Libertarian moment: A Rare interview with Ron Paul

[protected-iframe id=”0ca2dc874b358f9c633e2d572fc94866-46934866-60066902″ info=”https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/163993108&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ scrolling=”no”]

Kurt Wallace: Our guest today on Rare is Dr. Ron Paul, host of the Ron Paul Channel and his new media site Voices of Liberty and Dr. Paul thanks for being with us today on Rare.

Ron Paul: Kurt it’s nice to be with you.

Kurt Wallace: Robert Draper of the New York Times wrote an in-depth piece about libertarians “Has the Libertarian Moment Finally Arrived?” He references 1968 as being potentially, the declaration at the time, a breakout moment for libertarians, but that didn’t happen. Could you take us step by step through the last 45 plus years, what was it like then leading up to before you ran for president in 2008?

Ron Paul: Right, and to start off with I would say that that New York Times article Draper’s article had interesting stuff in it. But I don’t think he quite understands what’s going on. I see the whole process as being ideological rather than a partisan issue like how do the libertarians come along influence and take over the Republican Party. I don’t even see it in that way. I see the ideas of liberty and the libertarian movement as something that has been going on. I mean maybe ’68 was an important year – maybe 1956 was an important year. But I see a period of time from the 1950s there were only a very few who even knew the word or understood what was going on. One was Leonard Reed and the Foundation for Economics and Education planting seeds. And those seed have been numerous and they’re growing and they have come to life.

So, it’s a steady intellectual movement. And so I don’t know what he means exactly by a moment. I guess he means like all of a sudden the libertarians are in charge of the Republican Party and then they’re going to have a libertarian president and the world will be different. Ideologically, ideas have consequences and libertarianism is very important idea. And its competing with the status quo which is a variation of whats been around for thousands of years and that’s authoritarianism. And that is when you have kings and dictators a pharaohs and all kinds of government agents, communism in the twentieth century and fascism and Nazism.

They have prevailed, but right now with the libertarian movement there have been tremendous inroads. And there is not going to be a moment it’s going to be a transition. We’re in the middle of the transition. The twentieth century had a Keynesian transition which was rather dramatic in the depression although it existed before then. There’s a dramatic boast in Keynesianism which meant government spending is okay, deficits don’t matter, printing money is a good tool, size of government is very helpful and we’ve lived with that. That’s all coming to an end. Its ending right now.

And that is the reason we see the great growth of libertarianism. So, if you look outside of Washington you see the moment as a, you know, not a precise moment, but the movement has been around and its growing by leaps and bounds. And it really came alive in these last several years. Especially during the presidential campaigns. Because not so much of me being there but being there at the right time because they was so much blatant failure. You saw the failure of the economic system and the collapse and we’re still in the middle of that. At the same time, the American people, I think 78% said the war in Iraq made no sense and we shouldn’t have been in there. So, I see it as more of an intellectual transition and its very very powerful. And I don’t see it as a I don’t see it as precisely a political movement that’s going to take over a political party. Keynesianism took over a whole mental status of the country that people endorsed it, both parties endorsed it and it meant that the two parties didn’t have that much in difference. So, I think if you’re really going to see a significant, big significant influence of libertarianism it will influence Democrats as well as Republicans.

Kurt Wallace: Do you feel that libertarianism is really taking root now in the American psyche, that people are understanding that they were libertarians all along?

Ron Paul: I think there’s a lot of that. I’ve often said that I think that we’re all born libertarians. And people ask me when did you become a libertarian? I said as long as I can remember. Except I went through many, many years of having it beaten out of me by the status quo. Oh no well, yeah that’s a good idea to have free markets. But there are times when you have to do this and that.
When you need price controls and you need government to spend money and those kind of things.

So, I think natural instincts are there. I think individualism is very strong just in the way children are raised. I mean we have very strong independent kids at the age of two and teenagers are rather independent. And they have to sort this all out. But as a movement and an understanding yes I think it is growing a whole lot. Has a lot of influence. There was one time in ’08 I believe I was at the University of Michigan. I was pleasantly surprised when I guess you know in my conversation in my speech I mentioned Mises’ name and Austrian economics and then got a lot of cheer. And if I’d thought about my speech ‘you shouldn’t mentioned that nobody knows who he is’. But some did. So there definitely is a change and its alive and well and its growing and government going to continue to fail and I think we are very very much as libertarians to have a great deal of influence especially in the twenty-first century.

Kurt Wallace: I just interviewed Peter van Buren he said that the crisis in Iraq so inevitable so predictable that essentially the US being the common enemy of everyone?

Ron Paul: Well, there’s no doubt about that. You know we go everywhere, we interfere, we’re like the big bully and we have tremendous wealth which is dwindling. We had and still have the military power of the world. So it can be very intimidating. But it’s also very threatening. Now even our allies are getting a little bit worried about us throwing our weight around and putting sanctions on everybody, including our allies. So they’re getting pretty annoyed with this all. Right now there’s some people getting annoyed at the fact that we printed money for a long time and bought a lot of stuff from China. They put it in the bank but now they’re spending it. They’re spending it back here ‘oh they’re buying up our good buildings and our hotels and fancy houses. So, that is a consequence of it. But I think that whole system is going to end.

Kurt Wallace: As far as sanctions are concerned, you talk about the US financial isolationism with Russia, it includes pressure on European countries as well. How will this affect the United States and why do you think the U.S. policymakers are doing this?

Ron Paul: I think the policy makers, and that includes Republicans and Democrats, they like the idea of being the boss. I mean people who like to boss other people around like to go into politics so they can become the boss. Some literally believe, and they’ve told me personally, that the people are too stupid to take care of themselves. The liberals say they wouldn’t take care of themselves and that’s why we have to take care of them from cradle to grave. And conservatives say well we have to take care of them or they might smoke something they shouldn’t smoke and we have to teach them how to behave and to be socially acceptable.

