The David Knight Show - INTERVIEW Jim Bovard - "Lost Last Rights"

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

Gard Goldsmith, Liberty Conspiracy, interviews author James Bovard on his new book "Lost Last Rights", the sequel to "Lost Rights"Find out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKni...ghtShow.comIf you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Money is only what YOU hold: Go to DavidKnight.gold for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to TrendsJournal.com and enter the code KNIGHTBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Wow. Wonderful stuff from David Knight. Remember, you can get the Christmas album over there a couple of days after Christmas, but they had the Feast of St. Stephen's. Was it yesterday? So, you know, keep the spirit alive, everybody. And remember, anything you contribute over at David Knight's Rockfin channel, Everything goes straight to the show. I'm Gardner Goldsmith guest hosting, and it just is an amazing and wonderful pleasure to be here with all of you in the chats, online, wherever you might be. And thanks again on the backside of Twitter, at Gard Goldsmith, for the kind words from yesterday's show. I really appreciated that. And I want to say a big couple of words of appreciation to Karen Carpenter in the Rockfin chat. She mentions that satisfaction of teaching. One day I gave a lecture about heart attacks to second graders because they were curious about it.
Starting point is 00:00:52 I drew pictures of the circulatory system. It was spur of the moment, but what a hoot. The students were enthralled. And also some great comments from Wes Robertson talking about what Greg Abbott can do. Abbott can end the illegals coming through his state anytime constitutionally just by nullifying federal dictates. Well, again, you know, I hope that the outlines they gave about the Kentucky resolutions and James Madison also in letters mentioned that it's supposed to be a state purview, that 1875 Chalong decision is as
Starting point is 00:01:21 bad as the Dred Scott decision, as bad as the Roe v. Wade decision. It warps the perception of the Constitution, and so many people start to think that that's the way it should be. And then, of course, everybody starts to argue over the one size must fits all. So very interesting stuff. I really want to thank everyone in the Rumble chat as well
Starting point is 00:01:40 that one person says, too bad BitChute doesn't have the money behind them that Rumble has. BitChute has always been solid. I like BitChute as well that one person says too bad bit shoot doesn't have the money behind them that rumble has bit shoot has always been solid I like bit shoot as well and and high boost mentions Trump and he says Trump used Facebook 2016 to win but was he it was used against him in 2020 kind of funny well yeah you know
Starting point is 00:02:01 I think it's gonna be very interesting to see what happens in this next election. But I have I have no vested interest in this whatsoever. I do want to welcome, however, a man who has been watching this longer than I have and has been one of my big heroes for a long time. He's our guest now on The David Knight Show. He is James Bovard coming to us from just outside the swamp of Washington, D.C. on the David Knight Show. James, welcome to the program. I see the symbol for you. I think we've got audio and welcome and congratulations on your new book, Last Rites, James Bovard. Thanks very much. Thanks for having me on, having me back on. And thanks for plugging the book. And, yeah, I was trying to figure out whether or not to use the video today, and I thought it might overwhelm viewers to have two photogenic guys on the screen. Well, thank you.
Starting point is 00:02:58 Thank you, James. I don't have the beard. I couldn't grow the beard the way you do. But, yes, I know. We would probably. Count your blessings. Count your blessings have the beard. I couldn't grow the beard the way you do. But yes, I know. We would probably. Count your blessings. Count your blessings on the beard. Isn't that what the Ministry of Truth is all about?
Starting point is 00:03:11 Nina Jankovic was there to stop us handsome guys from getting too much airtime, right? I don't know entirely what she was supposed to do, but she was great for comic relief. It's always good to have a woman whose videos included who asking, who exactly can I fill the blank to become rich and powerful? Yes. I wouldn't use that verb because you've got a family-friendly show, but it was great to see online. It's like, you know, I guess, you know, the Biden White House, when they were vetting her for that appointment, forgot to ask one important question. Does she sing?
Starting point is 00:04:04 Maybe they'll have to put that on the application form from now on, right? Well, the nice thing is once they booted her, everybody thought the Ministry of Truth was done, but it wasn't. They brought in Michael Chertoff. Well, yeah. I mean, it's just amazing that he would have any credibility in Washington after the things he's done and the lobbying he's done. But no, I mean, you've got all these. I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no. I heard
Starting point is 00:04:32 Jim that he wants people to pass through an airport scanner before they can get online to speak. I think that's his new gimmick just to sell more scanners. Yeah. Well, you know, you're going to find some use for those damn airport scanners. Hell, haven't done any good as far as catching weapons and bombs. So, I mean, I've had some memorable experiences with those scanners and with the TSA. And I've tried to settle accounts. Hey, I tell you, James Bovard is our guest, folks. Go to JimBovard.com and follow him at Jim Bovard on Twitter.
