Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 1/13/23 Hunter DeRensis on Defend The Guard in 2023

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Hunter DeRensis joins the show to talk about the year ahead in the effort to pass Defend the Guard legislation. DeRensis reviews what the legislation is and where it stands in state legislatures around the country. The two also discuss some recent establishment attacks on the legislation and clear up the myths being used to discredit the bill.  Discussed on the show: PBS News Hour Report on Defend the Guard DefendTheGuard.us BringOurTroopsHome.us TenSevenClub.com Hunter DeRensis is an editor at the Libertarian Institute, a former senior reporter at The National Interest, and a regular contributor to The American Conservative. His work has also appeared at the Ludwig von Mises Institute and Antiwar.com. He is a resident of St. Augustine, Florida, and a graduate of George Mason University. Find him on his website or on Twitter @HunterDeRensis. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton dot for you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show okay guys on the line i've got the great hunter de rinsis he's my guy editor of the libertarian institute and also regular writer at the american conservative magazine as well and he's also dammed knight's guy

at bring our troops home dot us and as you may already know that's pretty sure quantifiably the most important project in america right now more important even than antiwar dot com bring our troops home dot us combat veterans of the 21st century terror wars who are determined to roll back the american empire from the bottom up through nullification and interposition under the u.s. Constitution. So very happy to have you on the show again. Welcome back, Hunter. How are you? Hey, Scott. Really happy to be here and really happy to be everybody's guy. Yeah, absolutely, man. You're doing great work. Sorry, I can't afford to pay you more. But happy to have you on to talk about this most important project. It's a new year and a new legislative season in a lot of

places anyway and um i know in texas they're going back this year right we're only every two years here um so there's 50 states and you guys have this defend the guard legislation being introduced in some large number of them so first of all tell us about the defend the guard legislation what's the big deal and all of that and then let's get into some places where we're making real progress here. So Defend the Guard is a state-based bill, which if passed by state legislature, would prohibit the deployment of that state's National Guard into active combat without a formal declaration of war by Congress, which is required by Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. So really what it is, it's a mechanism by which state governments can obligate the federal

government to follow what is already federal law. So it's taking the position that from what we can see, there's really nothing getting done on Capitol Hill. We don't particularly have hope that all of a sudden over 50 members of the Senate or a majority of the House of Representatives are suddenly going to realize that you and I, Scott, are right about everything. So instead, we're taking it to the grassroots. We're going through state houses, state representatives, state senators, people who you went to school with, people who you might see in the grocery store, people who are more connected to their constituents. And we're telling them that you have not only the power, but the civic duty to intervene on behalf of your constituents and the

soldiers that you represent and make sure that they're not sent into any wars that aren't at a minimum debated and voted on by their representatives. And we give full credit for the start of this movement to Pat McGeehan, a fantastic delegate in the West Virginia House of Delegates, who first introduced this version of the bill in 2015. We as an organization adopted it starting in 2020, and we've done great things with it in just a couple years. As of right now, we've had it formally introduced where we can present you a bill and a bill number in 20 state houses across the country in representing every single region. And this year, we're adding on states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Montana, and we're hoping by the end of this legislative

session that we'll have it formally introduced in over 30 states. We are putting the work in and we are getting those victories. I mean, we're only, what, less than two weeks into the new year and we've already had it formally introduced in New Hampshire, Texas, Missouri, Arizona, Maine, Oklahoma. And those are the only ones where it's, we actually have the bill number. There's a couple others where it's been introduced. We're waiting to hear back. And the list is growing every day. And we're extremely proud of that progress. That's really great, man. And now, so I'm a Texan, so that's my interest here. Is it Brian Slayton is introducing it again? Correct. Uh-huh. The great Brian Slayton has reintroduced it and we're really hopeful of where the

bill goes. Great. Yeah, he's a good guy. And now, if I remember last time correctly, he was able to get it out of committee, but it ended up getting all screwed up by the time the House leadership got a hold of it. Is that right? Exactly. It was able to get out of committee, but with a lot of edits by, you know, other

political opponents to essentially make it null and void. And after it was, you know, bastardized like that, we were able to successfully kill that version of the bill. So we were at least happy with that. But yeah, Brian is a great guy, a great representative. And also, I can say that the Republican Liberty Caucus or coalition, forgive me, the RLC of Texas, has already said

that they're going to make Defend the Guard one of their legislative priorities this session. So we'll be getting a lot of great help. Great. That's really great. All right. So now, on one hand, getting it introduced in all these places is itself a huge victory. It's a PR victory. We can tell by the, the way that the PBS NewsHour covered this effort, that they're terrified of it. And of course, it's the kind of thing that with, you know, Dan McKnight and the crew at Bring Our Troops Home behind it, it's not going away ever. It's just going to get bigger and bigger and more and more important every year.

