President Biden exhibited poor diplomacy (again); this time by calling Chinese President Xi a "dictator," while Xi was still here in the U.S.! Whether Xi is or isn't a "dictator" really has nothing to do with Americans. That's an issue for the Chinese citizens to work out for themselves. It's their government, not ours.
America's foreign policy should be based on the policy of the Founders of our nation: "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." We aren't even remotely close to such a policy; and it's costing us dearly. As our nation fails at being "the world's policeman," our livelihoods and standards of living are declining rapidly.
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 this morning.
Great to be with you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
You know, there's been a lot of international excitement going on.
The leader of China and the great leader of the United States, they got together and had lunch, had lunch.
They at least considered it.
I don't know whether they ever got around to it, but it was to have diplomatic talk and bring the countries together again.
And, you know, the staff for Biden justifiably worries about when they let him out for a little bit.
And they were wondering what would happen.
And I guess the American people are getting used to it, but more and more people are complaining about it.
Even the Democrats are pretty nervous about the whole thing.
But it was after the show was over, the real show, that Biden called him a name.
And that stirred up everything.
That's the whole issue.
They spent a couple days, a couple millions, several millions of dollars getting Biden over there.
But it was a one-minute clip there that made all the news.
And that is Biden called, gee, the dictator of China, a dictator.
And those were fighting words.
And that's what they're talking about right now.
And I think, well, you know, he probably is.
But then I got to thinking, Chris, about the difference.
Is there any dictatorship in this country at all?
When you think about the control of the FBI with social media and our invasion of our privacy and on and on, I'm not so sure we're in a position where we can be accusing the Chinese of being the only dictators in the world.
You know, as far as name-calling goes, I found it interesting.
Daniel and I talked about this the other day, and that was the State Department.
And they've done a couple of these, you know, expressing a dissent against Biden, you know, and his policy in the Middle East, the policy with the Palestinians.
And that article was in zero hedge.
It said, 100 state department officials signed dissent memo saying Biden, quote, complicit in genocide.
That's pretty strong.
You know, that's almost like you've got to be a dictator to organize that.
But, you know, I don't think Biden quite qualifies for it.
I think he's something else.
I think he's receiving dictatorial commands from the secret deep state that tells him when he can go.
And they are very nervous.
I think they're nervous of letting him out at times.
And, you know, I can't help but saying, you know, I delight in it or think this is neat.
This is a dimefall.
I find it so upsetting and nerve-wracking to think of how far we have sunken into the system.
And, you know, Chris, you know, during the presidential campaigns, I used to say, you know, because we were trying to get people to quit fighting those stupid Middle Eastern wars and we're still in them.
And I kept saying, well, you know, we have a couple hundred thousand diplomats.
Why don't we use these diplomats?
Diplomacy's Dwindling Power00:08:31
Why don't we have diplomacy?
So this was the effort.
They must have been listening to me.
They must have read an old article and said, Ron Paul likes diplomacy.
But let me tell you, Chris, this is not exactly the type of diplomacy that I had in mind.
Chris.
That's right, Dr. Paul.
And yeah, it is no surprise.
But whether or not my first thought is whether or not Xi is or is not a dictator, you know, that's for the Chinese people to address.
China's on the other side of the world.
It's not our country, not our government.
We have our hands full with our own government.
To be worried about China 6,000 miles away is to get ahead of your skis.
But what we're concerned with is our country's foreign policy.
Our foreign policy should be peace and trade with all nations and tangling alliances with none.
That's what Thomas Jefferson said.
That's how America conducted its business early on and produced all the prosperity that we're now ruining.
So if we want peace with China, I say the first thing is remove all of our military bases that are surrounding their country.
I think we have something like 800 bases all over the world, and China has one that I'm aware of in Djibouti, Africa.
So we're supposed to be so afraid of the Chinese.
What would we think if Chinese bases circled our country?
I mean, we'd be freaking out, I'm sure.
Americans were freaking out over an alleged Chinese balloon that was floating around somewhere.
Imagine if the Chinese surrounded our country with military bases.
But Americans have been conditioned to fear always someone out there, fear communism.
You shouldn't fear communism.
You definitely do not want communism in your own country, but it's nothing to fear if other countries are communist.
And to tell you the truth, the Chinese are more capitalist than us in many respects.
They may have a communist party, per se, but they are big-time capitalists.
So you don't have to go around the world, you know, looking to point fingers at China.
Defend freedom here.
Let the Chinese take care of their own business, whether they have dictators, monarchies, dukes, that's their problem, not ours.
You know, up until the departure of Zi, I was sort of wanting to be positive.
I looked at that, and they had some good clips.
