Ron Paul attacked the government for fighting undeclared wars; the sooner we end them, the better, because they are one of the causes of the US government’s de facto bankruptcy.

Rand Paul stated that the government’s primary purpose is national defense; therefore, any potential war should be carefully debated before it is actually started.

Rand Paul is running for the US Senate in Kentucky. Check out his website at RandPaul2010.com

Show: Situation Room
Host: Wolf Blitzer
Channel: CNN
Date: 02/23/2010

Transcript coming soon

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Show: Anderson Cooper 360°
Host: Anderson Cooper
Channel: CNN
Date: 02/16/2010

Transcript

Anderson Cooper: But first, the views of Congressman Ron Paul and his son, Rand Paul, who’s running for the Republican nomination to replace the retiring Kentucky senator, Jim Bunning. He’s running against the GOP establishment as a staunch conservative and proud Tea Party member. We spoke with him tonight along with his dad, Ron Paul.

Anderson Cooper: Congressman Paul, do you agree with Senator Evan Bayh who basically said yesterday that things are so polarized in Congress that the people’s business isn’t getting done?

Ron Paul: Well, the people’s business isn’t getting done, but I’m not so sure that we’re on the right tune about where the arguments are. I don’t think it’s because people don’t compromise enough, I think it’s because they compromise too much. And we don’t have enough people standing on principle. For instance, they compromise on the welfare state, they compromise on the warfare state, they compromise on endorsing the monetary system. So I think we have way too much compromise and we need to define what we believe in. We either believe in welfarism and socialism and big government, or we believe in liberty and limited government and the Constitution.

Anderson Cooper: Dr. Paul, do you agree with that, and if you do, isn’t compromise essential for actual governance?

Rand Paul: I don’t think it’s necessarily compromise that’s the problem. What I see when I go around the country and around the state to these tea parties is that people want, on both side, not to just be spending money wantonly like they are in Washington. I hear equal criticism. They’re worried about the debt, but they say it’s on both sides of the aisle; Republican and Democrat. We talked in my race about West Virginia paving every inch of it based on Senator Byrd’s seniority. We also talk about the fact that the Republicans from Alaska have been earmarking and paving a lot of things up there, too. So the problems the Tea Party Movement – we see it as on both sides of the aisle, but not a lack of compromise. Just sort of a lack of anyone standing up for the taxpayer.

Anderson Cooper: But Dr. Paul, the criticism, as you know, of the Tea Party Movement is that it’s one thing to argue something in order to get a candidate in or to protest. But to actually govern, requires a different set of … I mean, it requires compromise. You don’t believe that’s true?

Rand Paul: Well, I think the problem is we are compromising, but we compromise for more spending usually. For example, 32 states have a rule that says they have to balance their budget by law. I run on the platform that says federal government should be no different. And when I say that at a tea party, it brings down the house. They want their government to balance their budget. They see our future and our kids’ future being destroyed by debt. And that’s not Republican and Democrats compromising to spend half as much money. It’s that we need new rules. So I talk about term limits and I talk about balancing the budget by law. And that’s not necessarily a compromise. That’s pushing them all in a big direction towards much more frugality.

Anderson Cooper: Dr. Paul, you’ve been endorsed now by Sarah Palin. She’s also endorsed Senator John McCain in what could be a tough battle for his reelection. Is John McCain your kind of Republican?

Rand Paul: Well, I think there are some things that John McCain does that I like. I mean, he has been one of the Republicans who will vote against some of the procurements even in the military budget when he sees waste in the military budget. So he and I agree on a lot. But on everything? No, I didn’t agree with McCain/Feingold. In fact I liked seeing the Supreme Court overturn McCain/Feingold because I thought it restricted freedom of speech. So there won’t be everything we agree on. But there are some things that I can agree on with John McCain.

Anderson Cooper: I know you said Sarah Palin is biggest endorsement Republican can get right now. Do you think she’d make a good president, Dr?

Rand Paul: Well, I think what she has is something that you can’t buy. I mean, she has likability. She’s very likable and I think she will have to, like have to, like every other person, is run the gauntlet.

Anderson Cooper: The question, though, was do you think she would make a good president?

Rand Paul: Yeah, I think Sara Palin could be a great president. But I think what will happen is the vigorous process of the primaries. And, you know, she hasn’t said yet whether she’ll do it or not. But you know, she’s made some, I think, very astute and smart political moves. She’s come out in support of me, of course, which I think is a great move. But I think she’s supporting people who are running against the establishment. And this motivates those in the Tea Party who want not just someone to endorse whoever the party favorite is, but someone who will shake up the system.

Anderson Cooper: And Congressman, the Republican establishment in Kentucky has not really endorsed your son, has not gotten behind him. Why is that?

Ron Paul: Well, I don’t know. But the Republican establishment never endorsed me either. But after I won the primaries, I was quite willing to work with them and vote for their leadership and do whatever I needed to do to be part of the party. And Rand is in a similar situation like that. You know, they’re not running to bail him out and support him. Washington DC hasn’t rushed to help him. But in this day and age, that’s a badge of honor. Let me tell you, it really is.

Anderson Cooper: Congressman, do you guys agree on everything?

Ron Paul: Well, I doubt it. We have 5 children and I would say Rand is probably the one that challenged me the most.

Anderson Cooper: Can you envision a time when Senator Paul, if you become Senator Paul, and Congressman Paul are at odds?

Rand Paul: Possibly. When I was home at Thanksgiving the whole debate was whether they’re going to still let me sit at the main table this time because we’re having some disagreements. But in the end they did let me eat Thanksgiving at the main table. So, my dad and I … I like to use the words that I’m a constitutional conservative. My dad likes to call himself and has been called the Champion of the Constitution. And I think that’s where there is a great deal of similarity. There will be some differences of opinion because a lot of us support the Constitution, [but] we don’t always interpret it the same way.

Anderson Cooper: Congressman Ron Paul and Rand Paul, candidate for the U.S. Senate, thanks for your time tonight.

Ron Paul: Thank you.

Rand Paul: Thank you.

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Date: 01/31/2010
Location: Louisville, Kentucky

Transcript:

Interviewer: Doctors Paul, thanks for joining us here before your Rally for the Republicans, and because you’re the candidate here in Kentucky, with all due respect to Ron Paul, we’ll start with you, Rand.

First of all, it’s a Rally for the Republicans and you made very clear from the beginning that you are a Republican. Early in the campaign though, wasn’t there some question about that though, it terms of maybe the GOP would best fit the campaign, but is that exactly what you were. Can you explain that.

Rand Paul: The interesting thing is I have always been a Republican. I registered as a Republican when I was 18, went to the Republican convention when I was 13, and my family supported Reagan, so I’ve always been a Republican. Really in my case, as opposed to my opponent’s case, there has never been a question I’ve always been a Republican

Interviewer: And Ron Paul, isn’t there a redefining of the party always going on, especially right now?

Ron Paul: Yes, and I think that is the big issue right now because you hear about Tea Parties and other kinds of parties, and independence and all. But no, I think the Republicans are going through transition on trying to define themselves, because the Republican Party had a tough time a couple of years ago because they sort of didn’t do the job they were hired to do when they got control of the House and the Senate and the Presidency. And so they are struggling now to get their credibility back and define themselves.

The only thing I’ve noticed in Washington, when they’re out of office they’re real good conservatives. It’s the problem, and people know this, that when we get in office then we don’t have the determination to do what we had promised the people. And that’s what the American people are after now. They want people to go into office, say what they believe in, and expect them to do it, and this is where we are today, and people aren’t going to buy into… [...] when you think about Massachusetts, here we have a Republican up there, so, I think it’s an interesting time, but I think all of this, whether you’ve been in the Republican party a short or a long time, you’re participating in defining that particular party.

Interviewer: The nation’s top elected Republican is Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. How would you describe his leadership, first to you.

Ron Paul: Well, first thing, I’ve never met him, and I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other. If you ask me about John Boehner, I’ve met him, but I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other. They’re Republican leaders and they fit in the mold, they’ve been in Washington, but I don’t have any one strong opinion one way or the other.

Interviewer: Dr. Paul, you and I have talked in the past about that, and one question I asked you before was about the hypothetical Jim DeMint vs. Mitch McConnell battle for minority leader, but you know why I asked the question, It’s more about who best fits the mold of the leader of a Republican Party that you would like to see. So I ask the question again to you, but I ask you, is Mitch McConnell is the kind of leader of the GOP that you would eventually want?

Rand Paul: I think in some ways he has been very good in being a minority leader, in some ways he has been very good in opposing Obamacare, we maybe had a chance of stopping that, reintroducing the health reform we would like to, so I think he has done a good job with that. I try to complement him on the areas we agree, but I think Kentucky wants two senators, they don’t want one senator, and so he’s fought for 10 years to overturn McCain-Feingold. I think that’s a very noble goal, it’s overturning legislation that another Republican introduced, it shows that we as a party are big enough to disagree. He disagreed with John McCain on McCain-Feingold, fought it in court and when the Supreme court ruled 5-4 last week, I called his office to complement him. Even though he isn’t particularly helpful in my primary, I will ask him for support after the primary.

Interviewer: Do you think he is supporting Trey Grayson then?

Rand Paul: He’s doing fundraisers for him, but I think I’m a big enough person that we’re going to win the primary. And when the primary is over I want to work with the whole party and not just part of the party.

Interviewer: And where do you think that the Republican Party has failed the most?

Rand Paul: Well, I say, our platform is wonderful. Our platform says we don’t bail out private businesses, our platform says we don’t have government ownership of business. But we voted for the bank bailout. Look at the President the other night. The President said, oh, everybody hates the bank bailout. Then why did he vote for it? You know why he voted for it? He didn’t read it like the rest of them. It was printed at midnight, 1,000 pages long, passed at noon the next day. They don’t read the bills. That’s why people come behind our campaign because we’re saying, stop, wait a minute, read the bills.

