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April 23, 2021 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
22:38
Defund The Police? No Difference Between The Two Parties? -- Ask The Co-Hosts!

Dr. Paul's two co-hosts, Daniel McAdams & Chris Rossini answer viewer questions on today's Ron Paul Liberty Report!

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Time Text
Working Diligently On Liberty Report 00:02:18
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
Dr. Paul is away today.
So, Daniel and I will be taking your questions.
We yesterday asked for you to ask the co-hosts.
And with us being the two co-hosts, we will do our best to answer your questions.
Thank you to everyone who submitted their questions because of time.
We can't do all of them, but we picked the ones that we feel we can answer today.
So, Daniel, we'll start.
He'll read one of your questions and we'll go back and forth from there.
Go ahead, Daniel.
Chris, I guess when the cat's away, the mice will play, right?
That's right.
Well, my first question is a short one, and it's sent in by Justin 806806.
And the question is: when will Dr. Paul, the Liberty Report, host a live event so I can go?
And that's a great question.
We thank you for that because one of the things, Chris, as you know, that we've been missing since they shut everything down is our annual conferences.
You know, we had started having a minor one in Houston and then our major conference in Washington, D.C. every year.
And we've certainly missed that this past year.
And it looks like this year we won't be able to do it in DC either because they're still pretty crazy there.
But I will tell everyone that we are working very diligently.
My colleague Adam and I are working diligently on putting something together for Texas this summer.
So we definitely will keep everyone posted.
Chris, I know you always enjoy yourself at these conferences and it's just great.
I mean, Skype is great, whatever, but being in a room with like-minded people, exchanging information, stories, backgrounds, even connections and business ties, there's just nothing like it.
That's right, Daniel.
You know, we do from you do from the studio, and I'm from home doing the show, and we don't interact with the people that we speak to every week.
And there's tens of thousands of you every week.
So when we get a chance to meet with you, it really is great for all of us.
So yeah, hopefully soon.
My question that I'm going to address first comes from G Dedo.
Choose Gold or Silver? 00:02:55
And he asks, if you had the power to end the Federal Reserve, what is your plan for how money supply should be regulated, strictly gold-backed, or are there other solutions?
We very much appreciate the work you do.
Thank you.
Well, we appreciate you, G. Deddo.
How I would answer that?
Well, first of all, as hopefully President Trump proved, you can't just walk in and shut everything down.
He couldn't even do his constitutional duties.
How many times did he say he's bringing the troops home only to have someone under him come out afterwards and say, oh, no, no, he was just kidding?
So no one is going to walk in and end the Fed.
That's just not going to happen.
Now, that may sound like bad news, but as Dr. Paul has reminded us over and over, the Fed will self-destruct.
That's how it's going to end, because it is going up against economic laws, especially supply and demand.
And no one, not even the Fed, can overrule economic laws.
As far as plan for money, well, there is no plan.
There is no way to plan life for 300 plus million people.
And thinking that you can may get you a job in Washington, but you're thinking like a central planner.
That's what they think that they can do, that they can micromanage the life of everyone.
They can't, but they try and they mess everything up.
So that's just the way it goes.
But money specifically arose on the free market.
It was not chosen by government.
People in the market choose, just like you choose the sneakers you're going to wear.
And for thousands and thousands of years, people have chosen gold and silver because of the superior qualities that it has and that it still has.
It was only afterwards that government comes in and monopolizes it for itself.
But the market can choose whatever it wants.
Gold and silver, it could choose anything.
Today, with our digital economy, you can have gold and silver and exchange ownership rights digitally.
So you don't have to carry around sacks of gold and silver coins.
And government, as far as regulating it, has nothing whatsoever to do with regulating money.
Government's job is to make sure that contracts are upheld.
If you spend an ounce of silver on a t-shirt or whatever, if you try to pass it off as plastic wrapped in silver, that's fraud.
That's when government comes in and punishes you for fraud and for breaking a contract.
So that is the proper role of government and money.
And as you can see, it is the exact opposite of what we have today.
That was great, Chris.
Why Travel Matters 00:03:19
That was really interesting.
You know, when you were starting out, what I was thinking of as you started out saying that Trump is the example, that you can't really do anything.
You know, it reminds me that if any of us learned anything over this past four years, it's that the most whacked out conspiracy theories of the past are all absolutely true.
