Judging Freedom - Dr. Ron Paul, How America_s foreign wars diminish civil liberties at home.

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates, WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom. Today is October 31st, Halloween, but this is no trick or treat, this is for real. 2022, it's about 3 o'clock in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States. You all can see who my guest is today.

He is the gold standard in libertarian thinking. He is the best known freedom fighter in the United States of America. He is a dear friend and he is a great historical figure, former Congressman and Dr. Ron Paul. Ron, welcome to Judging Freedom. Always a pleasure when you can join us. Great, Judge. It's good to be with you again. I haven't seen you for a little bit. Thank you. Thank you. Why, in your opinion, are we spending billions of dollars in Ukraine today? You know, that's a pretty good question because it's like insanity. Who permitted this insanity? insanity you know I read today that it was there and they and they and the Ukrainians want the money because they need the money and because they have a deficit problem and they have an energy problem and they're having all these

internal problems and they want more money and I said and we complain a little bit you hear a little complaint fortunately there's at least some complaining about it. But it makes no sense whatsoever. Because when I read that list of things he was asking for, we were suffering every bit as much as they were. It might be much worse because we can cover our tracks because we have so much more power. We have the military power and we have the economic power. We have the reserve currency so we can get away with it. But I'll

tell you what, it makes no sense, but it does conform to the philosophies that so many people have been taught over the years. The progressive theories have been around. And I was making a comment the other day that the educational system isn't really so hot in our country compared to what you know the founders went through uh they they were well educated and i said you know i was in congress for a significant length of time and uh i met a lot of people and i tried to uh do my best to at least to talk to people rather than punching them in the nose but i kept saying why why do you do this and they say well they really they really don't know i said have you ever heard of austrian economics have you ever heard of von b says what no there's in that to me maybe maybe i'm over

reacting judge but that's that's a tip-off. And sometimes reporters would very honestly and confusedly say, well, what are you talking about? And I think that you and others have been talking about what we're talking about, Austrian and free market economics, and it conforms with

much of what this country was. It's a free market system and gold standards and this sort of thing. But the members of Congress basically, except for about five to ten of our friends, they never heard of it. Well, do you think that members of Congress agree with the sort of mentality of the globalist nationalists in Western Europe and in the State Department, that if we support Ukraine with enough money, and maybe even secretly with enough men, Colonel Douglas McGregor, a mutual friend of ours, says we probably have about 100 or so special forces on the ground out of uniform, that if we do this effectively, they can chase Putin from office.

Do you think that's really the goal of Tony Blinken and his crew in the State Department? No, but, you know, if we were a truly libertarian, free society, respected the Constitution, it shouldn't be the goal of anybody, unless there's a reason to justify some type of use of force because we've been attacked. But you know, Judge, if you look at what's been going on for a good many years, if we're generous and say just since World War II, just think how much carnage we have caused, how much money we have spent, and it's just atrocious what what has happened and uh i i just can't understand why people put up with it so i've been a pessimist in the sense when i talk to crowds i'll tell them i said this is terrible stuff and you're not going to just elect a couple more

people to solve the problem you should one or two there here and there might help a lot but ultimately the problems that we have have to be liquidated you have to get rid of the debt and the malinvestment uh and there has to be a cleansing unfortunately yeah the the march has come along and said yeah that's exactly what we want we want to compete chaos to wipe out every everything there is with civilization. So we'll rebuild a much better deal. And that is what we're facing today because we're not going to, if you're realistic, we're not going to, even with a lot of Republicans, conservatives, and pretend libertarians, if they're in office after the election this year, they're not going to. This doesn't happen. You know, for years,

I've always said, I've heard it for so many times. This year is different. We got to get out there because it's different. Now this year, I think maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed,

there will be a little bit of difference. And on the short run, there might be. But basically, you know, Judge, both parties, they both support, you know, Judge, both parties, they both support, you know, the funny money system. They both endorse the interventionist foreign policy and the spending. They, you know, they're very good buddies when it comes to spending.