Interviewer: So I see a chip of the old block.

Ron Paul: He sounds better than I do, so he must have learned well plus some other.

Interviewer: What is it like for you just personally to hear him, to see him in this mold first of all, where a year ago… when did you actually declare your candidacy?

Rand Paul: That was August, actually.

Interviewer: So a year ago obviously, you’re a well known opthamologist in Bowling Green, an eye surgeon there, but when you see him doing this now…

Ron Paul: I think it’s pretty pleasing, but I was pretty pleased when he went to the medical school I went to, and became a doctor, he went to the same medical school to became an opthamologist, and that pleases both my wife and I very much. As a matter of fact, in life, sometimes that may well be more important, but it also proves the point that he has done something other than politics, but both are very pleasing.

Interviewer: Just in terms of obviously, you’re known, and your son has described you very aptly over the last few months a couple of times as really being a hero to many people, to stand up for libertarian small l values, and that kind of ideas. Do you think that he has and opportunity to be an even bigger leader than you in that respect if he’s elected to the US Senate?

Ron Paul: Oh, I think so, because I still am a little bit bewildered about the amount of attention I’ve gotten, because after you’ve been saying it for 30 years and nobody listens, you figure, well, nobody will ever listen. But all of a sudden, last couple of years… but events have changed, and he has a tremendous opportunity, people have a tremendous opportunity to look at these issues.

If you talk about a Federal Reserve system, nobody cares, nobody understands it, and all of a sudden you have a financial crisis and the Federal Reserve is involved, all of a sudden what you have been talking about becomes very, very important, and I think that is the difference, and it’s given me the opportunity, but still it’s a surprise to me, but I think he has unlimited opportunities compared to what I’ve done.

Interviewer: And is there a danger, I’ll ask you first, of being overshadowed by your dad?

Rand Paul: I think my dad has helped me tremendously. Not many people could run for statewide office as a first race. Because I’ve been part of that movement, I’ve helped him, had become well-known within the movement that he started, it definitely helps. But I also tell people, there are a lot of kids of candidates who never win, and I may be one of them, but the only way I win is on my own two feet, being out to present the message, and I have a great deal of respect and I owe him so much, but I can’t win it just on his coattails, I have to do it on my own.

Interviewer: Was there any reticence on your part to come here today just because of that danger of over shadowing your son?

Ron Paul: Yes, as a matter of fact, I would say that if other people judge what I’ve done so far, “why haven’t you done more”? So, no, this is the first time I’ve been here, and it’s going to be a couple of hours, so the way I figure it, I couldn’t be looking over his shoulder when he was in medical school, so I won’t be looking over his shoulder in politics, and besides, people think differently, it’s a different atmosphere, a different state, so I don’t think it would be an advantage to him, And I wasn’t jumping up and down, I didn’t call him and say “Hey, I’d really like to help you out, let me get up there.” When it was suggested, I said, “Well, I just might be able to work that into [my schedule].”

Interviewer: Tell me about some of the issues that your opponent especially has fixated on. The website that called the both of you “too kooky for Kentucky”, okay? So welcome to Kentucky. But some of the views are, for instance, let me ask both of you. Is America responsible, is it America’s fault that 9/11 happened?

Ron Paul: No, they’re not at fault, they didn’t get blamed, but I have talked a lot about this that America is you and me, and you and I aren’t at fault. But, policies have consequences, ideas have consequences. It’s sort of like saying, the people are at fault, because they allowed our government to spend too much. Well, the policies are bad, and I do challenge the policies overseas and I think they do have consequences, but that’s a lot different than blaming America.

Interviewer: But America, as an institution, as a government, do you think that the American government then is in part responsible for 9/11?

Ron Paul: For a long time I think we’ve gotten off-base on it. Just the same as, I talk about monetary policy, a lot started in 1913. I talk about [...] foreign policy shifted, so I like to talk about, thinking about what the Old Right used to talk about in foreign policy, and that is sort of what George Bush talked about in the year 2000, when he was running, he said, “you know, maybe we shouldn’t be doing all this nation-building and playing the policeman of the world” as he was criticizing Clinton, and I just stay consistent with that message and I think the American people like that message.

Interviewer: How much like your father are you on that position on 9/11?

Rand Paul: What I would say is that the most important think you say from the beginning is, if someone murders your family, it’s their fault. We got to say, these people attacked us, and we say it is their fault.

There are other questions you can ask about it. Did they murder your family because you left your house unlocked? There are ways of looking at it and you need to look at the big picture, and the big picture includes foreign policy. I think there is a danger sometimes and where people misinterpret my father I think is that they think somehow it is blaming America, and it’s not. We are not to blame for people attacking us. It is their fault and they did something horrendous, and that’s how the conversation needs to begin. but then we say, why in the global scheme of things is this happen?

And the interesting this is that many people say we don’t look at this; in Saudi Arabia we had bases and we no longer have bases. Osama bin Laden wanted us to leave Saudi Arabia. Did we appease him? It was the George Bush administration that left Saudi Arabia. Maybe it was time that we left Saudi Arabia, but did we do that because we were attacked? Then it’s appeasing terrorists, which we don’t ever want to do, but at the same time do we want to have bases in Saudi Arabia? We’ve chosen now not to, we no longer have bases there we’ve gone to a friendlier country.

And there are other questions we have. The questions we have are, are we everywhere all the time to everyone, or are we nowhere and always here at home. And maybe we’ve gone to far in one extreme that we’re everywhere all of the time, and so I think we do need to be concerned with all borders, for example with national security. I talk a lot about that fact that 16 of the 19 hijackers came here on legal visas. Ten years later, the underwear bomber comes here on a legal visa, one-way ticket, no baggage, paid for by cash, his dad turned him in, and we still have no security in our country. We spent hundreds of billions dollars, and they can’t stop a guy that has every red flag possible.

We have to defend ourselves against these people, and a different foreign policy doesn’t stop all of that. We do have to defend ourselves.

Interviewer: What would you change about our foreign policy to discourage another 9/11 attack?

Rand Paul: I would end all travel visas to terrorist nations right now, and stop them until we have a better idea and understanding of how to regulate and police our own visa system. So I would stop them. I would put a moratorium.

In that same vein I would also introduce a frequent flier plan internationally and domestically, and if you’re going to submit to a pre-screening process… My brother in law is an airforce academy graduate. He flies three times a week and he is scrutinized, [...] and all of this. My dad is a Congressman, scrutinized, [...] Could we not do a little bit of checking in advance and not waste our time on people who are not going to attack us? Ten years and it’s not any better, because their answer is, let’s double and triple the bureaucracy, let’s throw money at it.

Homeland Security – everybody’s for it. Do you know who had the most earmarks for Homeland Security? Indiana. Do you know who got some money for Homeland Security? The pumpkin festival of Smithfield, a town of 2,000, the annual pumpkin festival got Homeland Security money. [...] Instead of doing our job we just throw money at everything.

Interviewer: That’s anti-terrorists, but as far as anti-terrorism it seems to me that Congressman Paul, you’re talking about a situation where our policies alienated the United States from some parts of the world and in that way, it somewhat encouraged the attacks.

Ron Paul: Yes, and you know, when somebody gets murdered, the first question they always seem to ask in the press is, so-and-so is a suspect, but what’s his motive? Is there a motive? And I think that is important, and nobody wants to talk about the motive. But it’s out there, it’s laid on a platter. Bin Laden writes of it. He wrote of it all the time. He has a very strong motive, and as bad a guy as he is, he’s not known to be a liar.

So somebody should read that and find out exactly what the motive is. And that affects our foreign policy and if we ignore that then I think we’ll have more terrorism rather than less.

Rand Paul: And the other question that you have to ask on the foreign policy is, he was our ally for 15 years. Bin Laden was on the CIA payroll. We gave him stinger missiles. That was a mistake. It was the stated policy of our State Department throughout the 1980s to support radical jihad. Now everybody thinks jihad is a danger to our country.

We were promoting it because we didn’t like the Soviets. We hated the Soviets more than we didn’t realize radical jihad would eventually be a problem. Saddam Hussein was our ally. That were the things of our foreign policy that were mistakes, to give Hussein weapons and planes and billions of dollars because we hated the Iranians more than the Iraqis. But it all comes back to bite us because it’s a foreign policy that may be too overreaching, and that [...] our own defenses.

Interviewer: Is it too overreaching in Israel, is that one area you’d like the US to scale back its involvement and support?

Rand Paul: I think Israel is an important ally in the Middle East, it’s a democracy, and there are many things that we will have in common and should work together with. I do say, and I’ve told the people who do support Israel in a big way, I’ve said, look, the problem is that we give $6 billion to Israel’s enemies that are all around her, and we give Israel $4 billion. We have to ask the question, where is the money coming from, we have a massive debt and we’re out of money.

And two, is it wise to sell 200 billion worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia? What if next year they’re overthrown and they’re a big threat to Israel. So we may not be helping Israel by funding both sides of the arms race. We fund Israel’s side, but we also fund all of the Islamic allies, people who are somewhat opposed to Israel, we give them money too. We give everybody money. That I think is a problem.

Interviewer: Are we occupiers of Israel?

Rand Paul: I wouldn’t say of Israel, no.

Interviewer: Congressman Paul?

Ron Paul: No, that doesn’t fit the description of occupying. We occupy other countries, though. We occupy quite a few countries.

Interviewer: I know this is an issue that has been raised a couple of times here in the campaign, and I’m trying to make sure to understand your position. It’s because we can’t afford it, or because it’s the wrong idea for us to be supplying Israel, or bankrolling some of that support.

Rand Paul: Well I think financially we have to look at what we’re doing as a country. But I’m not saying we have no relationship to Israel, we never send anything to Israel. I’m saying right now we give 6 billion to all of their enemies, we give 4 billion to them,

And our country is approaching bankruptcy and approaching a deficit that is unmanageable.
So I do think we have to rethink what we’re doing on those. It’s not to say that there’s not going to be exchanges or sale of weapons to Israel. It’s just to say that we’ve gone way to far in the direction where we give everything to everyone, and we have to reevaluate what’s going on.