And I think Zi was the first time I've seen them even try to smile.
They seem to be good.
And I thought, well, that can't hurt anything.
You know, if they just sat down and played cards or had a glass of beer or something like that, that would be diplomacy that far be superior to, I got you now.
He said the wrong word.
He said dictator.
And, you know, genocided all this stuff.
So I was thinking it was pretty positive.
Matter of fact, I remember very well, as most people today remember as well, if they were that age, is Kissinger and Nixon sneaking off to China.
Didn't even tell the people.
And all of a sudden, things changed.
Because all I remember about that period of time, when that happened, it probably wasn't too many months or years after one of my teachers who was redrafted after World War II and sent to Korea and didn't come back.
So it was a big deal.
And there was a lot, a lot of animosity between the two countries.
And I thought, well, this might work.
Of course, I had that sense of optimism when the Cold War ended with Russia.
And that has been fizzling lately.
And I think we're responsible for some of that.
But back then, I thought it was really exciting.
And the business people thought, well, this is an opportunity, you know.
But it has changed a whole lot since then.
And it seems like it's part of the dwindling power of our empire where we have to maintain a certain stance of being tough.
And we have to be patriotic.
We have to get the people behind us.
And we're out there.
So we have to find an enemy to bastard.
And certainly it's very annoying to me because I do know that communism, any type of authoritarianism, where it comes from, the socialists and the authoritarians, the people in this country that are authoritarians, you know, it's so disgusting.
But when they came out for this, I was really excited about it.
But now we've deteriorated and now it's very, very popular.
The political position to be in right now is to bash China.
And it's so disgusting when you listen to some of the conservative stations.
They get up there and they say, we just gave them $6 billion and we're going to give them a lot more.
They never want you to know, well, we stole it from them.
If we've had this foreign policy, Chris, you've just talked about it, you know, just come home and trade with people.
Why do we demand this and freeze their money and then blackmail them for them to get the money back?
And if we give them a little bit back, then it has to be conditions.
And, you know, it's a bunch of nonsense.
You know, one thing leads to another.
So that to me is rather disgusting.
But it seemed like the American people go along with it.
The military-industrial complex are really probably the planners because if that war ends in Ukraine, what are they going to do?
We run out of money that we can find to send over there and buy more weapons for them.
But they have to have an arch enemy.
And, you know, China right now is there.
So even if you can talk yourself into a little bit of positive attitude about the fact that the two leaders at least talked to each other, they didn't even call anybody names until they decided to leave.
Then they had to appeal, especially Biden had to appeal to his base.
I am still really tough on those commies.
So therefore, we have to go back to the other.
But unfortunately, you started with the answer to our frustrations, Chris, by saying, well, maybe it has something to do with our foreign policy.
And maybe us approaching our foreign policy would make a big difference.
Right, Dr. Paul.
And G, you know, he said some things that I wish our own politicians would say.
He said, quote, it's unrealistic for one side to remodel the other, and conflict and confrontation has terrible consequences for both sides.
He said, the world at large is big enough for the two countries to succeed.
And he's right.
You know, when he says that neither it's unrealistic for one side to remodel the other, you know, all he has to do is look at what we did in the Middle East.
Did we remake the Middle East?
Absolutely not.
We drained ourselves of trillions of dollars.
You know, Daniel and Dr. Paul were recording that our bases in Iraq, why do we have bases in Iraq?
But they're there.
They're being attacked today, you know, with this latest conflagration with Israel and Gaza.
You know, China doesn't have bases there that are being attacked.
They're not invading the world.
Like I said, they have one in Africa.
And I'm sure it has to do with their trade with Africa.
And G also said China does not seek spheres of influence.
It will not fight a Cold War or hot war with anyone.
Now, think about that GOP debate.
They were all foaming at the mouth, just picking countries to go to war with.
And we jump from Ukraine to Israel without pause.
We don't even think about anything.
We have our Treasury Secretary who is overseeing a Treasury that is $33 trillion in debt and $1 trillion in interest payments, who says, yeah, we can afford to fight two wars.
I mean, this is the difference.
And the Chinese and the rest of the world, they're sitting back and watching us bankrupt ourselves voluntarily.
You know, and we're sitting here trying to put out the opposite ideas, but when you look at the political atmosphere, they want nothing of it.
They want one thing, and that is war, and that will totally finish us financially and economically.
Bashing China's Flaws Exposes Our Own00:05:04
You know, I think the assumption that they base all this nonsense on about bashing, bashing China, because, you know, a lot of things they say is true.
They have a dictatorial system.
But boy, is it different from the time I remember, you know, when in high school, the teacher being sent to Korea and dying, and all this horror going on.
