Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 3/17/23 Eric Brakey on Monday's Defend the Guard Hearing in Maine

Episode Date: March 18, 2023

Scott talks with Eric Brakey, now serving in the Maine Senate, about the Defend the Guard hearing scheduled for Monday at 1 PM EST. Scott and Brakey discuss the nationwide effort to pass the legislation, which would block Congress from deploying State National Guard troops to foreign combat operations unless war is formally declared. They then zoom into what’s happening in Maine and explain how you can help. Discussed on the show: DefendTheGuard.us BringOurTroopsHome.us legislature.maine.gov/testimony Eric Brakey is a State Senator from Maine. He has been instrumental in pushing for pro-liberty legislation like Constitutional Carry and Defend the Guard. Follow him on Twitter @SenatorBrakey 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 scott horton.4 you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show hey you guys on the line i've got state senator of maine eric breakie hi eric how are you hey scott i'm i'm gearing up for a fight on defend the guard so i'm doing well great all right

So we're recording this on Friday afternoon, and you're going to need help come Monday. Is that right? That's right. Monday, the main Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee will be hearing my bill for Defend the Guard legislation, too, which I'm sure your audience is very familiar with, but in case there's one or two people out there who aren't, it would just enforce the terms of the Constitution to say that the men and women of our main National Guard will not be authorized by our state to be deployed overseas into foreign wars unless the members of Congress vote to declare the wars

and sign their names to it as the Constitution requires them to do. And it's a big fight happening all across the country. Shout out to the folks that bring our troops home, U.S., who've been coordinating this effort state-by-state across the country. All right. So what's it looking like? politically in the state house and the state Senate way up there in Maine, Eric? Well, this has been a fight for a while, and I want to give credit to my state, the state of Maine.

The very first Defend the Guard bill ever filed in the states was filed here in Maine in 2011 by a legislator who's since retired and gone home to his farm, but he was my political mentor, Ron Paul Republican Aaron Libby. He filed that in 2011. The then Republican governor at the time didn't know what to do with it and said, please withdraw this bill. And he said, no, he insisted.

He got a roll call vote. And it kind of, you know, that was kind of where it was for a while until this state-by-state effort in recent years has been, you know, what year was that? Because I always thought Pat McGeehan was first in West Virginia. No, Pat McGeehan.

This was 2011. Okay. Oh, you said that right. So Pat McGeehan, I think, is the originator of this new wave of Defend the Guard legislation, right? With Pat McGeehan, he sponsored it, and that led to, you know, contributed to bring our troops home, really kind of taking it up and working with legislators across the country. But the very first place it was filed was 12 years ago in Maine. And he worked with the 10th Amendment Center. on that back in the day.

So this will be the third time the bill has been brought forward. It came forward two years ago, but they just killed it unanimously in committee. And there was a Republican senator who I'm not very fond of on this issue, who led the effort on that. Thankfully, he's off the committee. And you know what? We have four members of the Young Americans for Liberty,

has the coalition of legislators on this committee now. Wow. It's it's the we have a better environment for making advances on this policy than I've ever seen because we have we have folks who are principled Ron Paulians who are ready to support this legislation. In fact, my lead co-sponsor in the house. That's the best kind of people, you know. Yeah, people who will go to the map.

for principle, no matter what the establishment says. And my lead co-sponsor on this bill is a new House member, a Hazlitt member, who served 20 years as a naval intelligence officer. And he's one of the guys who's looked to on the committee as someone who's actually served. He's kind of looked to as an authority among the committee members. And he is helping to lead the charge on this bill. So we just need to have a strong showing at the public hearing on Monday from folks across Maine, particularly from our veteran communities to show up, speak out, and make it clear we expect Congress to declare war if we are going to put our soldiers' boots on the ground. Yeah. Man, that's really great to hear about the chair of the committee there. I have to tell you that I've done a few.