Starting point is 00:05:09 And the new book is great. And I know that you wrote about your recent experiences with the TSA. It hasn't changed. It's not any more secure. We know that every few years they would have their studies on how many bomb-like materials would go through. And even ABC News would do their own studies. It never changed despite the increasing budget, despite the daily, minute-by-minute, person-by-person encroachments into the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, so many things. And that lets us look at Last Rites. And I want to bring this up to all the audience, everybody. Last Rites, the latest James Bovard. It has a picture of the Capitol building with the razor wire and the fence just in the
Starting point is 00:05:49 foreground. And of course, on the back, I showed this at the start of the show, everybody, the armed goons protecting our liberties, isn't that? Oh, I'm sorry. They're protecting the politicians from we people, they tell us are free. James, you've got a lot in this book. First of all, I know you've been working on this for a long time. How long ago did you start to think, OK, I'm going to get this book out because this is a crucial time to have this book released? Shortly before COVID, actually, I was trying to tie a lot of things together that I've been writing about for years. I mean, this is a flashback to 1993, 94, when Lost Rights came out, the book that preceded this. And it was a roundup of a lot of the federal, state, and local atrocities and abuses back then. And folks said I was much too cynical. And it's kind of like, you know, I don't think so. But it's sad to look back on the I had it better off when I was getting beat up
Starting point is 00:07:06 this way. It's ridiculous. It's like drowning in water versus drowning in quicksand. It gets worse. It just gets worse. And they keep using these rationales where the government gets caught at something. We see James Clapper testifying in front of Ron Wyden and Wyden already knows that they're surveilling people because they've got the Snowden information. It just hasn't gone public yet. And all of a sudden, boom, what happens? He asked him, is the NSA collecting data on people? No. And then Wyden gives him a chance to get out of possibly perjuring himself, which he just did. And he says, no. And he said, well, not knowingly. Like, no, you were doing it knowingly. That's what the FISA is about. That's what the whole FISA thing is about. And it's not just Section 702. It's
Starting point is 00:07:59 the very concept of it's not in the Constitution. It's strictly prohibited. And the prohibition doesn't mean that it only applies to the government invading Americans' rights. It's anybody's rights. They don't have the ability to scan somebody in Sweden, just like they don't have the ability to scan somebody in New Hampshire. They just don't have the power. It's amazing to me. James, you have so many things here. Can I run through a little bit? Thank you so much. Pardon the spectacles here. I just wanted to make sure I looked like Charlie Robinson, the great Charlie Robinson, a great podcaster. And so in the book, everybody just released from the Libertarian Institute, and I hope you will check it out at the Libertarian Institute website. As you mentioned here, you have in the introduction, tyranny comes to Main Street.
Starting point is 00:08:49 Americans today have the freedom to be freedom in quotes. And this is very, very important to me, James. And I'm so glad that having, as a teenager, I picked up one of your books, I'm like 10 years behind you or something like that. And I'm like, I like this guy. And now I know you. And I'm like, I like this guy. And you always, yeah, you keep getting the bat on the leather. You keep hitting it, man.
Starting point is 00:09:15 It's great. The bat on the leather. Okay. That's a New Hampshire phrase. Yeah, absolutely. My daddy used to play for the Red Sox, their farm team. Oh, really? That's great.
Starting point is 00:09:24 Yeah. Yeah. They used to, they the Red Sox, their farm team. Oh, really? That's great. Yeah, yeah. They were called the Hooligan Squad. It was before World War II. Wow. Yeah, yeah. It was interesting. injected, censored, ticketed, disarmed, beaten, vilified, detained, and maybe shot by government agents. Politicians are hell-bent on protecting citizens against everything except Uncle Sam. Ah, it's that wonderful social contract, isn't it? Is America becoming a cage-keeper democracy where voters merely ratify the latest demolition of their rights and liberties?
Starting point is 00:10:14 And you cover in this book, it's not just a wide array. It's as if you're using a logical syllogism from point A down to point 15. What letter is that? You know, M, something like that. You talk about seizure fever, the war on gun owners, license to kill, the COVID crackdown catastrophe, schools gone wild, 10,000 czars, subsidies and subjugation, dominate and be careful what you wish for states and corporations, dominate, intimidate, control, taxation and tyranny, no place to hide, see no evil democracy democracy mindless ministry of truth ah the singing singing spirit a spirit of of nanny jankowitz american gestapo run amok and last chance for liberty concluding things with tons of end notes uh so james you put this together it's a lot of work in addition to
Starting point is 00:11:22 the the articles you write, I don't know how many articles you write every week. Do you have a certain set number that you put out every week, James? No. With the book being done, I'm aspiring to have three or four out per week. But I have a question for you on the book. Is that a paperback or a hardback version? This is the hardcover. Okay. Okay. Because I haven't seen it. I was trying to find it. I mean, Amazon was supposed to have it and they, you know, I don't know, but, uh, so where did you order that from? Uh, I can't remember if I got this through the Libertarian Institute website or I went to Amazon,
Starting point is 00:12:00 uh, just so I could get it shipped over more quickly. Great, great. Well, it looks good. I was trying to get some hardbacks, and I've got paperbacks, but I will track those down. This is absolutely fantastic. James, I've got a few of the items I'd like to discuss with you, and I've bookmarked each one.
Starting point is 00:12:22 Far away. Okay, we've got Chapter 3, The War on Gun Owners. Of course, I was talking about the way that so-called red flag laws are contrary to half the Bill of Rights. Punishment without any trial. Second Amendment, Third Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Sixth Amendment. Then we've got License to Kill. And this is really something else. It goes back to the 90s. A lot of different things with the Justice Department and how so-called reform was never actually instituted. And as
Starting point is 00:12:55 they often do, the reforms that they claim actually give them permission to do even worse things to us. Then we're talking about the American Gestapo run amok. That is the FBI. So if you'd like to pick any one of those for our audience, and if anyone has any questions for James Bovard, put it in the Rockfin or Rumble chat. And if you're watching on David Knight's Twitter feed, I can also check those in a little while, but we'll go with Rockfin and Rumble chat. James, is there any one of those you'd like to hit first? You know, I don't have any specific preference. On the FBI, the American Gestapo, that was a phrase from President Truman.