But I think what our diplomats, our so-called diplomats and our politicians, and so many people who want to continue to bash China, think that China's faults don't, because we can point out their faults and their shortcomings, it doesn't excuse us for our own.
This is the point that, Chris, I know you keep trying to make.
Look to ourselves.
That's where the responsibility is.
Besides, we'd save a lot of money and a lot of agony and a lot of war and a lot of killing if we did that.
Yes, I mean, does that mean we endorse communism around the world?
No, that means that if we do a good job in what we're supposed to be doing and we did it for a few years after we wrote our Constitution, that others wanted to emulate us.
Right now, they're being laughed at us because we're a third world nation.
You know, this whole visit with Xi, he comes in, clean up the streets.
We don't want them to see our slums.
We don't want them to see.
San Francisco is a beautiful, wonderful city.
Used to be.
Oh, we don't want the communists to find out that we have our shortcomings.
But it's not the shortcomings of what the founders gave us.
They gave us a republic and imperfectly, obviously, but it's a system that did work.
And the big problem now is we have drifted so far from that that we can't pretend we're the same type of government that we had in our early years.
And that, I think, makes a big difference.
And right now, I unfortunately see bad signs ahead.
But like I've said so many times, I think the bad times are upon us, and people are starting to know our freedoms are being undermined, the deficits are out of control, the moral standards are out of control.
The whole thing is a mess.
But I still believe that the seeds have already been planted.
They've been replanted.
There have been some seeds preserved by the remnant of what it was like when they intended to declare our independence and proclaim liberty.
So, yes, they're there, but there's a job for us who believe in it to explain that bashing China doesn't solve the problem.
It just makes things worse because you can't convert people that way.
And the only way a libertarian can promote it is to do it through persuasion, through setting standards, and avoiding causing the problem.
So often, if you take the Chinese bashing, they'll say, well, they did this and this, but they say they have our money and they're buying up stuff, and it's China's fault.
They're undermining our liberties.
But nobody wants to talk about the fact that we've had a reserve currency in the world.
We dictate to the world the dollar standard and it's running out of steam.
And we've had that control since 1945.
And it's been going on all this time.
And so who do you think gave the dollars to China?
We did.
We buy all their stuff.
So we were getting a bargain.
We just printed that money, which is a problem coming home to roost.
We did that, and we bought up their goods and services.
Now, communism is still influenced China, and now our system is moving more strongly toward authoritarianism.
So we, you know, it's that way you might say there's going to be a collision on who's going to grab up the pieces because both systems, whether it's avowed communism or the interventionism that we have endorsed and the desire for our empire, they will end.
The question is, can the people who believe in liberty have enough influence to get people to come in our direction?
Because if their minds aren't changed, and I'm not talking about the minds of a couple more congressmen, I'm talking about the minds of the people.
And if that can happen, we saw a change in attitude during COVID.
And fortunately, what we have to concentrate on, and we all must do it, is try to get people to understand there's no free ride.
Liberty is something that comes to us, and then you have to work for what you want.
Oh, well, we don't know about that.
The Fallacy of Infinite Wealth00:07:25
Our country is so wealthy, we can invite everybody in the world to come here because we have wealth forever, all based on a fallacy, a fallacy and illusion of this deception that all you have to do is print money and you'll have wealth and you'll have the military power that you need.
That's where the fallacy is.
Chris.
Excellent, Dr. Paul.
I'll finish up with my closing thoughts.
Yeah, I really don't have to say this.
It's very obvious that we live in very dangerous times.
When I look at the presidential candidates from both parties, not very encouraging at all.
Sadly, even with President Trump, former President Trump, he goes around saying, I'm the only one that could keep us out of World War III.
But remember, Woodrow Wilson said the same thing.
FDR said the same thing.
They're re-elected based on making those promises.
But unfortunately, even President Trump intervenes overseas, and that's a big problem.
Now, do I think he would start world war with China or Russia?
No, I don't.
But the Middle East?
That's a, you know, who knows?
He hasn't shown us that he would keep us, make America great again when it comes to the Middle East.
So we're in very, very difficult times because there's no one to turn to, at least in the presidential election.
But we don't necessarily need that because it starts with the American people.
Excuse me.
Politicians reflect the attitudes of the American people, like Dr. Paul says.
And the American people, unfortunately, either passively or even aggressively are okay with our foreign policy.
And that needs to change.
And I think more and more people are grasping, because we really just move from one country to the next.
And it's nonsense.
And our standard of living is dropping precipitously.
I had friends that are complaining to me how much they're paying for milk, just to feed they have kids.
And they're paying just crazy amounts for milk.
