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Jan. 4, 2024 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
30:13
America Waking Up? War Fears Up 100% In New Poll

Are Americans getting war-weary? A new AP-NORC poll has revealed that the percentage of Americans who consider foreign policy a top issue has doubled this year. The Biden Administration thus far has been one of steady increase in military involvement overseas and as this and other recent polls show, Americans are fed up. Also today: New House Bill calls for the US to drop charges against Assange. Can we get it some traction?

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Time Text
Top Issue: Foreign vs. Domestic Policy 00:09:27
Everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today is Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
We survived our opening.
Somebody forgot a switch somewhere, but it could be some evildoer out there that's cutting the switches.
It's the CIA.
Yeah.
Or SWAT teams.
We've got to watch out for them, too.
But anyway, we're going to start with something that we work, some days we have to work pretty hard to come across something positive to say.
And this one is a little easier.
There's a statistic that we like.
And, you know, I was asking, how long have we been doing this program and talking about foreign policy and pro-peace things?
Then I got to thinking, well, I've been thinking seriously about it since I was 10 years old, you know, because I remember World War II so well.
And then, you know, it was sort of analyst.
People say it's bad now, but just think as somebody that was well aware of a war going on in 1945 and then followed quickly, Korea, and then Vietnam, and then on and on.
So that's not to dismiss the problems we have today, because I think even with those times back when the wars were bigger and worse, that the problems we face in foreign policy is much, much greater, much more dangerous.
We were sort of, you know, in control of things.
We had a dollar that was growing in value.
We were the richest and we had the strongest military and we were resp, that's what we, we used to be respected.
Less respect.
So things have changed a lot.
So you can't go by saying that, well, we've learned how to stay out of war.
We hire out countries to go in and fight our battles.
You know, they're a proxy war for it.
So, but just in the general picture, what we want to talk about is an article that Zero Hedge had out.
An increasing number of Americans see foreign policy as a top issue.
That's what we've been working on.
And remember when we started this, and I told Daniel, you know, I remember, I said, it's good and we will be able to get support and we'll raise money, but it's not the juiciest issue for most people.
But maybe that's a bad sign right now because we have had some generous individuals helping us out.
And that has been good and keeps us going.
But the whole thing is, we have to keep the programs going.
And I'd like to think that we've had some subtle influence on this issue of looking at foreign policy and looking at non-intervention.
But, you know, somebody might say, yeah, well, your numbers have grown and you're doing a job and a lot of people like what you're doing.
But if you compare it to the big guys, I mean, they don't talk about tens of thousands.
And we've had some programs over 100,000.
And so it's small compared to others.
But I would like to think about, you know, the growth of influence.
I think of the audience as being more sophisticated, more interested, and in people that are issue-oriented and will spread the message.
So we don't know how many people reached.
And so we can't claim any credit for, we woke up the country.
We have to wake ourselves up first.
So anyway, this was good news that more and more people are seeing it.
And there's different reasons.
What if the people are waking up because they want to defend country B, and we think that we should support country A, which is the USA.
So that's a big thing that's going on.
But anyway, there's been a sentiment change.
And we've talked about it before.
It might be just an economic situation because why are we doing this, fighting these wars and spending hundreds of billions of dollars when we have trouble at home?
You know, we're losing the war at home, war for our liberties and the borders and protection.
So that is a big difference.
And I think that right now the people are waking up to looking at foreign policy and what foreign policy includes and why it is so important.
Policies are instrumental.
Wars come and go, and people precipitate them, and then they have all these reasons, but they never ask the right questions.
And they never figure, well, maybe our government hasn't gone to war like we were supposed to.
Maybe we were supposed to be more cautious.
So if we wouldn't spend money overseas unconstitutionally or getting involved in wars that are unconstitutional, the world would be a different place.
And maybe we're approaching that time where the people are starting to wake up and say, boy, maybe we've overdone it.
Maybe we ought to stay home for a while.
Yeah, let's put up that first clip because this is what we're talking about.
The origin was really the Libertarian Institute.
And this is Kyle Anzalone.
And we caught it on Hedge.
We caught it on anti-war.com.
But it's a fascinating article, and it's written based on a new AP Nork poll.
If we go to that next clip, the title, of course, is an increasing number of Americans see foreign policy as a top issue.
And from the article, it says, the Associated Press survey found that about four in ten U.S. adults named foreign policy topics in an open-ended question that asked people to share up to five issues for the government to work on for the next year.