Interviewer: Gitmo is another issue in the campaign. Congressman Paul, I’ll start with you. Should Guantanamo Bay be shut down?

Ron Paul: Yes.

Interviewer: And why?

Ron Paul: Because I don’t like military prisons and military tribunals.

Interviewer: Would it be a danger at all to… Where would those prisoners go?

Ron Paul: They would go to the same courts that we tried the individuals that bombed the towers the first time. They went into our court system and they were tried and they are all in prison for life. Why should we be so frightened about them?

Interviewer: I guess the argument would be that these are military combatants as opposed to civilian ones and…

Ron Paul: Well, that’s where we get into the sloppy language, because the one thing that we as Republicans and conservatives have failed to stick to our guns on, is the constitution on war.

I was trying to get them to declare war when we went into Iraq so that you know who the enemy is and who the war is and where the battlefield is. But when you declare war on a tactic, the whole world is at war, and now we’re attacking, arresting people, assassinating people worldwide.

I think it’s very dangerous and I do not like the idea that Osama Bin Laden [Obama?] right now is contemplating on declaring that an American-born citizen, who happens to be probably a bad guy, but you and I don’t know that, he is an American citizen, and he is contemplating on assassinating him.

What has America come to? We have to have the law to protect us because we’re American citizens, and we want that same protection, but to say that, “oh, he is an enemy combatant”? He’s a suspect nine times out of time.

So I would say, defending the rule of law is probably one of the most important things any of us could do, because someday we might like to be protected by the rule of law, so I think we should be very, very cautious, and we prevent a lot if we as conservatives would say, “look, don’t go to war unless it’s declared, know who the enemy is, fight, and win it, and get it over with, and don’t have perpetual war for so-called perpetual peace.” That’s where think our mistake has been.

Interviewer: Gitmo?

Rand Paul: My dad’s only been here 20 minutes and you’re making me disagree with him. I didn’t even have a chance to say hello.

I don’t think we should close down Gitmo until we decide what to do with the prisoners. I think there is a form of due process through the military trials. Our soldiers, if they’re accused of murder on the battlefield, are tried in military court, they do not have exactly the same protections as our civilian courts do. But what I’m fearful is that with Khalik Sheik Mohammed we didn’t do all the right things maybe in the way we was apprehended, or we did things that we wouldn’t do in civilian court. I’m afraid we take his case to the civilian court, and the judge says, you did these things, tortured him, or whatever you did to him, and his confession is thrown out, and I think that’s a problem.

I also think that if you pick up people in the battlefield, that you can’t have a microphone coming from the helicopter that is bombing them, saying “you have the right to remain silent”, I just don’t think we can have the same kind of thing in the battlefield. Now [...] picked up in the battlefield.

I do agree with my dad though that some of the confusion comes from the declaration of war. the Supreme Court has upheld military tribunals in two cases in World War 2, but war was declared. So I’m a big believer and a stickler for declaring war, and I would have, and if I’m elected I will force a vote on declaration of war anytime we go to war.

And I think it’s open for discussion whether or not you could declare war on a group or not. In Afghanistan’s case though, I think you could have asked the government to turn over the people in those camps, they refused, we could have declared war against the Taliban government and whoever they were harboring and we should have, and then it would be clear-cut what is legal and what isn’t legal, because we would have followed the rule then.

Interviewer: So if you were in office right now then you would not support the war in Afghanistan because it’s not a declared war.

Rand Paul: I would support that we should declare it as a war if we are going to continue in a warlike fashion.

Interviewer: But if the Congress would not declare war then you would not support that action?

Rand Paul: Well, I think that’s a tricky one to go through, and I haven’t made a conclusion in regards to that, I think we have to ask questions. I think there needs to be a debate in the sense that, we have to ask, is our national security threatened? Usually that question is asked in the very beginning when you declare war. Now we’re in the middle of it, does it make sense to declare war after ten years, and who do you declare war against?

So it’s a complicated question, but we do need to bring up the question because it’s why, as we move forward at the very least, we should declare war and I think that’s the most important part of the discussion.

Interviewer: This is full circle as far as the whole tea party movement. How much do you think that you helped to launch that, Congressman Paul, and do you see that as being a key to your son’s campaign?

Ron Paul: Well, I’ll go back one step. I think Rand has proved this own … to think for himself.

The Tea Party Movement, there was a big surge of that interest on the Boston Tea Party Day. It was a big fundraiser, they were around the country, and they stood behind the campaign that I had, and it was a big event, a lot of money raised. It was spontaneous, it was not organized from above, it was organized spontaneously at the grassroots.

But I think it has morphed into something different. I don’t think anybody knows what it is, except for one fact that there’s a lot of people in this country who are sick and tired of the status quo, conventional Republicans and conventional Democrats, conventional spending and conventional foreign policy, the whole works. The American people are sick of this, and they are sick of this debt, and that is what the Tea Party movement is about, even though there is going to be a lot of variations.

I think one issue that we just discussed – I think the Tea Party movement has some disagreements on foreign policy. But they’re still the same people who are upset and want to do what’s best for America. So I think we helped start it; I have my own little private Tea Parties quite frequently, but most of them are held on college campuses, and I’ve been very encouraged that that group of Tea Party people, the young people who are inheriting this mess, they are very receptive to the views we’ve been talking about.

Interviewer: Last word?

Rand Paul: Tea Parties are huge, I think I was at maybe the first one in the country. Faneuil Hall, December 16th, 2007, we raised 6 million dollars for my dad, but it was the Boston Tea Party, not the original Boston Tea Party, but I [was there when it all began], and it is a big movement, and I’ve met with a lot of Tea Party folks in Kentucky and I think we’ll get a lot of them to support us.

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The Rand Paul Money Bomb has arrived! Today is the day, now is the time. Please visit RandPaul2010.com and donate as much as you can.

Rand Paul is running for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky and his supporters have organized a mass donation event (money bomb) for today. Check out Rand’s site at RandPaul2010.com, read about his views, and donate! For many of us, this is the best way we can make our voices heard. Let’s send a powerful message to the political establishment and take back our country!

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Rand Paul’s run for U.S. Senate representing Kentucky is a phenomenal opportunity for the liberty movement that rallied around his father’s presidential bid in 2007-08, which Congressman Ron Paul rolled forward into a perpetual Campaign for Liberty that has made serious leaps and bounds towards an audit of (and eventual end to) the Federal Reserve Bank.

One of the crucial elements of Ron Paul’s success was the sheer size and determined tenacity of his grassroots support, which focused their efforts into two meteoric money bombs in November and December of 2007. It is in that spirit and for that purpose that the organizer of both those money bombs has put together RunRandRun.com to raise Rand Paul $1,000,000 in one day on August 20th.

As a poor college junior, I donated to both of the original money bombs because I believed in Ron Paul’s message of limited government, strict constitutionalism, and individual liberty- and in the flawless record he had of upholding that message through ten terms in Congress. I also knew that the statists in both parties who were vying for the presidency would take a lot more than $100 from me, and that they wouldn’t ask nicely when they came for it. I was making an investment in my future.

Two years later, fresh out of college, and just as broke while I wait tables in Nashville, volunteer for political causes, and work hard to grow my website, The Humble Libertarian- I have pledged at RunRandRun.com and will be donating $100 (or more if that’s what it will take to hit our goal of $1,000,000) on August 20th. I implore you to do the same if you have not already done so. Visit the site and enter your e-mail address right now with the firm resolution to whip out your card or Pay Pal account on August 20th and drop a $100 bomb on tyranny.

This is such an amazing opportunity because it is a perfectly winnable seat. Open seats like this are very rare and Rand Paul is in a good position to win the Republican Primary in Kentucky and then move on to a General Election victory in 2010, putting another Dr. Paul in our nation’s Capitol- a very young, charismatic Dr. Paul with many years of good work supporting liberty ahead of him. But Rand Paul CANNOT win without your donation this August 20th.

His main opponent in the Republican Primary is Trey Grayson, a big government, “country-club” Republican with deep pockets and powerful friends in the Republican machine and Washington establishment. If Rand Paul raises $1,000,000 on August 20th, he’ll sail past Grayson in fundraising totals and have the budget to buy the mailers, radio ads, and newspaper ads he needs to raise his name recognition and profile in the state of Kentucky- which is absolutely necessary for victory.

If Rand Paul does not raise $1,000,000 this August 20th because you sat this one out, he will be playing catch up the rest of this primary season, and may or may not win- a risk we would be crazy to take! In total, our movement raised over $30,000,000, towards putting Ron Paul in the White House, even though we knew it was a long shot. Let’s just raise 5% of that this August 20th for a U.S. Senate seat we know Rand Paul can win!

Again, I urge you- visit RunRandRun.com right now (you can come back to finish reading this article; it won’t go anywhere) and pledge to donate your $100 on August 20th. Your support does matter and will make a difference. This is an opportunity to send a message loud and clear to both Washington and the Republican Party- “FREEDOM IS POPULAR!” Americans want to live in a free and civil society governed by the U.S. Constitution. This is also an opportunity to send a message to someone else…

August 20th was selected as the day for the money bomb because it is the birthday of Congressman and Presidential candidate- you guessed it- Ron Paul. Let’s send him a message too: that we believe in the cause he’s fighting hard for, and that we will also fight hard to send him like-minded, liberty-loving allies in Congress. He has fought this battle alone up there for too long! Want to give Ron Paul the best birthday present he could ask for this August 20th? How about a Dr. Paul in the other house of Congress?

And last but most certainly not least- after pledging at RunRandRun.com, please do just one thing to promote it to the people you know. Unfortunately, many of Ron Paul’s avid supporters are still unaware that his like-minded son is making a bid for U.S. Senate and needs our help. All it would take is to make them aware, and they would be glad to drop a money bomb on August 20th. So please do at least one thing to spread the word.

