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Sept. 17, 2023 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
49:34
9) Dr. Ron Paul - "Which Way, America?"

Rep. Ron Paul surveys the 2023 political landscape at his Institute for Peace and Prosperity DC Conference and gives a stark prediction of our future... Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity: http://ronpaulinstitute.org/support/

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Thank You, Mom 00:06:45
Hello everyone, I'm Chris Rossini, co-host of the Liberty Report on Fridays.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
I want to start off with a text from my mom a few days ago.
She texts me and my brother, this interview is by Tucker Carlson with Colonel McGregor.
It's an eye-opener.
She goes, important information about Ukraine and USA is kept from us.
Doug McGregor is so correct about the whole situation in Europe and USA.
So I write back, yeah, mom, he's one of our speakers at our conference next week.
So she had no idea.
She says, wow, make sure to take a picture with him if you can.
So, two things about that.
One, I'm very proud of you, mom.
You're getting good information.
And number two, Colonel McGregor is kicking butt.
He's reaching millions and millions of people.
And, you know, he is a true voice of sanity.
We all know that during war, the first casualty is the truth.
So to go out in front of millions of people, many of them who hate your guts, and to speak the truth to that camera is quite admirable.
and I think he deserves a lot of credit for that.
Before we get to the grand finale, I do want to acknowledge my colleagues, my great colleagues, Adam Dick and Daniel McAdams.
Daniel, you did it again.
There's a lot of pressure and a lot of stress.
You know, Dr. Paul is a very public figure, so to put together conferences 10 years in a row is a wonderful accomplishment.
And Daniel, he puts that stress on him more than anyone, and he always does a great job.
Obviously, hopefully, you found a lot of value today, and find a lot of value from the Liberty Report that goes on every day, whether you listen to us or watch us, because we live in an ugly world.
and it only seems to get uglier, at least in my adult lifetime.
But there's another side of the coin, and that's the beauty, the beauty of the truth, the beauty of truthful principles, of voluntarism, of peace.
That's always there for us to counteract the ugly.
And one thing that all of us have to keep in mind and that we struggle with too is to always know that the beauty will prevail, the truth will prevail.
It's just how, no one knows.
There's no plan for us.
There's no map for us.
We just have to have faith that it does.
And we don't know when.
It didn't happen in the lifetime of Ludwig Vimises, of Murray Rothbard, of Henry Hazlitt.
They just took the baton and would pass it from one to another to another, to Ron Paul.
Me and Daniel often talk about our friends who were amazing libertarians and fighters for peace, Justin Raimondo, Robert Wenzel, that are no longer with us.
And they passed it on to us.
If they're looking down on us, we have to do our part.
And that's how you take it day from day, day to day.
So we don't know how freedom prevails.
We don't know when it prevails, but we know that it does.
But how?
Why?
Why do we know that?
It's because it's true.
It can't be any other way.
So the principles of liberty are true.
And while individually, we have very little control, even the Ron Paul Institute, we have very little control of what goes on in the world.
But individually, we can each learn and then speak what you learn.
You know, it's very important to do the second part.
It's easy to just learn, become a bookworm, and just be a hermit, but you're doing a disservice to the world.
The world needs you, especially your ideas.
You're keeping them alive.
You have to pass them on, not convince, at least inform others, so that they can be a source to someone else.
So every day, you know, we're very grateful.
I'm sure I could speak on behalf of Daniel.
Dr. Paul had an amazing congressional career that he hit the right note at the right time.
That was something I'm sure he could have never planned in his life.
But he has a following that is still massive around the world.
Every day, he goes in front of the camera and speaks to a big football stadium full of people every single day.
Sometimes the numbers astound us of how many people are still out there, even though you can't see them.
And we do see the negativity.
But there are many, many people who are yearning for the ideas of the truth and of liberty.
So we have to just keep passing that baton.
That's our job.
And let the chips fall where they will, but we have to each do our part without fear.
And I'm grateful to introduce the man that everybody's been waiting for.
He's a great boss.
He's a lot of fun to work with.
He's a very generous and caring and funny person.
Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Ron Paul.
Give us thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
What else is there to say?
It's been great.
And thank you for being here because you have made our program great.
We feel good when people come and they're interested in what we're doing and why we're doing it.
