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Sept. 2, 2022 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
25:27
Falling Military Recruitment: Why We Shouldn't Be Surprised

The U.S. military is having a hard time finding new recruits. With a string of failed wars that should've never happened, along with illogical vaccine mandates and "wokeness," is it really a surprise?

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Cash Crunch Ahead 00:04:42
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Chris Rossini, our co-host.
Chris, good to see you today.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Good.
There's something in the news right now that I want to visit.
We'll do this in a couple minutes, but I want to mention something about gold first.
But there's a recruitment problem for the military, and that's a mixed bag, and it's a little bit complicated why people don't want to go into the military and what is the significance.
But before I do that, I want to mention a news clip.
It has to do with dollars, which means it has to do with prices.
It has to do with inflation.
It has to do with some of the bad things happening in our economic policy area that have not been discounted yet.
That is, the economy hasn't absorbed it.
And that is, there is a news clip out.
It says 80% of all U.S. dollars in existence were printed in the last 22 months.
80%.
That is big-time inflation.
And they're talking about the cash plus checking account, which is probably more flexible.
It moves around a lot faster than what happens if you're talking about savings accounts and CDs and all, because they're sort of parked over here and they don't get changed frequently.
But cash, people coming up short of cash.
We do read a lot of stories about that, how long people have cash, and they're talking about literal cash in their checking account and maybe ready available cash that they can use.
But the point I want to make is that with QE, QE came out of the very, very bad recession following 2008, the housing crash.
So there's tremendous inflation there.
And then on top of that, inflation I'm talking about is money creation.
Back then, and then this was added on to a couple years ago, and that was as a result of COVID.
And that'll be part of what's in this past 22 months when it increased tremendously.
But some of that has been discounted.
Some of it has not been because you can't measure it because it will result from what individuals do each and every one.
Because Mises called it human action.
We can't measure human actions and why people spend their money or save money and what they're going to spend it on.
A Keynesian economist will say, oh, no, all we need is a computer.
We'll put in stuff in the computer and it'll pop out the answer on how much money we should print and how much spending we should have and what the interest rate should be.
Well, they do that and they've been doing it for 60, 70 years.
It hasn't gone too well, but they're continuing to do it and they still use that process.
So there's a lot of mixed signals.
So price mechanisms are a mixed bag.
Some are market-oriented and most of them are interfered with by government regulation and interest rate control.
Because of this, it's difficult to, of course, anticipate what's going to happen in the gold and silver markets.
Long term, I don't have any doubt in my mind that when governments spend too much money, this is history throughout all history.
When they spend too much money and they don't have money in the bank, the people are overtaxed.
What they do is they print the money or debase the currency.
And I think that is what happened.
So it makes it harder for people to protect.
Because if you look at the long term, having gold is the protector.
I mean, it's the best thing people know.
Because, you know, there was a time when $20 got you an ounce of gold and look, it's dipping right now and adjusting.
But now it's up to almost $2,000 at a time.
And that's all coming back.
So long term, it's going to happen.
Timing is a big deal.
And looking at all the options of what you can do temporarily and how and why you might move it around or you might just find out more information.
Now, one thing I want to suggest to you today is how you can get some more information from Burke Gold, the company I work with.
Purpose Of Military Questioned 00:15:04
And they can at least guide you in deciding when and what, what to do.
Nobody knows all the perfect answers because we don't know exactly what will happen tomorrow.
But I think people who spend a lifetime studying it and are advisors, it's worth listening to.
So the one thing is if you look at the text number on the screen, if you text that number, they will send you some information and brochures to help you and guide you in making decisions about gold.
Because gold is not going to go away, but it's going to have ups and downs.
But if you want to compare it to owning stocks in the market, you'll find out that dependency long term is much greater with gold than probably anything else.
But Chris, I want to go on now and start talking about the recruitment thing.
Recruitment is way down.
And one reason is employment is up, but the employment, I think, is a fake type of recording right now because if you inject a lot of money, think of it as getting away with counterfeiting, that will stimulate things and people will feel better.
And right now, the situation is where people aren't wanting to go into the military.
There are some shortcomings, but it's been happening.
It's the worst right now since 1973.
