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Sept. 6, 2023 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
20:18
Crossing America's Rubicon

The attachment to the ideas of Liberty were so strong at America's founding, that its enemies knew it would take centuries to reverse. Authoritarians are extremely patient. Decade-after-decade, freedom is stripped away. Each generation is acclimated into being less free; never knowing the liberties that their ancestors once enjoyed. It can all be reversed, of course. Americans can always experience a renaissance of Liberty, if they want it bad enough.

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Tyranny's Slow Approach 00:07:35
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.
Great to be with you again, Dr. Paul.
Wonderful, wonderful.
Well, we're going to talk about a little bit of history, all the way back to when somebody crossed this little stream called the Rubicon, and big things changed.
And that, of course, was a major point in history.
A republic was destroyed, and a dictatorship was taken over.
And certainly the Roman Empire changed after that.
But I want to sort of allude to that happening here in America.
Did it happen?
Is it happening?
And when did it happen?
And that is, have we really crossed the American Rubicon?
Are we no longer a republic?
Are we a dictatorship?
Are we in the process of it?
And what events brought this on?
Because I think there's a large majority of the American people would agree with me that we don't live with a republic.
There are some that are glad of that because they're authoritarians, and this republic is always interfering with the authoritarian.
So there'll be those groups, but there'll be others.
There may be some honesty on the left.
The authoritarians might say that we don't have a republic anymore.
There were progressives that believed in civil liberties and they had an anti-war sentiment.
And that worked into the position of what our republic was all about.
But it's sort of up for discussion.
But I think the majority of Americans, if they had to answer the question, do you think the American Republic is alive and well?
And I think it'd be probably every bit as bad as the number.
We say, you know, are we better off in America now than we were a year or two ago?
And are we in good shape?
And the American people, the one thing is the large majority, they don't believe the government.
So I would say that the problems are there.
Precisely the day it happened is a debate.
But I have a date that I've used in talking about this issue as being a big date because I was emotionally, personally close to it.
And that was on November 22nd of the assassination of Kennedy.
And I think big things happened at the time.
I didn't say to myself, boy, this is a coup.
The CIA's taken over.
But I've come to the conclusion that the CIA was very, very much involved and that the rule of law was really undermined and destroyed.
And our system of government has changed dramatically since that time.
And right now we're seeing a real mess coming up.
And it's reflected in what's being said and done and implied in the presidential race and how much hatred there is and the voidness of people telling the truth.
Yeah, you might have one out of a thousand.
That guy's telling the truth.
Wow, where'd he come from?
And that, I think, is a big issue.
So it isn't, I would venture to say that a good historian would agree that what we have today isn't exactly what the founders had anticipated.
And we all know changes occur, but even anticipated in the rule of law.
And that maybe the tyranny that we deal with today may equal the personal tyranny that the British Empire was dishing out back at the time of our revolution.
So it's an interesting subject, Chris, and there's lots of ramifications from this because what we're really talking about, do we live in a free country?
Chris?
Yeah, unfortunately, the answer to that is no.
I mean, you don't even have to think about it.
And it happened very slowly and over time.
You could say even since the very beginning.
You know, the American people had a love for liberty.
That is absolutely true.
They separated from England.
The tax was like 2%.
And that was too high.
Today, we can't even dream of taxes that are 2%.
But it happens slowly.
And there's lots of dates where you could point to that it's, you know, that were pivotal.
You know, the founding of the Fed, Woodrow Wilson's disastrous, you know, move to get us involved in a war that turned into a world war that shouldn't have.
And then following with FDR, what Dr. Paul said about the assassination of JFK, that's when the deep state, you know, flexed its muscles.
And it has been doing so ever since.
You could talk about 9-11 and the Patriot Act.
And as time goes on, each generation of Americans knows less freedom than the previous generation.
They just think that this is normal, and it's very abnormal in a free society.
But you become used to it.
You become used to the tyranny.
And COVID, now the government is directly in your face and now sticking things in your body.
I mean, how much closer can they get?
They're not a distant authoritarians.
They're right up in your face now.
But this happened gradually over time, slowly, slowly.
They chipped away.
And unfortunately, Americans are going to have to gain a respect for freedom again because the government will not stop.
They have no breaks.
They may take their time, but they're going to keep pushing further.
You know, there's an association that people acknowledge, and that is the development of Western civilization and also the American Republic.