Starting point is 00:13:36 Right. In his diary, I think in late 1945, maybe 46, he said he was worried that the FBI was becoming a Gestapo and that America did not need that. That was just after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Yeah, I see here. We want no Gestapo or secret police. FBI is trending in that direction. 1945, you wrote. Yep. Yep. And that's so he was aware of the damage, the danger, and other politicians have had some very eloquent statements on that over the subsequent decades. But the FBI, you know, still has vast unchecked power. The FBI tried to throw the 2016 presidential election to Hillary
Starting point is 00:14:20 Clinton. The FBI had a huge role in helping Joe Biden win the 2020 election. And I don't know, you know, there hasn't been any effective effort that I know of to put a leash on the FBI for the 2020, 2024 presidential election. So, you know, I don't see how democracy survives this. Well, you know, it's amazing because you can roll back so fluidly in conversation to some of those things. And every one of those things you mentioned, the 2016, right? So one of the things on which I was reporting in MRCTV, James, was the so-called DNC hack, right? We know that the DNC didn't give the computer to the FBI initially They gave it to CrowdStrike CrowdStrike run by this guy, Aparamov or something like that
Starting point is 00:15:11 A member of the Atlantic Council They came out with their report, which is absolutely ridiculous Bill Binney has mentioned that there's no way that the data could have been transferred As quickly as it was transferred if it was done through phone lines It had to have been done on on site with data sticks, flash drives. And then this guy, Aparvomich or whatever, comes out and says, oh, it was the Russians. And that entire Russians interference, Russian thing carried through as the Portman-Murphy bill was circulating in 2016 and got passed in that last ndaa that obama signed in december of 2016 which created the portman murphy countering foreign
Starting point is 00:15:51 propaganda act which helped give a lot of this money to places like news guard and um um election guard and all these different agencies that we found were actually being funded by the feds simultaneous to that we see the feds now hiding information about like the hunter biden laptop and literally reaching out to the new york times to say don't talk about this thing that we know the hard drive had the um the chain of possession already set up. They knew it was authentic, but they didn't want people to know about this. And that's one of the softer things, but it had incredible implications. And I was amazed that many people were unaware of the FBI's role in that. Yeah, I mean, that's something that New York Post did great work on,
Starting point is 00:16:41 and they have dogged that issue very effectively. It's frustrating to see how much BS the government still gets away with. And talking to folks who are moderates, liberals, Democrats, or even undecided, their knowledge base on these scandals is very low. And it's sort of like talking to conservatives about the torture scandals. Like, what? That never happened. Right, right. So it's just, you know, and this is part of how the outrage is snowballed and, you know, they turn to precedence
Starting point is 00:17:17 and there's almost no way to put a leash on them. It's amazing. You know, we know that prior to, say, this contemporary era we might be looking at in 2016, there were all sorts of problems with the FBI, as we know, you know, whether it was the Black Panthers, Martin Luther King Jr. And so many of the different things that were instituted with the creation of the FBI right on through. it's always been very, very sketchy. It's always been something where the FBI on the surface carried this sort of mantle of pride. And a lot of the guys would go into the FBI thinking, I'm going to do the right thing. But there have always been very dark factions to the FBI and a lot of questions constitutionally about, well, is it really excusable to create a police agency for crimes that might happen across borders? Or is it really just the maximum that the feds would do would be to facilitate extradition between states? And that's sort of the fundamental question about the FBI.
Starting point is 00:18:21 But there are other things that have happened recently. We've seen the FBI and, of course, the Department of Education being implicated at the Justice Department as well in possibly investigating concerned parents who go to school board meetings and investigating Catholics who are traditional and Catholic masses. Would you like to amplify on some of the other things that you discovered as you wanted to put this together or like to amplify on some of the other things that you discovered as you wanted to put this together, or throughout your life, some of the things that stand out for you about the FBI and just how inflammatory it has become or how bad it was in the past? Yeah, that's a very good question. It's interesting, going to the the FBI and the Catholics. It came out earlier this year that the FBI that the FBI in Richmond and other places had a secret campaign to infiltrate church services to, quote, identify the bad Catholics.
Starting point is 00:19:18 And, you know, I don't I'm not comfortable at all with the FBI setting themselves up to be secret judges of who is and who is not a good Christian or a good Catholic. Yeah. You know, this is you talk about a Pandora's box. And and this is something it wasn't just one nitwit FBI agent who did this. This is something which got approved at multiple levels. But one of the things that sticks in my mind most vividly on the FBI was Ruby Ridge. You had the FBI send their snipers out there. You had the FBI, you know, the FBI snipers were given an order to shoot to kill, basically
Starting point is 00:19:55 shoot on sight for the adults that were being besieged by federal agents. And then the FBI sniper guns down Vicki Weaver. She's holding her baby in the cabin door. That agent, Lon Horiuchi, never received any sort of punishment. In fact, he got advanced as Lon Horiuchi after killing, right? Yep. And so that was something I wrote about. And it was fascinating to see the pushback.