So, they really believe in this stuff. And they enjoy doing it and they actually believe they’re doing good and that’s the worse part about it. And they always think it is that if people can’t take care of themselves we need people like me to go and make sure that they’re taken care of because they won’t save money and they won’t be responsible. So, I think we’re in the transition of that because governments have failed and they’re not going to be able to take care of the people.

Kurt Wallace: How is this pressure on Russia going to effect the United States?

Ron Paul: I think this whole thing on the sanctions is going to backfire, its going to eventually hurt us. Because our allies are getting a little antsy but our enemies at least the ones we really challenge that you know like Russia and China and others in the BRICS movement are getting together and talking about another currency and not using the dollar. It hasn’t significantly hurt the dollar so far but I think it will and I think when push come to shove everybody whose been insulted by us, allies and others will gladly pile on. And if we have a dollar crisis we’ll be a much much weaker nation. I don’t think anybody in Washington quite understands how big a deal that could be. Because the more you print the worse the conditions get. Today the more we print as long as they’re willing to take this money overseas we still come out on top because they’re not holding us responsible for out debt, you know 17 trillions of debt. When are they going to quit buying our debt? When its 20 trillion or what? But there will be a time when they’ll stop.

So, all this effort, whether its troops in the Middle East or us participating in a coup in Ukraine and spending all this money and putting on sanctions and doing all these things–I think that’s gonna come to an end and I think it will backfire and hurt us more than its going to hurt our enemies.

Kurt Wallace: An interesting element in your running for president. Many believe the mainstream media over the years has sadly mis-portrayed your positions. Its created blowback and its also created the moneybomb and some really exciting things of value to libertarianism and your campaigns. Sometimes intentionally taking things you say out of context. Do you think that the media is trying at this point to twist your words and then attack Rand?

Ron Paul: Yeah, I think there’s some of that going on. I think that some of it is very deliberate and its politically motivated and I have to be discredited because they don’t just get annoyed with Rand, they get annoyed with the freedoms. And if the people have paid attention to what I’ve been doing they have to totally discredit me. But sometimes they do this because they’re totally ignorant of what I’m talking about. They don’t understand property rights. And they don’t understand if I really want to help allies in the Middle East I can make a pretty good case that it’s in Israel’s best interests that we you know not take care of them and have them dependent on us and give us some of their sovereignty.

So, that is what they don’t understand, there’s no real understanding. I don’t think there’s ten people in congress that really have a good grasp of the business cycle from the Austrian viewpoint. But if you go outside of Washington especially. You know when I go to the young groups especially a group like YAL I mean they all know about this. And they will be the leaders and they will have the influence. So, in that sense there’s a lot to be encouraged by. But I think ignorance plays a part. And then the demagogues of the politicians that’s what makes me so sick when they know better and they have to you know lie their way through. I don’t know where the line is drawn between flat-out lying and being a demagogue. But that’s the real frustration.

The people that I’ve enjoyed the most to deal with are people that might have strong disagreements with what I’m saying. But they’re honest with themselves and they’re honest with the system and when there’s something that we can agree on we do. For instance Ralph Nader and I get along real well because we both have a pretty close understanding about the importance of civil liberties and a non-interventionist foreign policy, he doesn’t like the Fed. Same way with Dennis Kucinich, he is a progressive Democrat and probably likes socialized medicine and a few other things. But when it comes to these other issues which are pretty darn important you know we get along.

But the big difference is if a Democrat does it they’re just a critical as if a Republican does it. And there are so many others that when Bush was in office I would get invited to the progressive TV stations and the interviewers ‘oh yeah, they like me’ and all this because I would criticize our policies and that was bashing Bush. But since Obama got in their attitudes changed you know I was the bad guy because I was going to apply the same standards. I like it when people will stick to their guns.

Kurt Wallace: Well, I appreciate you answering that question. Tell us about the Ron Paul Channel and the Voices of Liberty?

Ron Paul: Ok, shortly after I got out of congress a group came to me and had this idea about starting an internet channel and it would be called the Ron Paul Channel. We would offer a lot of information. Main goal was to get the truth out that you might not hear on TV. We worked with that for a year and a half, its been going very well. But still its the Ron Paul Channel so we’re going to continue to do that. But we wanted to do was broaden the invitation for more people to come in to participate. So, that’s what the Voices of Liberty is all about to have other people come in like Lew Rockwell and Tom Woods and other will come in and they will do the same thing. So, they’ll have their particular channel too. But it will be parked there but we’d like to work hard to bring like-minded people in. Because no matter what philosophic group you have there’s always a divergence. There was a time and I’m sure you remember when the Tea Party movement started, it was mainly very, very libertarian antiwar, but it quickly changed when people saw that it was a significant political movement. And then there became a Republican influence and some of those attitudes were changed. My goal is to have Voices of Liberty where we have pretty basic understandings. There wouldn’t be any question about Mises being a good economist or not. There wouldn’t be a big debate about sending troops off to wars that are undeclared. And we’d have a precise understanding of the Fed. So, that would be our goal. Which is the same goal that exists with my Ron Paul curriculum. You know we have that and it is to approach them from the freedom philosophy viewpoint. Everything else has followed the Keynesian, militarism, interventionist viewpoint. So, why can’t we have a source of information that is very deliberate and upfront about what we’re trying to propose?

Kurt Wallace: Dr. Ron Paul, thanks for being with us today on Rare.

Ron Paul: Kurt, nice to be with you.