[protected-iframe id=”e4684466b771dd6e32142e5fdea57009-46934866-60066902″ info=”https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/163307013&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: 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: Dr. Ron Paul, thanks for being with us today on Rare.
Ron Paul: Kurt, nice to be with you.