And I want to also add on to Chris's statement about Daniel because he's been working very, very hard.
This weekend, he's put in some extra time.
So he was doing so well and the conference has gone so well.
I said, Daniel, you ought to take tomorrow off.
He says, that's Sunday.
I said, take it off anyway.
No, it has been great.
And I think we like it a lot because we get a lot out of it.
And then when we find out there are new people coming and there's the excitement there, and I like the program a lot because a lot of people brought up the subject of truth.
That's a pretty good subject.
Lion Scoundrels and Truth 00:14:31
And people, I think, are a lot more supportive of the truth than we realize.
It's the lion scoundrels who get all the attention.
And they think the countries, that's all that's happening in the countries.
But no, I think that when it's offered up, it makes a big difference.
And I talk a lot about the higher law because I think that you can't get rid of the higher law.
And people do have annihilation.
That's what they work on.
And that subject, of course, came up today.
And I think that's very important because that's how they think they can get ahead is saying, you're a bunch of jerks.
You believe in a higher law.
And, you know, our founders talked about divine providence.
And that was something important to them.
And most of them shared this.
But I was just wondering, you know, when this effort of a higher law was established, obviously is well known, associated with Christianity.
And I thought, well, maybe there was an understanding of a higher law even before that.
And so I went back and looked at some of the earlier legal documents and the early documents, the legal codes that were written before that they mentioned this and they brought it up.
Now, the Sumerians were supposed to be the first ones that brought up a legal code.
And it's a long way from what we're talking about in modern day libertarianism, but it had some interesting things.
It's the same as Hammurabi, who a little bit later brought it up.
They said that there were basic understandings of all these codes and emphasized by Christianity, that they put into the code the basic understanding and assumption that you shouldn't kill people.
And that's a long time ago, you know, and it's been there.
It's sort of a natural thing, and that's why I think I like to refer to it as a higher law.
But one other point of the Sumerians, who did this very early on, they had a rule, and you have to think about this before you decide to endorse it or not.
But their rule was that if there was a conflict and somebody said, so-and-so murdered somebody and it's a murder case and he was being charged, you could go to court.
Even back then, you could go to court.
But there was a catch to it.
If you accuse somebody of killing somebody and killing a murderer, and you don't prove it in court, you get killed.
Boy, wouldn't that be something just maybe we could get this modified and work this out?
But how many charges have been made since the last election?
I guess thousands of charges made.
He did this, he did this.
Well, and they say, well, they didn't take it in a court of law.
No, they aborted the court of law because they've undermined that.
But I think basically it's making a point that people should be cautious and it's overkill when it comes to doing things like this.
But the higher law has been with us for a long, long time, and it is a good guide.
But for so long, we've been ignoring this, and it's getting much worse.
And that's why I think we should restate some of these principles in order to live with people.
So these laws have been there for a long time.
The founders certainly knew something about it, and they emphasized it, and they put it into our code.
But I still think there's a lot of people who understand these principles, but they're silenced.
They're intimidated.
And fear is the weapon the opposition used.
Scare them to death, you know, and terrorize people.
And then people become intimidated.
And I just love it when during the COVID epidemic nonsense going on, they would have some town hall meetings or somebody would go to the school board meeting and people were unhappy and they were trying to put it together and get the attention of the authorities.
And then finally, somebody gets up and starts talking and lays it out to them.
And the whole crowd changes their attitude.
They understood exactly what was going on and then they go and fire the school board.
And that's what I think about when I see the remnant.
And I think most people here are part of it, whether they think about it or not.
It's speaking out that makes all the difference.
I can remember very clearly being in high school and thinking about this issue because I wanted to be part of some group.
That was important.
So it was probably important to most of it at the time because you don't want to be a loner.
So this is something they think you put together.
And I think this is just what we want to do is get people to speak out.
And so that's why I think education is fantastic.
I happen to have a little homeschooling program, not huge, but very high quality.
And what Daniel does with the young people like yesterday and have these seminars.
And we get a lot of attention on it, but it's small in number.
And this was one of the principles of Leonard Reed at the Foundation of Economic Education was to have small groups and talk about things.
And in a scheme of things, this is a small group where you can talk about issues.
Because if you get a million people out there, that's fine if they're, you know, behaving themselves.
But it's something that has to be done.