And especially, you know, if we can really get it passed in a state or two, that's going to cause a hell of a ruckus in terms of the public discussion about it and what it all means and what's happening when people, through democracy, little D, are able to actually make this happen in their states to frustrate the empire on the federal level. I mean, it's just brilliant in so many ways. But I could see a cynic saying, yeah, yeah, you got it introduced in some committees. But show me a governor at least feeling a lot of pressure to sign it or to not sign it. And what can we do to do? get this thing actually pass through a house and a Senate to even be vetoed.

You know, we need that level of a fight over this thing and sooner, not later. My best advice for people who are taking that line, if they want more done, then give more support, because I will say that bring our troops home is a phenomenal organization. We are a lean, mean fighting machine, and we get amazing stuff done with, you know, You know, real bare-bone stuff. It is a three-man operation, Sergeant Dan McKnight, my friend and colleague, Diego Rivera, and me. And that's about it. And we handle operations for the entire country of the entire Defend the Guard movement, finding these sponsors, getting these bills introduced, organizing committee hearings, and making sure you know about it.

So if you want to support us and make sure we have the resources we need to get the job done, I suggest you go to the 10-7 club. that's T-E-N-S-E-N-C-N-C-Lub.com. That's our supporters group. Chipping 10 bucks, chip in 20 bucks, whatever you can to help. It all goes to the Defend the Guard movement and ensuring that we are able to get this done. Because, Scott, you are absolutely correct. The establishment is terrified of this bill.

Just a few weeks ago in late December, we had a representative in North Dakota, a new state for us, introduce or talk about the bill and sort of get a message back from the adjutant general's office and the adjutant general's office always always loves to bully this bill around because they while allegedly are meant to represent the national guard really just represent the national guard bureau in dc so they are as war party as establishment as it gets and they don't want to see any possible changes to the status quo so they read wrote up this

two-page dismissive about, oh, this bill is terrible. It'll threaten our funding. It's unconstitutional. It doesn't work legally. And Scott, in two pages of what I'll say, in my opinion, horribly, horribly written and researched, they don't even address the primary focus of the bill and just flat out make stuff up about it, because that's the only way they can attack it. I'll quote briefly from it. They claim that, quote, if enacted would purport to, this bill would purport to prevent the state's national guard from being mobilized for any federal action that is not within the confines of a congressionally declared war. Absolutely lie. And this is what a lot of the bill's opponents try to push. They say that this bill will prevent the guardsmen from being

activated on any federal mission. It'll be make them not be able to train overseas. It'll make them not be able to go to other states to aid in hurricane relief or anything like that. Absolutely not. This bill would not inhibit anything except the National Guards use in active combat which we're just appealing to the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8, that you need a declaration of war by the people's representatives

before these soldiers go and fight. You want to use them in another state for hurricane relief? We support it. The bill doesn't threaten that. You want to send them overseas for strictly training. The bill supports that. The bill is preventing them from sending the National Guard overseas where they can't fight your local forest fire, where they can't prevent, you know, stack sandbags to prevent flooding. Exactly.

I mean, and really that's just appealing to the National Guard's motto, always ready, always there. The National Guard isn't ready to fight forest fires in California or tornadoes in Kentucky or hurricanes in Florida when they are overseas occupying and fighting these. unconstitutional wars in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere. Yeah, and look, not just in the abstract, but we remember from when Katrina drowned more than a thousand people drowned there. And the Louisiana National Guard was 5,000 miles away. The same thing happened with the forest fires in Oregon. And, you know, I should have a whole list memorized because I know that there's a bunch of these where you have a real crisis in the state.

The river is over its banks. And the guard is gone because George W. Bush has them off killing somebody somewhere. Barack Obama. Absolutely. And all this bill will do is make sure that they are home and not doing that. All we're asking is that Congress do its job and vote before our soldiers are sent to either shoot people or be shot at. That's it. And they have to make up all of this ridiculous stuff about the bill and say it'll threaten funding. And if, oh, if the president can't use our guard at his own discretion to invade any country in the world, well, what if he doesn't

give us money, Scott? And our response is, politically we don't believe he will do that. It'd be the most ridiculous thing in the world. And second of all, we cherish our sons and daughters in uniform a lot more than your money. So if your responses, you either

have to let your children and our soldiers be sent off to fight and die in these criminal wars, or you lose your domestic funding, cut it and be damned because the lives of Americans are worth a lot more than the payoffs from Washington, D.C. Yeah, to very gently paraphrase Diego Rivera to the Texas legislature, did I just hear you say

the word money? It's a word money in your mouth? I won't elaborate. I'll stop the quote there, because it got way worse from me. That was a hell of a lot of fun. I think people can watch the rerun. Testimony before the Texas. Yeah, no, I will finish it.