Last year, only 18% of Americans said foreign wars were a top issue.
And that's a big deal because you're looking at a doubling of Americans who now have foreign policy on their radar.
Now, does that mean that all of a sudden a massive tide has come over to the non-interventionist perspective?
No, but what it means is Americans are now paying attention.
They've seen $100 billion flush down the toilet called Ukraine war.
They've seen inflation go through the roof because of the printing of dollars to give to these wars.
They've seen the threat of World War III as we go to Russia's doorstep and give the weapons to Ukraine and say, here, fire them into Russia.
This is a great idea.
And now we're seeing in the Middle East a horrific war which is flattening an entire population and all of the weapons are coming from the United States.
And so that's what I think that we're seeing.
And I think that's why they are waking up and awakening.
And, you know, Lenin was evil, but he was also brilliant.
And one of the things he said is the worse the better.
And as much as I hate to think of it this way, Biden has been so bad on foreign policy.
His foreign policy has been so horrible.
He's been enmeshed in wars the entire time he's been president.
He's been sleepwalking as the neocons grab the controls, the hardcore neocons, the Victoria Newlands, the Brett McGurks, and all these guys grab the reins and are running this show and running us into the ground.
And they're doing such a bad job that it almost fulfills what Lenin said.
The worse he does, the better it is for us because it's an opening for us to make the case for non-interventionism.
There is a silver lining in this, I think.
Well, I think that's what happens when terrible things here happen here at home.
And you say, well, if they do that, that policy says it's immigration policies or domestic welfare problems at home and all the demonstrations.
And then they don't really seriously ask the question, why do we do it?
Why do we get involved in these foreign adventurism?
And why do we do the domestic policy?
And very close to what you just said is that a proper position from the Marxists is that for us to install what we believe should be proper government, and some of them actually believe it, that anything related to individuals making their own minds about how to run their lives, they're against.
And the best way is to cause chaos in our streets.
And if you look at it, there's so many things that happen.
Why would they do this?
It's so stupid.
But then again, you alluded to the fact: well, maybe there's a strategy.
And whether it's on foreign policy or domestic policy, we want to cause chaos.
And we have that, but we keep seeing people getting fed up and sort of a race, I think.
We better expand more rapidly.
I love the fact that seeds are being sown and people are shifting, but we have to move it quickly.
But that was one thing is as a minor incident, you know, the COVID situation, you know, a few people here and there objected, and finally, truth broke out, you know, and there's been an exposure, an explosion of interest.
Concerns Over Overseas Involvement 00:03:23
And now the people who are documenting this are saying, you know, it's criminal, and yet there's still the doctors are still doing it.
You know, the hospitals and all.
So that doesn't make any sense.
You have to, what is their motivation?
So that's the bewildering question that we have to ask.
Absolutely.
Well, let's look at a couple of other talks, sorry, statistics from the article.
Now, this is from the AP piece writing up the article, if we can put this next one on.
Now, they say that long-standing economic worries still overshadow other issues, and that's to be expected.
But they go on to say, but the new poll's findings point to increased concern about U.S. involvement overseas.
20% voiced that sentiment in the poll versus 5% a year ago.
So the number of the percentage of people who are expressing concern about our involvement overseas has quadrupled from 5 to 20 percent.
That is significant.
And if I were Biden's people, I'd be worried.
Now, let's go to the next clip.
This is jumping back to the Libertarian Institute's write-up because they start talking about other poll numbers.
And they say, President Biden is struggling in recent polling.
Two demographics that Biden won in 2020 now prefer Trump.
I found this shocking, Dr. Paul.
A USA Today poll found Trump at 39% ahead of Biden at 34 among Latino voters.
Trump-winning Latinos.
And the other one is the trend was repeated among young voters who preferred Trump 37 to 33.
And this is the other important point.
And we've talked about this on the program, Dr. Paul.
Younger voters are the most likely Americans to object to President Biden's support for the Israeli war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
As the Israeli military operations in Gaza indiscriminately kill and starve Palestinian civilians, more Americans are protesting Biden's support for Tel Aviv.
So the president has been recently confronted with chance of genocide Joe.
So, you know, there is a sort of concept that the younger voters may be more liberal-minded.
They would go for Biden.
But you're seeing a real shift now, and you're seeing him losing that young demographic to Trump.
I find that astonishing.
And it's not to say that Trump is more even-handed when it comes to it.