You know, the idea that there's a deep state and that you can't get anything done, even the president.
And that's certainly been proven, which is shocking.
And it can, you know, we can throw our hands up in despair or we can roll up our sleeves and do something.
And that's what we're trying to do in the face of it.
My second question is from Mark Markic.
How many countries?
See, I take the easy ones, Chris, you take the hard ones.
How many countries has Daniel been to?
And I was thinking about this, and the answer is I don't have any idea, actually, but I did spend a lot of time traveling, especially in the 90s and the early 2000s.
And I remember when I was working with the British Helsinki group, the late director of the group, Christine Stone, her rule always was you can't write about a country that you haven't traveled to.
And at the time, it seemed like a bit of a burden because there was so much going on and there's only so much time to travel.
But in retrospect, it's absolutely correct.
You have a lot of people who have never traveled who write about countries.
And that I think really is the birth of interventionism because when you haven't been there, you start assuming things about people.
People are different.
There is such a thing as culture.
And it's deeper than Washington's think tanks and policy centers.
So it is, I think, extremely important.
And that's one of the saddest things about this sort of rising authoritarianism in the wake of the COVID mess, because it looks like, I mean, I'm thinking I'm never going to be able to go to the UK again because I'm not going to get a vaccine passport.
So how many countries are going to be closed to us?
It really is a step back into the dark ages where you can't travel unless you do certain things that governments tell you.
It's really a step backwards.
But I will say that I have some of the most interesting places I've traveled to.
I spent a couple of weeks in China and Hong Kong, and that was fascinating.
I spent a fascinating week in Cuba.
I spent a lot of time in Belarus.
Ironically, I've never been to Russia.
I wish I had, but I hadn't.
But I also, I spend most of my time probably in the Balkans, you know, and I've was to Albania probably 25 times, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia.
In fact, once I was, I had to be dropped off from the border inside Albania, and I had to walk about a mile or so to get into Montenegro because tensions were so high.
So the border, the border officers thought it was pretty weird out in the middle of nowhere to see an American carrying his suitcase for a mile to get in.
But yeah, travel is important.
Meeting people is important.
And that really, I mean, I think that was how I became a non-interventionist.
I mean, literally.
And not that I was ever a neocon, but it was through travel and meeting people and understanding that there is such a thing as culture and there are differences among people and that they should be respected.
That's what led me to believe in the mid to late 1990s that we have no business being anywhere.
So it was a good lesson that came through travel.
That is great, Daniel.
And I learned a few things there that I never knew about you.
So that was really interesting.
Why Travel Matters 00:14:00
And it really does add a lot of credibility when you speak on foreign policy versus people that sit at their desks in Washington.
They've never been anywhere and they just want to attack everyone, you know, without understanding that these are actual people with their own lifestyles.
My next question comes from Bill Parry.
He asks, left versus right is two wings on the same bird.
What would your plan be to get government out of every American's life?
At what point is enough enough?
Well, I can definitely agree with that kind of sentiment.
Well, especially with the left and right.
And my first comments will be about them.
People, there's a big difference with both parties and what they say and what they actually do.
Now, people on the left are known to be, you know, protest big business in words, but in deeds, they are the exact opposite.
They are the best friends of big business.
Just look at this last year, and it's a lot more than just this last year, but just the lockdowns.
Those were a blessing for big retailers.
The vaccines, the big pharma companies have never made so much money.
And of course, with all the wars, the military-industrial complex.
And this goes all the way back to FDR and his New Deal.
That was when the marriage between big business and big government was cemented.
And the left has been the best friend for both of them ever since.
Now, the right, we know that they're close with big business, but they, in words, protest big government.
In actions, they expand government oftentimes more than Democrats.
Look at President Trump, the record spending and debt and Fed printing.
And that's not just to pick on him.
You could go back to the Bushes and Reagan and Nixon.
It's all the same story.
So the two parties are two faces of the same big business and big government organization.
They've learned how to play people by telling them what they want to hear on both sides.
But in action, they are one.
Now, as far as getting this colossus out of our lives, many people do not want it out of their lives.
They love big government.
So you can't make a plan on getting out of their lives.
Again, you're starting to think like a central planner.
Rather than taking care of yourself, your family, the people around you, you want a plan for 300 million people.
That may be popular in Washington, but in real life, that's not how it works.