So nothing really changes on the long run. And that's what counts because, you know, who knows what we're facing. There has to be the corrections. It's not going to happen. You know, just think of how much money the Republicans and Democrats printed here in these last several years will do anything to try to prevent the corrections that the market is demanding. So it almost doesn't matter in the long run who wins the midterms, the elections that are coming a week from tomorrow, because as you say, both parties support this open spigot in Ukraine. Both parties support deficit spending. Even when the Republicans were in the majority, your legislation to open up and audit the Fed never really made it beyond first base because the Republicans are in bed with the banksters just like the Democrats are. It's almost hopeless the way the government just keeps growing and its debt just keeps increasing and the value of the dollar just decreases no matter who's in the White House

and which party controls Congress. Do you agree? Yeah, absolutely. But the other factor that enters into it is we propose that most of us are familiar with the depression of 1921. And there was things out of whack because of the monetary inflation of the 20s. And that was when they sort of kept your hands off, let things correct itself. But now we have that. So if we had a much better Congress and they start to do it, why it's not likely to work is there's a political cause to this because there's not enough people who understand what we think they should understand that you have to liquidate debt and you have to go back and

bite the bullet you have to quit spending if you're a person in bankruptcy you have to spend less money and work harder and pay off your debt so this is a this is a problem there still would be some pain and suffering and uh yet if you don't do it the pain and suffering. And yet, if you don't do it, the pain and suffering that we're looking at, it can be much, much worse. And that takes, it's an educational problem as much as anything. And that is why you have been involved

and we all have tried very often to get people to understand, you know, the basics of economics. And in that area, and I know you've worked hard with the Mises Institute, that's where I think we're making some progress, but it still takes time. How dangerous and how naive is President Biden's attitude that Putin is just bluffing when he's talking about nuclear weapons. I mean, suppose Biden is wrong and Putin is not bluffing. Well, that's the thing. I talked a little bit about that because Putin, we go along and we compliment the Finland for saying, oh, you can put your nukes on our property. It's no big deal,

but it challenges all common sense and even our own agreements that we wouldn't be put our nukes right up on the borders of Russia. So what did Putin say? He says, well, maybe we'll just put some nukes open up and put some of our missiles in cuba and i got to thinking 60 years ago cuban crisis october guess what that was that was when i had a significant event in my life i was drafted you know because of the chaos back then so it's uh it also is is the whole thing about what uh when i would talk about foreign policy, I would say, well, what if they did to us what we do to them? So this, unfortunately, under these circumstances, if they do to us what we do to them and they put nukes back in Cuba,

you know, there's no John Kennedy or Khrushchev to try to get us out of that mess. Do you share the view of Colonel McGregor that this slow creeping of more and more American and NATO involvement in Ukraine is dangerously the beginning of World War III? You share the view of some of our other colleagues who fear that we actually have started World War III by our foolish involvement in extending this war. I understand that argument. I fear that. But I usually don't go quite so far that next week, you know, we're going to be in World War III. But it certainly could involve that so that that to me is is scary and uh and yet uh because what we have it doesn't allow us to work problems out it's only allowed us to continue with this nonsense and when i think back at preventative medicine it's always something that i like lately medicine's been so screwed up and there's not much of that because it's so distorted but preventative policy would be great and that's why one of the tragic figures who just didn't get

his point across for various reasons and that was robert taft he said stay out of nato and today there was an article on the internet there There was some people talking about this. He said, maybe the problem is that we're in NATO. Maybe we ought to get out of NATO. And if we don't do something like that, then the policy will lead, you know, to something like World War III, which is a real, real tragedy as far as I'm concerned. Well, when George H.W. Bush and Jim Baker, following on the heels of Ronald Reagan, pretty much precipitated, along with Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, the liberation of Eastern Europe, Baker is alleged to have said to Gorbachev, don't worry, NATO will stay right where it is. Now, of course, it's 800 miles to the east,

and the most bellicose member of NATO, it appears, is the president of Poland, who's been calling for an invasion of Russia, reclaiming of Ukraine, and even an assassination of Putin. I think it's very dangerous that we're still involved in NATO. And it's like NATO is looking either to bloody Putin's nose or to push him out of office. Well, you know, the whole principle of the empire, and a lot of people don't like us to refer to it, but I do, because we maintain so much. We are still very wealthy. We have a reserve currency of the world, and we can get away with printing money. But as long as we can do that, they're going to continue with that.