His preferences in the Middle East are pretty clear.
However, there must be a sense that he could be somewhat more competent in the way he handles it.
Yeah, and I think you're a point that Biden is probably worried, and a few people have a job under Biden, they're worried too.
But I don't think the people who are really managing affairs in the deep state, you know, whether you're chairman of the Federal Reserve or whatever, the military-industrial complex, because generally speaking, they're really well, you know, protected.
They say, well, you know, it doesn't matter.
We'll have this contest, but we always have the alternative.
We're going to control the alternative.
And they've gone nuts because they haven't been able, no matter what they do, the more they cheat and lie and steal, the more popular Trump becomes.
So that's the alternative.
Congress's Persuasive Power 00:07:14
There's no, for them, they don't have their alternative, and that's why they're throwing everything at them when they're now just begging and pleading.
Well, we have to be tough now.
If we can't stop them just fair and square by lying about them, what we have to do is stop him by getting the courts to make sure that if so-and-so says he shouldn't be on the ballot, erase his name.
That's the absurdity of it all.
And I think they are worried, but maybe more so because they have less control, and that individual is Trump.
And like you say, we don't endorse a lot of that stuff because we want a much clearer vision about non-interventionism.
Yeah, and I think for us, and I know you've been doing it a long time, I think that's the frustration that we have because there is this great opportunity for us to explain it doesn't have to be this way.
We don't have to spend all of these trillions of dollars to enrich the military-industrial complex and to enrich the careers of the neocons.
There is an alternative.
It's called non-interventionism.
But it's difficult.
You still run up against the Albright mentality.
We are the indispensable nation.
We see further than other nations.
Therefore, we must get involved in everything.
The retort would be, well, the proof is in the pudding.
Where have we gotten involved where things have turned out better than they were when we started?
Libya, Iraq, Iran in 1953.
I mean, where is it better?
So maybe there's an alternative.
I just wish myself personally I were better able to explain it to people.
But you know what will come and is around all the time because if you talk the way we talk, what they do, they throw the word out.
You guys are just way off the base because you're a bunch of isolationists, and that's what causes wars.
You've got to be engaged in the world.
But the truth is, the isolationism comes from what we're doing because we become more isolated with all the wealth and prosperity we had and the reserve currency of the world, and yet we're still losing that.
And the one thing that we, you know, in a free society that you don't lose, you don't become isolationists.
Well, you really open up your doors to ideas and travel and people going back and forth and trade.
You know, there was a movement 10, 20 years ago.
It seemed like you couldn't get very many economists.
Rarely could you get one saying, we need more trade barriers, we need terrorists, and all that.
But now, look, they use that a lot.
But in the free market, you don't have isolationism.
You have isolationism when you do bad things in foreign affairs and the world isolates us from them.
Yeah, and our relationship with China is a perfect example.
Engage is a good word.
When we are engaged commercially, it prevents war.
You don't want to go to war with your customers.
But when we're engaged militarily, it promotes war, which is what we've been doing in the South China Sea.
So, yes, we're all for engagement.
It's just a different kind of engagement.
That's what the one is.
The one that prevents war.
So let's move on to another very important topic and one that's very close to both of our hearts because we feel very strongly about it.
And go to that next clip.
This is from Dave DeCamp wrote this up on antiwar.com.
We thank Dave for his diligent work on this.
Bill introduced in-house calls for U.S. to drop charges against Julian Assange.
And a resolution introduced last month in the U.S. House calls for the U.S. to drop the charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who faces up to 175 years in prison if extragiated to the U.S. and convicted for journalism that exposed U.S. war crimes.
And now, this bill is a sense of Congress bill, and as many of our astute readers or viewers know, that doesn't have the force of law, but expresses the sense that Congress does not view this as something that should be prosecuted.
And as such, it carries weight.
It carries the persuasive power of Congress over to the issue.
And what's neat about this bill is that it is absolutely bipartisan.
It was introduced by Representative Paul Gosar, who's a dentist, I believe, and we knew him back when you were in the House.
Thomas Massey is on the bill.
But also, some of our, at least one of our old friends from the time on the Democratic side.
And who was it again?
It was Jim McGovern.
He was on, and he's a top co-sponsor right now, and a couple Democrats on there.
So now, can we declare bipartisanship for this now?
Yeah, eventually it has to be.
You have to get people to come over.
And all we'd have to do is tinker around with the Democrats.
They used to be really the group that wanted to stop the wars.
