Judging Freedom - Ask the Judge - Q&A with Your Questions - Streamed LIVE

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Judge Napolitano answers viewer questions LIVE. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, October 6, 2023. It's 3.30 in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States. My favorite time of the United States. My favorite time of the week because it's the time for you to ask me questions. So I'm just going to scroll through the questions we have. I'm going to click on them like I just did here. Steve, Steve, you donated $5 to the show.

Thank you very much. Very much appreciated. Judge, would you please explain what you mean by the welfare state? I and many know, many I know, could use some, I guess, some explanation is what you meant. So the welfare state is a state of affairs where the government, using the force of government, takes from the haves and gives to the have-nots. Prior to the progressive era, that's about 100 years ago, when Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt were back-to-back presidents of the United States, and they were pretty much Tweedledee, Tweedledum, very different in personality, but very much the same in using the power of government to touch and shape the lives of individuals, something that was alien to the

framers when they wrote the Constitution. That's for the states to do and not the feds. But from about 100 years ago, the government began with the income tax, with the Federal Reserve, with the administrative state, that part of the government that is not elected but stays permanent and makes rules that we have to follow, like the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Administration, et cetera. From that period of time up to the present, the government has been taking money from the haves and giving it to the have-nots. Well, they call it Social Security, which FDR said the government would hold in a bank account for you until you're ready to retire and give you your money back, sort of forced savings.

We know that's a farce. The government doesn't hold your money. It spends your money. Medicare and Medicaid, the have-nots is the welfare state. Professor Murray Rothbard, who is the most prominent modern articulator of the libertarian philosophy that I embrace, once said there are three models for wealth. One is you work hard, you trade your talent, you trade your skill, you trade the sweat on your brow, and somebody pays you for it. The other is you were born into a family that inherited a lot of wealth. God bless you. The third is the mafia model. Give me your money or else. And then he would pause and say, which model does the government use? Well, we all know which model

the government uses. Hello, Judge. My question is about Britain's involvement in the Ukraine war. Why is Britain so aggressively pursuing war on Russia? Does Britain honestly feel it can defeat Russia in a war? Dennis, I don't believe that the British people believe they can defeat Russia in a war, but the British elites are willing to do it for the same reason that the American elites are willing to do it. War is the health of the state. War enriches the state. War allows the state to tax more and war allows the state to spend more. War is the health of the state. War enriches the state. War allows the state to tax more, and war allows the state to spend more. War is the health of the state. In America, it enhances the military-industrial

complex. It does the same in Britain. But Larry Johnson made an interesting argument just yesterday that the British, in some respects, their elites are actually worse than ours. They, too, believe that God created Great Britain in a special way and created it to rule the world. At one point, it did rule the world. Now it's just, you know, the United Kingdom is Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Northern Ireland and Wales are two tiny little countries. Wales is contiguous with Great Britain. Northern Ireland and Wales. Northern Ireland and Wales are two tiny little countries. Wales is contiguous with Great Britain. Northern Ireland is not. The rest of their so-called empire has been set free.

But the elites in Great Britain still have that attitude about ruling the world. I saw another question here that I liked. Judge, if you were president, would you pardon Julian Assange? Yes, I would pardon Julian Assange and I would pardon Edward Snowden immediately. Not only did the two of them not commit any crimes, they performed public services, which are absolutely protected under the First Amendment. Julian Assange, as a publisher, acquired information about war crimes by the Bush administration, and he published it. Edward Snowden took two oaths. One was to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. The other was to keep secret the secrets he learned. What is he supposed to do

when those two oaths clash with each other? What would you do? You can't buy, you can't obey both oaths. You comply with the higher and the greater oath, which is to the Constitution and the values that underlie it. And that oath said the government was regularly, consistently, systematically, and on a massive scale violating the Fourth Amendment. Fourth Amendment says no surveillance without a search warrant. Search warrants have to be based on individualized suspicion and probable cause. They must specifically describe the place to be searched and the person or thing to be seized. I'm quoting from the Fourth Amendment. When the government spies on everybody,

whether it's your mobile device or your desktop, whether it's your bank account or your lawyer's records of you or your doctor's records of you, whether it's your mail or your texting, whatever it is, and they do so without a search warrant. They are violating the Constitution that they have sworn to uphold. So I would clearly, clearly, easily, I don't think I'm going to become president, but it would be one of the first things I did. Interestingly, I hope he doesn't mind me saying this. I was that close, that close. I'm holding my fingers about an eighth of an inch apart to talking President Trump into pardoning Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.