Starting point is 00:20:26 FBI Director Louis Freeh condemned me in public for for slandering FBI agents and the FBI itself. But but I later got hold of a 500 page confidential Justice Department report on their analysis of Ruby Ridge. And the Justice Department had many of the same condemnations of the FBI that I had as far as their conduct and their cover-up of Ruby Ridge. But you just said it publicly. I said it publicly, and the FBI chief thought that he could squash my reputation like a bug. Well, I'm still here. You are James Bovard. And by the way, as we talk bug. Well, I'm still here. You are, you are James Bovard. And by the way, as we talk about last rights, I want to mention, I remember at that time,
Starting point is 00:21:10 um, uh, Ruby Ridge, G Gordon Liddy was doing his radio show. Oh, he was, he was great. Yeah. And he was excellent on that Ruby Ridge issue. And he would mention what you were talking about. I remember him talking about your work on his show and I got to meet him a number of years ago and he was very, very nice to me. And, you know, I obviously go into prison after the Nixon issues and things like that, but he really did a splendid job talking about Lon Horayuchi, Ruby Ridge and Randy Waver and his family. And I really appreciate the fact that you stood up for those people. You know, David Knight was down there with the, down at Bundy Ranch when the Bureau of Land Management was trying to wipe out the Bundy Ranch
Starting point is 00:21:59 and take that over. They were sabotaging the water pipes and so on. David was there at the standoff as the snipers had their guns trained on them. He was right there. Yeah. There's a section in the book on the Bundy Ranch case and the FBI. It's just, it's incredible. And I don't, it gets me choked up a little bit sometimes to think about just how far people have, you know, you get these little
Starting point is 00:22:25 these little bubble ups of people standing up for what is appropriate. They're standing up for their rights. These people at Bundy Ranch had a land agreement when Nevada was a territory. And as I've mentioned, there is no provision for the United States government to run land other than Washington, D.C., territories and military garrisons. And as you know, when, according to the Constitution, territories become states, they're supposed to enter with, as they say, all the rights and privileges of any other state. And there is no mandate that they have to cede land to the government. And even if they had to cede land, even if they wanted to cede land to the federal government, the federal government has no provision in the Constitution to manage that land. So all these areas, Grand Escalante, as I mentioned yesterday on David's show,
Starting point is 00:23:15 or the Bears Feet or the Anwar, anything like that, all these areas where they've opened up national parks or, you know, closed off anthracite to help the lipo group for the Clinton administration, any of those things, those are supposed to be up to the states. And since the Bundys had an agreement from that territory of Nevada before it became a state, they were grandfathered in. Their family had grazing rights and the feds were trying to wipe them out. And it's amazing to think that the pop media could portray people who were just trying to mind their own business, who were just sitting there, who got invaded by federal agents,
Starting point is 00:23:55 the FBI, the BLM, with their tax-funded guns. They can portray the Bundys as the flipped out aggressors, as the wild gun toters, and they were just defending their property. And that sort of, I love to correct the record on that sort of thing, especially for peaceful people like that, James. Yeah, and it was fascinating to see the evolution of the federal court cases and the federal judges on that issue yeah there was a i think judge navarro maybe gloria navarro yeah he was uh she started out very much leading in favor of the fbi and the feds but by the time at a certain point there were a number of very uh late revelations the feds made that blew their credibility to pieces and And she basically threw the case out of court and gave the FBI a very thorough cussing. Yeah. The discovery process there on every one of those was so important. And of course, you know, I think, James, it harkens back to back to the
Starting point is 00:24:57 days when they would try to have the kangaroo courts during the revolutionary era to take people away from their local juries. they you know they try them up in nova scotia that was one of the things you wanted to have jury of your peers people hear this information even judges sometimes will stand up and say you know what this is just wrong uh and and and yeah good for judge navarro i was i was really pleased about that james um any other thoughts in the fbi i'd love to talk to you a little bit about something tied to the FBI, the war on drugs and things like civil asset forfeiture. Sure, go for it. Okay. Well, let's talk a little bit about the so-called war on drugs,
Starting point is 00:25:39 you know, starting up with Lyndon Johnson, but even before that, certain statutes, a lot of the old jazz musicians finding that they, running into problems with the law. We've got an idea that somehow the person accused with some crime against others just for possessing a substance, which is not a violent act of aggression against anyone, just the possession of a substance, or the sale to a voluntary willing participant of a substance like drugs or whatever it might be, that somehow first any state agency, agency of the state in its normative sense, should be involved in stopping that person from engaging in that peaceful activity. But on the constitutional level, the superstructure of this on a national and historical level for the United States, James Bovard, we've got the so-called war on drugs that has incentivized local police forces.
Starting point is 00:26:37 And even the Obama administration threw down a smoke screen with Eric Holder in there. And you talk about some of this, some of Eric Holder's background on this, the so-called war on drugs, the seizure of people's property and how it incentivizes the local police to engage in these types of raids because they can make tons of money. They get to keep people's stuff. Can you talk a little bit about the concept of civil asset forfeiture and how you approach it in last rights, James Bovard? Yeah. Civil asset forfeiture means that the government come in and confiscate your property based on a mere allegation that it might've been misused at some time in the past. And there was, I think, a DEA agent who would say that the great thing about
Starting point is 00:27:25 asset forfeiture is it's not up not up to us to prove anything and so so uh so if the if a government agent stops you walking down the street and he says uh let me take a look at your wallet and so he pulls and he pulls out your cash and then a drug dog comes up the drug dog alerts to the drugs supposedly on the on your currency boom that's sufficient for the government to seize your currency however the vast majority of american currency has micro traces of drugs and sufficient to trigger a canine alert but and judges judges have known that for 30 years. Judges have been condemning this canine dog currency seizure as a bunch of crap going back to probably even before Bill Clinton's presidency. Right.