E-mail one friend right now who doesn’t know about the Rand Paul money bomb and urge him or her to donate. Or you can link to RunRandRun and Rand Paul’s campaign website on your Facebook wall. If you’re a blogger, please use one of these banners in the sidebar on your blog site. You could also Tweet about the Rand Paul money bomb on Twitter, Digg up the money bomb on Digg, or leave a comment with a link to the money bomb page on a liberty-related YouTube video, blog, or message forum.

As of this writing, there are just under 2,000 pledges at RunRandRun, and we need 10,000 to hit our goal! That means we’re 20% there, which is encouraging because that’s a big piece of the pie and it shows how realistic and doable this really is, but it’s also alarming because we now have only 10 days left to reach our goal by the money bomb date! We can make this a success if everyone who reads these words does just two things: 1) Pledge if you have not already done so, and 2) Do just one thing to promote the Rand Paul money bomb to other freedom-loving patriots.

Thanks so much and happy bombing!

I’ll see you this August 20th on Rand Paul’s donation page at RandPaul2010.

-W. E. Messamore

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Show: CNN American Morning
Date: August 6, 2009
Host: Kiran Chetry

Kiran Chetry: Alright, it’s 32 minutes past the hour. You may have heard the phrase “like father like son” but for Congressman Ron Paul the expression is ringing more true. Not only is his third child, Rand, a physician, but yesterday he announced that he was running for the Republican Senate seat in Kentucky. So, why is son following dad into the political arena?

Dr. Rand Paul joins me now on the set and in just a moment we’re actually going to be talking to your dad, Ron Paul, Congressman from Texas. But first let’s talk to you. Welcome, thanks for being on the show.

Rand Paul: Thank you.

Kiran Chetry: We’ve had your dad here a lot. You’ve been a doctor for years. I know you’ve been actively involved and actually founded a tax fairness organization in Kentucky.

Rand Paul: Right.

Kiran Chetry: Why throw your hat in the ring though for the U.S. Senate?

Rand Paul: I’m very worried about our country, I’m worried about the debt, I’m worried about what the debt will lead to. I think it will lead to rampant inflation, higher prices. And I think we cannot borrow our way into prosperity. I think there are serious times ahead for our country. We have a recession now, high unemployment now. What’s going to happen when we have high unemployment and the prices in the store begin to rise? You can’t just run a deficit at this level, it’s a historic deficit and it’s getting worse. And I think the career politicians on both sides of the issue, both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat, have been unwilling and afraid to address the deficit; and someone has got to.

Kiran Chetry: That’s interesting that you say that because your dad’s been in Congress for years and years. You could say, even though he marches to the beat of his own drum for sure, that he’s a career politician. I mean, can you do more good in the private sphere than you can in public life at times?

Rand Paul: Well I think the thing is, he was also a physician for 20 years like myself, I think you need people outside of government. If your primary goal is to continue your career, you tend to do things that are good for you but not necessarily good for the country. For example, the way our system works around the country is that people bring back spending projects and it seems to be free. For example, the stimulus project brought a million dollars into my little town. Republicans and Democrats clapped their hands and said, “We have a million dollars.” But no one asked the hard question “Where did those million dollars come from?”

Did we have to borrow it from China, or Japan or foreign countries? Is that good for our country to go further and further into debt to build a new ball park or a new parking garage? You know, we have to understand where does the money come from. But debt leads to inflation. They print the money to pay for the debt, you ultimately will pay for it through higher prices. Who pays the higher prices? The working class and those on fixed income. In a year if you’re paying $8 for your milk, will you be happy that you got a million dollars for your town?

Kiran Chetry: Well, how do you explain that, you know, when you go out there and you said you’ve sort of hit the dinnrs and talked to people and sort of let them know how you feel; you think that the stimulus is a really bad idea. You think that the bank bailout also was a mistake. But there are many in the Republican Party who felt, at least about the bailout, that it was necessary and voted for it.

Rand Paul: I tell people that you look at problems for our economy the same way you would look at them personally. I have a lot of older patients who have grandkids, they come in to me and I ask them, “Would you borrow money to buy a gift for your grand kids?” And they say, “No”. You pay for gifts out of your savings. But you don’t borrow money to give people cash for clunkers. I don’t know how you get rich as a country by borrowing money and giving it to people and saying, “Go to the mall and spend it.” And somehow we’re supposed to be richer as a country?

Kiran Chetry: Let’s bring in your dad, you sound a lot like one of our favorite guests, Congressman Ron Paul. What did you think when your son told you “Hey, I think I’m going to try to join you in Congress, dad?”

Ron Paul: Well, I wasn’t too surprised. He’s been interested in politics for a long time and he’s had his own tax groups. So I think the family sort of expected that he would be the first one to get into politics like this. So it wasn’t too much of a surprise, but I was very pleased.

Kiran Chetry: One of the things that he talked about is people who want to do more for themselves; they want to continue to get elected. What are some of the lessons that you want to explain to him when you have all these ideas and you think they make sense and then you butt up against the bureaucracy in Washington? And often times, as you’ve seen yourself, things that you fight for don’t necessarily get accomplished.

Ron Paul: Well, I think the most important thing that I’ve tried to convey to myself and others and to the kids is that don’t go with conventional wisdom. If you go with conventional wisdom and the usual advisors, they’re about 10 or 15 years behind the people and I think that is what you’re sensing with these town hall meetings; the people are way ahead. I think the people are way ahead of us in Washington on the drug war and on foreign policy. And certainly they’re expressing themselves on the spending and the medical care.

So it’s marching to your own tune and listening to the people. I think that is where it can’t go wrong. People want to trust you as a politician, they want to like you and they want to trust you. But it’s up to the politician who’s running to stand for something and that’s what energizes your base, your supporters and raises your money. But I think too many politicians don’t have a whole lot they really stand for and really believe in. I think that has been what has energized our base.

Kiran Chetry: And Rand, I want to ask you about that. I mean, you’re a doctor. What do you hear from the front lines, meaning people, about whether or not health care reform is a good idea?

Rand Paul: I think they are afraid of losing their choices. They titled the act “The Free Choice Health Care Act”. But I think the more benign sounding the title, maybe the more ominous the contents. Within the healthcare bill it is actually going to limit your choices. You will only be able to buy government approved insurance, pages 16 through 19. And I think that worries people.

People also see the reports from England where there is a breast cancer drug called Herceptin that blocks the estrogen receptors. It’s not available in England because it’s too expensive. I’m in the business of eye surgery and eye disease, and one of the common diseases in the eye is abnormal blood vessels that grow into the back of the eye, called macular degeneration. We inject a drug called Avastin. In England you had to prove that you were blind in one eye before they might let you use it in the second eye.

Americans are going to be fearful of losing their choices. Now we have problems in health care, but the main problem is see is expense, not access. So when you add a lot of new people to it, you’re going to add expense to the system. But you haven’t really necessarily changed things.

Kiran Chetry: Congressman Paul, I want to ask you and then I want to ask your son. The overall grade as we head into 200 days of this administration, we’re asking all of our guest to give a grade. You guys weighed in. Congressman Paul, how do you think this administration has done overall?

Ron Paul: Well, not very well. I’d probably give him a D. He deserves an F, but I’d give him a D to make one point. That is that he is not responsible for this mess, this has been going on for a long time. The last administration has a lot to do with this. The Congress has a lot to do with it. But what is failing is the system; this idea that the government is the economic planner, that inflationism is good, the planned economy is worthwhile, this foreign policy is a good idea. That’s what’s wrong. Nobody in the presidency can manage the country. And so the task is impossible, so I would say he’s failing, but he doesn’t deserve all the blame. And I think we have to look at what our country is up to, what we believe in and whether the Constitution is worth following, and whether free markets are what we need. We need the government out of the way; we don’t need a better manager. So for that reason I give him a D but I think the system is still failing.

Kiran Chetry: Alright, let’s hear from your son, you weren’t as generous as his dad.

Rand Paul: I would say an F and the main reason is that that as I run for office because I think the debt is out of control. I was unhappy when the Republicans were running 500 billion dollar deficits in a year, and now we’ve tripled that in one year. I mean, this is a historic deficit, 13% of gross national product, spending is at 28% of gross national product. Things are out of control, but there will be repercussions. You cannot borrow and borrow and borrow and print money to pay for this without repercussions. And the repercussions will be higher prices in the grocery store.

Kiran Chetry: Alright, I want to thank you for coming on and it was great talking to you, Congressman Ron Paul, great having you as well. I know you’re proud of your son. You’ll probably be doing a little bit of campaigning for him as well as he tries to take the Senate seat in Kentucky. Thanks for being with us this morning.

Rand Paul: Thank you.

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Dear Friend,

There is big news coming out of Kentucky. Sen. Jim Bunning has announced that he will not seek reelection, leaving the door wide open for my son Dr. Rand Paul to run, win and join me in Washington.

Rand is carefully weighing his options and tells me he will make a final decision very soon. We need Rand on Capitol Hill fighting for smaller government, and we need you to urge him to run. You can contact him through his exploratory website, www.randpaul2010.com. Your encouragement and generous contributions will help him make the right decision to get it “in it to win it.”

We need Rand to run in 2010! Please urge him to run, sign up to get news on his campaign and, if possible, send money so he can see that we stand behind him.

The grassroots both in Kentucky and around the country are getting excited and planning a money bomb for Rand on August 20th. Please visit www.runrandrun.com and pledge to participate.

Together, we can help Rand run and elect a true defender of Liberty to United States Senate.

Again, I hope you will go to Rand’s website, www.randpaul2010.com and also visit www.runrandrun.com.

