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July 3, 2020 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
14:57
Independence Day Under Dictatorship

This July 4th, much of the United States finds itself under various levels of dictatorial orders from renegade governors, county, and local officials. The US is under rule by decree, not by rule of law. Looking at the original list of grievances the Colonists had against King George, it looks like most of them are met - and then some - by our current system of government. Can we regain our independence?

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Time Text
Cancelling Freedom 00:09:37
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host, and I want to wish him a happy Independence Day, July 4th, except it isn't July 4th.
They canceled July 4th this year, and I'm wondering, have they lost confidence in July 4th?
I wonder if our leaders will allow us to celebrate our freedoms.
No, they better, because that's the subject of today, of course, for 4th of July.
But in a way, it's sort of almost symbolic.
4th of July came on Saturday, so we have to cancel that.
So you have to celebrate it.
The official holiday is on the 3rd.
And besides, 4th of July is actually being canceled in some ways the celebration.
We don't get to have our fireworks in our own little town here.
But it reminds me very clearly, the first day I arrived in Lake Jackson to start my medical practice was in 1968.
And we went to the fireworks.
But I think it's been there every year since, but not this year because things are so tough.
And, you know, I wonder then whether this year we should be celebrating the birth of our independence or we should mourn the loss of our liberties.
And I guess you could make a case for both.
We're still doing pretty well.
We still have, you know, a lot to be grateful for.
And if you compare our lifestyle and our liberties to a lot of other countries, there's a problem.
But if you look at trends, the trends aren't very good for us.
I think we're going in the wrong direction.
And we're not accumulating more liberty.
We have diminished our liberties.
And, you know, the right to speak out is being challenged like never before.
If you can't speak out, you can't contest the government.
Governments always need contested.
That's the way it's been.
And this country was built on the fact that you could criticize the government.
And my whole definition of patriotism is to be able to criticize your own government.
It's not to be obedient and do everything they say, especially when they're wrong.
That is not patriotism.
Patriotism is not related, you know, to empires.
You have to defend the empire and go around the world and have our kids killed all around the world.
That to me is not patriotism.
That is not what I celebrate on the 4th of July.
What I like to talk about is that a unique system was developed coming out of the 4th of July and our separation from England.
And this has worked out generally pretty well.
Far from perfection, but at least it was set up.
And if you compare what we did in the first hundred years or so, it was pretty magnificent compared to everybody else because history has shown that almost all revolutions end up with the people having less liberty, even though most revolutions are always being fought for giving more liberty.
Just as this revolution going on now today in our streets, that there are always the claim, well, we got to help the people.
We got to give the people their freedom back and this sort of thing.
But the truth is, this revolution would probably end up, if it's successful, the ones we're seeing in the streets right now, if that one is successful, we're all going to have a lot less liberty.
And here we have these last three months.
It would make the argument for mourning a little bit because we've been tested.
We've had our liberties sharply curtailed over the coronavirus and also the slump in the economy, which was created by our monetary system and the Federal Reserve.
And then also the distortion of what's going on with Black Lives Matter that you can't even say anything.
There was a recently, which really got my attention, especially at this 4th of July period.
And that is the head of the nursing unit in University of Massachusetts was expressing something in a medical sense of how we as physicians and nurses, we look at everybody, you know, universally.
Every life we deal with matters.
And she made this suggestion that everyone's life matters.
Guess how she was praised for that?
She got fired.
That is not a good thing to celebrate on our 4th of July.
The only thing I can say is if this becomes noticeable, maybe it'll wake up some people and say the original 4th of July wasn't there to protect the government and a system that says your speech is going to be severely curtailed.
And our speech is being severely curtailed.
So we have enjoyed a lot of liberties compared to others, but I think that we're living on borrowed time and borrowed money.
And therefore, on this 4th of July, I don't want to mourn.
I will mourn some of the bad mistakes made, but I will also be thankful that we live in a country that has been very beneficial to a lot of people, but that we have an obligation to an obligation to do our part in stating the principles of liberty and help spread that message.
That to me is an important project for all of us.
Daniel.
Well, Dr. Paul, our title today is a takeoff on a brilliant piece by our friend Jim Bovard that he published today in the American Institute for Economic Research.
And the title of Jim's piece is Independence Day in the Midst of Dictatorship.
And we borrowed very liberally from his title for our title, but it makes so much sense.
And, you know, Jim is a master at writing and conveying complex thoughts in a way that are so poignant, but he starts it with saying, how many Americans will greet July 4th Day with gratitude that their governor is no longer compelling them to shelter in place or stay at home so they can celebrate their freedom?
And that's something you say a lot.
Oh, thank you for letting me go, getting that boot off of my neck.
Thank you so much for it.
And it really is stunning.
You think about this July 4th.
And Jim points out 300 million Americans were put under stay-at-home orders by their own governments.
You stay at home.
Don't even dare go outside by their government.
No due process.
No legislative moves to make it happen.
And here's, I'll just read one other thing, and then I'm just going to go into one other point that I wouldn't mind making.
But here's what Jim says.
Do America's politicians and media have any special suggestion on how the tens of millions of people who lost their jobs due to the shutdowns should celebrate Independence Day?
How should small business owners who have been bankrupted mark July 4th?
And that's exactly it, bankrupted by power-hungry governors, even on down to power-hungry mayors who listen to a lot of nonsense.
But I wanted to read, I was looking through the original grievances, and this is why we declared independence from the crown.
We had some grievances.
We didn't like the way the king was running things.
He was doing some pretty dumb things.
He was not being very nice to our liberties.