Starting point is 00:28:13 But, you know, it's still there. And it's almost like a Monty Python test of whether or not a woman is a witch if she weighs more than a duck. She's made of wood. That's it. That's it. Got to drown her. Maybe she was eating crunchy frogs. I don't know. Yeah. That's something I've always avoided. Yes. Yes. And James, I mentioned this before you came on. I've done this on my Liberty Conspiracy show, but I'd like to show this for the David Knight audience as I fill in for David Knight. James Bovard is our guest on the David Knight Show, everybody. polar problem between the so-called war on drugs, unconstitutional, of course, and the so-called war on terror, which has seen such a destruction of so many of the rights that are supposed to be protected by the U.S. Bill of Rights. And James, I'd like to turn right now to this. There might
Starting point is 00:29:19 be a little ad that pops up. This is from 20 years ago. It's Geraldo Rivera on the ground in Afghanistan as U.S. soldiers guarded the heroin poppy crop. And is the opium trade. The Taliban is using it to intimidate the population. Joining us from Palawan province is Geraldo Rivera. Good morning to you, Geraldo. Tell us what you've seen during your days there in Afghanistan. Hi Alison, Dave and Clayton. Yes, in some ways the Marines brilliantly executed invasion of Marjah, this town in the middle of Helmand province was the easy part. The hard part now is governing this
Starting point is 00:30:01 province. A province, as you suggest, that has become addicted to opium in many, many ways. That is the principal crop that is being grown here. The Taliban lend the farmers the money. They are indebted to the Taliban. They have to grow the opium. Now the Marines in their success are in a sense a victim of their success because now the population is, you know, they have these opium fields and we are tolerating it. We are tolerating the cultivation of the opium because we know that if we were to destroy it now, the population would turn against the Marines and it would be a real security risk. Let me introduce Lieutenant Colonel Brian Christmas. He's the commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines. Really a wonderful group of Marines here. I know that you care deeply about this contradiction,
Starting point is 00:30:48 the fact that here you have one of the best fighting forces in the world ever mounted. And in a sense, you're watching as this opium is being grown. I know it grinds at your gut. How do you deal with it? What are you doing about it? Well, frankly, this is part of the culture. So while it might grind in my gut, it's what they do.
Starting point is 00:31:08 So it's very interesting, James. I bring that up, of course, knowing that they were unconstitutionally there. Ron Paul offered a declaration of war. He got three votes. Of course, he was not going to vote for it himself. And I thought that it was important to bring that up because we have this bipolar situation of the U.S. government telling us they have this so-called war on drugs, then invading a foreign nation, occupying it for two decades. And as they're occupying it, seeing the opium coming out of there increase and the proportion of the world's trade going up to near 97% coming from Afghanistan. Now, James, just a few weeks ago, I was reading about how the Taliban, and again, I'm not in
Starting point is 00:31:51 favor of one group destroying the crops of anybody, but Afghanistan is no longer number one on the export of opium poppy products. It's now something like Myanmar or something like that. They've dropped because the Taliban did get in there. And rather than doing what the government told us they would do, which would be to take over the fields and run them themselves, they're destroying the fields. And it is amazing to me because we got people who are accustomed to the United States being in Afghanistan, even some military members. I've spoken to them and I've been at airports. I've seen them in their fatigues. And I say, oh, are you heading out somewhere? They're like, yeah, I'm going to Afghanistan. I'm going to Iraq. And I say, listen, if you don't
Starting point is 00:32:33 want to answer this question, if it makes you feel uncomfortable, that's okay. I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, but I know you swear an oath to the constitution? Yes. You will answer to constitutional orders? Yes. There is no declaration of war. The only way the president can send troops out constitutionally is if there's a declaration of war. How do you feel knowing that you swore an oath to the constitution, but they're sending you out in a breach of the constitution? And their answer always is, well, I do what they tell me. And I think that that is sad and of course, very frightening. And I hope that, you know, I don't want to be too explicit on it, but I hope that people will remember this is the type of policy, what we see right here on the
Starting point is 00:33:15 screen. This is the type of policy you get when people don't try to keep tabs on their own ethics and what is right and wrong and contradictory based on government policy. And what they were doing there, I wonder, James, if anybody could say, gee, you know, you are guarding those fields. Now we're going to come in and do civil asset forfeiture on the U.S. military now, because of course you're involved with a crime. We can just take your Jeeps. You think they would do that, James? Well, I think it might be difficult to collect if there is something and i don't know how long you can stay with this james but i do want to
Starting point is 00:33:52 ask a couple questions uh from rock excellent excellent uh so let's head over to rockfin and rumble chat and uh and see what you have to say, everybody, here on the David Knight Show. And here are some of the points that are brought up over at Rumble, Rockfin. We're seeing, okay, they're talking about Geraldo Rivera. Now, yes, someone brought up the pandemic, the pandemic and the lockdowns. Love for you to be able to address some questions on that regarding civil liberties, James. And Michael DeSalvio says, we should just grow it here in the United States. Very good point. And Hal 9000 Watson, I'm sure you understand the reference there, James. A little dig on IBM says, oh, the American way. And they also say no war, no war on pharma drugs. Those are subsidized and protected. Let's talk about the lockdowns for a second, James. You saw what was going on. And then we'll talk about the Capitol building, maybe January 6th, because you visited there and just seen the stark in your face, police state appearance and practice there and how things have changed. Do you have any thoughts about the United States government, including various governors, most of them, and legislatures, cracking down on people's civil liberties,
Starting point is 00:35:27 choosing essential, non-essential businesses, shutting things down with vaccine passports, the border, you've got to be jabbed, all these types of things. There is a solid chapter in the book on the COVID crackdown craziness. I think one of the clearest lessons of the pandemic was that in the long run, people have more to fear from politicians than from a virus. You had so many politicians who gave themselves dictatorial power. There were some great Supreme Court dissents during the early part of the pandemic. I believe it was Justice Gorsuch who was mocking the state of Nevada for putting very low limits for church attendance, but there was a much larger limit for going to the casinos. And he said it's really difficult to reconcile the First Amendment with the – he had a very good line afterwards, trust me on that one.
