04/22/11 – Rep. Ron Paul – The Scott Horton Show

All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton.
And Anthony Gregory says, our next guest makes Thomas Jefferson look like Alexander Hamilton.
It's Ron Paul, represents District 14 in the US, Texas District 14 in the US House of Representatives.
He's the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy.
He's the author of A Foreign Policy of Freedom, Pillars of Prosperity, The Case for Gold, The Revolution, A Manifesto, End the Fed, and the brand new Liberty Defined, 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom.
Welcome back to the show.
Ron, how are you doing?
Thank you, Scott.
Good to be with you.
Well, I'm very happy to have you here.
And I just love this book.
And part of what I love about it is, of course, just, you know, all the substance, but also it's imagining all the people who are going to read this thing.
And especially, like I was telling the audience earlier, I kind of have this fantasy that some of these cable TV news personalities will even be able to get through it the way you have it, so encyclopedic like that.
And I think this is really going to do a lot to change the conversation.
You didn't really have a campaign book last time.
Right, and I hope you're right about it.
I tried to make it, you know, a lot of times I've written about the theoretical parts of monetary policy and foreign policy, but this deals with individual issues and problems that we have faced.
And I'm sure people might just look through the contents and pick something, say, you know, I've been wondering about that.
How do you answer this question?
And I'm hoping it will help others to answer these questions from the libertarian freedom movement viewpoint.
Well, and you know, another thing about this book is it just shows, I mean, first of all, that you're a very smart guy, that you're very interested in all these things and have been for a long time, but it also kind of shows the silence of the rest of the Republican Party.
I don't know if anyone else in the Republican Party has this kind of intellectual firepower to bring to bear.
I mean, they say Newt Gingrich has a pretty high IQ, that kind of thing, but it seems to me like you are the only intellectual leadership in the Republican Party right now.
They're pretty much at sea.
Well, I guess they have intellect and they're smart people and have high IQs.
And I've always wondered about that.
I've never figured I had the highest IQ, but there's something that some people have is sort of a motivation to look for truth.
So if you have a high IQ, but you're using it to promote, you know, welfarism and militarism, you know, that's one thing.
So it's our motivations, it's our values that really count on what we want.
So if you accept the basic principle that it's better to live in a free society than a totalitarian society, you know, it's pretty easy to start defending our position without claiming that I'm smarter than you are and that's why you have to listen to me.
I think you have to have some moral authority behind what we argue.
You know, you can, to understand the monetary issue, sometimes if you think you have to understand every detail, but the Fed, it gets very complex.
But if you look at it from a moral viewpoint and a position of say, counterfeit, why should the government be a lot of counterfeit?
All of a sudden it's simplified and we can bring in a lot of people to under, you know, into our area of thinking and to understand that issue.
Well, speaking of which, of course, the question that everybody wants to know the answer to is whether or not you're running.
I don't guess I'm lucky enough that you would make that announcement on this show, huh?
Can't quite do that, but I've been getting a lot of encouragement.
I was, this week I was over at Mississippi State and then Florida State last night.
The receptions are pretty good.
So I think there's more, at least more young people who are enthusiastic about what I've been trying to do in the last several years or all these years, but the support has grown in the last couple of years.
So I think it looks like it's continuing to grow.
So I've been encouraged.
Well, I'm very happy to hear that.
And, you know, I saw on the Daily Paul that Jesse Benton said he's got the paperwork all filled out for the exploratory committee, just hadn't submitted them yet.
And at Lew Rockwell's new political theater blog, he says that you're all signed up for the Republican debate, the first Republican debate coming up.
So I'm going to go ahead and accept the premise that you're running, even if you're not saying so yet.
And then that's going to lead into this topic, which is a special favor, actually, that I want to ask of you, which is please let the kids, the YouTube kids make the TV ads.
Because last time the TV ads kind of ran to the right, like typical Republican primary, you want to run to the right and the primary to the center and the general, that kind of thing.
But you're changing the game all the way around.
You don't need to do that.
And all of the very best Ron Paul ads from 2007, 2008 were made by your fans.
And they were just clips of your speeches and TV appearances, put together a little bit of music.
And why not just hold YouTube contests and let the kids make the ads?
What do you think?
You get an A plus for that suggestion.
I agree with you a hundred percent.
And there's been some discussion if there's a campaign that that is the direction I want to go in, because resorting to some of the conventional people because they've been experts, that doesn't fit us.
We don't have a conventional campaign.
And therefore, I think what you suggest is very good.
Right on.
Well, I'm so glad you see that my way.
And some of the YouTubes are just, they're so good.
I mean, all we need is a couple of clips of you at a podium and sold.
You got my vote, Mr. President, I'll tell you that.
All right, now, so here's the thing.
