06/18/10 – Rep. Ron Paul – The Scott Horton Show

Alright y'all, welcome back to the show, it's Anti-War Radio on the Liberty Radio Network streaming at LRN.
FM and I'm happy to welcome to the show Dr. Ron Paul, he's a congressman representing District 14 on Texas Gulf Coast and represents me in the House of Representatives.
Welcome to the show Ron, how are you doing?
Good Scott, good to be with you.
Well I'm really happy to have you here, now let me tell you real quick here if I can try to sum it up, I got a dream going on here where there's a real realignment in American political thought.
I learned in junior college that in the 1930s Roosevelt realigned everything, he got all the conservatives and almost all the liberals, town and country and black and white and east coast west coast and everybody together in this giant new New Deal coalition, kept them in power through four elections and this was a giant sea change in the way American politics was from then on as we all know and this is what we need right now and sure seems to me and it also seems to me that the three most important issues as you consistently identify the preservation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, an end to corporate welfare and bailouts for the richest and most powerful among us and peace in our relationship with the rest of the world are three issues that ought to and in many ways do completely transcend the left right spectrum as it exists today.
So my question for you is what do you see as the future of this realignment?
What do you see in terms of the possibility of alliances, left right, Tea Party and Progressive and Libertarian and otherwise in order to really get these most important problems solved?
Well I hope your dream is coming about because the media, the liberal media has already written off the whole movement, they said oh it looks like the Tea Party movement, the disgruntled people of America who have been speaking out, I think they're claiming they peaked last August and it's been downhill, they've had a few victories but nobody cares about it anymore and their crowds are smaller so they went on and on and they're trying to bury the whole notion that the American people are upset with the status quo of the Republican and the Democratic leadership.
I can't make the prediction but I'm very sympathetic to the idea that something like that is going on because I do talk to a lot of people and why I'm most enthusiastic is because the young people are thinking this way.
The young people who are inheriting this mess know that they're not going to get, it's not a very good deal for them and they don't like the war, they believe that we should follow the rules and the Constitution, they're principled people and they don't like special interests, they don't like corporate interests taking over.
And the overriding issue of all this is that of finding out what the government is doing and I think that was why the Fed became so popular with young people, they're sick and tired of the government being secretive at the same time the government works very hard to invade our privacy and what we do and how we spend our money so it's ripe for a change and I think in many ways the intellectual revolution is ongoing, it's probably at its early stages but let's just hope we can keep this momentum going.
Well now everybody knows about your work with progressive congressman from Florida Alan Grayson on the audit the Fed amendment but you're also working with him on the war is making you poor act, I was wondering if you could explain a little bit about what that is.
Yeah he sort of grabbed an idea that I've been talking about because he knows I would not support a bill that would expand the welfare state back here at home and he is a progressive so he's for the medical bill and these other things but he knew how to write a bill that would get me interested and of course it was to save money from overseas and take that money and pay down the deficit and it's pretty hard to turn that down because that's pretty good you know this is where I think we should start I think it's easier to start cutting the militaristic budget that we have in the idea that we have to police the world more people are starting to wake up to this at the same time offer tax cuts so that's pretty good for a liberal democrat to go along with us on that so that's why you know I do get criticized at times why do I even talk to Barney Frank and why do I talk to Grayson because they're so bad on economic policies but you know and other things hopefully the progressives will and their eyes will open up and say hey if they're right on civil liberties and they're right on the war maybe we should pay more attention to the Federal Reserve and the gold standard and limited printing of money and deficits and I think we're making some inroads a lot of people that will support us will say you know I used to be you know a liberal or they'll say I used to be a supply-sider I used to be a neocon and once they see the whole picture they'll come and say I think you guys have it right well I know I've been getting emails lately from one of my most radical new listeners is a former military recruiter so you're listening to anti-war radio including a couple military officers listen so you're right you never know who you're going to win over and it does seem to me like this war is making you poor act is the perfect left-right issue really yeah because there's no leadership on the left on this you know it used to be that it would all come from progressive Democrats and a few Republican conservatives but now they're so much quieter with with Obama and that's why I think if we can bring them together with a coalition led by libertarian types I think that we may make some play with hey you know make some progress well and now what about the Tea Party right I mean these were the people who pretty much supported the worst of the Bush policies that you always opposed and yet there the right is out of power now and there's a lot of talk about the Constitution from you know kind of the other side of the Tea Party movement whatever do you think that you could show them that the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution to maybe yeah it'd be nice sometimes I think that might be everybody's tougher if not tougher than getting you know a liberal Democrat to say this cut down on the war spending and cut taxes that looks like it might be easier than converting some of these people into believing that we're still patriots if we say we ought to defend this country and not pretend that we can police the world but that one is tough but we do have you know some coming that way if you think somebody like Jimmy Duncan I mean he is strictly old right Republican and he's a fiscal conservative he doesn't believe that we should be involved and of course Walter Jones has come over this way so there are a few but the really really hardcore neocons that's a real job for us indeed well you know you've had a lot of great moments but it seems like one of the very greatest was I think in 2007 when you introduced this American Freedom Agenda Act that said everything wrong is hereby revealed we're going to start getting it right you think you might could try that again for 2010 yeah we might we might just do that who knows 2010 it would be nice if we did you know there's a this amendment that we I've introduced in the past I haven't done recently was the Liberty Amendment you know and that that just eliminates everything is unconstitutional in three years and repeal the 16th Amendment no income tax and so then that would be the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act of 2009 and all those things too everything is not explicitly authorized in Article 1 Section 8 oh so we're talking about repealing the 20th century and the 21st at least it's great symbolism for us I guess but you know most of this stuff is going to fail how do you get rid of Keynesian economic intervention well they they take our bank our country into bankruptcy and everybody starts ignoring what the federal government is telling us to do and I think it's already starting this I don't believe the laws are going to permit nullification but just just the failure of government will permit nullification you know the liberals don't like the feds tell them about marijuana and the conservatives don't like them tell them about some of the conservative issues and and school issues and things like this so if the government is flat-out broke they might just be unable to stop the states from acting on their own you tell the Washington Post back when you're running for president and I know you're sort of half joking or maybe you weren't you told them that how we could protect this country with a couple of good submarines you really think we need only that small of a military force to keep this country safe so I really do but I would still allow the militia sentiment to exist so that if anybody ever tried to march on our shores that everybody would be ready for them but no nobody's going to attack us I mean why are we building tanks and bomber aircraft that that's there's our today ancient weapons I think we could do with a very small all right well thank you very much for your time on the show today sir I sure appreciate it very good thank you Thank you for watching.
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