What we want is for the ideas of liberty to dominate.
And you just need a small critical amount, not a majority, to spread the ideas.
And then the majority follows.
Look at what happened with COVID.
A tiny, tiny group of people put these ideas of lockdowns and masks, and they just destroyed everything.
But the majority followed.
It just needs to go the other way.
Once a critical minority wants liberty, the majority will end up following.
That's great, Chris.
I think the real pandemic is sociopathic behavior, you know, and we see so much of that nowadays, the desire to control other people and get them to do what you want them to do really is sociopathic or even psychopathic.
My next question is from David McKennerly Smith, and I'm reading one that praises you, Chris.
So love to all three of you guys.
Can't wait to see more of Chris.
He posts some cracker articles.
I like that.
Thank you.
Peace and prosperity seem easy things to sell, but somehow it's a fringe belief system.
So I would ask, what can the liberty movement do to sell the movement more and gain more support?
Libertarians seem to be recorded poorly generally and get a mixed review.
And many think libertarians are things they are not.
Can this be changed and how is it done at scale?
That's a great question.
It's a question I think I certainly ask myself all the time, Chris, and I'm sure you probably do too.
How do you push a movement?
How do you get this thing going?
And a great example of how to do it en masse was when it was Dr. Paul's second two presidential campaigns in 08 and 12, because what Dr. Paul did is he didn't go out there saying, hey, I'm a libertarian.
You guys got to abide by these libertarian rules.
His rules were more rules for humanity.
Don't steal, don't kill, don't hurt other people.
And they were simple.
It was a golden rule, of course, which he was booed for in South Carolina.
But he's a great, he would deny it, but he's a great messenger of liberty and freedom because he doesn't try to be someone he's not.
When he talks about things, those are things from the heart.
That's not a prepared speech.
You know, I remember I'll tell a Ron Paul story.
I hope he doesn't get mad at me.
But we were flying up to Pennsylvania to give a speech.
It was in a small private plane just after he retired.
And it's the first time I really saw him in action as to how he does a speech.
And it was fascinating.
And I would love to get to this level, but I haven't.
But first, he had these stacks of articles everywhere.
There were just tons and tons and tons of articles that he had printed out.
And he's reading them all and he's making notes on a sheet, long notes, long notes on a sheet.
I'm thinking, wow, I mean, does he have enough time to do this?
And he writes all these notes.
He's got pages and pages of notes from all these articles.
And then he pulls out an old used envelope and he turns it over and he looks through his notes and he just scribbles a few things on the back of the envelope.
So that's a great messenger.
And he's been that and he's been an inspiration for us.
But, you know, we have a lot of criticisms of the word libertarian anyway, because, I mean, for me, libertarian simply means you don't want people to take your stuff, to bother you, to hassle you, what church you go to, what you might want to do.
And I certainly don't identify necessarily even as a small L libertarian, but certainly not as a large L libertarian, because, you know, basically these struggles and these fights just mirror the other parties.
They're all jockeying for power.
And that I think, Chris, is a disadvantage as well, because while you're just trying to do your thing and not jockeying for power, other people are jockeying for power over you.
And I read a recent article, I forget where it, but just the other day, talking about why the left succeeds where the right, and whatever that means, I would say probably libertarian, conservative right, fails because the rest of us just want to get on with our lives.
While the rest of them, they want to stack the school board.
They want to get on city council.
They want to pass ordinances.
That's all they think of.
And so we are at a disadvantage.
What can we do about it?
We can certainly, as Dr. Paul would say, study and read and make ourselves as knowledgeable as possible.
So, in casual conversation, we can pass off some ideas without saying this is the libertarian view, but just pass it off because it does make sense.
I think most people in their souls and their hearts really do think along these principles.
It's just up to us to unlock them.
And hopefully, each of us has some God-given skills that we can use to help unlock those views.
Yeah, that's great, Daniel.
And I do have, you know, you jarred my memory when you were talking about Dr. Paul and how he reads.
It still amazes me.
And I, all day long, am taking in information.
And Dr. Paul is always ahead of me.
He calls me up, did you see this?
And I'm like, no, I didn't see that yet.
I didn't see that yet.
He, I mean, he really is amazing with taking in or retaining information.
And he is on top of everything.
So I have one more, Daniel.
I think you may have two more.