In Liberty,

Ron Paul

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Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl5hZJdqe0k
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vytM_29ne-E
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nisyuy2LMjU
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxgQZOOopQM
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzwXf6ogSxA
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Vo6kfRJAk

Channel: FoxNews.com Strategy Room
Show: Freedom Watch
Host: Judge Andrew Napolitano
Date: 5/20/2009

Transcript

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Good afternoon, everyone. It’s 2 o’clock in the East, 11 out West, and the Liberty Power hour is back. Welcome to a brand new episode of Freedom Watch, streaming live from the highly acclaimed Strategy Room on FoxNews.com. I’m Judge Andrew Napolitano.

We’ll discuss today the issues that profoundly affect your civil liberties, your personal liberties, your financial liberties, and your right to have a government that stays within the confines of the Constitution.

We encourage you to take part in today’s show. Send your tweet to Shelly Roche who is seated next right to me. She’s not by remote. She’s right here today. We’ll answer your questions throughout the show.

Congressman Ron Paul may be with us. He was just called to vote, but Lew Rockwell, Tomas Woods, Dr. Rand Paul, Glen ‘The Wrestler’ Jacobs, Otto Guevara, Jason Talley, and Pete Eyre of the Motorhome Diaries will all join us.

But right now, Lew Rockwell and Tom Woods join us from the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama and we’re hoping Congressman Paul will join us as well.

Lew and Tom, welcome back to Freedom Watch.

Lew Rockwell: Judge, it’s great to be with you as always.

Tom Woods: Thank you, Judge.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Thank you, guys. Tom, let’s start with you. Since last we met, the government has indicated that yet again it wants to give more powers to the Fed. This morning there was a story on Bloomberg.com and also on the WallStreetJournal.com that the Congress wants to take some of the regulatory authority away from the SEC, regulatory authority that we should have in the first place, and give it to, of all people, the Fed.

Now, this raises a lot of implications. What are they?

Tom Woods: Well, to me, the most significant implication is what we’ve long suspected, which is that our political class is completely clueless, that they’re, once again they’re chasing after symptoms instead of causes.

And if anything, the thing that needs to be regulated is the Fed itself. I mean, the idea that this institution that is totally unaccountable creating trillions of dollars, the Bloomberg Financial Network has to sue them for them to disclose any information… the idea that they would be competent regulators of genuinely private actors is absurd.

In fact to the contrary, the Fed under Alan Greenspan, it was understood by everybody. The Financial Times newspaper made it clear that everybody knew that Alan Greenspan, if you’ve gotten into big trouble as a major Wall Street actor, he would eventually come riding to the rescue.

Then, now, if he would stop doing that, then we get a lot more sane behavior on Wall Street. But it’s the Fed that is the source, the ultimate source of all the moral hazards because it creates the boom and bust cycle and then when the bust comes, all the major players come asking the paper money producer, the Fed, to bail them out of the bust that they themselves created.

It is moral hazard with an exponent beside it and the idea that they should be regulators, especially when Ben Bernanke himself said that his own regulators had already looked into the mortgage market a couple of years ago and they found that is was stronger than ever.

I mean, who in the world could trust these people to do anything?

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Well, that’s the question. They obviously can’t be trusted because as a private bank with government powers, they obviously have a vested interest. How could a private bank, Lew, possibly regulate certain aspects of compliance with the Securities and Exchange Commission regulation for publicly-traded corporation without having some kind of an inherent conflict of interest?

Lew Rockwell: Well, it’s nothing but a giant thing of these conflicts of interest and one of the ways we can look at this recent crisis or the results of the crisis is that some of the worst people on Wall Street have been taking further power over the Treasury and over the Federal Reserve and now, of course, then also within the Treasury-Fed struggle, and there will always be struggles in Washington that no one talks about.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right.

Lew Rockwell: CIA hates the FBI, the FBI hates the CIA, the Treasury hates the Fed, the Fed hates the Treasury, the Fed hates the SEC, the Fed wants all power, and, of course, as you pointed out and Tom points out, this is secret. It’s unaccountable and but it’s run by the people who brought us this crisis, who brought on the artifial boom and now, this horrible recession or depression, which despite all the business about green shoots and mustard seeds we’re a long way from getting out of.

So to put the criminals who created this, in charge of allegedly making sure that it doesn’t happen again, all they will make sure of is that their pals on Wall Street and the banks that are connected to them will further be able to rip off the American people.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: You know, Tom, I’m struggling in my memory for a Depression-era Supreme Court opinion, which believe it or not, obviously it was before FDR had tried to pack the court, basically said that an industry could not receive powers from the Congress to regulate itself or some select group in the industry couldn’t receive powers from Congress to regulate the rest of the industry, but this Fed is such a weird bird in our constitutional system.

I would bet that most of Congress thinks it’s part of the government. I know that most of the public thinks it’s part of the government. But here you have a private bank, private bankers, basically the inheritors of the same class of people that brought us the Fed in 1913. Can you imagine what could they do to enrich themselves if they were the regulator of all publicly-traded corporations?

Tom Woods: You see, I think you’re thinking of the so-called Sick Chicken case that was used to overturn the National Industrial Recovery Act.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Is that Schechter vs Schechter Chicken or…

Tom Woods: Right. I think that’s the one, but yeah… I mean, the idea that we can delegate powers, in my opinion, the Federal government shouldn’t have in the first place, and then delegate them to some outside agency, is certainly dangerous.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right.

Tom Woods: But what’s most important for us to explode forever is this naive civics-class version of how American history works that all our 6th and 7th graders are taught, which is that when our government establishes something like the Fed or a direct government agency, it’s always done for the sake of the common good and to make us all better off, and we never think and we’re never taught that maybe it’s a big ripoff.

And, you know, Murray Rothbard, the late great economist pointed out in a speech he gave in the 1980s. He said, “You know, if the steel industry wants higher tariffs, nobody sits back and says, ‘You know, I bet the higher tariff decision by the Federal government was a cool, calculated decision that was meant to improve the well being of everybody.’” No, we all know that that’s an industry decision and they’d lobbied for it and they do it to enrich themselves, but as soon as you apply that analysis to the Fed or to any other agency and say, “Wait a minute. Maybe there are private actors here who are doing this not for the common good, but heaven forbid, maybe they’re actually doing it to benefit themselves.” Well, you’re not allowed to say that because these are all here for the common good and I’ve taken a little bit of abuse from left wingers who are supposed to be the ones who question authority, but when it comes to questioning the Fed, absolutely not. Whatever Ben Bernanke says in his press release, we’re going to bow down before it.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: You probably don’t even realize how profound and how accurate is the last sentence that you just uttered, “Whatever Ben Bernanke says, we’re going to bow down before it.”

I’m going to break a little news right now to the two of you and to our Freedom Watch listeners. As you may know, the Fox Business Network sued the Treasury Department and the Fed under the Freedom of Information Act seeking copies of all documents evidencing anything to do with the expenditure of TARP funds; copies of checks, copies of agreements, e-mails, et cetera.

The same Federal judge that two months ago granted Fox’s summary judgment against the Treasury Department and ordered the Treasury Department to comply and we believe it has, late last night threw out Fox’s case, dismissed Fox’s case against the Fed saying, “I don’t want blood on my hands.”

Question, Lew Rockwell, how could a life tenured Federal judge be afraid of the Federal Reserve?

Lew Rockwell: Well, the Federal Reserve is the central institution of evil in American society and in the American government. I mean, without the Federal Reserve and its ability to create money out of thin air by the trillions as Tom points out, we couldn’t have had the warfare state, the welfare state, we couldn’t have the vast bailouts and handouts to all the special interest that go on. This is the most powerful, untouchable institution in society and thank goodness therefore that Ron Paul has been targeting it with his legislation and is raising people’s interest in it.

Because when I was a kid, we, you know, everybody’s eyes glazed over when you talk about the Feds.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right.

Lew Rockwell: It’s the name on the bill in your wallet. Now, more and more Americans realize they are ripping us off. They’re ripping us off by horrendous amounts. They’re causing unbelievable human suffering in this country and all around, in fact, the whole world, the Federal Reserve.

So I can understand the judge as being afraid. I don’t appreciate the fact that he gave into his fear and obviously didn’t do what the Constitution and justice and economic logic and many other things would tell us he should have done, but really they are so far untouchable.

Of all these independent agencies that were created in the evil progressive era, the Fed is the holiest. It’s a holy sanctum there on Constitution Avenue. You can’t even take a picture of the building. The guards come out and want to take the film out of your camera, just like the old Soviet Union.

This place needs scrutiny. It needs examination. People need to learn about it, and by the way, I want to say to everybody, if you want to learn about the Fed, first read Tom Woods’ New York Times bestseller, ‘Meltdown’.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right.

Lew Rockwell: It will explain to you what this institution is and why it needs to be, not only examined and the sunlight shine on them, but really it needs to be abolished if the future of our country is to include prosperity and freedom.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Tom, I wasn’t fully fair to the federal judge because I just quoted the most outlandish part of his opinion and he obviously gave other reasons on the record, but I’m scandalized that a federal judge would be afraid of anything in our system.

But Congressman Paul, who couldn’t be with us, his proposed legislation has 170 co-sponsors in the House and now has been introduced in the Senate by the Socialist Independent from Vermont, Senator Bernie Sanders.

So you’ll never know where this is going to go, but if the Fed were audited, if this bill became law, and a judge’s fear of blood in his hands meant nothing, what in the name of God do you think we’d find out?

Tom Woods: Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, that I’d like to talk to Dr. Paul about. Because in my understanding is that everybody around the world knows that the Fed is engaged in all kinds of phony baloney accounting and if you actually got a real audit, it would blow the lid off the whole thing.

Because, I mean, just imagine what would you do, and I don’t mean you, Judge, in particular, a saintly man. But I mean, what would the average person do with the types of power Ben Bernanke has and the Federal Reserve Board has. You know, they can create legal tender money out of thin air by a grant of government monopoly.