of these meetings. I guess I've done one or two of them in person, including here in Texas. And I've testified and I've, you know, showed up and didn't quite have a chance to testify at a few of these as well on various Zoom calls and things like this at the various states, working with the guys from bring our troops home. And I have to tell you, it's always just really something to see the seriousness and the credentials of the people. who come out in support of the thing so of you know of course dan mcnight the leader of bring our troops home was a sergeant in the war in afghanistan and i believe he was a marine army and national guard and was national guard in the war and then of course uh diego rivera was a ranger in iraq war two and but then the guys who come out to testify like in minnesota last week or was it two weeks ago or now a week and a half ago or so

man it was just impressive you know whenever they went through all of their ranks and they're you know including officers and talking about their experience one of the guys talked about how he was in charge of burying I think he said thousands of young men whose corpses came home from George Bush's wars and he was that was his job

was burying them and like you just everybody in the room is like oh quiet moment of silence respect shut the hell up and listen you know what i mean like this guy's pulling rank so hard over them and then another guy came yeah go ahead go ahead well i was just going to say you know scott i think it speaks to the fact that everybody who's been paying attention knows on some level some deep down level there is something seriously wrong with how the federal government treats our men and women in uniform. Or they won't even sign their names to these wars. And then they go out, they send them off to fight and die.

And when they come home and they've got scars, physical scars or invisible scars, half the time they're not even there to fulfill the promises that they made to our soldiers as far as taking care of their service-related injuries and the things they're dealing with. That's why we have veteran suicide rates, like at all-time highs. everyone knows everyone knows on some level whether they put the pieces together or not there's something seriously wrong with this situation yeah well and look i mean i think it's fair to say that the entire consensus because it already was the democratic consensus more or less um you know even through the obama years and it's the conservative consensus now especially since trump and ron paul gets his credit

too for sure but especially since trump that as you put it everybody knows that we should not have done the last 20 years of intervention in the Middle East, and including Central Asia there. Everybody knows, especially, in fact, the veterans, all of these wars have been out front on the poll question since at least 2011, 2011, 2013. And we should have never done Afghanistan. Should have never done Iraq. And that's what everybody knows now.

Well, but if that's true, just think about, how we did do Afghanistan and Iraq, despite the fact that we should not have this whole time and the amount of grief that has been spread from this thing, the consequences of Bush's wars in the Middle East, which are obviously going to continue to ripple on for decades or even centuries. I mean, it's been a thousand years since the Shiites controlled an Arab capital city. I'm not saying I have a personal preference, but I'm just saying that's a major change made at the hands of the United States of America that cannot be undone no matter how many suicide bombers the Sunnis fling at Baghdad. And so there's just the seeds are sown there for all of this conflict, you know, in the region from here on out. Although, hey, Saudi and Iran just signed a new deal. So three cheers for that.

I'm not saying it has to be permanent sectarian war forever, but I'm just saying incentives have been greatly distorted over there. And here, as you talked about, you know, a lot of people aren't familiar with this. The story was it was 22 suicides a day or something like that. And then a new study came out and said that that was too high. But then a new study came out that said that wasn't high enough. And that actually, I forgot exactly what the number is supposedly per day. But it's more than 22, and the total is 30,000, according to the research from the just war, pardon me, the cost of war project at Brown University, 30,000 combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have killed themselves since they got home, and which is far out of proportion

compared to the rest of society. And usually the military has a much lower suicide rate, like in peacetime, than the rest of society. Now, it's much higher. And everybody knows why. It's because they were stabbed in the back, simple as that. And not stabbed in the back, like in the myth of Vietnam or World War I for the Germans, like, oh, they would have won. Not that stabbed in the back. They're stabbed in the back, sent on a fool's there, and they had no business whatsoever in the first place and betrayed in that way. And they know it.

I mean, it's amazing to me that here we are years after the Afghanistan papers were released. and it was just explicit like there was there was no plan there were no victory conditions there was no clear mission it was just more American soldiers into the meat grinder because you know in the words of top military brass there it'd become this self-looking ice cream cone you know as medley butler says you know war is a racket there's a lot of money to be made by private interests and so the wars go on when there's no American purpose to it. And the blood price is paid by our men and women in the military and our, and their families. And where Congress has advocated its constitutional responsibility for 80 years now,

culminating in this 20 years of the forever wars in the Middle East, the states created the federal government. The states are the party to the contract that is the U.S. Constitution. And if the federal government is not following that contract, it is, you know, it is up to and it rests with the states as the final folks to stand up and say, we're going to enforce the terms. And that's what defend the guard seeks to do. Enforce the terms of the contract, say, you've got to vote. You've got to sign your names to it before you put our soldiers boots on the ground. Yeah. And, you know, that really is what's so great about this, too, is.

that, you know, do you see Hank Hill telling Cotton Hill that, no, not hippie peace, Jesus peace, you know, like it can't be this left-wing thing. And it's not. Instead, it's combat veterans who, in fact, didn't even grow out their hair like born on the Fourth of July or any of that. They're still conservatives and libertarians. And they're invoking the Constitution and the constitutional process to nullify this foreign interventionism, this irresponsible interventionism from the bottom up, and doing it exactly how Thomas Jefferson and James Madison said they were supposed to do it through nullification. Absolutely. And it's going to be a big fight. I know like it has been in every single state.