That's 50 years almost that they have low recruitment.
But this has something to do with national defense.
The military people, the people who are the individuals wanting for us to pursue military adventurism around the world, oh, this is really scary stuff.
Some of us might think, well, maybe that'll teach us to tighten our belt and wise up with our foreign policy.
Why should we plan and antagonize China at the same time we plan and antagonize Russia and just looking for options and getting more Iraq wars and Afghanistan war, which are long-lasting right now?
We're working on how long are we going to be in Syria?
How long are we going to be in Ukraine?
And we're going to be there until the money runs out.
But the dollars themselves we won't run out because they can print them.
But what will run out is the value of the dollar.
And that is a big deal.
And I think this is a signal that people do not see reassurance that they like the military, the qualifications to get into the military.
I don't think there's the pride that once occurred, especially say in the World War II period of time of being in the military.
Right now, the qualities are down, the recruitment is down, and it will annoy the people who want to run the empire.
They'd have more people, better training, but they're missing the boat because they're accommodating the political correct crowd.
They're accommodating the cultural Marxists.
And if they do that, they'll have no better success in the military than they have in the environment.
And I think this low recruitment is something that is democratically oriented.
Democracy has its shortcomings, but you can sense what's going on by what the people are doing and thinking.
And right now, the vote is be cautious and they're not jumping at the opportunity to go into the Army in spite of the increasing the benefits just to sign up.
So it's an issue that I think is going to get much worse because there's going to be a lot more people losing their jobs and there's going to be a shift.
It's going to be from nobody wanting to come till everybody wants in and the standards lowered even more.
So the people who think that the Army will remain the greatest army ever and that we justify it because we are a power that has an obligation to bring about peace in the world by occupying these countries and protecting our empire, which as far as I'm concerned is a bunch of nonsense.
Chris.
Right, Dr. Paul.
I'm not surprised personally that recruitment is down.
It's actually almost a good sign people are using their heads because they see what it means.
My entire life has been highlighted by one war after another, and it's not like we win these wars.
They're unwinnable wars.
I mean, we know what happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan, now Iraq.
People are coming.
And we know people that actually went.
And now they have to look back at this and wonder why.
You know, the policies have been outrageous.
So, of course, people are like, I'm not going to do that.
And then you had the vax debacle, where you were kicked out of the military for taking a vax that we now see does not prevent you from getting COVID or spreading it.
But they were trying to force it on everyone or kick you out.
And not only taking the vax, there was talk back in that time of using the military to give the vax to people.
So you, I mean, go into a military so that you could force inject your fellow citizens.
That's what the talk was, at least.
It didn't happen, thank God.
And then finally, you had the whole woke thing that is just infesting the military.
And all of these things, one after another, are just keeping people out.
And based on those things, rightfully so.
This is not what the military is supposed to be for, Dr. Paul.
There's no doubt about it.
I saw some statistics also that said it's really perturbing the Republicans because they're always more hawkish.
So it is said.
I think it's a little bit of misinformation there because the military-industrial complex is supported equally with Democrats and Republicans.
The Republicans are more bold in saying this is a political plus for them to be the more militant you are, the better it is, easier it is to get vote.
But that will change, and I think the quality is going to go down.
But I still see this as a problem.
It's messy.
It's going to continue.
It's bloated.
The training is changing.
The fighting force is not like it has been in the past.
But the whole thing is, what would be a good benefit from this is maybe it would draw attention to our foreign policy.
How many people do we need?
They always come up with a figure right now looking for umpteen thousand more people and we are coming up short.
It's going to be a bad year.
Well, what would be so bad about bringing some troops home?
Maybe the troops could be used on the border or something, you know, as they've been privatized or used by the state because we don't want the army being there, even though people are making a pretty strong argument that there is an invasion coming and it's hurting us very badly.
But just think of all the money we spend recruiting, getting people into the military and training them, and then sending them over to Ukraine and getting in the middle of a war that we helped create by participating in the coup in 2014 by throwing on an elected leader, democratically elected leader in Ukraine, and we're over there.
And yes, they say the troops aren't on the ground and none to our knowledge, if there are any, it's few, being killed.
But our bombs are killing people.
The hostility is there.