No, I just have one more after that.
Okay, okay.
Well, here's my last one.
And this question comes from obscure politics.
He asks, where do you think the path forward is to spread the messages of liberty?
Do you think allying with the America First Disside Right is worthwhile?
In my opinion, the right has gotten much better since the Bush years and the left much worse.
Okay, well, this goes kind of back to the last question.
In practice, they are the same.
The rhetoric on the right is better.
I mean, it's hard to argue when you're libertarian.
And the modern left, at least, you know, we have very, very little in common.
But allying, as long as you don't sacrifice principles, go backwards, as long as you're always moving forward with our message, then yeah, of course.
You know, in fact, sometimes the left, when Republicans are in power, will be vocal and anti-war.
You know, now they may be doing it for political reasons, because when Obama's wars and if Biden has wars, they're completely quiet.
They're not anti-war then.
But when they are anti-war against Republicans, then of course it's a perfect time to ally with them because we're not anti-war for political reasons, but on principle that you should not be attacking anyone unless it's in self-defense.
So in that way, yeah, it's good to ally with spreading the message of liberty.
There is no one way.
Of course, Dr. Paul, when he's asked, you know, what should I do?
He says, do what you want.
And that is the greatest answer you can give because we are all so different.
This is our way.
We do videos, we write articles, we do conferences.
But you may be a cartoonist who makes memes.
You may be a novelist or a musician that can make songs that move people.
So there's no, again, central planner with how to spread the message of liberty.
Nobody is going to come along and say, this is your place.
This is what you have to do.
It's for you to discover it yourself, whatever it is that's in you and how to spread the message.
And our only advice is if you have that, then please speak up.
That's the only way that our ideas could come to dominate someday.
That's great, Chris.
You know, the other thing that you can be, which is very valuable, and I think sometimes it's undervalued in the minds of the very people who do it.
And that is to go out and start a successful business or be successful in your career.
And we have so many generous supporters, but they're not necessarily out giving huge speeches somewhere, but they appreciate the things that Dr. Paul is doing and the things that the Liberty Movement is doing.
And they provide the most critical thing, which is support.
You know, if you go out and you're very successful, there are philanthropically minded people who are just wonderful.
And a lot of them aren't wealthy, but they do value putting their money, investing their money into something that they hope will help the future for their children and grandchildren.
So entrepreneurs, businessmen, even just people with average jobs who are good budgeters, they're also extremely important and they should really be valued as the core of the liberty movement.
We don't have George Soros, you know, we don't have Daddy Warbucks behind us.
So what we have are a lot of great and dedicated people.
So I'm going to do my last one, Chris, and this is from Emma Welch.
Could the Democrats' plan all along in regards to defund the police, et cetera, be to usher in an era where we only have one centralized federal law enforcement agency, as opposed to local and state law enforcement and all the alphabet agencies?
If this is a possible agenda, what are the odds of this agenda being achieved?
So much respect and appreciation for Dr. Paul, Mr. McAllis, Mr. Rossini, and everyone who contributes to my daily news.
Well, thank you, Emma.
That's very nice words.
And the reason I chose this, Chris and Emma, is that I was just on an interview a few days ago where this question was thrown out at me, and I hadn't really thought a lot about it.
It's not really an area where I think a lot about.
But when I saw the question phrased that way, and I see all of the, and I think, you know, media-backed, media-amplified brouhahas every day of a police officer shooting something.
And that's not to detract from that.
We have way too much police violence in the country.
We have way too much police overreaction in the country.
But every time it's amplified by the mainstream media, we have to wonder to ourselves who benefits, cui bono.
And I think there is a very, very strong centralizing energy right now in the country in the Biden administration, which is an administration without a head.
It's really a headless administration because the idea that Biden is controlling anything is absurd.
But there are a bunch of people in the second and third tiers and fourth tiers who are extremely centralizing in their philosophy and outlook.
And if you start thinking that, hey, we can't let some redneck police station in Georgia have its own policing, they have to be subject to the U.S. police force, I would have thought that was absurd a while ago.
But everything is upside down, Chris and Emma, and I don't think it's absurd any longer.
That may well be the end goal as to what we can do about it.
Well, educate ourselves and be ready for what might be coming.
That's great, Daniel.
Well, that concludes our show.
Daniel and I would both like to thank you.
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