You know, I know that the Pentagon has had a four-star military general. They've been sending state-by-state try to smash down these defend-the-guard efforts. But it's amazing. You know, every time it comes forward in every new state, it gets a little bit further than last time. And whether this passes or not, and I certainly hope that in Maine, we're going to pass this. We're going to get a majority reporting committee. We're going to pass it in the House and the Senate with overwhelming majorities that even a governor's veto can't stop. That's my dream. That's what I would love to see happen. But even if we fall short of that, just the fact that we are in a position to get this onto the floor of the House and the Senate in Maine and get a roll call vote

and get every elected official in the in the legislature on record so that their constituents can be informed about how they voted when it came to the matter of defending the men and women of our National Guard that will be a tremendous victory uh in and of itself if if that is only as far as we get. That sets the, that's, that lays the foundation for, uh, for if we fall short this time, that lays the foundation for getting across the finish line in the future when we can start holding local officials accountable. Right. Absolutely. Well, folks, sad to say, they lied us into war. All of them. World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq War I, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq War II, Libya, Syria, Yemen, all of them.

But now you can get the e-book, All the War Lies, by me, for free. Just sign up the email list at the bottom of the page at Scott Horton.org, or go to Scotthorton.org slash subscribe. Get all the war lies by me for free. And then you'll never have to believe them again. Hey, y'all, Scott here. Let me tell you about Roberts & Roberts Brokerage, Inc. Who knew?

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or check them out at rrbi.co. That's rrbi.c.o. You'll be glad you did. Book club on Monday. Gym on Tuesday. Date night on Wednesday. Out on the town on Thursday. Quiet night in on Friday.

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politicians still are afraid to say that out loud. They're not so sure that that is how everyone believes. And if I think back to our meeting with the, um, the House committee here in Texas. They were not like three cheers for our wars, but they were not ready to denounce them yet either. They were still on the like kind of, well, we all think that that was like pretty much legitimate, right guys?

Kind of a take. And so the thing is about it is that doing this helps with that, that they come to understand that, no, look, really. This is not the minority report. this is not hippie peace this is jesus peace this is you know everybody is over this is not what the counterculture believes this is what american society knows now and it's you don't have to be afraid to say it anymore dude in fact you kind of look foolish denying it this is the reality this is where the consensus is and how do we know that well let's ask mr rivera here what he

things and and see if he can get you caught up well and of course the the problem is that so many elected officials live in these establishment constructed echo chambers where all the only people they're hearing from are the establishment and this and boy the people with the fancy titles and the government positions they're so official look in and they they carry so much authority with them and it's it's it's easy to just get into this when you're in a legislative body just get into this habit of deferring to authority. It takes real people from outside of these buildings to come in and make their voice heard for people to start to wake up and realizing there's something bigger than what's just what's going on under the dome. And I, of course, I experienced this just the other

week. As you know, Scott, which I appreciated your your help as I was drafting this speech I gave on the, over this resolution for the war in Ukraine. I got up, I don't think anyone was expecting me to stand up. I gave almost a 20-minute speech, which I guess is not something you're, you know, usually people don't speak for that long on things. A 20-minute speech, the political establishment, all they had to say, boy, that senator just talked for a really long time. They obviously weren't actually listening to what was being said.

But this speech on the, on the war. in Ukraine and our federal governments provoking what is taking place now in Ukraine. You know, as much as they throw this word around, unprovoked, they say, want to absolve themselves of all responsibility for where we are when this is exactly what they've been pushing us towards. Everyone, so many folks in the political establishment were just confused, why anyone would get up and give a speech like that. But it's really struck a chord with the people outside the halls of government with regular people.

