Judging Freedom - Gary Barnett: How Dangerous is the Government?

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

Gary Barnett: How Dangerous is the Government?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, December 22nd, 2023, three days until Christmas. Our guest today is Gary Barnett, a longtime friend and colleague of mine. Gary is a retired financial planner and right now specializes in dissecting and analyzing government. He is one of the fiercest opponents of government that I know because he sees right through it. Gary, it's a pleasure to have you on here. You and I have known each other for a long time. You were on my show when I had it at Fox. You still write for LewRockwell.com.

I wrote for Lew for about 10 years, and I still read your pieces regularly. How dangerous is the federal government in the United States of America today? Well, I mean, it's ultimately the most dangerous thing possible. I mean, I think that of all governments, but this government in particular has been so powerful over the ages and then actually in a short period of time. And at this point, it's just become a war nation, and the power structure is so huge and so globally positioned and controlling that it's become dangerous for everyone. Does the Constitution work as an instrument to restrain the government?

Maybe you should be asking me that because I'm the constitutional guy, but you're the person who has spent so much time analyzing government. And the short answer is no, of course. And what can be done to make it work? Well, actually, I don't think anything can be done to make it work. And, you know, I mean, when you get into constitutional questions, it gets sticky and people get touchy about it. But, you know, if you go back to Lysander Spooner, paraphrasing a little bit, but I think he said no matter what it is or isn't, the one thing that's certain is that it never has worked. And therefore, it's not worth having. So I don't think the problem with the constitution in my mind, and I know we probably have, we could argue this forever. We're going to disagree with some things,

but the problem for me is you've got a government putting forth a document that they're supposed to adhere to on their own and they control whether they do or not, and they control any scrutiny there. So to me, it's just a government document allowing power. And of course, a lot of people say they're anti-government. I am very much anti-government. That's why I consider myself a very strict anarchist. You also consider yourself to be a believer in the natural law, that our rights come from our humanity, which of course is articulated in the Ninth Amendment to the Constitution, but nobody follows that.

Every president that has taken an oath to uphold it Constitution, but nobody follows that. Every president that has taken an oath to uphold it has just disregarded all that. And by the way, there is no difference between us on the Constitution. I agree with you. Formally, it exists. We have a president, we have a judiciary, we have a Congress, but functionally it doesn't control anything. They do whatever they want. They are the evaluators of their own behavior. Madison and Jefferson believed that the states could secede peacefully, and that, of course, would knock the federal government down to size.

The people in those states wouldn't have to pay any federal taxes, and the feds would have to get the hell out of those states. Well, we know what happened when that was tried in 1860. I don't think it's going to be tried again, but to me, it seems that if a state voluntarily entered the union by a voluntary act of legislation, it can voluntarily rescind that piece of legislation if it wants. Our modern day articulator of that is our friend Tom Woods, but this is not me. This is Madison who wrote the Constitution, and this is Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence. And yet when you and I say this in public, people look at us like we

have two heads. What would Chuck Schumer do if all those billionaires in Texas didn't have to pay federal taxes? Well, you know, I mean, at one point, you know, when we're under, excuse me, under our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, the federal government didn't have any power. They had no power to tax. They didn't control commerce. They didn't control much of anything. You know, with the Constitution drafting, that changed so dramatically. And it took a long time. But the thing about government,

all government is going to seek more power. And if they're able to do so, you know, you'll end up with a, you know, very dictatorial oligarchy or a full-blown dictatorship or martial law or whatever at some point in time, if the people don't, you know, tear it down. I mean, when you were talking about secession, and for me, I get asked all the time, what's your solution? How are you going to fix things? And of course, no one can fix anything for anyone. They have to do it on their own, each individual.

But just in general, philosophically speaking, if you're going to talk about secession, secession is the way out. I mean, I think it should be on a mass scale. I think every state should succeed, and then every part of every state should succeed. Right, I'm right. Succession, now we're talking about the principle of subsidiarity, a phrase coined by St. Thomas Aquinas, that that government is best, which is closest to the people, but you can secede from it. So the state of Texas can secede

from the federal government, and Harris County can secede from the federal government and Harris County can secede from Texas and Houston can secede from Harris County because the linchpin, I think you agree with this, to the legitimacy of government is the consent of the governed. And if the governed no longer consent to the government, then the government is no longer morally valid, and it no longer has moral authority over the people. Now, that's pure natural law theory, which I argue is embraced by the Ninth Amendment, and I suspect you agree with me. We all can leave the government. We all can ignore the government