At one point, he told me he would, and then the people around him sort of got to him. At one point, he was going to veto an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the one that expires, the one that expires this December, the section that allows warrantless spying on foreign persons and the Americans with whom they communicate. And he publicly said in one of his famous tweets, the judge is right, I'm not going to sign it, I'm going to veto it. And then people around him got to him and persuaded him to do otherwise.

We'll see what happens if he's reelected, or we'll see what happens whoever is elected. But prosecuting Assange and Snowden for speech is simply reprehensible. They, too, just like Matt Gaetz, who's not yet being prosecuted, but they'd like to go after him. They, too, Snowden and Assange, are American heroes. Okay, this person calls himself, think for yourself, according to Seymour Hersh, the U.S. and Norway was involved in the sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines. How come Norway has managed to evade the EU anger on those responsible? That's a very good question. Not only, think for yourself, has Norway evaded responsibility,

they're not getting the natural gas that they were getting, that the Germans were reselling them. So the way it worked, four Nord Stream pipelines, one never operative, one destroyed. I don't know if the other two are working or not, but the one that was destroyed was supplying so much natural gas to Germany that the German utilities were able to resell it to utilities in Norway and Finland. Their government leadership has caved like the sheep that they are, just as the leadership of Germany caved. I mean, President Biden boasted about destroying the Nord Stream pipeline before it

was destroyed in the presence of German Chancellor Scholz. He didn't say anything right there or anything public that we know of since then. And now, of course, the government would have us believe it was two guys in a sailboat who dropped some sort of a detonation device. Hirsch is correct. Hirsch is brilliant. Hirsch is indefatigable. Hirsch tells the truth. Hirsch requires a minimum of three sources for everything he says. And if you want to read that piece, you can Google it. It's only about 20 pages long. It is a vivid description of the training side by side in Pensacola, Florida, that the CIA and the Navy SEALs did. ideological, the moral objections that some of them had, but it's about how they did it anyway, and it's about Joe Biden's personal involvement in the destruction of this pipeline, about which, of course, like many other things, he has not told the truth.

Somebody asked a question earlier about, I can't seem to find it, but I'm going to read it anyway, about jury nullification. One of to read it in any way, about jury nullification. One of you has written in, Judge, what is jury nullification? With the exception of this judge, nearly all judges hate jury nullification and will not tell the jury about it. What is it? So the great story of jury nullification goes back to the War of 1812 when the British tried to take back the colonies or we tried to take Canada from them. It's not clear what caused the war, but they were here. They burnt the White House. They burnt the Capitol. They are marching through Upper Marlborough, Maryland, in a platoon of British soldiers,

captures six town people and says they're going to hang at dawn. The mayor, unarmed, walks into the middle of the British encampment and unbeknownst to the British, local militia had captured six British soldiers. So the mayor says to the captain, we got six of your soldiers.

You hang ours, we'll hang yours. You let ours go, we'll let yours go. Mayor and the British captain shook hands. The Americans were released. The British were released. Six months later, the war was over. There was a tumultuous parade, I'm getting to my point, to celebrate what the mayor did. The mayor was the guest of honor at the parade. After he finished giving his speech, two strangers came up to them, and one of them put leg irons on his ankles and shackles on his wrists and handed him a piece of paper. They were agents of the federal government who were there to arrest him for treason, providing aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime. And then two months later, there was a trial. And at the trial, the government stood

up and said, well, everybody knows what he did. He did surrender the British soldiers. And the defense stood up and said, everybody knows what he did he saved innocent lives the judge said to the jury go across the street to the Tavern those days that's where jurors met and after you finish the Tavern Keeper's best ale come back with your verdict poor person stands up and said judge we don't need to go to the tavern, but we will if you'd like us to, but we have a verdict. The verdict is not guilty. The first example of jury nullification, which basically says we don't care if the defendant literally did what the government says he did for public policy reasons for the greater good, he should not be prosecuted.