But if you get people to, you know, get educated.
We had one of the rallies I had toward when I was running for national office, we had a barbecue, and it was in Galveston, Texas.
And it was a beautiful day.
It was a sunny day.
It was just wonderful.
And we had a large crowd.
We had several thousand people come.
And somebody suggested because a lot of our speakers that were there were part of the campaign and they were academicians more than they were politicians.
So somebody said, well, you know, they're coming to town anyway.
Why don't we take advantage of these wonderful speakers?
And so somebody said, well, let's have, next door to the barbecue, we'll have this little function.
It'll be a sort of an educational function on what's really behind our campaign.
So I show, that sounds like a good idea to me.
So I don't know how big the original room was, but they finally figured out they had the enlarged room.
And this is one time that I got into some trouble because I thought there'd be a couple hundred at the most.
And a lot more showed up.
And there were a lot of people that got annoyed with me.
Why did you put us in such a little room?
And I thought that was delightful because I couldn't figure this out.
I said, you know, here it is, a sunny day on Galveston Beach.
And what would you want to do this for?
I was thinking in practical terms, nobody wants to, I would think they were sort of coming in and filtering in for the barbecue in the evening.
I thought, oh, they'll be down on the beach, won't they?
So it really pleased me.
It really pleases me when I see people like you that will come and seek it, seek information.
Because I think the information is the most important thing that we have because people want to get a knowledge and understand what's going on.
And that is why I think the people have, we all have an obligation.
I feel obligated every day I wake up in the morning.
What am I going to learn today?
What am I going to learn in the next 30 minutes?
Because I got to see where that Daniel is.
We have 30 minutes left.
Let's find something that we've studied and learned and understand and we want to send a message.
So this to me is very important.
And I think without that, we can't spread the message.
The only thing that has bothered me about the message is that why don't we do better in spreading this message?
I mean, I feel very comfortable in an audience like this.
We've done a good job, you know, and we're all friends.
But when we go out and we hear this message, and it might be my bias toward liberty, because I think it's so fantastic in contrast to what do you have if you don't have liberty?
You have nothing but chaos and misery and all the problems we have.
So the message, I don't doubt.
I think the message of liberty and peace and, you know, tolerance and not hurting, no lying, killing, and stealing, you know, that all sounds pretty good.
And guess what?
The bonus is.
It creates the most peaceful and prosperous society ever.
I would say it should be easy to pass out that message.
So I think that that's something I think about all the time.
I encourage people to think up new and different things.
Because a lot of times if I talk to a college group, especially during a campaign, they would come up or in the audience, they say, okay, Dr. Paul, you've convinced me.
What should I do?
And I was a smart alley.
I said, do whatever you want.
Everybody has something to do, but what you do is different than what somebody else does.
And some people, many people far have excelled in their ability to spread the message.
They do all kinds of things.
You know, anything from writing to teaching, making movies and whatever.
But the one thing is, is everybody doesn't have the same job.
And I think that, of course, is very important.
But, you know, I've also worked in more recent times about the principle of coups, coups by governments and taking over.
And I've also heard more recently the argument about Western civilization.
And people will say, who stole Western civilization?
I think most people in this room would agree that it's in bad shape and somebody stole a lot of good things in Western civilization.
And Western civilization was a gigantic issue in our history.
And I don't think it's very old.
Some people say a couple hundred, three, four hundred years where you see all the advancement of technology.
And that is very, very true.
So I keep going back further and further.
I understand the earth is 4.5 billion years old.
And most of the time, it's been like a dot, and that is us.
You know, the dot that existed for the last, even if you want to call Western civilization 300 years or 600 years.
But it is something that is, people are concerned, you know, about it.
And the big question is, who did steal Western civilization?
And I think most of the time they throw into this the American Republic.
You know, we really don't have the American Republic.
It was never perfect.
And yet it's dissipating.
And many know the point in time in Roman history when they shifted from a republic to dictatorship.
And we have done this.
But when did a coup occur?
Did it occur 10 years ago, 20 years ago?
Was there one incident that did it?
And there's a lot of people pick dates and say, this was the issue.
This is when really, you know, we turned a bend and got into trouble.
And I think the time that I place this in is, you know, about 100 years ago, 120 years ago, I think the real shift away where the momentum was shifted away from understanding and promoting classical liberalism, private property, and in spite, I often wondered if that is true.