Starting point is 00:36:32 But there were lots of good court decisions, but the hysteria by the media, most of the media, not all of it, in favor of unlimited government power and to see how the media made saints out of people like Fauci, in spite of all of his contradictions, in spite of his flip-flops, it was almost as if groveling to the government was the only way people could be saved. Absolutely, absolutely right. And his elitist El Senor approach, looking down his nose at people, you know, the way that in, you know, I wish Rand Paul had gone farther. I hope he continues to do more, not just questioning the gain of function, but questioning any of the United States government involvement in the jab research. And of course, they called those countermeasures, claiming they could do that as a DOD type of preparatory thing against a potential
Starting point is 00:37:30 attack by some foreign nation developing a virus. But they're the ones who developed the virus indirectly through EcoHealth Alliance, moving it from North Carolina over to Wuhan. So all of it is unconstitutional. And here's the quote on page 77, folks, from Neil Gorsuch. James writes in his new book, Last Rights, available at the Libertarian Institute, also on Amazon. James Bovard at Jim Bovard on Twitter. Politicians effectively promised to banish all COVID risk by obliterating individual liberty. But according to the Centers for Disease Control, most Americans still contracted COVID despite, quote, the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country, end quote, as Neil Gorsuch declared in 2023. Those lockdowns destroyed
Starting point is 00:38:28 millions of jobs, spurred hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, and sparked far more suicides, alcoholism, and drug abuse. Jim, everything from local schools and the teachers unions pushing for even more outside the school so-called education everything from parents speaking up about that sort of thing and the way that they were speaking up about wokeism being detected by the doe then working with the national school boards association to try to concoct a narrative that the concerned parents were somehow potential domestic terror threats and then getting the FBI to investigate them, which was halted supposedly, but not really when they got discovered to the lockdowns, the jab passports, and as I've mentioned, the use of HIPAA, the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, supposedly to protect our privacy, but in between pages 75 and 95 of the PDF, people can see how the head of HHS can demand medical records from anybody who is in a medical profession who accepts Medicare and Medicaid patients to things like the people bringing in things on trucks from Canada.
Starting point is 00:39:55 You've got to be jabbed to all sorts of things. You can protest for BLM, but you can't protest for your own rights to protest. Unbelievable, unbelievable encroachments. And they cannot be forgotten. These sorts of things have to be remembered and they have to be fought. They have to be fought on a local, state and federal level. And it just amazes me that so many people just allow these things to come out and the lies Fauci openly saying, well, yes, I lied about masks. And now I'm giving you a spurious reason is because I think they're so important to have masks when everybody knows the masks aren't important. Just absurd. What were some of the standout things as you went back on this? Because there's so much regarding the
Starting point is 00:40:42 lockdowns and the lies from the federal government and the constitutional side of things and people's rights. Well, there is. Yeah, I've got a section in the COVID chapter on how the Biden White House browbeat the FDA to force him to give full approval for the Pfizer vax for COVID, because they had to have that before Biden imposed his mandate for all Americans working for large companies to get vaxxed. And to see the absolute contempt for anyone who did not roll over in command, shortly after Biden gave his speech in September 2021 on his vax mandates, Biden showed up on CNN and he said that the only reason that people weren't getting vaccinated is because they want their freedom to kill you with their COVID virus. And these are lines which have never really showed up in the media radar screen. People do recall that Biden promised
Starting point is 00:41:39 that if you get the injection, then you won't get COVID. And that was a false statement even when he said it, because the CDC knew there were a torrent of breakthrough cases, but the feds were covering them up. But then the cover-up collapsed. Absolutely. And we know that even during the early testing, they then got rid of their control group. They ended up giving them the injection. The whole thing was absurd.
Starting point is 00:42:08 And again, that goes towards my libertarian argument of don't put your faith in the central authority that then can be gamed for rent seekers to try to make sure their stuff gets through, especially when you've got that revolving door. And as we've discussed with your amazing book, The Fair Trade Fraud, some of the biggest corporations have big incentives to make sure that their competition is knocked out and they get either government contracts or tariffs that will protect them or mandates to say you must use this product. And this is exactly what Biden did. It's amazing to me to think that people think that this sort of thing can be reformed without actually at least questioning the very moral and ethical premises on which these people base their arguments that you must be forced to pay for your own protection because it doesn't work. It never works that way. You're not going to get any satisfaction if the agency that is supposed to protect you can just take your money at any time. They're actually a protection racket, you know? And this is something
Starting point is 00:43:18 which compounds with the censorship stuff because, okay, so you had the Biden folks come in and Biden was hellbent on persuading people that the COVID vaccines that had only emergency use approval were panaceas. And so what the Biden White House did was crack down on Twitter and Facebook and force them to suppress people making jokes about COVID vaccines. If you only made some kind of meme on Twitter, it's like, boom, you were suppressed. Because it was as if the COVID vaccines would only work if freedom of speech was destroyed. That's absolutely right, James. Absolutely right. And I'll point something out to you. I don't know whether you've gotten to see his tweet today,
Starting point is 00:44:08 but Glenn Jacobs mentioned this on Twitter. I'll see if I can find it very, very quickly. On Twitter, he brought up, I retweeted it, that since he is mayor of Knox County, of course, he's the former pro wrestler who played Kane. Bench press 520. He used to live up here in New Hampshire. Bench press 520.
