institute wrote a thing about the Republican Party of Texas endorsing legalization of marijuana. | |
| It's amazing. | |
| And the other thing, look at the gold and silver legal tender laws. | |
| Arizona and Wyoming, I think, they're moving against the federal. | |
| So there are there just a little bit below the surface. | |
| There are some positive things. | |
| Maybe you're describing the counter-revolution. | |
| It was a little slow coming, you know, a counter-revolution against what happened 100 years ago, essentially. | |
| You know, the progressive revolution has been not good for us. | |
| And you say a new revolution or a new Declaration of Independence. | |
| I think there's a new independence movement. | |
| It's an independence of the mind. | |
| It's not, we're not going to go out and pick up guns and start fighting, but an independence of the mind, and that was a liberty movement, even the centerpiece of. | |
| And I think there's a lot of people who feel a little bit disheartened at this point with the Trump movement on one hand, with the rise of the socialists on the other hand. | |
| I think there's a little bit of sense, those of us who sort of lost our way a little bit, but I don't think you believe that at all. | |
| No, and it was pretty specific that the purpose of the Declaration was to secure rights. | |
| And they weren't saying the government gave them to us, that they come to us in a natural way. | |
| They believed in natural rights. | |
| But the power that they had, the just powers, came from the consent of the governed. | |
| And it wasn't something that was bestowed upon them, but there had to be some consent. | |
| Now, a lot of people can read that differently. | |
| I would like to think of it as intellectual consent that you're going to have limited government, then you're going to have the protection more specifically at the state level, which they endorsed. | |
| So it is sometimes people would say, uh-huh, that endorses pure democracy. | |
| It would even endorse democratic socialism. | |
| That is the consent of the governed. | |
| I don't think that's what they had in mind. | |
| So I like to think that there's a big difference. | |
| And the founders, especially as they wrote the Constitution, they wanted to be explicit that there was a difference between a constitutional republic and a pure democracy. | |
| They didn't like that word democracy because it sounds like the majority can dictate. | |
| And they wanted the protection of the minority. | |
| They wanted protection of the small groups. | |
| And that is a good message from the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution of trying to protect against the dictatorship of the majority. | |
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Day of Rebellious Liberty
00:03:34
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| And you know, Dr. Paul, there are a lot of flags around Lake Jackson. | |
| A lot of people are sort of turning Independence Day into a day of worshiping the state, whereas it's the opposite. | |
| It's the day of rebelling against a tyrannical state. | |
| But aside from the philosophical points, we should break it down to some other things. | |
| What is the Paul family doing today? | |
| What are you eating? | |
| What's on the menu? | |
| You know what? | |
| We have an amazing day to celebrate. | |
| It's different because on the 4th of July, 50 years ago, my wife and I, with our four kids at the time, embarked on a trip and we moved to Texas, arrived in Lake Jackson on the 4th of July. | |
| And I've always said to the family, you know, that was a big event, you know, and we would kid and say, just think, you would have never met your spouse and this sort of thing if I had not brought you here. | |
| But so we always thought, well, we're going to have a big celebration. | |
| But guess what? | |
| They're all celebrating and their families are spread around and we're all scattered. | |
| Carol and I are going to have a quiet 4th of July. | |
| So that is quite a bit different. | |
| But it was a big event for us to move there and we remember it well. | |
| That's a great story. | |
| Well, I would just say that we're going to do a little barbecuing ourselves, Dr. Paul. | |
| But I know our viewers, who we are very grateful for, are also going to be enjoying themselves, barbecuing, having some beverages. | |
| But I would like to ask you while you're sitting there relaxing to think about something else today. | |
| And this is a great day to buy your tickets for the Ron Paul Institute's annual Washington Conference. | |
| Media and war is what it's about. | |
| We need to have you there. | |
| We want to see you there. | |
| We want to have you there. | |
| We want to meet you again and meet you for the first time. | |
| We've got great speakers. | |
| We just added John Whitehead, who was on the show earlier this week from the Rutherford Institute. | |
| We've got Lou Rocko. | |
| We've got Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson. | |
| We've got Ray McGovern, former CIA agent. | |
| These are all the people that are on the cutting edge of what we're trying to do, the anti-war movement, beyond left and right, anti-war movement, the pro-civil liberties movement. | |
| These are the people that are active every day and they want to share their experiences. | |
| They want to share some advice. | |
| They want to help us bring this together. | |
| And it's going to be a very, very good day. | |
| So get your tickets today. | |
| Don't delay. | |
| And we'll see you next month. | |
| Well, very good. | |
| And I do want to wish everybody a happy holiday today. | |
| And once again, emphasize the important thing for me, and that is liberty. | |
| Liberty is individual. | |
| Liberty is not bestowed on groups. | |
| You do not have rights because you belong to a group, but you should never be punished because you belong to a certain group. | |
| And if people will obey the one most important rule, it will work. | |
| And I think this is one thing where we have made progress, and that is for this system to work of liberty, the people involved must pledge not to initiate force and violence against others. | |
| No lying, cheating, stealing, hurting, and murdering. | |
| Just what? | |
| Just think if people followed that one rule of prohibition against initiation of force, we would live in a wonderful world. | |
| Of course, it's not going to happen. | |
| There's always going to be people who are going to break the rules, but we need to emphasize that. | |
| And the most important emphasis on this is what kind of a government you have under that system. | |
| We have a government that can't do any of those things either. | |
| Now, that would be a revolution. | |
| I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report. | |