when it bullies us around rather than serves us. Well, it's true. But, you know, the people have to do it. And the thing is, if government is unnecessary, I mean, which, in my opinion, it's completely immoral. And people could secede or would secede, and they didn't need government. There would be no use for government at all, period. You know, that's where anarchy comes in. But a lot of people want government, and I would not argue with them. I think they should have it so long as it's not forced on anyone that doesn't want it. And that's where a partial secession could be very useful. But to go that route for one state or a few states or part of some states were to secede, as long as the federal government is still in place, there's I think, you know, in order to gain enough power over, you know, to overrule the government. So you and I have a dispute, and we hire somebody to resolve the dispute. And pretty soon that person hires others, and they start taking money from us against our will in order to resolve the dispute and in order to protect us from others. And we can't get out from under them. I mean, that's

the government today. If the purpose of government is to defend our liberty, not take our assets, and we can't control it, no matter who is in the White House, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, James Madison, no matter who is in the White House, the government is still going to take our assets away from us and still tell us what to do. Well, that's an overlord that we just can't get rid of. Well, that's the thing about government. If you have government, you're going to have force. That's all government is. And they have a takings force. So if they can, if they can take your property, they can eventually control you entirely. And that's, what's going on now.

One thing we were talking about before we went on, you know, it's the big picture of all this is, is missed a lot because if you notice, I've been writing about this quite a few times in recent months, but there's a new terror event or a new event by government or a new takings or war or what have you. And it's on a constant basis now, whether it's, you know, these, you know, fires in Lahaina, or if it's the Zionist Israeli takeover of Gaza, or it's chemical spells, or it's whatever. I mean, there's a million things, and they're just coming back to back to back and the news concentrates on them until they can push to the next event that's being done.

And then they just put it on the back burner and make it disappear. So the big picture gets overlooked, but the big picture to me is that, well, first off, the government isn't in control. There is a controlling element above government. Some people call it the deep state. I try to define it a little differently, but the government is controlled.

They are not the top tier of power. They are down the line. So it's a lot, but if the, I think, I think an important fact about this is if the government disappears or loses power, the people controlling the government are going to lose power because they use government in order to control the people. Do you remember that famous one-liner by Murray Rothary rothbard uh you're when there are a lot of them uh you're sitting at home one night and uh in your house and there's a knock on the door you open the door and there's a guy with a gun and he says give me your money i want to give it away in your name and you say what are you crazy i'm going to call the police. Don't bother. We are the police. That's basically what government does. Government is force. It's force. It has a monopoly of power in a geographic area whether it's this little small farming town that I live in in northwest New Jersey, whether it's the open plains where you live, whether it's New York City.

There's no morality to it. There's no right or wrong. It's whatever the people who control it want to do. Why do governments kill? Why did everybody from Donald Trump to Barack Obama to George W. Bush to Joe Biden kill people? Well, I mean, I don't know how to answer that because all governments kill people.

And the United States government, I think, what, 93, 94, and this is what it said, I think it's higher, but 93% of the entire existence of the U.S. has been aggressive war, not defensive war at any stage other than the South Secession. So, you know, you've got a situation where, you know, killing people pays off, you know, war pays off. The people controlling get very, very wealthy. And the people that are considered the cannon fodder who die for the government, they call it their country, but they're dying for government. And they use them in order to gain more power, more geopolitical control, more wealth. And if you look right now, basically all the wealth on earth is held in a very, very small, tight group of people. And it's going to, but, but they're not going to stop killing. And on top of that, at this point in time in our history, uh, you've got a great, uh, desire

by the people that, and I call them very evil that are running things and the people that are, uh, are, uh, helping them along like government, they have great incentive to depopulate and they're wanting to depopulate this earth so they have more control. Because we're going to go to a global rule if people don't wake up a lot more. We're going to be in a global rule situation very quickly. So one of the ways that government grows is by bribery. I mean, government bribes the rich with bailouts.

Well, it bribes the states with cash by paying their bills in return for strings attached. It bribes the rich with bailouts. Your bank is going to fail. Don't worry. We'll print some cash so you don't lose any money. It bribes the middle class with tax cuts and it bribes the poor with welfare payments. So almost everybody across the board is addicted to government in one way or another. What you're criticizing now is something that I've criticized and the people watching us now tell from the comments they're making fully agree with

you, and I knew they would, is you're being critical of the military industrial complex. I mean, just look at all the people that were enriched by the war in Ukraine. The government doesn't want us to look at the 500,000 young Ukrainian men, a generation of young men that will never return to a productive economy because two-thirds of them are dead and one-third are so injured that they can't return. And that enriched the military-industrial complex and strengthened the military part of the military-industrial complex here in the United States. Was it done by legislation? No. It was done by the will of one man, Joe Biden. He inherited a mess, but he made it worse. Well, you know, I put forward that every single election is worse than the one before, and I think that'll always be so. I have a little different attitude about that. But, you