So when the evidence of guilt is overwhelming, pardon me, but the jury knows and understands and believes that it is wrong to prosecute this defendant, you might want to make the argument for Donald Trump. Jury nullification will find the defendant not guilty. There's no appeal. There's no appeal from an acquittal, and there's nothing that the government can do about it. Now, if defense counsel stands up and says to the judge, would you tell the jury about jury nullification? No

judge is going to do that because judges, this one is the exception, don't believe it and don't like it. They like the jury to resolve things on the evidence, not on their views of public policy. I think it's a great aspect of American freedom, and I wish this one, Larry Boyle. Judge, is Jack Devine on the show today? You know, Jack and I disagree on just a bit of everything. We do agree on some things. We're both traditionalist Catholics who go to a Latin mass. And when we are together, we have a very, very good time at dinner. And I've Jack on there. I know a lot of you love to hate him. I know his views are off the wall compared to ours,

but he is an American patriot who has risked his life to save the country. And I welcome him back on the show. Thank you for that question, Larry Boyle. All right. Here's an interesting question from Juby. I have a good question. All right, we'll see if it's good, Juby. Since the military budget of the United States of America is now so, is now, how, is now so huge, how come the United States, pardon me, are running out of ammunition? Is it maybe because of the corruption? I don't know if it's because of the corruption. Initially, what we were giving the Ukrainians was from our surplus. We have depleted the surplus and we are now giving the Ukrainians from our substance.

Putin knows this. The Chinese know this. God forbid we're in a war. I mean, the last real war we fought was World War II. Since then, you know, we fought opportunistic wars, which are immoral and illegal, and we lost almost all of them. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, where we shouldn't, Did we win or lose Libya? Did we fight a war in Libya? Yeah. President Obama used the CIA rather than the military. I think I don't know if there's corruption, but I do know that we're running out of this stuff because Joe Biden is sending it there faster than it can be

replaced. Thank you for that question, Mr. Juby. Patrick Jean-Claude, judge with the woke politicians, our country is declined right in front of our eyes. Our Constitution belongs in a museum. A much time before we reach the point of no return. Thank you and Godspeed. Okay, so there's two ways to look at the Constitution, Patrick Jean-Claude. One is formally and one is functionally. Formally, it still exists. Formally, there's a House of Representatives.

Formally, there's a Senate. Formally, there's a House of Representatives. Formally, there's a Senate. Formally, there's a president. Formally, there's a judicial branch. But functionally, it doesn't work. Functionally, it fails to restrain the government. Functionally, it fails to preserve our liberty. Functionally, it couldn't care less about personal liberty. Functionally, it's found all kinds of ways. I've written about this extensively if you

Google my writings. I wrote a book called The Constitution in Exile, which argued that the Constitution was effectually exiled. And I just cataloged the hundreds and hundreds of examples of where the government has exceeded its power under the Constitution. It bribes the states with cash. It bribes the rich with bailouts. It bribes the poor with welfare. And it bribes the middle class with tax cuts. And when it engages in these bribes, it does it in return for changing the law of the land and exceeding what Jefferson called the chains that the Constitution erected to chain the government down and confine it within the boundaries of the Constitution. Functionally, the Constitution has been a dismal failure, but formally, it still exists. We still elect a president every four years. We still elect the

House every two years. We still elect one-third of the Senate every two years. We still appoint judges, supposedly bright and independent-minded thinkers. It doesn't always work that way, and they have their jobs for life. And supposedly, the states are still sovereign and autonomous. All of those supposedlys are just supposedlys. Great question, Patrick Jean-Claude. Thank you very much for it. Patrick, you've repeated that question many times.

I've got to find somebody else here. All right, here's an interesting question from Starman Hove. Hello, Judge. What is your opinion of Citizens United versus FEC? That's the Federal Election Commission. Do you believe the court ruled correctly? Not all libertarians agree with me on this, but I believe the court did rule correctly. So Citizens United was a group, a liberal group, supporters of Hillary Clinton that wanted to spend more money than the Federal Election Commission would allow them to do. And the Supreme Court, my college classmate, Justice Alito, writing the opinion said money is used to express an opinion and the expression of opinions is absolutely protected under the First Amendment. So if you have the money to do it, if you're George Soros or you're Charles Koch and you want to spend a billion dollars for Hillary Clinton or for Donald Trump, go ahead and do it.

You're free to spend your money how you want, and you're free to express whatever opinion you want. That's Citizens United versus FEC. The people that don't like it say money has corrupted politics. It has. The rich can get away with things that the poor can't. That's true, but I still come down on the side of my friends who support the First Amendment. All right, Walter Baumgarten, any chance you can stop playing Hillary clips? They make me want to gouge my eyes out. I saw this earlier, Walter. All right. OK, we've played enough Hillary. I'm going to quote Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for the here and now.

But if she keeps saying this crazy stuff, we'll play them again. God bless you. Thank you so much, my friends. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for the subscriptions. We broke 206,000 this afternoon. Our goal is a quarter of a million, 250,000 by Christmastime. If you like what we do, spread the word.

Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your enemies, tell people who believe in big government. Here's where you can get a lesson in protecting liberty and judging freedom. Thank you.