How did it survive the wars?
Because it was always these wars thrown in the middle of it.
But we seem to have technology, and I just always lament the thought that when all this technology comes about, so often it's used for war.
War even motivates to be bigger, bigger bombs and all these things.
And we have survived that, but we have still had progress for these many, many years.
So I think the progressive movement, you know, all the last century and what we have of this century really had occurred.
But I have picked one, I could say probably a decade that there was a bigger shift than any other time in our history.
Induction into Military Service 00:04:05
And I would put it in the 1960s.
And I guess it's because I remember the 60s very vividly.
I was two years out of medical school.
I was in Detroit.
I was at the Henry Ford Hospital and I was in the middle of a residency.
And in the fall of 1962, there was a problem south of the border, a different one than the south of the border now.
Of course, it was with Cuba and the missiles and this sort of thing.
And one of the reasons that over many years when I was trying to decide what I would do in life and I was uncertain, I actually didn't have the confidence, I'll be a doctor, I'll be a doctor.
I was very cautious in making these, a prediction like that.
But I tell you what, when I was thinking about what I was going to do, it influenced me in picking medicine because I remember it, I remember World War II and Korea and Vietnam, and I detested the draft and it was just horrible.
So that was part of the reason I said, at least I based it on the assumption they'll draft me.
They will draft me.
I don't want to carry a gun.
I'm not going to shoot somebody.
I would shoot them if they come into my house.
But so I would do that.
So I got drafted and real quick.
It wasn't due to the Vietnam War.
It was due to the fact that of the missile crisis, which was built up real fast.
And then by the time I was actually inducted into the military, which would have been in January, I remember in the middle, in between all that, we had a son born.
his name is ran so when he so so when uh i remember the family we had he was our third and And we were, he was born in Pittsburgh, even though I had, you know, had to leave and get ready to come.
And he was born in Pittsburgh.
Then we drove to Texas.
I think he was five days old.
But I got there in time to be inducted into the military.
But I decided at that time that I'm going to make the best of it.
And, you know, even though I was in disagreement, and as time went on, I understood more and more why I had instincts against what was going on.
So that was in January of 63.
And I was interested in flying.
I did get a pilot's license and I became a flight surgeon.
And flight surgeons don't do surgery in the air.
Flight surgeons are just medical doctors for people who are flying force personnel in the Air Force and Army.
And also you're associated with flying and did get a license to fly.
But that was early on.
And I was in, that would have been in November when I was in charge of the medical facility at Kelly Air Force Base.
And Kelly Air Force Base was much bigger than it is now.
It's not too much.
But I was required to fly with the Air Force for medical things.
But I had a call, I think, the day before or the day of, because I was a senior medical officer at that base.
Kennedy's Medical Watch 00:15:35
And I was told that Kennedy was coming in.
And I was just to be aware of.
I didn't have any special duties.
I wasn't to meet him or anything special, but just to be in support medically if it were necessary.
So that happened.
He came in on the 21st, and I can remember so clearly that day as I look back.
And I can remember because I happened to be outdoors and I just looked up and I saw his plane take off.
And I thought back, I thought, never did it cross anybody of his mind that Kennedy would be dead in less than 24 hours.
He flew out of there.
He flew to Houston.
Then he flew to Fort Worth, and then he came into Dallas.
So that, I think, and all the subsequent information that we have gotten for the subsequent assassination has convinced me that nefarious people committed this and it was involved with our government.
I don't have any power.
And that got me to the point of really looking at things closely.
And then, of course, that was number one assassination.
Then there was RFK assassination.
Then there was Martin Luther King assassination.
And it kept building and building.
And it was a real experience.
But I don't think we've recovered from that.
I mean, superficially maybe because in the 70s they didn't talk about assassinations and all.
But I don't think our national security has ever returned to anything out of common sense.
It's not a friend of the people.
It's not a friend of liberty.
And yet I do believe that the people that Run these organizations, whether it's the FBI or the CIA or NSA, that probably most of the people, or a large number of people, are there for good reasons.
They want to be patriotic and they have followed the rules.
But I think the noise we hear comes from the people that are in power and they'll do anything to silence people.
And that's what was going on there.