What he said was, and he was quite angry, but what he said was to finish that thought was, my friends is in a box. My friends are in boxes. They're dead. And you're talking about money? And he just said it a lot louder than that is the difference. And it was him.

It was real. He was, I forget a Ranger, I think, in Iraq War II and been through some real violence over there. Diego was a fiery Cuban, and I love him for it. Yeah. Oh, he's an absolutely great guy. And they didn't know what to do with that. You know, they were like, well, I don't know. It seems like we're supposed to say the money thing, right?

Isn't that what we're talking about guys today, money? And they don't know what to do. They're supposed to take a moral stand. They're politicians. I don't even know what that means at all You know It's a very alien situation You know what I mean?

It's really it's like A psychiatrist on a date with an engineer Or whatever They're living in different worlds But that's partially why we like Going to State Houses When you go to Capitol Hill And you speak to a U.S. Senator

They know all the talking points They know what they're supposed to say They've already gotten their separate checks From Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman It's already done before you even walk in the office, when you contact your state representative, your state senator, and talk about this bill, they've never had to consider foreign policy before. A lot of them don't even know like, oh, wait, we don't declare war. That's a surprise to a lot of them. And you can start building from the ground up, educating them, talking about foreign policy, and letting them know, hey, you do have a responsibility here, to the Constitution and to your constituents to make sure that you as a representative of your sovereign state, don't let the federal government commit crimes in your name. Yeah.

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for all your ammunition needs, too. That's Libertasbella.com. Hey, all, Scott Horton here for the Libertarian Institute at Libertarian Institute.org. I'm the director. Then we've got Sheldon Richmond, Kyle Anzalone, Keith Knight, Lori Calhoun,

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but we do have enough influence to try to lead the left and the right to make things right. Join us at libertarian institute.org. Book club on Monday. Gym on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday. Out on the town on Thursday.

Quiet night in on Friday. It's good to have a routine, and it's good for your eyes too, because with regular comprehensive eye exams at Specsavers, you'll know just how healthy they are. Visit Spexavers.cavers.cai to book your next eye exam, eye exams provided by independent optometrists. And it's all the social psychology of the thing. You know, I went to, and I was, I testified too at the Texas legislature thing. And they hated me. But man, and they hated Diego because he went off on them. But they love. loved Dan McKnight, and they loved Brian Sharp, who's the guy that we brought with us and who was a West Point graduate, I think a captain or a lieutenant colonel. And so, and they were just, they couldn't believe it. It was like, um, I brought a movie star to come and testify. And, um, they were like, wow, you went to West Point. Yeah. And, and, you know, the West Point, like on TV? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I did.

And they're like, wow, so go ahead. Tell us the thing he wants to think then. And, boy, they were listening to him. And, you know, I'm not saying, well, in fact, he did win the day, right? They did get it out of that committee, although they mess with it a bit. But, you know, that was the difference made there. Him and McKnight, too, are both impressive characters, for real. And, you know, Jeff Lyons, and there were others there, too, that made a great case.

But the deal is, to what you were saying, the, the, the, Republicans and the Democrats on that committee. They didn't really know anything about the wars, just kind of TV buzz. Yeah, they know we were in Iraq and whatever. Maybe they know someone who was in the war, but they don't know anything really about it. And they think that what they're supposed to think is that the wars weren't that bad. Like, whatever they were, you know, everyone involved with them are all heroic. And essentially it's still like, we had to do that or we wouldn't.