I was going to read a couple of them that I thought might be pondering, worth pondering today.
And if you'll give me the ability, Grievance 16, for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world.
Sounds like sanctions.
Grievance 17 for imposing taxes on us without our consent.
How dare they do that?
Grievance 18 for depriving us in many cases the benefit of trial by jury.
We see a lot of that happening in essence.
Grievance 22 for suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate.
Well, that's just what the governors did.
They didn't pass any laws.
They declared executive order.
That reminds you of COVID.
And here's another one, 27.
He has excited domestic insurrections among us.
And that reminds me of what you were just talking about, Black Lives Matter and Tifa.
The authorities order the police to stand down and let them burn things up.
So you could really go through all of the 27 grievances and find a lot of them are probably more relevant today than they were under King George, not to mention our taxation is a lot higher.
Now, you dated this.
You told us where this came from.
But if that was not explicit and somebody starts reading this in the middle, they'll think they're reading the newspaper.
Yeah, I'm glad somebody's noticed this.
Well, it is a tragedy.
But I think this whole issue stems from the fact that people have a misconception on where liberty comes from.
And they have accepted the silly notion, the notion in air, and that is our liberties come from permission from the government.
You know, this whole point, it doesn't.
Liberty should come to us in a natural way, a lot of people in a God-given way, and it's really a natural right, and that government doesn't do it.
The most the government can do is make this very sincere effort to protect your right to your liberty, and that should be the limitation of government.
But what does that lead to?
That leads to a system where individuals should accept the fact that they make the decision of taking a risk.
But today that isn't the case because there's always a safety net for everybody.
Do you know there's a safety net for big business and banks and politicians?
They all have safety nets.
Everybody says the safety nets for the poor people.
Sometimes the poor people are poor because there's too many safety nets even before they're in trouble with the big guys.
Individuals And Safety Nets 00:05:02
So it's a design where it's completely distanced from what the original intent of the Constitution was.
But I think the other thing that is lacking is a moral principle.
The moral principle, and we were warned even by the founders, that if you don't have a moral society and a people with morality, liberty, because you write it down on a piece of paper, it's nice and it's a good guideline, but that isn't the answer.
You have to have a moral people that will respond in a positive way that life is precious.
And somebody else's life is as precious as yours, and you can't abuse that life.
And yet, that is basically what they do.
And so often, we've pondered the question, how can they do this?
How do they live with themselves?
Look at the harm done.
Look at what they've done with lockdown.
Look at what they did, you know, in the early part of this century on all the wars and killing, well, throughout our history, but especially, you know, in the Middle East.
How do they live with themselves on that?
And, you know, the way I see that is that people and thugs on the street, you know, you see these thugs go up and they start killing people.
And you see them doing it and they walk away as if they're eating an ice cream cone.
It doesn't do it.
They have no sense of morality.
And these individuals, I believe, do not have a conscience.
They're sociopaths and sometimes psychopaths.
And they're different.
But the problem is, is if you had one or two or three, you might be able to handle it.
But when a society becomes sociopathic and they make the excuse, but if they don't start with the right premises, then it invices to make an excuse for what the people are doing.
And because I think, you know, I hear the statement, and this is a good statement, and I've used it, is you should treat other people like you want to be treated yourself.
And that is a very good thing.
And we should treat other countries like we want to be treated.
But the problem is, when the country or the majority or a large number of leaders becomes sociopathic, they have no self-esteem.
And so you can't expect them to, they say, well, you don't treat that individual like I want to be treated.
Matter of fact, when they don't have any self-esteem, I think they're sort of on a suicide mission.
And they have no respect for themselves.
They don't think like, not only do they not think other people's lives are worth much, they don't even think much of their own life.
So I think this age that we live in is very risky.
I'd like to think on the positive side that at the beginning, certainly, it was a birth of liberty to a large degree.
It's being diminished now.
But believe me, I am convinced there's still a spark of liberty left, and we need to ignite that spark of liberty and make sure it gets spread so that we don't have to put up with a continual downslide of this.
And I do see the spark.
I believe in it.
And I wouldn't do this if I didn't think there was some benefit to this to spread a message.
Besides, I feel obligated to do it.
And believe it or not, I enjoy talking to people when I see a sign of it.
I understand what you're saying.
You know, let's do something about it.
And then that excites me.
So, Daniel.
Well, I would just close.
I don't want to end on a downer.
I would just close by saying, declare your independence.
You know, we have a lot of bad things happening, but we are individuals.
Declare your independence.
Defend your liberty.
And I think back, Dr. Paul, to our own Brazoria County Park Patriots, homeschool families.
They took their kids to the park.
They cut the tape.
And they said, we are going to play in these parks.
And when the police came, they challenged the police.
What laws are you enforcing?
And the police had to back down.
I think that's a great model for all of us.
Challenge, don't just take it.
Don't just put on your mask because someone says you have to do it.
Challenge it, defend your liberty.
We do have a future, but we're going to have to work very hard to make that happen.
I want to go ahead and finish with one more point is governments can't protect us from ourselves.
They attempt to because they believe they're better than us.
They've told me that, that people are stupid and they can't take care of themselves.
So we have to take care of themselves.
But if you expect or accept the system where the government is supposed to take care of us and we're not supposed to care of ourselves, there's no end to it.
They can do anything and everything because it's a religious issue, it's an economic issue, it's a foreign policy issue, it's a social issue, and that's where we are today because everybody has to have a safety net.
And I would say the best safety net in the world could be your liberty.
And that is what we should be struggling for to get people to understand it and then work for it.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today.
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