There is another follow-up on how determined our government would be.
And this story is less well known.
Mary Myers was a friend, a close friend of Jack Kennedy's.
And she was exposed to, the conclusion was that she was exposed to a lot.
So within a year, the evidence shows that the CIA was probably involved in her assassination as well because she had too much information.
And of course, seeking truth is important.
Reading those books I find interesting, sad, but interesting.
But finding truth makes a big difference, you know, because, you know, at the beginning, you know, even weeks or months after the Kennedys' assassination, everybody knew it was Oswald.
We knew it was Oswald.
But then one of the now most people know that Alan Dulles might just may have been involved in this little incident.
So, and the other one, more controversial, of course, was the Vice President Johnson.
And within a week or so, they set up a commission.
We're going to get to the truth.
The Truth Commission.
Exactly.
Who did this and why?
What was the reason?
So that was set up.
And it was only in recent years in reading some of these books I found out that Alan Dallas was appointed to the commission.
You know, and the belief by many is that he probably planned the whole thing.
So this is sad.
This is sad, but it still means we have to know the truth.
And but if it hurts the power players, that's a big deal.
And you don't want to hurt the people who are patriotic and say, oh, that's unpatriotic.
You shouldn't do this.
And the military-industrial complex gets involved.
So this is the reason it's our effort.
And I'm quite confident that an audience like this also would be very interested in continuing to seek the truth.
The truth is the most important thing that we can contribute in what we're doing.
But I think that in spite of what's been happening, I think our economy is in shambles.
I don't think, I don't sit around thinking that the Chinese are going to invade us.
And I don't think the Soviets never did.
The Soviet system collapsed.
I was just really impressed with the collapse.
And there was no nuclear weapons.
And here they drafted me to stop those nuclear weapons, but it was over and quiet.
It was internal.
It failed.
And I think something like that will happen for us.
It's going to fail.
This hope and pray is not required civil war.
And I don't even think it does require it.
I think it has, unfortunately, is going to be the invisible coup as it continues to destroy our educational system, our medical system, our security system, our police.
All of these things can be just subtly made worse all the time until we aren't very productive.
And we're at that point now.
I think the economy, you know, the reports, because right now, the statistics are with us on this.
I think 70% of the people don't believe what the government tells us anyway.
So, and I happen to believe that.
We don't get the good information there.
So that is real important because I think the whole thing will quit working.
That doesn't mean if I don't, I say, well, don't worry, it's not a civil war and it's not going to do this.
It is going to be, I think, really, really bad.
Because in the study of Austrian economics, I am convinced that the biggest threat, eventually with a fiat system and with the power we had, the real power we have had for many years since World War II, yes, we have the weapons, but that was part of the power we gained by having the reserve currency of the world.
And we gained power and control over the world.
And if they don't do our bidding, what do we do?
We will put sanctions on them and then we bomb them if necessary.
And then we wonder why they don't like us.
And we turn around.
Oh, we better watch out.
The Chinese are going to come and get us.
And they have all those dollars and they're spending it and they're investing in rare earth mining.
Wow, this has to be stopped.
But where did they get the dollars?
They resulted from the fact that we had this monetary system that no matter what you spend your money on in Washington, no matter whether it's the conservative spending or liberal spending, the Federal Reserve is involved.
So I think still, with my dedicated effort to expose the Federal Reserve, we still have a lot of work to do.
But the debt that is built up is endless.
I never, well, not never, very, very few Austrian economists are in the Congress.
They're all taught crazy economics, Keynesian economics, and deficits don't matter.
Print money if you need it.
And if the Federal Reserve cause a problem, write some regulations, just on and on, expansion, expansion of government.
And I keep reminding myself, every regulation that is ever written by government to do good, to correct one of their prior mistakes, creates two more regulation.
And as it goes on, it's like a snowball.
It's a pyramid.
And it's continued.
But the pyramid is going to come crashing down.
People are going to start to ignore it.
And that's what will happen.
And that's why there's a pretty good business out there now.
And even on a daily basis, you hear about 10 different companies trying to get people interested in protecting themselves with having some gold and silver coin.
There's a lot of concern about what's happening and that we should be.
So somebody asked me once, you know, what's the most important thing that we can do, you know, to protect us against this economic crisis you talk about.
And they want to get investment advice, which I don't give.