had done it essentially um they were not they were clearly not all under the impression that no it is really totally okay and not just okay but really necessary for them to understand and internalize that no these wars were really bad and really wrong and listening to someone like me's not going to do it listen to someone like dan mcnight who's been there and jeff lyons who's been there and and brian Sharp, I'm not sure if he was in the war or not, but he is an officer, right? To have these men say, no, look, I mean, essentially, that's what it is. Look, we're all against these things now. We all collectively regret Iraq War II, Afghanistan, all this. Should have never done it. We all know that. And that's premise one. That's why we're doing this, is to stop this from happening

again. And they need that to come from veterans. And so now I got a, question to form this rant in the phrase of, which is you talked about your staff at Bring Our Troops Home being just you and Diego and Dan. But what about the membership and growing this organization? How many people do you already have and how many more people do you need? You know, I know something like three to four or five million people. I knew this just a week ago. Is it three or five million that went to Iraq and Afghanistan and back? As a soldiers and Marines, who some huge number of which, you know, might want to participate in something like this and need to know how to. So tell us about the organization in that sense,

how many guys you got and how important it is that we have this, you know, Ron Paulian, libertarian and Republican-based anti-war organization made of not hippies from Vietnam era a long time ago stuff, but 21st century combat veterans of the terror wars. Well, I would start by saying if anyone does want to get involved, I encourage them to go to either bring our troops home.us or

defend the guard.us. Sign up. Give us some new information. Get on our newsletter. Find out when these hearings are happening. Let us know if you'd like to testify in your own state. If you're a veteran, even better. And we'll keep that going. But, Scott, to your point, we are making a lot of great inroads in the veteran community. And I bring this up as often as possible because it's really not talked about nearly enough.

The mainstream media tries to pigeonhole veterans into this corner of, oh, they must be the most pro-war. They must love, you know, getting to go off and do this. I mean, just look at the people in D.C. You got Tom Cotton, you got Dan Crenshaw. They're veterans. Don't they speak for everybody? No.

At the end of the day, they only speak for Raytheon. bottom line, because consistently, year after year, every single time the question is asked, veterans of America's Middle East wars favor withdrawal, military withdrawals from these countries at a higher rate than the civilian population. Veterans supported the withdrawal from Afghanistan by over 65%. That's two-thirds. Last time it was asked, and frankly, polling firms don't do a good job as asking this on a regular basis. Well, and they started answering that for the first time back in like

2011. Exactly. You know, in the middle of the surge, they were saying, the soldiers were saying we shouldn't be doing this. The height of the thing. And as when it was most recently asked, a majority of soldiers favored a withdrawal from Syria and favor more than the civilian population to

withdraw from Iraq. So I don't feel, I think it's completely accurate to say that as an organization, We speak and work on behalf of the majority of veterans and what they want, not someone like Dan Crenshaw or these other hawks, who frankly don't represent anyone but their own selves. And I want to talk about a great work that Diego is doing through his efforts. Just this week, the American Legion Post 81 in Tennessee passed a resolution

favoring the passage of Defend the Guard. Now, we've gotten an American Legion post in Maine to do the same thing, I believe, a year or so ago. And what happens is once a local American Legion post passes a resolution such as this, then it moves on to the state level. If that passes, it moves on to the national level, and so on. And Diego is working with some great guys in these local posts, American Legion and veterans, to get these resolutions passed and make sure that their voices are being heard. And the more people we can get convinced from the American Legion to say that we need to pass, defend the guard, we need to make the federal government accountable, we need to get out of these illegal wars, the better.

And we're incredibly proud to be working on that kind of initiative and extremely proud of American Legion post-81 for taking that initiative and passing that resolution and getting to work with them. And we're really excited where that goes. I can't reveal anything yet, but I know Diego's already in conversations with other American Legion posts in other states. And if you're part of the American Legion, if you, you know, go down with your boys and hang out at the local post, think about getting this resolution passed, get in touch with us. We'll send you, you know, the text. We'll help you get it through. Just let us know. We want to do the work on the ground to make this thing happen.

And look, I just know, it's a funny thing being a radio show, you know, it's a kind of one-way communication. people are overhearing a discussion between you and me kind of thing you know but and it's not live radio taking calls anymore like the old days so um but my loophole is that i travel around giving speeches when i travel around giving speeches every single time i think i can't think of a time it didn't happen i would have noticed always veterans come up to me and are fans of this show and fans of the book and are into what we're doing here none of them ever come up to me and say hey i was in those wars and you don't know what you're talking about horton ever that's never happened yet i don't think maybe on twitter like some like just pro war guy but no one who read the book you know um but anyway so i know that there are i don't know how to estimate the numbers hundreds or thousands or there's some number of veterans who listen to this war a significant number um i remember i did a thing in San Marcos, a libertarian party thing.

And a guy came up to me. This was just recently in the last year. And he said, hey, listen, I was a military intelligence officer over there, and I read enough already. And I'm like, okay, great, here it comes. Finally, someone's going to criticize me. And he goes, you're right about everything. I can vouch for, you know, two-thirds of your book, and I believe the rest.