Starting point is 00:44:31 What's that? I was talking to him once at a conference. He told me he's bench pressed 520. Wow. Are you kidding me? No, no. 520. Holy moly.
Starting point is 00:44:43 Serious stuff. So I'm not going to argue with him. All right. Well, that's excellent. Yeah. Let me see if I can find this tweet. I could paraphrase it, but let me see if I can just give this to you. Because he mentioned that Deborah Birx joined him and other people who were involved with government in Tennessee in a closed door meeting.
Starting point is 00:45:06 And he mentioned that she told people that a lot of the information they had about, and I don't want to be too explicit here because I'd rather read what he said, but I'll see if I can find it here. Yeah. Burks came to Knoxville in September 2020. Is that the one? Yes, that's it. Do you have it on yours, James? Yeah, I have it on mine. Feel free to read that.
Starting point is 00:45:34 Yeah, this is quoting Glenn Jacobs. He says that in a private meeting, Burks told us that bars and restaurants should be closed. She admitted that the data didn't support it, but said it was necessary to, quote, send a message about the seriousness of the virus. That's marketing, not science, says Glenn Jacobs. Good job, Glenn.
Starting point is 00:45:57 And he is a great, great guy. In fact, I think we might have met either the year you were up here for the Libertarian Pork Porcupine Festival and Naomi Wolf was here or it might have been the year after that. But, yeah, very good guy. And, of course, he lives down in Tennessee now. And, yeah, it's amazing to see the stuff that was going on. And Glenn fought tooth and nail to try to prevent those sorts of mandates in Knox County. And good for him.
Starting point is 00:46:34 And, you know, it's you guys that come from the country, James. You're still holding up the sign for truth. It's my redneck heritage. Yeah. And, you know, I have some comments that were, they're also showing comments. Now people are watching us on Twitter. Uh,
Starting point is 00:46:49 previously it would be difficult to comment on Twitter. You would have to go in and just now, uh, people are commenting. I've got, uh, thank you so much for watching the David Knight show. CHS eight,
Starting point is 00:46:59 four, three on Twitter slash X. And, um, he's, he mentioned freeway, Rick Ross. And of course, you know, the poor, terrible things that happened he mentioned freeway Rick Ross. And of course, you know,
Starting point is 00:47:06 the terrible things that happened to freeway Rick Ross, cleaned up his life. He says Trump might push for NATO to be closed as well. Well, I wouldn't, don't count your chickens before they hatch on that one, my friend.
Starting point is 00:47:18 I don't think they're going to see that happen, but who knows? You can always be hopeful. And let's see over on Rockfin chat, Scott Atlas had some very interesting things to say on the high wire about Berks and company. Yeah. Scott Atlas was talking about the inner workings there and how he kept getting shut out. They would start to have meetings even without him. They wouldn't even call on him once they found out what his position would be. He wouldn't be there. And yeah, there's
Starting point is 00:47:45 so many interesting things to discuss, James. What do you think stands out as you think about all the stories that you have in there? Is there something that you would want to really stress to the audience, one or two items here before we close things off with you? And thank you very much. If you have to go, go for it. I mean, thanks for all your kind comments. Thanks for the excellent questions. I guess the overview I'd want folks to take away is just the fundamental principle of what happens when politicians and government officials can claim control of your life. And then once they have that established, it's an unlimited series of often idiotic dictates. I mean, you think of TSA, what you've got to do when you're
Starting point is 00:48:32 flying. You think of the COVID lockdowns. You think of a lot of other federal mandates that are helping wreck this country, wrecking our prosperity. You think of how the government is destroying our currency and people in DC don't give a damn because they're mostly all very well paid. And there's just so much damage that the political class is inflicting on the nation, and people need to fundamentally reevaluate how they look at the U.S. government and American politicians. It's interesting. I was commenting on Facebook. I'd had some posts from a few years earlier, and so I said I was replying to someone and said something like, well, I hope that we can whip the political rascals in the coming years.
Starting point is 00:49:23 And Facebook gave me a warning for talking about whipping the political rascals in the coming years. And Facebook gave me a warning for saying, talking about whipping the political rascals. And I was thinking, okay, I guess that they're not familiar with Thomas Paine saying that politicians were the most rascally group of humanity. But there is this concerted effort to make people deferential to the ruling class and to make it seem like the real problem is that people who talk about whipping the political rascals, not all the lies and abuses from the Washington elite. James Bovard, at Jim Bovard on Twitter, your website. Great conversation recently with Tom Woods. There's just awesome stuff. Libertarian Institute, everybody. Check out the Libertarian Institute. This is a Libertarian
Starting point is 00:50:11 Institute publication. And James, before you go, I'll refer once more to that page 77, because you have that quote in there. And this should be sufficient. Just this statement should be enough for people to say, OK, I need to fight back for truth because we knew this was false the minute he said it. Quote, you're not going to get covid if you have these injections. July 21st, 2021, President Joe Biden. And you wrote, the COVID-19 pandemic opened a Pandora's box of perils to freedom, prosperity, and health. Though judges torpedoed a few despotic decrees, politicians fanned pandemic fears to seize nearly absolute power. Despite pervasive abuses, not a single government official spent a day in jail for the most politically exploited pandemic in American history. And James, their excuses about so-called public health run not only in conjunction with the nonsense of that man, Joe Biden, but run counter to individual liberty. It's a consequentialist view, and they have excused the attack on everybody's individual rights. There's no such thing as public health. There's only individual health. And the minute someone tells you, I'm in a group of people, we're in charge,
Starting point is 00:51:46 and we are going to decide what the public health is and what we can do to you. They're immediately negating their own argument because you are just a member, as everybody else is, of this group. And if they can threaten you, if they can threaten you, they can threaten somebody else who's not threatened today. They can threaten him tomorrow if they can threaten you, they can threaten somebody else who's not threatened today. They can threaten him tomorrow because they're always going to be there. And so this is so important, this book. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for the kind words.