That all stems from our empire.
That's where it comes from.
That's what is draining us.
And like we've said before, we don't get an invoice in the mailbox.
We see it at the supermarket.
We see it with our prices that double and triple and quadruple.
So we're paying for this.
And we need to get to the point where we just have to say enough is enough.
A minority, a strong minority of people, a critical mass of people need to say, that's it, bring the troops home.
And the majority of people will follow because that's human nature.
The majority just follows.
So it starts with that critical minority.
And hopefully someday we'll see the positive results from good ideas.
Very good, Chris.
Early on, I gave a bit of praise, and that's not a strong term in this regard.
And that is, for Nixon and Kissinger, sort of opening up the doors.
I thought things got better and we should have moved in that direction.
But Nixon, at the same time he was doing that, he was also introducing and acknowledging something bad for us.
Maybe, yes, we were moving toward where we could talk to the Chinese and trade and visit there.
But Nixon, when he closed the gold window and put on wage and price controls and on tariffs and all this nonsense and called in the gold, he said that we were all Keynesians now.
Keynesian being interventionists, not socialists, but where you have corporatism and special interests and you build up the special groups that can go and lobby for their efforts.
That's the democracy.
How are we going to divvy up the loot?
So instead of saying we are all Keynesianized, which we are, what has happened is we've gone the next step.
We're all authoritarians now.
So, you know, when you think about it, overall, and there's exceptions to this, but when you look at the major beliefs of the Republican and the Democrat Party, they're very authoritarian.
You know, they might disagree on whether we should help Israel or the Ukrainian, or how much should we give each one.
Oh, no, we have to, we can't ignore the Palestinians.
And, you know, we go on and on.
So they, they, but they're still authoritarians.
They still are involved.
And they want us to have, Americans are very proud of their empire.
And so they're saying, well, this is very good.
And it is ours.
And some of them put it in religious terms.
We have this moral and religious obligation to take care of the world because we're wealthy and we have this.
Not realizing or beginning to realize that the very thoughts of authoritarianism leads us to where we are in this mess that we have in our country.
And nobody knows what name to call each other.
There was a time when being a believer in liberty and rejecting authoritarianism, that was this position that we have.
But there are a lot of seeds planted out there, people waiting for the opportunity, and we're going to have it because this system is coming down.
The monetary system is going to change.
Who knows?
Next week or next month, I doubt it.
But it's coming down.
It's cracking.
And all you have to do is watch.
One of the numbers that tells me about how quickly things are moving is looking at the curve of both the debt, the deficit that's going up like this, and also the interest on the payment of the deficit.
And that's the limitation.
And that's when they lose confidence.
All you have to do is look at the daily gold markets and what is going on right now.
But the system we have has led to what socialist systems do, lead to.
You know, there's wealth maldistribution.
There is no doubt about it.
There's an inequality, and it comes from the monetary system and how the very wealthy can benefit from a fiat monetary system because they get the money first and they spend it when it still has value.
And they passed the bill on to the average person because the people end up getting paper, more of their paper, which has lost the value, and that is an inflation tax.
So the rich don't have to worry about that.
It doesn't bother them that much.
But if you look at our Department of Justice, we don't really have a Department of Justice.
And there's a lot of talk about it, and I think a lot of healthy talk.
And there are now some special investigations I think would be helpful.
A lot of people have not thought much about corporatism.
That is where the government and the business people are together.
But the military-industrial complex, that's part of it.
The medical profession is a mixture of big business.
We saw that in pharmaceuticals and so on and on.
It's government force, and they certainly got involved and still are involved in how the social media should be ruled and regulated, and people losing their right of free speech.
Government And Business Merge00:01:19
And we certainly saw one of the candidates just yesterday talking about, we need to know everything.
Who's saying every single thing?
Nobody can just speak.
And so that's a bad sign.
And people say, well, if we keep doing this, we're going to have third world status.
I don't think we have to wait or look too long.
I just, there was one time I said, oh, yeah, boy, those people in California, they're terrible.
And I was revealing my ignorance.
I said, who knows?
Some of this stuff could come to Texas.
Somebody says, when's the last time you've been to Austin?
So it's here, spotty.
But all we have to do is go to our cities.
The bigger the city, the more authoritarian it is, the worse the conditions are, the more crime there is.
So we're marching quickly to a third world status.
And it fits the plans of the authoritarians who want to go to their advanced stage, which is pure authoritarianism and cultural Marxism.
They want control.
What is the best thing for them to have?
Chaos in the streets.
And they're winning that fight.
But there's no reason that we can't keep working on waking the people up and tell them there is an alternative, and that is peace.