know, the military is just the, you know, they're just the murdering arm of the government. And, and, you know, there's good people everywhere and there's good people in the military and there's good people elsewhere. But the whole aspect of it and the whole concept of it is they actually do the force that they're told to do. They act on orders, and it doesn't matter what those orders are. And so, you know, a real military that was there to defend us if we were attacked, which we haven't been, but if we were attacked and defend us would take care of that and then pull back and be done with it, there wouldn't be global wars and wars that lasted forever. And, you know, there shouldn't be any war, my estimation. I abhor it.

But we don't have a system, you know, where you've got any morality at all. Government is immoral at its base. It's impossible to have a government that isn't immoral because the entirety of it is based on force and theft. And you cannot, there's nothing moral about that. Correct, correct. That's what it boils down to. Was December 7th, 1941 a false flag? Was 9-11 a false flag?

Was October 7th in Israel a false flag? In my estimation, all were false flags, without any doubt in my estimation. I mean, you can argue certain parts about it, but, you know, I mean, if you study history, you look at Pearl Harbor and what was going on there, that was pretty obvious. 9-11 is even almost more obvious to me, and so was October 7th, you know, in Gaza. Things just don't happen that way. I mean, a lot of people who are commenting about these things, you know, they want to be very careful and stay on the side. I figure I have to be the guy that just states it right out. I'll put whatever I have to put out to show that, you know, what it is, but some things you just can't discount, you know,

when it's so obvious that everything is completely askew and it's set up, you have to, you have to call them out. Well, it is well known by many historians today that FDR and his people knew well in advance the Japanese were coming and in fact manipulated them into doing so. It is well known today that the Israeli Mossad was across the river in Jersey City taking pictures and celebrating as the planes were attacking the World Trade Center. And it is well known, even the New York Times acknowledges this, that the Netanyahu government had attack plans for a year and actually saw this stuff coming, but was asleep at the switch because Netanyahu needed a war in order to unify people around them and in order to stay out of jail. Well, Netanyahu is, you know, in big trouble.

I mean, you know, Zionism is not Judaism, first off. So when you've got a ruling structure based on Zionism, which is colonialism at any cost, you know, it's a whole different ballgame. But when you're looking at these events that happened, they're impossible. It's impossible. When you say it's impossible, you mean it's impossible for them to have been spontaneous and impossible for them to have happened without the so-called victims knowing about it? Well, of course. I mean, it was a setup. I mean, you know, the way they got in power in Palestine was because Mossad and the Zionist government, along with the U.S. and the CIA, put them there. And, you know, the heads of Hamas are not living in Gaza getting bombed.

I can guarantee you that. You know, this is a long term. I mean, if you go back and study this for just 75 years, I've gone back and looked at the history of this for, you know, long, long before that. And this particular event that just happened, I mean, to me, it looks like, I know it was structured, you know, long in advance, but I guess people are not able anymore to, you know, discern the obvious, because Israel, with their military, and their might, and their surveillance, and a total population locked behind walls under, you know, where a mouse could move without them knowing it, that all of that doesn't change in one night, and then everything, you know, where a mouse could move without them knowing it, all of that doesn't change in one night and then everything, you know, go the way it did. So you have to start questioning things immediately in my mind. I don't believe anything anymore at

all until I get done researching and trying to find as much truth as I can and then put it together. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about life in America in the next 20 years? Well, right now, I am very pessimistic about it for the next year or two. 20 years out, I can't even imagine unless there's some magnificent change in the minds of people, which I haven't seen so far. Gary, it's a pleasure to chat with you, my dear friend. Keep pumping out those pieces on lewrockwell.com and on garybarnett.com, and we hope you'll come back and visit with us again. It's refreshing to hear you say this kind of stuff, which a lot of libertarians believe, but sort of don't want to get other people's noses out of joint by saying it. One of the reasons you and I are friends is because I was drawn when we first met, not only to your intellect, but to your personal courage. So I thank you for continuing

to manifest that. And I thank you for the time you spent on this program. Well, I truly appreciate it, Judge. And hopefully I'll talk to you again. Okay. All the best. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. Coming up later today at two o'clock, ask the judge, you and me, whatever you want to ask me, you know how to get your questions in here. After that, the Intelligence Roundtable. And after that, Max Blumenthal. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thanks for watching!