But I talk about what they have to face, you know, the crisis they face.
And I said, but if you're going to invest, you have money and you want to protect yourself.
Well, you know, in 1932, there were some people who knew what was coming on.
They had some gold coin.
So within a month, what did Roosevelt do?
Confiscate the gold.
I mean, no, you can't protect.
You should.
You should do the very best.
But I think knowing people in this group and getting to know them and stay friends and neighbors, and that is to have people who understand as you understand what their issues are like.
Because what we're going to have a problem when the crash comes, we're going to have to rebuild it, and it's always going to be painful.
And they don't want us to do it now.
They say, well, why don't you just cut back?
Well, who's going to do that?
The Republicans or the Democrats?
They're not going to do that because it'll hurt a little bit.
And they say, well, I say, yeah, and if you keep, they say, well, keep doing it, then it's going to hurt.
Yeah, but it's going to hurt 10 times worse because the bigger the bubble, the more crisis, the bigger the crisis is going to be.
And so I narrow my friendly advice to people who say, what should I do though?
I want to know what to do.
Where should I put my money and all this?
I said, your best investment is to invest in the cause of liberty.
You know, the whole thing is, like I said, I think it's a shame that we can't present our case a little bit better.
But I think there's a reason, in spite of all what I just said, that there's room for optimism.
I mean, there's been a lot of problems that have come and gone.
And even in my young life, there was a couple things that happened that really disturbed, if it wasn't me directly, my family.
I mean, just think of the chaos the Fed created.
Well, the Fed was involved in financing World War I.
Then they come in and they have a bubble in the 20.
Then they bring on the Depression.
Depression, that was talking my family a whole lot.
I was born in 1935, and so I knew the Depression and the war going on.
But that was some tough times.
So we get over that.
And I can remember my mother clearly after there was no television, but she came up with events and news events, as she said.
And I remember her talking to somebody, she wasn't probably telling me.
She was talking about the Korean War broke out.
And she was lamenting the fact, can we really go through another war?
And we've had relatives that didn't come back and all this thing.
So this is the reason that understanding the principles of liberty, and you can't do it without understanding those basics.
We were blessed by living in a country that did have some fundamentals attached to it and it was attached to our Constitution.
John Locke, the more I look into this and read about it, I think Jefferson had some great ideas and had a lot of practical influence.
But boy, he is a lock-in down to the boy.
He really learned a lot from John Locke.
But those basic principles, not many people, how many other countries would have been in, early on, set up with a constitution and leaning toward the good side of things and lasts for a while and doing pretty well, even though there was ups and downs then.
But the good part pervaded, Persisted.
And that lasted, and we ended up, you know, doing tremendously.
World War II was the end of World War II.
There was another big event for the coup because that's when we really felt our oats.
Boy, I'll tell you, we had bombs and we had money and we had the gold and we had the notions of what we were going to do.
So it was a big deal and we used it.
It's amazing how long the fiat dollar has lasted.
And I thought it was approaching not the end immediate end in 1971, but that is another day in my life that woke me up because I had started reading and studying this.
And I said, this is a big deal.
This is a big deal where we declared our bankruptcy.
That's our first declaration because we told the world we're going to print up these pieces of paper, but we are the good guys.
We're going to protect you.
We have a military and we are going to take care of you no matter what.
But they said, well, and the dollar was holy.
Everybody loved the dollar.
They still do, much more than they need to or should, because it is fiat.
It is fake.
Why Dollars Are Holy 00:02:31
And it's not going to last.
It may do this, you know, gradually go down, but it's lost a lot of value already, and it's going to lose more because that would be the defiance of history.
I remember one day when I asked, I think it was Bernanke.
I used to have a little fun with those chairmen.
I asked him, a lot of times I got a little worried because I was more interested in getting a message out than thinking they were going to honestly answer my question.
So I decided a different approach one day.
I said, Chairman Bernanke, is gold money?
And he held his breath.
No.
And then I said, well, why do the central banks all hold gold?
I said, they don't hold diamonds for money.
And tradition.
He wasn't very interested in getting into a discussion about that.
But I did.
71 had a lot of influence in me and making some what you might call political decisions in that I wanted to be more involved because when I first started speaking out, which would have been in the early 70s, I think the first year I had a token run was in 74.