Because, you know, Western civilization really, you have to go back to the beginning of times because there were always advancements.
But Western civilization more recently is identified with 200, 300 years with the Industrial Revolution and all the advancements that we have had.
And certainly politically, one of the high marks of Western civilization was our revolution and the Jeffersonian era coming in and a reflection on the Enlightenment at the time.
And John Locke was really a tutor by history to Jefferson.
And this was a great time, always imperfect and always something that was always being challenged.
But that is reflected now in what we see on our televisions, what we read about it, what we hear, attitudes that are going on.
And that is, people do ask a legitimate question, who stole Western civilization?
Living Decently Matters 00:02:57
Do we have a civilization?
We certainly have, most people would agree with Chris, that there's not much left of the Republic.
And is there anything salvageable is a question we have and what can be done.
But the civilization issue is not hard to get your attention because if you look at our streets, if you look at the statistics of crime, if you look at the statistics of how many people living in tents, how many people using the streets of San Francisco as sewers, I mean, it doesn't look very civilized.
I think uncivilized people in a lot of times throughout our history probably were a lot more civilized than what some people are living today.
And this, I think, can't be denied.
And is it all an accident?
Is it inevitable?
Did it happen this way?
Hardly.
There are people who just came up with a diametrically different opinion about what government should be all about.
And one is that people living in a civilized society, for the majority of people throughout history, thought that there was a higher law.
There was something spiritual about living decently.
Even laws that were written prior to Samaria's code talked about a higher law.
And we talk about higher laws and natural law to hold people in check that there's a universal desire, at least it's available, it's there, of you shouldn't be lying and cheating and killing and stealing and all.
All these things that go on and ending up in chaos.
And some people literally say, well, there is no such thing as truth.
You can't know it.
And they're the nihilists of the world.
And they pretend they might believe in a natural law, but they don't follow it.
And this has led to a problem that we've witnessed all the time.
I think it has introduced something that we're tolerating, at least forced to tolerate, this whole idea of wokeism and how that has engulfed our country in very recent years.
And that's out of control.
And I don't know how we can blind ourselves to the seriousness of what we're witnessing in that regard.
Chris?
Yes, very good.
You know, Dr. Paul, the so-called leaders, you know, people use the word elites, I hate that word because they're not elite.
They may be very good at wielding the levers of power, so we'll give them that.
But what they've done is they've made it all about how leaders are chosen.
The Remnant Fights On 00:08:03
That's the only thing that matters.
Do you have a vote?
Do you have a vote?
You're able to vote.
So therefore, you have freedom.
And the truth is obviously that's not the case because lots of people have votes and we're losing our freedom ever more rapidly.
So it's not about how leaders are chosen.
What's important is about what leaders can do.
And if you have a king that can only tax you 2%, but you have a democracy where you have a vote and half your money is gone and even more, I mean, which one is better?
And I'm not a monarchist.
I'm all for liberty.
Whichever, you know, if you want to vote and the government can't bother you and our government gets involved in every single aspect of your life, whether it's health or your parenting or what you eat, what you can think and what you can say, I mean, this is freedom because you could go pull a lever somewhere?
You know, no, it's not.
They gamed the system.
They made you think that you were free and they took all your freedom away.
So that's what people have to focus on is what will lead us to getting these people off our backs, no matter how they're chosen.
And someday that's going to have to happen.
When is anybody's guess?
You know, there are so many things that have been going on, especially even in the last five years, that demonstrates that the sentiment of a true republic is pretty much absent from our environment.
But we don't have a Department of Justice.
I think most people are starting to realize that.
And some people say that's good because then we can dictate all the rules.
We've had the government take over education, which was the opposite of how the founders got their education.
They didn't have a Department of Education.
We have it, and that has undermined, I think, the principles of liberty.
That doesn't mean that everybody that's ever been educated in a public school didn't make it, but it's what's established in a general attitude in this country, and it comes from the educational system.
So in many ways, it has taken over.
But what about all the chaos that we have in the streets?
All the riots and stealing and killing and all this stuff.
How did all this happen?
And, you know, it's just part of society and they sort of brush it off.
But some believe, and I lean in this category, that it's very, very deliberate because chaos is what the Marxists wanted.
They ritually wanted to bring on chaos, destroy everything, so that we can usher in the age of socialism.