The money is still being spent.
And the people who are injured never forget.
Matter of fact, part of the problem we're having right now with Iran is, can you believe they still remember that we took out an elected leader in Iran in 1953?
What's the matter with you guys?
Don't you ever forget anything?
No, they don't.
They don't.
Americans forget stuff and they don't remember some of their own history.
But, you know, the people who have suffered as a consequence of our actions, they don't forget.
And that's why all our activity is very significant.
And right now, it looks to me like a wonderful opportunity for somebody to sit down and let's make the foreign policy appropriate for what we think is best for our country to defend our country.
And quite frankly, I think if we minded our own business, we'd be a lot safer and a lot richer.
Right, Dr. Paul, there is a legitimate purpose for the military.
And, you know, we and Dr. Paul and the Ron Paul Institute are very critical of the military-industrial complex and the policies, but not the military per se, not the troops that go in.
That's why the troops loved Dr. Paul's presidential campaign, because the purpose of the military is to protect your country.
It is not to go around the world and try to police the world any more than I can go down my street to each and every house and go and try to solve everybody's problems.
It's impossible.
I would fail miserably.
Our country, our government, has failed miserably trying to go and police the world.
Nor is it the purpose of the military to go and force other countries to be like you any more than me going down the street to each house and try to make them just like me.
You're going to fail miserably if you try that.
Our country has failed miserably trying to make the Middle East or any other country in Africa, anywhere else, just like us.
You can't do it.
So it's the policy that's the problem.
The purpose of the military is if you have a country that is built around the ideas of liberty, you need to protect that because we live in a world with human beings that have the freedom to choose whatever ideas and philosophies they want.
And there's going to be others that are not going to like our philosophy and they may want to try to hurt us.
That's what the military is there to do to protect us, our country here.
We are so far away from that.
We're an empire with troops in 100-plus countries, the exact opposite.
So, you know, we have to get back to first principles and get back to the legitimate purpose of what the military is for.
Chris, I want to make a point that I've made many times before is when people ask me, well, how do they get so much support?
Why does everybody go along with it?
Well, it's a political deal.
The military industrial complex is made up of all the very, very wealthy arms manufacturers.
And they're big.
They're more or less the arm of government, just as social media is an extension of government and they do the dirty work for a government.
The military industrial complex is part of that too.
And so even the most progressive Democrats in the past, who are, you know, institutionally speaking, they're generally anti-war and would vote against some of this.
And they were very active during the Vietnam War.
But when they don't, in the Vietnam War area, they were able to finally convince the people.
But how do they get the military and industrial complex to do this?
They scare the people, just like the pharmaceutical and COVID.
Scare them, scare them to death.
If you don't do this, you're a killer and you're committing treason.
But who's doing the propagandizing another arm of government?
And therefore, people say, well, we've got it.
There are still people terrorized by COVID, in spite of the fact that the people spoke out and finally just quit and demanded that back off.
But some people are so frightened that they won't back off.
But the other one is a very real technique that they have.
It brings Republicans and Democrats together.
If they have a big project like an F-335 or nuclear aircraft carriers or submarines, a lot of parts go into it.
And guess what?
Some parts for some of these weapons, some of them come from every state.
Every state has something to contribute, which means that when the vote comes up, oh, what you do is you're voting for jobs in your state.
So if you don't vote for it, you've just canceled out the state, you know, getting some jobs.
But that's how they get the support, and they can justify it, say, I'm a patriot.
And if somebody doesn't do this, you're not patriotic.
And they don't think about how much damage it's doing, the policies of doing damage.
And the people who suffer from the consequence.
It's horrible.
But I always thought this was just a terrible thing to do.
Just distribute the largesse, get the jobs all around the country, pass through the bills, Republican or Democrat.
The military gets what they want.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
I'll finish up by reiterating the issue, the problem is not military per se.
It is the military-industrial complex.
It is all the corporations that make more money than any of us could imagine just based on fear of someone outside of the country.
And that someone is always changing.
They move from one to the next to the next.
And each time, with Ukraine being the latest, we just get ripped off beyond belief by the billions.
You know, we had that big chunk of 40 billion at one time, but ever since then, they're taking every week.