Or something like that. You know what I mean? I get that all the time. So, hey, man, was that you? Are you out there? join up bring our troops home.us all you guys i mean you know i told dan mcnight when he founded this thing i was like dude this is just like you got a billion dollars in your bank account you might as well be ross perot's son for all the public relations value that you guys get of being

republican veterans who don't believe in this stuff and are using the constitution to nullify and interpose and do this in this way you know who you guys are what your agenda is is how you're going about it. All of this, it's perfect. It's my absolute dream come true is something that I could never do because I'm not a war veteran. But it's obviously, it's what I always wanted to happen.

And I considered, you know, to be the best invention of our era when I first talked with Dan McKnight about it. And I don't know how anybody who, especially is an anti-war veteran, a Ron Paulian type, especially, who's been there and back and knows better, I don't know what organization you guys are involved in.

That's more important than this. If you guys can think to join one, this to me is absolutely the wave of the future and on so many levels. And especially just think about the example that it sets for the left and the right and whoever, about using your state government to thwart the will of the evil federal empire in Washington, D.C. I mean, man, we can do this with war. We can do this with anything. And speaking as some as another person who is not a war veteran, it, I, I burst with pride in being

able to say that I work for this organization and do the work that I do helping Dan and Diego get this done. It's, it's a miraculous thing. Cool. All right. So now just to wrap up here, tell us, uh, in rapid kind of succession, a few things going on in a few states, especially, you know, you mentioned that North Dakota was a new one. Um, tell us about, you know, for people, there in the country listening about things maybe going on in their state or in their region that they can really get involved in here the best resource for people to check up on this is defend the guard that us we now have operations in a majority of states with either a bill

previously introduced will be introduced currently in conversations with someone or currently searching out so if you're you know in a state look it up see where you are see how you can get involved see oh you can help us we're doing a lot of stuff I know you were concerned partially with things going on in Oklahoma, where it was announced that they're actually bringing Ukrainian soldiers to Oklahoma to help train them on Patriot missiles. Our bill sponsor in Oklahoma, the great state senator Nathan Dom, the most pro-liberty member of the entire legislator, has been very firm in speaking out about this, and we're looking to be more involved in that conversation. And like you said, the legislative session is just starting up, and I'm proud to say that on Friday, January 20th at 10 a.m., we will have the first committee hearing of the 2023 legislative session on Defend the Guard in the Granite State, the wonderful state of New Hampshire, where the bill has five co-sponsors, four Liberty Republicans, one progressive Democrat. This, if I hadn't mentioned before, bring our troops home is a non-profit, completely nonpartisan. And we're happy to work with anybody who wants to end these endless wars and bring our troops home.

We're happy to do so. That's New Hampshire House Bill 229. If you live in the Granite State, please consider reaching out, either give some testimony in favor of the bill, either remotely or show up to the State House and make sure they hear your voice. If you're a veteran, you better do it. If you're not a veteran, you should still do it because you are a resident. You have a voice, and they ought to hear what you have to say about these wars, about the Constitution, and why they need to listen to you and not Trump or Biden or any other president who wants to get us into an unconstitutional war. And we'll have hearings coming up throughout the rest of the year that you can get involved in if you're in any other state. And I can't emphasize this enough if you want to financially contribute, which is so needed, 107 club.com, T-E-N-S-E-V-N-C club.com. Throw in some money, you get some cool prizes, you get on our email lists, there's some great stuff there. And I will also say you can exclusively see Dan McKnight's regular column at the Libertarian Institute. If you want to follow up with that and see some great things Dan has written about news and foreign policy and defend the guard, go to the

libertarian institute and check out that stuff there's a lot of great material there i would know yeah that's true you would um okay and listen i mean it's funny i i kind of am only now getting my head around how huge this is 30 out of 50 states just to start the season we could get that number up and we could get this thing passed at least through a house or two you know like we got to this is already huge with the potential to be the most important thing going on, you know, and something forced by the people from the bottom up into the spotlight of attention and into controversy against the will of the TV, you know, and the establishment. You know, again, back to that news hour. Everybody look up that NewsHour episode where they talked

about Defend the Guard. Man, they're worried. The news anchor lady is like, geez, General, what are we going to do? Yeah. They can see the potential in this. So all you anti-war vets, here's something that you can do. And all you anti-war, everybody, so here's something you can do. Defend the Guard.us. Bring Our Troops Home.U.S. Thank you very much, Hunter, for your time. Thank you so much, Scott. Happy to be here. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and libertarian institute.org.