You know, the idea that this isn’t going to be abused is pretty well laughable and I think Congressman Paul’s idea is that once people are able to look at this thing for the first time, and it actually is talked about as a political issue for the first time in almost a century, that’s step 1 to them thinking about what needs to come next.

And incidentally, sometimes we hear people saying, “Well, you know, you folks, you have no solutions to propose. All you want to do is abolish things and get rid of things. Well, you know, what do you propose in its place?”

And just before I came on the program, I put together links to all the free market economists like Henry Hazlit, Murray Rothbard, F. A. Hayek, and Ron Paul, and how they proposed step by step to get out from under the system we’re in and back to a free, sound money system.

So I put that up on TomWoods.com, my website, so that we can easily… you can go there and see that there is a way out of this. This is not a fated existence. We don’t have to live with this thing. It is not part of nature. It’s not just a given factor of life. We can free ourselves from it.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: I was scandalized that a federal judge would use that phrase, “I don’t want blood on my hands.” The same federal judge that basically told the Treasury to go take a hike when they told Fox and other news media, by the way, adjoined in the lawsuit. When they tried to tell Fox to go take a hike and that they weren’t going to release the TARP documents, which we since have seen, including former Treasury Secretary Paulson’s notes, which included a threat, and basically said, “If you don’t let us buy stock and accept the TARP funds, expect to hear from your regulator.”

That regulator, Tom, would be the FDIC and what the FDIC could do to any one of the top 15 bank holding corporations in the country could be almost catastrophic for its shareholder value, for its employee time and for its public relations in terms of a 3- or a 4- or a 5-year audit, and that’s basically what Henry Paulson threatened.

We would not know about that threat had it not been for the Freedom of Information Act request, which was complied with by order of the same federal judge who is afraid to do the same thing with the Fed. Tom.

Tom Woods: Well, to me, there should be outrage upon outrage all over the country about this and yet, you know, all we get in the major media is just a big echo chamber where issues like this hardly ever come up. You know, once in a while, they’ll write an article about Paulson or they’ll write an article about Bernanke, but they’re still overawed by these people.

When Bernanke was interviewed by 60 Minutes, I forget who the journalist was, but instead of confronting him with issues like this on which he recently become know about, but all of the mistake in predictions he made, all the bone-headed decisions, instead of asking him that, before going in to see him, he’s walking through the Federal Reserve building saying, “Ooohh, look at this wonderful building. Look at this big seal and oh, what was your childhood like or, you know, what’s the toughest part of being a Central Banker. I mean, it’s like they all come from Pravda, our journalists.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right, right.

Tom Woods: And even if they weren’t a bunch of toadying lackeys, they’re too ignorant even to know what to ask. I mean, how are we supposed to keep a free society with people like these running the media?

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Guys, the tweets have been coming in. As you know, Shelly Roche is here with me and I think she has one for Lew Rockwell.

Shelly Roche: I do indeed. All this talk about, you know, solutions and if we are able to audit the Fed, what happens next? AdamCFL asks, “What would our economy look like without the Federal Reserve and what will happen after an audit?”

Lew Rockwell: Well, without the Federal Reserve and with sound money, we’d have what seems like almost a science-fiction situation. Your money would be worth more the longer you hold it. The money you would put away as a young for your retirement would buy more when you retire.

Because without the Federal Reserve constantly diluting the money supply, you money with the capitalist system would just be producing more and more goods and services. Your money is worth more all the time, so this is magnificent.

Also, we wouldn’t have our artificial booms and busts like the dot com bust, like this housing bust, and much wider, of course, than housing.

So we would be far better off. We’d be a far more prosperous society. Every American would be better off economically, from the top to the bottom of society, poor people would be better off, rich people would be better off than all the rest of us and everybody in between.

What’s going to happen next after Ron Paul’s bill? If this bill can get passed and I can guarantee you that the bad guys in Congress; Pelosi, Reid, and for that matter, McConnel and Boehner on the Republican side are scheming for ways to block this bill or to make it so that it has no effect because they’re scared of this bill.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: I’ve got to tell you, Lew. In an e-mail that Ron Paul sent this morning in which I said, “What’s the strongest argument against the bill?”

He said, “You’re not going to believe this. You just won’t believe it. The argument they’re making against the bill is that the government shouldn’t get involved in private enterprise and the Fed is a private bank.”

Now, a, they have never admitted the Fed is a private bank, b, since when have the Democrats or any of the big government people feared the government getting involved in private enterprise?

Lew Rockwell: Well, of course, again this is the holy of holies of the modern American regime, the Federal Reserve. We couldn’t have this worldwide empire, we couldn’t be fighting all these horrible wars all around the world if it weren’t for the Federal Reserve.

George Bush never had to worry about getting a vote on an appropriation because they didn’t have to tax or borrow the money, they could just print it up, so that kind of business could not go on if we didn’t have a Federal Reserve.

That’s what they fear. This would be that we’d return to a situation where the finances of the federal government would be like that of a state. If they issued too many bonds, if they did too much spending, there would be questions of default on the bonds without a central bank.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right.

Lew Rockwell: So there’d be tremendous restrictions on government overspending and over-reach in every area of their life.

Tom Woods: And Judge, by the way, you’ll notice the only private enterprise that Democrats typically don’t want to involve themselves in or regulate are phony baloney private enterprises that are basically government monopolies like Fannie and Freddie that had monopoly privileges. Well, they don’t want to regulate that.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right.

Tom Woods: Or the Fed, which has a monopoly privilege to issue money, they don’t want to regulate that. Those are the parts of the economy that most need the regulations –

Judge Andrew Napolitano: …and certainly need to be exposed.

Tom Woods: — because we, the taxpayers, are on the hook for all the bone-headed things they do. Those are the things that if we’re going to have them at all, but we shouldn’t, those are the things we should regulate, the private economy and the profit and loss system can regulate itself.

It’s precisely institutions like this that need oversight, and naturally those are the ones they want to leave unchecked.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Guys, we have to go. Lew Rockwell, Tom Woods. It’s always a pleasure. Until next Wednesday on Freedom Watch. Thanks very much.

Tom Woods: Judge, thank you.

Lew Rockwell: Thank you.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Thank you. Well, we’ll get Dr. Rand Paul on.

I get e-mails on this all the time, what can we do?

Shelly Roche: Yeah.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: What can we do? What can we do? Now, you are part of a movement, Shelly, of young people that does things. What advice would you give to me to tell the hundreds of emailers that email me every day, what can I do that I should tell them to do?

Shelly Roche: That’s a great question. I get that. That’s probably 50 percent of the tweets I get are, you know, what do we do? What’s next? What can we do to make this happen?

And I think using the technology tools that we have available to us really helps us organize. It helps us spread the word. There are so many more people today that know what’s going on in the government because of shows like this in the Internet, and Twitter, and Facebook and that sort of thing.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Yeah.

Shelly Roche: So that’s one thing. That’s where you can get started.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Well, the Internet is certainly the key and Freedom Watch has become sort of a focal point, if you will, of a lot of freedom-loving individuals, many of whom are as youthful as my good friend Shelly here and as youthful as my next guest, for exchanging information, political information, economic information, tactical information about who’s up, who’s down, who needs support, who needs help and what arguments should be made.

Now, talking about who’s up and who’s down, we may have a real surprise coming in the state of Kentucky. I don’t want to jump the gun, Dr. Rand Paul, but might you have some kind of announcement coming about your political future and the future of freedom in the Commonwealth of Kentucky?

Rand Paul: I do. We’ve announced that we’re forming an exploratory committee to run for the US Senate.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Well, congratulations to you and obviously, we wish you well and it will be a great race. Just a little bit of the logistics, are you going to challenge Senator Bunning in a Republican primary or are you going to run as a Republican or are you going to run as a Libertarian? What are the mechanics for getting out a message of freedom in a system where the two parties seem to control everything?

Rand Paul: I’m going to be running as a Republican and it’s still uncertain what Bunning, what his plans are. At this point, he says he’s running, but he’s encouraging other candidates to form exploratory committees that will compete with him for raising money and he says he will run unless he doesn’t raise enough money. So there’s a lot of doubt created by encouraging other people to run as to whether or not he’ll stay in the race.

Some Republicans I meet, even on the Executive Committee have been telling me for months that it’s a done deal. He’s not really running and if he is running, he needs to overcome that doubt, but because of that, we are organizing. I’m traveling the state. We’ve got a website, RandPaul2010.com and it’s done by some really old political hacks out in California, age 24 and 25.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Those are the best kind of political hacks to have because as you may have heard, Shelly Roche and me chatting as we were going through the mechanics of getting you on air with us. The Internet is such a powerful tool and it is the youth of America that forms the basis for this movement.

Dr. Rand Paul, what is the state of the Republican Party in Kentucky? We know what its state is nationally. It’s extremely minority and to me, numerically, a minority. I don’t think the Republicans even know what they stand for anymore.

Rand Paul: Well, the interesting thing is there’s sort of a division in Kentucky they way there is in a lot of states. The leadership of the Republican Party went along with the bank bailout, but if you were to do a poll of the Republican primary electorate, I think you’d find out 80 to 90 percent across the country and particularly in Kentucky, would have voted no against the bank bailout.

So we’re sort of at odds with our leaders, which maybe means we need a new set of leaders.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: You know, as I’ve mentioned to you on radio on Brian and the Judge earlier today when we talked about this. I was interviewing John McCain the other day who was trying to sound a little like your father.

And I said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Surely you remember September of 2008 when you suspended your campaign and flew into Washington supposedly to address the financial mess that the country was in. At that point, 70 percent of the people were against the bailout. There are a lot of people who think you might be President today if you had voted against the TARP. You went along with it.”

“Well, when the President of the United States says there’s a problem and he asked you to do it, you’ve got to go along with it.”

I said, “Wait a minute. The President of the United States wants to borrow trillions and you voted against that. Is there any difference between a Republican that wants to borrow trillions and a Democrat that wants to borrow trillions?”