Starting point is 00:52:14 Thanks for doing a great job of pulling out some of the best parts of the book. I really appreciate that, Gardner. You got it, James. You got it. You know, sometimes I get I just I just get so appreciative of your work, James. Any any thoughts, people? Just to mention where people can find you as you as you head off and continue working on various places. I've been doing quite a bit lately for The New York Post. I've done some stuff for Mises Institute, Brownstone, American Conservative magazine, other places which i should not be forgetting but i am well no problem james james bovard is with us and james next time i bring you on uh maybe i'll play that rifleman soundtrack
Starting point is 00:52:54 in honor of a great show of a guy uh came from good country country stock and fought for for goodness or maybe i'll play uh there's a song called High on Drugs about the drug war and all those things. High on Drugs. Hey, I was trying to polish up my Boy Scout image. You know, that way. Well, James, thank you so much. Next time, we'll also talk about some of your personal reflections as you watch around
Starting point is 00:53:23 the Capitol and saw some of the very things that people can see just by looking at the cover of your book, The Razor Wire on the Capitol. Just a quick comment. The photo on the cover was one that I took when I was on a hike going around the Capitol when it was, you know, thousands of National Guard troops with M-16s and camouflage. And it was like, you know, I felt like, ah, American democracy, it's finally been perfected. Well, how dare you engage in photography without a license? You charlatan, you, you evil man. Don't you understand?
Starting point is 00:53:59 And how dare you put these pictures out on social media? Nina Jankovic is going to sing at you, my friend. You better watch out. Well, it'll serve me right. Thanks so much, Gardner. Thanks, James. James Bovard, folks, thank you, James Bovard, so much for being a guest on the David Knight Show. And boy, he
Starting point is 00:54:17 calls up the Glenn Jacobs quote right off the bat. Great stuff. Everyone have a terrific day as we round off the program of the David Knight show tomorrow. Tony Arterburn of Wise Wolf Gold and Silver Exchange will be here. And Handy says this, of course, Handy's profession in EMT work says, I have a hard time even using the word COVID when I've never seen anything worse than what looks like a cold slash flu. But I've seen the jab maim and kill several.
Starting point is 00:54:52 Harps in Australia, have some Marmite for me, my friend. Have a great day, everyone. Stay free and great show guard. Thank you so much. Karen Carpenter says, I like to learn. Karen Carpenter, many hearts to you. Little John, thank you. Occult Priestess, watch Occult Priestess on Rockfin.
Starting point is 00:55:10 She is amazing. And what a wonderful, gracious host. And Matthew Ronson, thank you. Taking photos is dangerous. Hal 9000, thank you very much. And Shevken321, thank you very much for being there. I appreciate all of you being there. Maloney, thank you.
Starting point is 00:55:31 Matthew Ronson, thank you. I appreciate that. Everyone, tomorrow I won't be here, but I'll be here Friday. We're going to do a little countdown on Friday. And we're going to have a little special guest for the countdown. I'm looking forward to that. It's going to be super awesome, super mega awesome. And if you detect a smile on my face, it's because I'm playing in something goofy.
Starting point is 00:55:55 So it's going to be fun. And join me tonight on Liberty Conspiracy at 6 o'clock. We'll run through even more breaking stories, news resources, The David Knight show, the David Knight show.com. Check it out. Remember if you want to get involved with, uh, Gerald Salente's great work, check out Gerald Salente's work. And, uh, if you want to get Gerald Salente's publication, then you can get a 10% discount with Gerald Salente. And I got to say, so many people working for freedom, whether you get Trends Journal or you're going to watch Redacted or whatever, you're watching My Liberty Conspiracy. Thanks. Thanks for being interested. Really appreciate it. I'll leave you again with a little ad for David Knight's great music and a little something to recognize David and the kindness of them welcoming me to
Starting point is 00:56:56 the show. So let's check it out, everybody. Thank you very much watching the show. Don't forget if you do want to contribute over on Rockfin and Rumble, everything goes to them. Still have a chance to do so. And I really appreciate it.
Starting point is 00:57:08 And share the show after the fact. Great to have you there, GA boy. Thank you so much. And we'll see you again on Friday. Tony Arterburn, tomorrow, 9 a.m. And, of course, my show, if you want to watch Liberty Conspiracy, Rumble, Rockfin, my Twitter, at Guard Goldsmith. As the prisoner would say be seeing you ¡Quiero un sabido, un sabido, un sabido! ¡Que todos los hombres quieran tener los ojos que yo tengo! ¡Que todos los hombres quieran tener los ojos que yo tengo!
Starting point is 00:57:58 ¡Quiero un sabido, un sabido, un sabido! ¡Que todos los hombres quieran tener los ojos que yo tengo! You're listening to The David Knight Show.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.