And that's what we need to do. That is where the liberty movement, that's the only way the liberty movement can be successful. We're not going to succeed by trying to educate the politicians into believing the right things. We're going to succeed by connecting their constituents with them and bringing reality onto the politicians that if they continue to vote the that they are, they're going to be out of a job and replaced. That's what we have to do. We've got to connect the people with the politicians and put the pressure on them to do the right thing. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So speaking of which, there's pressure on them to do the wrong thing, too, of course. And back to Minnesota there in that hearing, I actually didn't get a chance

to say my great thing that I was going to say, which I stupidly deleted and now have to rewrite for tomorrow um but i did get to uh sit and watch the dang thing before i didn't get a chance to speak and i mentioned the guy who was in charge of all those funerals this is a damnedest thing i wonder if you can watch the video of that um but also one of the guys pulled military rank so to speak and i think he was an officer and he said you're about to hear from the pentagon or whatever the military, they're going to threaten your money and your bases and all this. But let me tell you, don't listen to them. That's stupid BS. That's not how it works. And how do I know? Because I was in charge of XYZ base closing this, that, and the other thing, man. I'm the

authority on that in this room. And I'm telling you, you know who decides whether you get the money or not? The Congress, the U.S. Senate, these politicians has nothing to do with what some two-star from the National Guard wants to threaten you with. They're not going to do. do nothing to you. And in fact, and I could see, even on the low quality definition camera there, that the people on the committee were nodding their head

that you know, that's a good point, and that sounds right to me. And then when the guy testified, when the general testified or the colonel or whoever they brought to testify against it, said that, it seemed to fall flat. Because they had already been inoculated against that argument. And he was like, yeah, you could lose their

money, your money. And they're like, yeah, we're not really worried about that, honestly, because What the guy just told us. And so, very important point there, and I know that this is the one that they bring with them every time. We're going to take all your money away. But I would even add to that, and I hadn't really thought about this as much until just now when I was raining about it with you, that that's completely crazy.

And can you imagine a state in the union passing a law like this saying, hey, if you declare war, you can have our national guard, but not if you don't. And then they say, oh, yeah, and retaliate by closing down bases and withholding funding as punishment. I could see them wanting to do that, but I could also see them being absolutely bound by political optics, as they call them, perceptions, that they can't do that. That make them look absolutely horrible. When all you're doing is trying to enforce the Constitution as written, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11 says right there, that's what you guys are. supposed to be doing anyway, I don't think they could. I just, I really don't, especially if you had more than one or two states doing it at the same time, too. What are they going to do? I'm going to

take your bases away, pull their precious helicopters out? Come on. It's a paper tiger threat. Yeah, and this is certainly, I've been hearing this already, you know, I've been, I've been getting this pushback against us, just the same as every other state. Yeah, they're going to take our funding away. They're going to stop funding our National Guard. As you're right, the political optics of that would be terrible. On top of that, I have to think, you know, for the state of Maine, our U.S. Senator, Susan Collins, is one of the highest ranking people on the Appropriations Committee. Right. You know, whether people love her or not, certainly, you know, from the perspective of liberty, there's much to be desired.

But she's not going to, she's not going to support the deappropriating federal funding to our national guard. that we rely on in the event of emergencies, natural disasters that could come upon our state, she's not going to support that. You're right. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a threat made just to intimidate, but you really analyze it and you got to question how much follow through they actually have there. And then one thing I also think about this, you know, they must be getting really scared because it's easy to bully and intimidate one small state. like Maine. But of course, it's not just Maine doing this by ourselves, like was proposed back in 2011. Here we are 12 years later, and this has been sponsored in well over two dozen states across the country.

Right. When the small states are working together and passing policies like these to hold the federal government accountable, we aren't so small anymore. We aren't so easy to push around. And so, yeah, That is an argument that we have to thoroughly dismantle in the public hearing because I know I hear from members of the committee that this is what they're hearing. It's 30 states, right? Yeah, I don't know the exact count. I'm sure the folks that bring our troops home would know the exact number of states that this is being filed in. Hey, man, this should be, I totally agree with you. I think this should be like the opening statement every time.