There's another billion that is going to be sent to Ukraine, which is going to be sent to the military-industrial complex.
I mean, it is easy, easy money as long as the people go along with it, are afraid enough, think that it's legitimate, that this is what should be done.
And this is all to our detriment, and it is hollowing out our country, you know, financially.
That's why on the Ron Paul Liberty Report, there are two main focuses.
One, the Fed, who makes it all possible.
And two, the military-industrial complex, which is, after the Fed, the biggest beneficiary of it all.
Intervention vs. Individual Action 00:05:26
So the philosophy needs to change, and it will change as things get harder and harder to get by here.
You know, the last thing the American is going to want is care what's happening across the world.
You know, feeding yourself is going to be much more important if it gets that bad.
So, you know, but hopefully it doesn't have to.
Hopefully, we can head it off sooner rather than later.
But, you know, more people need to adopt the ideas of our founders, the ideas that we try to share, that the military is there to defend us, not to go and run the world.
Very good, Chris.
You know, the things that we've talked about today, you know, the money, the monetary policy, and the foreign policy and the recruitment, I think all these things, when you add it up to all the problems we face, I think it's a lot of signs there that the empire is ending.
And that, to me, would be good.
And the goal should be liberty for Americans.
It shouldn't be to police the world.
So that may well happen.
But the other thing is that people have misconstrued some of the terms that I think are pretty good.
I think trading with other countries is a very good idea.
Even with the crisis going on today, we still have a lot of trade going on because they know that it's important, but they don't talk about that.
But trade, the founders believe that the more you traded with a country, the less likely would you be fighting wars with the people you trade with.
And right now, I think when the constituencies in the various countries, including ours, want us to look like you're tough.
You're tough on the military, what they're doing is they try to hide it, but they end up trading with people and that sort of smooth things over, but they would never admit it.
That whole thing about the energy, you know, I think the Europeans, they still are maneuvering their best they can to get their energy, but they're really ridiculous when you think of how the Europeans are self-defeating and going along with the American foreign policy and closing down pipeline.
Makes no sense.
The other accusation that people make toward those of us who talk in this matter is that, oh, you're a bunch of isolationists.
You don't want to live in the real world.
You just want to be isolated by yourself.
And it's exactly the opposite.
That's what trade is.
It does the opposite.
It brings people together.
And it shouldn't be where you use the COVID thing as an excuse for never letting people come in the country because that has turned into a force too.
Because if you just want one individual who would be a fantastic visitor here, the tennis player who would like to come, but we say, no, you didn't get your shot.
You're not allowed to come.
But how many people do you think comes across our borders illegally and they don't get shots?
I mean, how do people put up with that nonsense?
And that's what happens.
But the free market in our libertarian society is not isolationist.
It's one where there's a better mixture.
There's tolerance.
There's only one rule.
Don't hurt other people and don't steal from them.
And that shouldn't be that complicated.
I think those rules have been around for as long as you have ever seen anything written in history.
And yet this still is the biggest challenge.
And it's endless.
But that's a lot easier than trying to manage 200,000 bureaucrats carrying guns to tell people, we're going to get you if you don't get your shot and all the other rules and regulations.
So I'd much rather use a term of non-intervention, not isolation.
Non-intervention means we're not going to intervene in your neighbor.
If you have good neighbors, you don't find out, well, first, what's your religion?
What do you do?
What is your sports?
And agree on everything.
No.
The neighbor moves in, and it's generally accepted.
This is one place that works pretty well.
It's generally accepted that your house is your castle and what you do in your house is your business and we're not going to intervene in what you're doing.
But the tragedy is, is the individuals don't do it, but the government does.
Some people who like intervention, oh, I can't say that, I can't do that, I don't have the college.
Let's give the power to the government to do that intervention.
But I don't want the government doing anything that you can't do as an individual.
If I can't walk into somebody's house and take stuff from them, where do I get the right to call up my congressman and say, I want you to walk into that house and grab $100 every night from them because that's the only way we can support the military-industrial complex.
That rule, the Basiat rule, is a fantastic rule.
Government should never be able to do anything that you or I aren't allowed to do as free citizens who are obeying the basic rule of humanity, and that is no violence against another human being.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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