They were the ones that were anti-war in the 60s.
But no, I think this is great that he's put this in.
And I hope they get a vote, and I hope they do well.
So, you know, we don't do much talk about contacting your congressman, but we should do our best to get the message to the voters because the vote is, you know, it's a system that isn't something we brag about, but at times it reflects public opinion.
So if that is done, if there's a good vote for this, it will make a difference.
And like you, a lot of things you were pointing out was just an attitude of the people shifting.
So whether they've shifted enough to vote the right way is a big question.
Yeah, and you know, we don't spend a lot of time telling people to endorse a bill because as a 501c3, we're not allowed to.
We're allowed to do it up to 25% of the time.
I think we do it probably 1% or maybe 0.1% of the time.
But there are times where we do encourage it.
And the bill is HRES 934.
And I'm going to, in fact, when we finish the show, I'm going to write to our representative, Randy Weber, and I'm going to ask him to co-sponsor the bill very politely as what you should do.
But you can go to the page of the website of your representative.
You can also call 202-224-3121 and have them connect you with your representative and very politely ask them to co-sponsor it.
Journalism shouldn't be a crime.
And it's a great bill because it really is bipartisan.
How often will you see Representative Gosar and Elon Omar on the same bill?
Not very often.
So I think that's a good sign.
So we're very encouraged.
I did have one other clip that I pulled from it, if we can put that on, because I just want to make a point that if we go back one, actually, that there is a time factor on this, and we can't forget to do that.
And this is from the Dave's article.
Assange, who's been held in London's Belmarsh prison since 2019, has a hearing scheduled at the UK High Court on February 20th and 21 to appeal his extradition to the U.S. That's why it's important for people to get this passed in Congress ahead of this hearing.
That'll send a message to the government in the UK that Congress is paying attention and they don't think he should be prosecuted for this.
Assange's Extradition Hearing 00:07:27
You know, during some of my campaigning in the presidential races, I came up with a slogan out of thin air because I believed it, and the crowds loved it.
And I said, it's not complicated.
Freedom is popular.
And we could add, peace is popular because when you have your freedom, you're more likely to have some peace.
But yes, and how do you influence people when you don't have the government to tell us what to do?
You do it through volunteerism.
You try to influence people.
And right now, we're not doing a very good job.
I mean, just this whole thing, how we assassinate leaders of other countries?
That is not a good example.
Not at all.
Well, here's, I mean, I want to end on a downer note, but this is why it's so important.
Excuse me.
If we can go to the next clip, now this is from what is it called?
The dissenter, right?
Is that the article?
I mean, that's the publication.
Yeah, the dissenter.
Now, this is something that we saw linked on anti-war.com.
From prison, Assange expresses regret that WikiLeaks can no longer expose war crimes.
Now, that got both of our attention.
What are they talking about?
What are they talking about?
Well, unfortunately, this is what he's talking about.
If you go to the next clip, now he spoke with a journalist from the nation who visited him in prison.
And unfortunately, this is what Assange told him.
Because the journalist Glass said this is the time, important time for WikiLeaks because of the Gaza siege in Ukraine and all this.
And from the article, however, Assange shared his regret that, quote, Wikileaks is no longer able to expose war crimes and corruption as in the past.
He believes the U.S. government's war on WikiLeaks had a considerable impact in convincing whistleblowers to steer clear of submitting documents to the organization.
That, Dr. Paul suggests, that at least for now, the bad guys have won.
Yes, and we'd love to reverse that.
And when the real problem started aggressively was under, this is quoting, under CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
The agency labeled WikiLeaks, and this is more quotes from him, non-state hostile intelligence service.
And treating Wikileaks as a rival spy service enabled the CIA to do offensive counterintelligence operations free of oversight.
Yep.
And that was not very civil libertarian.
It wasn't very constitutional.
And it doesn't make any sense unless you're looking for trouble.
Yes, absolutely.
And that's where.
So, yes, Assange is one individual, but he's been, he's been, you might, you know, someday ask why, why, why do they have to do this?
You know, and his, I think he truly was just producing material, you know, as a journalist.
He's not even an American citizen, and we can do that.
That's more arrogance than a lot of people can tolerate.
Well, they do it because, as all authoritarian thugs, they want to discourage the others.
And right now they've succeeded.
Nobody wants to end up like poor Julian Assange.
Nobody wants to end up.
And read the article, you can link to it on anti-war.com for our viewers.
It goes through some of the horrific things.