Dan McKnight, if you're listening, every time you talk to these committees, tell them how many other states are considering this. right now, too. We already got it through committee in Arizona, or, well, we will, I'm confident. We already got it through and wherever I'm missing the, there was a few. I think in Minnesota they passed it, right, out of committee. So, you know, bring up the victories and bring up the long list of states where this has been introduced, and especially it's been introduced by Republicans. And I think that's a great, it's just, it's so important for the social psychology of Republicans in these legislatures to hear that and find that out. They're like, oh, yeah, no, it's a huge, huge generational shift from where George W. Bush to America first and not George W. Bush

anymore. And for them to really get that through their head, that this is a conservative constitutionalist issue now. And while at the same time, I hope sending the message to liberals and progresses and Democrats that, hey, the cavalry's finally arrived. And you guys have been against this all along. And finally, the other guys are good on it too. So we can really bring an end of this thing. And I did see, like in Texas here, I could see them Democrats, what passes for gears turning in their head that like, oh, maybe we're pro-war now. You guys are the anti-war guys. So we can't let that happen. You know what I mean? We got to phrase it right. But it should be that what we did have, it was the minority report. Now we have consensus.

You know, now we can come together and stop this thing. Yeah. And if there is any one lesson we should all be able to take away from the last 20 years the war on terror is that we cannot continue to have this broad open authorization for the executive branch to send our troops off to war wherever and whenever they decide. Right. Okay. So now talk to the audience about how they can help you in the Senate in Maine on Monday. Yeah. So, especially if you live in the state of Maine and especially if you're a veteran so all Maine people are welcome please feel free to you can go actually there's a petition we're running at bring our troops home you should be able to go to bring our troops home.us sign the petition there that will

we will immediately have your petition and your name you know go go to the committee the folks deciding to say, I support this, I expect you to vote in favor of it. And then call your representative, call your senator. I think sometimes people don't appreciate just how much power and influence they actually have as a voter. I can tell you as a main senator, if I receive five phone calls on a single issue, that's a lot. And it's certainly enough to make me look and see, okay, what's this bill that they're concerned about. And that is how you turn things. That's how we pass constitutional carry

in the state of Maine when Democrats were in charge of the House. We were the only state to ever pull that off. And it was the power of constituents putting pressure on their legislators. So that's what people can do. And of course, this is a part of a national movement, state by state.

Hopefully there's a Defend the Guard bill pending in your state. If you live outside the state of Maine, be sure to give support. to those pieces of legislation wherever they are, if they're in your state capital. Yeah, that's really great. I really hope that that works. And you know what?

I probably have pissed people off with my Twitter campaigns about, you know, supporting the war powers resolution on Yemen, for example. That's like six months of me haranguing people to call their congressmen. And then Bernie Sanders let everybody down with like this thud before Christmas there. when they didn't even hold the debate and lose the vote. He just called the whole dang thing off and went to dinner. And look, I mean, I'm not a big believer in democracy. I could probably rant at you all day long

about the special interest groups that control our government at the expense of the people. I can't remember the name anymore, but everybody knows there's the famous study that shows. It's not really public opinion that counts. It's what power factions want that rules in D.C. But the thing is, that's not true in Maine

in Maine it's the numbers and I don't know about in Texas Texas is a pretty big state used to be an independent nation if you fly over it in a jet or try to drive across it you might understand why maybe only

real power can rule Texas but people can make decisions in Maine people can make decisions in some of these smaller states especially and where you're saying five phone calls is a lot well how about 50 you know and especially if it's people who are from there and we saw this effect the other day in arizona they were answering

the phone going hey hey people been calling all day believe me we are taking you guys seriously and you know that was the staff talking but they're just human men and women too and you know it's easy to think they're all just lizard people and this and that but that's the u.s. senate main state senate the people who have not yet turned into lizards by being promoted to dc they are approachable man they can be moved especially because smaller numbers on a state legislative level it's it's a smaller amount of people that elect them and you get enough constituents calling people really start to wonder about political survival at the end of the day every politician is thinking in the back of their head about their re-election and what would the disaster it would be if they lost and so if they find out that they're getting dozens hundreds of calls from angry constituents who are demanding something, they pay attention because they know it's in their best interest to listen. Yep, absolutely. Okay, bring our troops home.us,

defend the guard.us, and any explicit instructions on how, are you called Mainers? Is that what it's called? Yeah, Mainers. Can Mainers, how can Mainers find the right committee online so that they can show up either in person or on Zoom or register or whatever it is to communicate their beliefs here. Yeah. You can show up on Monday. It's at 1 o'clock or we also do have Zoom, the ability to do Zoom testimony. You can go to main.

Legislature.gov slash testimony. And you can register to give testimony over Zoom for the committee hearing. This will be in the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee on Monday. Okay, awesome. Thank you so much for all your great efforts for Liberty and for peace, Eric Brakey. Thank you, Scott. 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.