Rand Paul: Yeah, and that’s the real problem. It’s that, for example, all throughout the Bush administration, very few, if any, Republicans voted against the budget. When the deficit reached $500 billion in a year, you had Ron Paul and about five or six Republicans who would vote against it, maybe 20 Republicans, but very few have the guts to vote no.

Look at the alternative now. We complain and all the Republicans voted against Obama, President Obama’s 1.75 trillion but you know what their alternative was? It’s like 400 or 500 billion with a plan to balance it in 10 years. Nobody believes you’ll ever balance a budget in 10 years if you don’t have the guts.

You’ve got to stand up the way 30-some odd states do and you have to balance it every year and I think one simple way of presenting this to the American public is, let’s just introduce the budget from 2004 in 2010 and presto, you’ve got a balanced budget.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Let me ask you about a couple of specifics. I think I have an idea where you stand on them, but I want to hear it from you nevertheless. The most offensive parts of the PATRIOT Act are about to expire. The most offensive part of the PATRIOT Act is that which allows Federal agents to write their own search warrants without having to present probable cause of a crime to a judge. It will expire at the end of this year.

So even if you run, you wouldn’t be in the Congress by then, but it’s an issue the Congress will be grappling with. Where do you stand on that? And the issue of closing Guantanamo Bay, where do you stand, and that is closing the prison camp for foreign detainees, not the naval base, but the prison camp for foreign detainees at Guantanamo Bay, where do you stand on that?

Rand Paul: Well, I’m absolutely opposed to the PATRIOT Act. I would have voted no on it and I would vote to sunset any provisions as quickly as we could. I think one of the greatest descriptions of it is in this little book we read in my book club not too long ago, “Constitution In Exile“. Have you heard about that one?

Judge Andrew Napolitano: I have. You’re so kind. Thank you.

Rand Paul: But it is true and [...] what I love is that there’s about a 4-page summary you have of the destruction of the Fourth Amendment going from the late 1970s and ties it to the present of what has happened to the Fourth Amendment.

When I go to like a gun crowd, what I like to tell them is I’m here to support the Second Amendment, but you know what, you can’t have the Second Amendment if you don’t have the First Amendment. That’s why McCain-Feingold really damages groups like gun groups and then I’d say, “Look, you can’t have your Second Amendment if you don’t believe in the Fourth Amendment.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right. Which is why Thomas Jefferson…

Rand Paul: And so you really have to explain this to people and I think a lot of people understand it, but they don’t realize that 99.9 percent of the Republicans all voted for the PATRIOT Act.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Absolutely, and it’s funny how you run through the amendments as you did, Dr. Paul. It’s the reason that Thomas Jefferson, and the anti-federalists said, “You want this Constitution, you get these ten amendments in there.’

Congressman, I almost called you Congressman because I spend so much time with your dad. Dr. Rand Paul, thanks for joining us.

Rand Paul: Thank you, Judge.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Of course, we wish you the best. We hope you’ll come back from time to time and visit with us again at Freedom Watch.

Rand Paul: I’d love to, and tell your viewers to look at my website, RandPaul2010.com.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: RandPaul2010.com. Thank you, Dr. Paul.

Rand Paul: Thanks, Judge.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: It’s a pleasure. All right, Glen ‘Kane’ Jacobs, welcome, big guy. Welcome to Freedom Watch.

Glen Jacobs: Hey, thanks, Judge. I’m a big fan. I haven’t had the chance to pick up the Dred Scott’s Revenge yet, but I’ve enjoyed your other books.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Well, you’re very kind to say that. Thank you very much. With the exception of your former, maybe future colleague, Jesse Ventura, I don’t think that I’ve ever spoken to a professional wrestler on the air. That’s a thrill for me. Absolutely.

Where do you see the country going from your point of view? You’re a small businessman. You’re an entrepreneur. You’re an athlete. You’re an entertainer. You come in contact with people in all walks of life.

Where are we going? And are you happy or disturbed about it?

Mr. Glenn Jacobs: Well, I think I probably like everybody else you’re going to have on your show. I’m disturbed. Long term I’m actually optimistic. But short term, I’m pessimistic because, of course, of the things that the government is doing is 180 degrees from the way we should be doing, both with fiscal policy and with monetary policy.

But like I said, long term, I think what’s going to happen is I think because of shows like this, because of the message that it is getting out there, because of Ron Paul’s campaign in 2008, I think the American people are thirsty for real change and, of course, that’s what’s President Obama capitalized on to win the presidency.

But I think that they’re looking for the sort of change that we talked about; more freedom, re-investment in free markets, and individual liberty. And I think to solve the country’s problems, the only way to do that is to embrace those principles.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Our viewers, as you’re speaking to me, are looking at pictures of you. We just saw your shaved armpit and now we see your incredible washboard stomach.

You and I have not met in person yet, but I very much look forward to when we can and maybe when you could be here in New York and then engage with us for the full hour of the show.

Are you surprised at the number of young people that are so active and willing to be combative for their liberties? I mean, it wasn’t too long ago when young people were complacent and just sort of expecting their jobs to be handed to them. But it is the generation, even younger than you and certainly younger than I that are really the backbone of this movement.

Glen Jacobs: Yeah. It’s very refreshing and you’re exactly right and we saw that with the Ron Paul campaign. All the young people were getting involved.

And once again, I mean, I think reality has this tendency to shake people up and with the young people, they’ve been told certain things about America, about the country, and then the reality isn’t quite the same, especially when you look at things like the unfundable liability of Social Security and Medicare. Those things are coming due; the debt, which is going to be a burden on these kids.

And let’s face it. I mean, you know, we talk a lot about people being dumbed down and apathetic. I don’t think that’s true. I think people are smarter than we give them credit for. They just have to have things explained to them in a way that they understand, and the young people are thirsting for knowledge and they’re thirsting for a new and different way.

So, yeah, in a way it’s surprising. But in a way, it’s not. I think it’s just human nature.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Speaking of young people, our resident young person, Shelly Roche who deals with all the tweets that we get during the show who is seated next to me and we’ll jump in on the conversation. I’m sure that some of the young folks who tweet with you have some questions for Kane.

Shelly Roche: Sure, sure, they do. Here’s one from Byrd in Flates saying Kane is in an amazing position to have a positive influence on the youth. They love your letter to Robert Reich. How do you start up conversations with some of your fans and some of the people that follow you to kind of get some these concepts out there?

Glen Jacobs: Well, it’s becoming a little easier now since people sort of know where I stand and I don’t have to initiate the conversation. And it’s hard, of course, it’s almost nearly impossible when you’re talking with total strangers.

But a lot of times, you have to get to know people a little bit. You can understand what makes them tick, of course, and if you can tick an area that they’re not pleased with what the government is doing, and sometimes, you have to wait a while. Sometimes, they’ll bring it up themselves.

But if you can pick that area, you can sort of expand on things from there.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Well, what’s it like in the wrestling community? I mean, do you discuss… because I happen to believe, Kane, that everybody, everybody is a libertarian. Everybody wants to be able to do their own thing and essentially wants to be left alone.

People in the government are not libertarians because freedom is an obstacle to them. It challenges them. It questions them. It looks for a transparency and it makes them justify their behavior.

But on all the people you deal with, professional wrestlers, colleagues, managers, fans, what do you find people are most thirsty for?

Glen Jacobs: Well, from our standpoint, we are not subject to withholding tax. We have to pay our own federal income tax. So unlike most folks, we really know how much a chunk that takes out of our income, so a lot of the guys do pay attention to politics for that very reason.

And I really think that in general the things the people are most worried about is the unbelievable spending spree that Washington has been on since the end of the Bush administration. I think that really bothers people and rightly so.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Shelly, any questions or tweets for Kane?

Shelly Roche: Quite a few rolling in. Here’s a suggestion from Jay Huntson, “Could you adapt a new persona in the WWE that promotes liberty and freedom?”

Glen Jacobs: Well, I have to see. I don’t know.

Shelly Roche: Okay.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: All right.

Shelly Roche: All right.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Okay. Where did Kane come from, by the way? What is the origin of that?

Glen Jacobs: It’s Kane and Abel.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Okay.

Glen Jacobs: All right. All right.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: All right. Shelly, anymore questions for Kane?

Shelly Roche: What are some of your biggest influences? I know that you’re at the Mises Institute. What else has really influenced you in your freedom quest?

Glen Jacobs: Well, yeah, the Mises Institute has been an Austrian economics in general, it has been huge influence on me. Also, you know, the great thing about the Internet now is it just a pipelines for information. It’s a repository of information about any subject.

A couple of books that I’d recommend are Harry Brown’s “Why Government Doesn’t Work” and also, of course, you have F.A. Hayek’s “The Road To Serfdom“. I take bits and pieces from all sorts of different people about different things. For example, Judge Napolitano on his explanation of natural law and constitutional principles that are supposed to protect our natural rights, which are not given to us by government but which are endowed by our creator for a feature of our nature as human beings.

So I’d say it’s many, many various and different sources.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Do you discuss Austrian economics with other pro wrestlers? Because I would like to be a fly on the wall for those conversations, Kane…

Glen Jacobs: Well, the thing about it is the beauty of the Austrian economics. You know, people has this misconception that economics is about numbers and it’s not.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: It’s about freedom.

Glen Jacobs: The problem with that is it’s leaving the human component completely out of the equation and economics is the study of human action and it’s the study, really, of cause and effect. Now, we’re not sure what the effect is always going to be because it’s depending on what people do.

But by its own token, it’s not a physics equation and it’s a verbal science, so you are able to discuss it with people and explain things in ways that they understand and you know, all of a sudden, light bulbs go off because, of course, that’s the way things work. That’s the way the world works.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Are you as distressed as I am at the first 125 days of the Obama administration in which following the Bush administration and its utter disregard for the natural law and constitutionally protected rights, it has destroyed freedom of contract, basically destroyed shareholder rights, basically said to bondholders and shareholders of corporations, “You’re going to take this, you’re going to take that.” Said to shareholders, “You can’t have,” for example, General Motors, Rick Wagoner as chairman, “we’re going to fire him.”