All I wanted to do was talk about the issue.
I said, this is an important issue.
It's still an important issue.
And they didn't listen to me.
The bubble's still there getting bigger.
So if they can defy that, oh, and that was one thing I followed up with Bernanke.
I said, if this is true, that it's not money, I said, you've defied all of history.
Because, you know, I mentioned our early history in Sumeria, even prior to the Sumerian code, there was a strong recognition in the development of ideas that gold was precious and it was used and it was practical, but they didn't call it money.
And it was over the years that it became more money.
And anytime they said, this is money, but the government was always in charge because then they could debase it when they wanted to.
Liquidate Malinvestment 00:04:47
But anyway, I think that I think the troubles are going to come.
It should be more of an opportunity than a deadly end.
The Soviet system, that, to me, is like a miracle.
That ended with hardly a whimper.
I mean, we had a lot of problems afterwards, and Doug talked about where the problems still are around the world.
But as far as there were no nuclear bombs, you know, and all of a sudden we started trading with it.
And it's just totally amazing to me how quickly things changed and beneficially they worked.
But then a few scoundrels got in charge and remained in charge of this system.
And then I think it was erosion of our liberties.
It was, you know, when I first went to Congress, I thought that the people that we have to worry about the most are those people living off the dole, those people getting food stamps and demanding help.
And that was part of the problem because it was part of the system.
But after I got to Washington and understood a little bit more about what was going on, I said, the real crisis and the real waste and the fraud and abuse comes from the military-industrial complex.
So that would be one place we could start and you could do it in a practical fashion.
If we went tomorrow and said, stun, we're quit, and all that, I mean, there would be, you're inviting some real violence, you know, if you try that.
But some of my proposals, one was, you know, cut the military, explain why you're doing it, because if people understood it, they might, you know, go along with it.
Explain why you're doing it.
And don't cut food stamps the first thing off.
And don't cut health care to children.
And you could still maintain your principles.
You cut here and cut slower here.
But even I don't believe that's possible.
You know, it could be done.
People say, can't you do it?
Can't you get more people help?
I think the ignorance about how the system works and how freedom, how the welfare state works and how strong they are, how much they're in power.
I mean, just think, well, why don't we start off?
The first thing we're going to do is we're going to make sure all the votes are counted.
Oh, that would help.
Maybe we could get more people in there if there couldn't be so much going on in our election.
So there's a lot of things, but the big thing is, you know, I still think it's the truth of things.
People need to know the plain truth of things because I think that we don't have to crash into oblivion.
I don't think we have to, but I think it can get a lot worse because I do not see how you can get off without liquidating your debt.
If you're an individual or a businessman or what, living in ordinary times and you've overspent, overborrowed, and they loaned you too much money, I need a new start.
I need a new loose start.
Nobody's going to allow and put more funds into your bankruptcy.
So you have to liquidate the debt.
You have to liquidate the malinvestment.
You have to liquidate the warmongering that goes on.
You have to have a different system.
One thing would be, We could start off, well, the federal government in particular should be a lot smaller.
How much smaller would you make it?
Well, we could contemplate maybe taking, get rid of 80%.
That'd be a start.
Okay, but the most important thing is it's not complicated.
The answers are there.
And the other thing is, is we don't know, and I think Chris talked about this, we don't know exactly what will happen and when.
So why worry about the time?
If you know about the issue and you know you're doing what you believe is the right thing, that you should have a lot of fun.
Fun With No Taxes 00:01:16
And that was one line that the college kids love.
Yeah, we like a lot of fun.
But you know what surprised me about the college is I say, look, it'll be different.
You can have jobs.
It's your life.
You can do what you want.
And you can make money and you don't have to pay any taxes.
There's no income tax.
We wouldn't have income tax.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But then I would say, but remember, if you mess up and you screw up your life and you have problems, you can't go crawl on to the government through pushing, getting your congressman to go and get you bailed out.
And you know, I got an applause for that line as much as the other because I think they really, young people, I give them more credit than maybe I should, but I've had good experiences with young people.
And this is such a young idea, this whole principle, if the Western civilization, which is the greatest recorded period of history where fantastic things have happened, this is really a neat thing that's happening.
And we don't know.
Well, we should have fun doing it.
And I think that's what's happened.
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