But that is why we have to change the policy. And yet, if you do, and I'm sure you remember in my campaign, occasionally they would accuse me of being un-American, and I didn't care about the troops. So that's what you have to put up with, you know, that you're not partisan enough, and you're not patriotic. And that has to change. But I see a lot and you, I know talked a lot of young people as well. I've at times been encouraged with those rallies that we had that young people are capable of coming our way. But I think it would be foolish for us to say,

hey, we're over the hump, the momentum is on our side. We don't have to worry about the motives of both our politicians and the Russian politicians, because who knows what that'll lead to. And that is, of course, a grave danger. Tell us what the Ron Paul Institute is doing these days, Ron. Pardon me, what we're doing? Yes. Oh, it's the same old, same old. People say, did you give up medicine? Did you get out of Congress? Did you retire from this? When did you get started this? And when did you quit this? Actually, once I discovered, you know, in 1971,

I studied the Austrian School of Economics during the 60s and the predictions that they made then came true and it was a dramatic night for me because i just happened to be listening to the news on a sunday night on august 15 1971 which was a declaration of a big deal standard yeah and that that that literally meant we were bankrupt and we couldn't do it. So that has changed all things. And of course, we're living on borrowed money and borrowed time. And there's going to be a payback. And unfortunately, it's going to be rough, but it doesn't have to be that way. And the biggest thing is it's sort of like talking to a patient that has cancer and has to go through a very, very dangerous, serious operation. But if we can get that operation done, you'll be cured of your cancer. Oh, I don't want

to have to go through the operation and the recovery period. Well, that's the way it is in economics. They don't want to accept it. Besides the opposition, Republicans and Democrats, they offer an easy way out. Even today, they're talking about, well, they have this silly notion that the answer to inflation is depression. Cause everybody to go out of work and keep the prices going up. You know, that's the insanity of it all. But that's total ignorance. And that, to me, is a real tragedy because it's not that complicated

to understand what free markets and property rights are all about. You know, in your years in the Congress, you and I talked about this. We often mocked the names of legislation, like the Patriot Act is the most unpatriotic thing Congress did since the Alien and Sedition Acts. But now they have the Inflation Reduction Act, which is borrowing and spending money, which is the cause of inflation and then they do it with a straight face too yes i remember you telling me a story because there was a little bit of discussion and i don't want to mention names but there was a congress person that came to you uh she knew you and respected you and the judge talked to me you talked to her a long time about the Patriot Act.

You gave her an hour's lecture, and you know what happened. She voted for the darn thing. She still voted for it. I thought those times were crazy, Ron. I now think the present times are worse. You're a little bit happier and a little bit more optimistic than I am. I think it doesn't matter which party is in power. The major issues, fighting foreign wars, continuation of debt, and bowing to the Federal Reserve,

I don't see them changing unless the federal government goes out of business and we break off into into separate republics and every libertarian will want to live in New Hampshire or Texas. Yeah, but every time I see some insanity, Daniel, I'll be talking and he'll he'll make out the points of what this is so bad. Not so we this this news just got out and 10,000 Americans saw this and they said, this is outrageous. I didn't know it was true. So there's the conversion. That is sort of what I noticed. And we talked about it was how people's attitudes, when you get a crowd of parents together complaining about lockdown and what they've done to our kids. Yeah, I know things are bad and they're still getting worse, but there was still a time when they would get together and somebody would speak up and people would join in and say, and that's right. And I think there is some of that. That's why on the

short term, there's some optimism to say that maybe there will just be a temporary reprieve because they're not dealing like we've already talked about. They're not dealing with a real important issue. They're not talking about an audit of the Fed or getting rid of the Fed or balancing the budget or getting the government out of our lives. They're not talking about bringing the troops home. All the things that when I was campaigning, I was almost shocked. There was a good reception for it. So I think people will respond favorably,

but they have to hear the message to respond to. And nobody is better at getting the message out than you are, you are and remain and always have been the happy warrior, Congressman Paul. God love you. I give thanks for our friendship and I give thanks for you as a historical figure in America. Always a pleasure. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you. And nice being with you. Thank you. Judge Napolitano with Ron Paul for Judging Freedom.