And so I don't think that is an accident.
And this age of wokeism and the nuttiness of it has engulfed our Department of Justice, our educational system, and even the medical profession, all the employments going on.
So on the surface, I think in some areas, things seem to be better than they really are.
But I tell you what, most people are sensing something big is happening, and we better get hold of it if we want to preserve anything left to our republic.
Very good, Dr. Paul.
I will finish with my closing thoughts, and I'm going to, as usual, try to take an optimistic point of view.
It's a truth in all aspects of our lives that we want something when we don't have it.
And when it comes to freedom, we've had it chipped away like we've been talking about for hundreds of years now.
But the moment that Americans want their freedom, they will do anything for it.
And that's just how it is in human nature.
Once they realize they're trapped, you know, that's when they will want it again.
And the government has, over these last hundred years, been used to doing pretty much whatever they want.
And I think the actions of COVID was a very big signal.
It was a very, very big blow off top if you're trading in the markets, because they just steamrolled us to an embarrassing, in an embarrassing way, throwing masks on everybody to the point where they even caused some, they knocked some people out over a mask.
I mean, this was government at its worst, you know.
But that's the types of people that are in government.
That's all they know.
They just steamroll everyone.
The same thing with wars.
All they know is to go kick around some small country, beat them up.
But now you're not going to beat up and kick around Russia or China.
So now these neocons, they don't know what to do with themselves.
So, this is the type of people that are in government, and all they need is a little bit of pushback or resistance, enough people saying no, and they won't know what to do with themselves.
So, this, you know, there is reason for optimism.
You know, people will also suffer much longer than they need to, and that's even in our Declaration of Independence, that people will continue to suffer and suffer and suffer.
So, that's also a possibility, too.
But, you know, you always want what you can't have.
And if Americans ever wake up and realize how unfree they've become, you know, some very good things can happen.
Very good.
You know, throughout history and recorded history, that shows that there's been plenty of ups and downs with the progress of civilization.
Some build and then some disappear.
And yet, I am of the opinion, as many others are too, that Western civilization has really been fantastic, even though it has had, even in the process, a lot of ups and downs, too many wars, and a lot of primitive things still going on.
Although technologically, it seems to advance quite well.
So, this is something that we have to ask, the question we have to ask is, well, is this different?
Is this ending going to be different and civilization that will have a setback for the next 10,000 years, longer than the history that we have so far?
Well, we don't know that, but I would think if you look at history and you look at the possibilities, there's no reason for us not to think that we couldn't concentrate on what has happened in the past when things got bad.
And it seems like civilizations survived because there was always a remnant of the civilization that was being undermined by a group of individuals that realized the good stuff and maintained and kept that going.
I think that has been available.
There still is a remnant.
There's a remnant right now who is fighting for the cause of liberty, the cause of decency, and honesty.
But it's being challenged like it's never been challenged before by the organized, deliberate nihilism that people believe is their God.
They literally take, they represent it as a God, and they're in charge, and that's why they fear those who believe in natural law and they believe in a higher law are the enemies of those who want to bring on the chaos to usher in their age of authoritarianism.
And that's gone going.
But I do believe very strongly in the remnant.
I believe it's building.
I believe economic education, economic knowledge is better than it's ever been before.
It's just that the nihilists have been able to obstruct its implementation.
So there's a lot of things that have gone on.
Yes, there's a tremendous amount of technology.
A lot of it is used for evil, especially the part that's used for war.
Economic Knowledge Remnant 00:01:31
And that is also available to people who might join the crowd of saying, well, there is a higher law.
We do know the difference between right and wrong.
And therefore, we should pursue that course.
So I think if people have a desire to do this, my own personal opinion is that you should have some goals.
And mine personally has been always to seek the most excellent things that I can possibly do, thinking that it's good and right, and do my best to do what would be best for everybody.
The other thing is, it has to be blended in with a sense of responsibility of having virtue, something that you can't define, but I think everybody knows what it is.
It invites the idea of volunteerism and generosity and decency.
And that's available.
And it can usher in.
There are periods and times that things have improved.
But I'll tell you what, I think the mess we're in is big time.
I think the crash of this effort, the social and economic situation, is going to be very bad.
But there's nothing that says that the pieces can't be picked up if we who believe in liberty do our job properly and spread this message so that the rebuilding can be much better than what we have today.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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