If you go to, apparently, he's just as wide as a ghost because he never sees sunlight.
He has never, even his one hour of exercise, he's inside.
And so he's white as a sheet.
For me, at least, I get depressed in the winters in Texas because I've got to see the sun.
I can only imagine for four and some years, four years he's been like this.
Go to that next clip.
I think it's two clips over.
There we go.
No, no, one more over.
One more over.
Oh, yeah, yeah, okay.
So this was, I wanted to mention this.
This is the journalist Glass.
He said, Julian had thought prison meant communal meals at long tables, as in the movies.
He recalled, Bel Marsh's warders shoved the food into the cells of prisoners to eat alone.
It's hard to make friends that way.
He's been here longer than any other prisoner aside from an old man who served seven years to his four and a half.
And he goes on, the prison let Assange have a radio only after Glass was prepared to publicize the fact that Hezbollah allows hostages to have radio.
So even Hezbollah will let their hostages have radios.
And here, His Majesty's prison wouldn't let Assange.
And the description of the food is worse than you can imagine, the kind of stuff he's eating.
So no wonder he's not healthy.
He's not feeling well.
Four and a half years of this isolation.
You know, this whole thing is so bad, morally speaking.
And when they during the during the Middle Eastern wars under Bush, torture became commonplace.
Normal, yeah.
It's probably still being used.
Matter of fact, this is an example of it.
Finding some non-citizen who wrote some stuff telling the truth and we didn't like it.
And this is literal torture.
But back in the old days when we weren't feeding people, they just waterboard them.
Can you imagine?
It just makes me sick when they think they waterboard one.
I don't know what he did, but they waterboarded him like 30 times?
But, you know, you say, well, he was a bad guy.
You have to punish him.
No, I see it a different way.
What I'd like to know is the final conclusion.
What if you're the guy that waterboard somebody for 30 times and bring him to the inch away from death?
What is a guy that does this?
How does he live the rest of his life?
Maybe he'll have nightmares or something and he would deserve the nightmares.
What a tragedy.
It is.
It is.
You're right.
They're all, you know, they're drugs and alcohol problems.
You know, it's a misery for them.
As you say, they probably deserve it to a degree.
But I'm going to close out.
If you can put that last clip on, I don't do it very often, but the Ron Paul Institute has, we launched a new website.
I think it's really clean and really easy to read.
I like the old one because I'm sentimental.
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Join the Ron Paul Institute's email list.
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Over to you, Dr. Paul.
Very good.
You know, and this is an important week for obvious reasons, the things that we've just talked about.
And it's important for everybody to be engaged and participate, especially with this issue of Assange, whatever you can do to notify elected leaders.
I think that's important.
But also the whole issue of non-intervention and troops.
And we are getting, and this is what we've mentioned several times.
Why Ukraine Matters 00:02:24
People are saying, why are we spending over $100 billion worrying about the borders in Ukraine when most people in this country can't find Ukraine on the map?
And they say, yes, but you say you live in Texas and you have an immigration problem?
No, they live in New York City and they have an immigration problem.
And all of a sudden, the amount of money they spend on there is just outrageous.
It's criminal.
Because as far as I'm concerned, the money that you put into these issues that are unconstitutional and dangerous for us, it should not only be illegal, but it's very, very dangerous to do this.
And it'll eventually bring on bankruptcy.
So there are a lot of events, and we're going to keep up with them.
And I think it's important for all of us to do our best to understand the issues because the biggest job that I personally have is to make sure my source of information is correct.
But, you know, oh, and then all of a sudden, Hillary or somebody like Hillary will set up a truth bureau.
Oh, well, somebody has this truth bureau.
And then I think of the commissions that are set up to seek out the truth about the terrible things that we have done and suspected of doing.
But I've come to the conclusion: yes, look into it and look for the truth, but the odds of you getting the truth, especially the one that hits my mind right now, is the Kennedy Commission, the Dulles Commission.
And that was, as far as I'm concerned, just a cover-up.
So commissions are generally set up to pretend they're going to seek the truth, punish the people who did something wrong.
And the truth is, it's either covering up mistakes or hiding some malicious interests and activities that the government has been doing.
So seeking out the truth is very important.
That's why looking for journalists, and this is also the reason that Sassanj has been punished so much because his crime was he was telling the truth and letting people know what was going on.
We're a real tragedy.
A republic can't exist if truth is so viciously punished.
We'd like to change that.
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