New York Times today is saying that the nation's mood is as low as it's ever been.
You know, the Times does this poll, I think every year or so.
Do you think America's headed the right direction or not?
Kind of a general question.
Mostly, I think it reflects how people feel about the economy.
But I wonder how you would address that.
What is it that's wrong with America?
What track are we on that we're not supposed to be on here, Dr. Paul?
Well, you know, I think the sentiment is a healthy sentiment because they're facing the truth.
When there's a bit of prosperity still existing and they can still borrow money and print money and the world accepts it, you know, people say, oh, I guess we're not too bad off or we're improving or something like that.
Now, they're starting to realize that we're getting close to the bottom and something has to give.
I see it sort of like when the drug addict gets to the point, well, you know, I'm at the bottom, I have to change my life and I'm going to quit.
And that individual changes his or her way.
And then they do something.
And I think that's what's happening now.
People are realizing how bad it is, but it also means there's an opportunity.
This is what I'm sensing with the young people that they know they're getting a bad deal.
They know that foreign policy is lousy, the monetary policy is lousy, and you can't take care of people from cradle to grave and think you can do it forever.
So that's why I think we're at the point where they're going to be open to our suggestions and that gives people optimism.
So in spite of all the pessimism, you can say, well, you know, we're facing up to reality and now we can start improving and offering our solutions.
And I think our biggest job, even though I look at this in a positive way, I think our biggest job and our biggest threat is to head off the guy on a white horse.
You know, somebody come and say, I am going to take care of you.
This is a mess and you need an iron fist authoritarian approach to our answers.
Of course, authoritarianism is what created our problem.
So it's sort of like the deficit.
What do you do when you get a bad deficit?
You spend more money.
Well, if authoritarianism brought us to our knees, why would we resort to somebody that comes in and wants more authoritarianism?
That to me is the biggest challenge.
Absolutely.
Well, you know, in the book under D, you have a great section there on demagoguery and I could not agree with you more about that.
And especially, you know, when you Austrian economists guys are talking about, you know, and I interviewed Charles Goyette yesterday and it was sad.
And, you know, if we're really looking at a major inflation here, double digits for extended periods, savings wiped out, that really is when people start to look for answers from demagogues.
And it seems to me that you're just the most important anti-demagogue in the whole society saying that, look, you know, we don't need more of what we've done wrong to get us into this crisis.
We don't need to pick on the weak here.
We need to recognize our problems are the world empire and all the spending there, the paper money.
All we need is to believe in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
All we need is to just act right like we're supposed to in the first place.
It's that we've gone wrong.
It's not the American way that's failed.
It's our abandonment of the American way that's failed.
And you're absolutely the most important voice in this society making that case.
And especially when it comes to like the solution, competing currencies, things like that, people really need to know what's the alternative to doing it the way that the rest of the Republicans and the Democrats would have us do it.
Yeah, I think the people are getting ready.
And the opposite of being a demagogue is telling the truth.
I guess a demagogue is a slightly more polite way of saying people just are lying through their teeth and distorting issues in order to promote their cause.
But I think more and more people now are seeing through all that.
So the promises are falling on deaf ears.
And that's why our message is going to become more popular than ever.
And that is what I'm sensing.
Yeah, well, I gotta tell you, I'm, you know, again, I'm just going with the unsaid premise here that you are running and I'm just so excited about it.
You know, I read that Esquire article yesterday, which was written by a liberal and had a couple of things wrong, but absolutely got it right that you are the most powerful force on the right in America right now, even if they exclude you from the Pew poll and don't ask people what they think.
It's an unavoidable fact that you're the most important libertarian in the world.
You're carrying this message forward.
And you know, when you announced last time on Washington Journal back in 2007, you were the best kept secret of libertarians like me.
Hey, did you know that there's this one good congressman?
That kind of thing.
Now you're world famous like a movie star or something.
You're starting from a much higher place.
All the guys on TV like you.
It's gonna be incredible.
I'm so stoked.
You're overly generous.
You've been embellished a bit, but I appreciate it.
Oh, you deserve every bit of it, Dr. Paul.
And you know, I know I speak for a lot of people too.
So, and thank you for always putting war first.
No matter what they ask you on TV, you always put the cost of the world empire first.
And of course, I think like you do, that's the most important issue.
It's really big.
I'm sorry for just talking at you during your interview when I should have been asking you questions this whole time, but I'm just so glad that we've had this chance to meet again, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right, everybody.
That's the heroic Dr. Ron Paul, my representative in the U.S. House.
Chairman of the Domestic Monetary Policy Subcommittee there.
Author of the new book, Liberty Defined, 50 Essential Issues That Affect Our Freedom.
Read it and then pass it around.
We'll be right back.