Did you think that you would see the days, still in your youth, when we would be approaching this system of, I’ll call it what it is, fascism, which is private ownership but government controlled.

Glen Jacobs: Well, that’s exactly what it is and it is very disturbing. The fact that central planners believe that they can succeed and it’s not a market failure. You know, some folks would say that they’ve succeeded when the market failed, but the market didn’t fail.

The market had lots of problems because the government intervenes so much and the market could not break freely. But you know, from a constitutional perspective, too, Judge, every day when I read the news, it’s Obama wants this, Obama promises that, Obama says this. But if you read the Constitution, Article 1 Section 1 says that all legislative powers shall be vested in Congress.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right.

Glen Jacobs: And with things now, it has moved to a point to where… and I think to the degree that Congress is actually supposed to be the superior body to the President and the Supreme Court is supposed to be the inferior body. There was supposed to be checks on the powers of Congress. But we’ve moved to the point where we have what Ludwig von Mises would call omnipotent government.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right.

Glen Jacobs: I mean, you know, the President can virtually do anything that he wants, can say anything that he wants, and he’s making law, and he’s not supposed to do that, and, of course, President Obama wasn’t the first one. He followed a precedent that it’s been set for him, but by the same token, it is pretty distressing.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Glen, you’re very eloquent and you’re very powerful, and you understand and then explained this stuff so nicely. I really appreciate you coming. Would you promise me that the next time you’re appearing anywhere around New York City, you’ll come and visit us on Freedom Watch.

Glen Jacobs: I will certainly try. What you guys are doing is a tremendous service and sincerely, you’re making a difference.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Glen ‘Kane’ Jacobs. Thanks very much.

Glen Jacobs: Thanks, Judge.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Stay awhile and we’ll be watching for you. We are joined now by Congressman Otto Guevara from Costa Rica. Congressman Guevara, welcome to Freedom Watch.

Otto Guevara: Yeah, hello. How are you doing?

Judge Andrew Napolitano: We’re doing fine, thank you. Judge Napolitano here along with my sidekick, Shelly Roche. We’re coming to you from FoxNews.com in the middle of New York City. Where did we find you, Congressman?

Otto Guevara: Right now, I’m in San Jose, Costa Rica in Central America.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: What is the prospect for a Libertarian Revolution in Costa Rica as we speak? You’ve been fighting for this since you got home from Harvard Law School.

Otto Guevara: Yes, I did. And we formed the political party. It’s called the Movimiento Libertario back in 1994 and basically there was a real battle in order to get a foot in Congress. That happened in 1998 and mainly because of the electoral system in Costa Rica, a proportional representation, I got elected in 1998 as the only congressman of the Libertarian Party here in Costa Rica and I stayed in Congress for ten years.

We don’t have in Costa Rica consecutive re-election and I’ve been the presidential candidate of that party in the last two elections and right now, I’m preparing my campaign for the next election in February 2010, so we’re about eight months away from this election day and we hope that in this next election, Costa Ricans will basically support freedom.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: What’s the state of the economy in Costa Rica? What’s the state of economic freedom in Costa Rica? And what kind of obstacles are there for you making basic civil liberties and free market arguments?

Otto Guevara: It’s been so difficult and that’s why we decided to form this Libertarian Party back in 1994 because Costa Rica has been a very socialist state with state-owned monopolies for almost everything.

And so very recently, we have been able to break up the monopoly in telecommunications and also in insurance and also access to Internet. For example, right now, in Costa Rica, there’s only one company with which you can make this phone conversation, so you can only buy insurance to a state-owned company.

We’ve been, with our votes, we have right now 10 percent of representation in Congress. We’ve been pushing very hard in order to break up those monopolies.

So, as a political party, we’ve been very active in promoting liberty and freedom in Costa Rica and we have defended Costa Rica from the intention of the politicians to raise taxes. We’ve been defending property rights. We’ve been also trying to convince the Costa Ricans to move to a certain… that the Costa Ricans will be able to choose the school where they can send their children or choose also their doctor that can attend to them.

We’ve been fighting very hard for liberty and for sure, today we are a freer country than we were back in 1994 and that’s because of the participation of Movimiento Libertario, our Party in the politics in Costa Rica.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Are Costa Ricans surprised that the United States of America, which once was a beacon of freedom and hope seems to be moving more in an authoritarian direction? I mean, I believe this started with Abraham Lincoln but without getting too historical, it’s certainly progressed under George Bush, in which the Republicans shredded the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and it continues now under President Barack Obama where the Democrats with some Republican support seem to be shredding the principles of the free market.

Are Costa Ricans surprised at this?

Otto Guevara: For many Costa Ricans, there is no surprise because that’s also what they want in Costa Rica. For the Libertarians in Costa Rica, we are surprised and also convinced that if the government of the United States is yielding in the defense for those civil liberties and individual rights, we in Latin America are going to take the responsibility also to make Costa Rica a beacon of liberty in the Americans.

Also, Panama is a good example for which we are going to be working very hard in Latin America to build a free society for these countries.

I’m the president of the Libertarian Party and liberal organizations in Latin America. We have about 54 organizations and we are pushing very hard in Latin America for these ideas; private property rights, individual rights, a free market, the government concentrated basically on providing a good judicial system and also a good national security system, but that’s it and we’ve been very successful so far in at least conveying the ideas.

In Costa Rica, we have a political party, a practical liberal political party, a libertarian party and we’ve been able to raise the support for our cause up to 10 percent and we have a pretty good chance in this next election, even to win the election if we have the support from all the fellow libertarians, brothers and sisters, all over the world.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Congressman Guevara, my colleague, Shelly Roche, who receives all the tweets and e-mails during the show, has received quite a number from folks that wish they could direct their questions to you personally, so Shelly has some questions for you. Fire away, Shelly.

Otto Guevara: All right. Hello, Shelly.

Shelly Roche: Hello. Congressman, what have you learned in your experiences with liberty in Costa Rica that you can help us with in America?

Otto Guevara: Well, basically, Costa Rica is a very interesting case. It’s a small country where you can test these ideas of liberty and you can show to everyone that these ideas work. The public policy is based on the philosophy that liberty can work.

And you can have Costa Rica as a pilot project where you can prove in a very socialist government that these ideas put into practice can create a better environment for the people to prosper, can create more happiness, more prosperity and the country will be able to overcome poverty and improve dramatically the quality of education, of health, of wellbeing of the people and that’s something that we’ve been working on.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: You know, you used two very important words, Congressman Guevara; happiness and prosperity. Could anybody seriously make an intellectual argument that the socialists of Latin America have brought about happiness and prosperity?

Otto Guevara: We have, in many cases in Latin America, different regimes, socialist regimes, where they create poverty and unhappiness; a people that is not happy.

You can start with Cuba, and then you can pull up Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and you can mention many different countries who have this in the last decades in Latin America where socialist public policies have been enacted and they have created a lot of poverty, corruption and unhappiness for the people, and we believe that what Latin Americans needs and what different societies in the world need is more freedom.

Through more freedom, our public policies based on the philosophy of liberty, you will generate or you will create this environment of prosperity for the people and through prosperity, you’re going to have a people that is more happy.

Shelly Roche: Now, I read somewhere that you say that political participation is one of the most effective ways that we can promote liberty. Here in the US we often have people who are willing to run for office but don’t necessarily have the resources to do that. What advice do you have for them about getting started and moving along in the political process?

Otto Guevara: Well, basically what I tell people in Costa Rica and also in different parts of Latin America is that, first of all, people have to have that decision to participate. If people don’t participate in the defending these ideas, this post is going to be taken by the socialists or the interventionists or authoritarians.

So libertarians should take possessions in teaching in the universities, in writing articles for the newspapers, in conducting TV shows and this show is like the one you’re conducting. They should run for office. They should go and take every position they can because this battle for liberty is a battle that we have to conduct every day in every trench because the enemies of liberty, they don’t sleep. They are always trying to get our liberty out of us.

So, we, the freedom fighters, we need to fight every day in every trench and the political trench is one of the most efficient for changing the societies where we live and in promoting the ideas based on the philosophy of liberty.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Congressman Otto Guevara from Costa Rica, it’s a pleasure. We hope you come and visit us live and in the studio when you’re in New York City.

Otto Guevara: Thank you very much, Judge. I surely will let you know in order to go in and visit you.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Thank you. Godspeed to you. Thank you very much. Jason Talley and Pete Eyre join us now. The two of them, wow, are part of the Motorhome Diaries.

Hey, guys, welcome to Freedom Watch.

Pete Eyre: It’s good to be with you.

Jason Talley: Hey, Judge.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Pete, what happened?

Pete Eyre: Well, I assume you’re referring to the new incident down in Jones County, Mississippi.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Yes, absolutely. Well, what was your involvement with the police and what did they do to you, guys?

Pete Eyre: Well, we were driving from New Orleans to Nashville. We had to meet up on Wednesday night in New Orleans, we were driving to Nashville for Thursday evening. We got pulled over in Jones County, Mississippi, which is kind of southeast part of the state and we got pulled over initially because a deputy Atkins said he couldn’t read our tag.

We have temporary tags from New Hampshire. We moved there as part of the Free State Project, but we got pulled over. I was the driver. He ordered me to exit, so I did so with my license in hand and he asked me how many other occupants were in the vehicle. I said two and he asked if there are firearms in there or drugs, and I said no drugs, but there are a couple of firearms. I told him they were locked, disassembled, and kept separate from the ammo.

And he seemed all right with that and then he asked the other occupants to merge, so Adam Mueller, the third part of our Motorhome Diaries crew emerged with a video camera in his hands and the officer asked him about it and Adam basically said, “You know, I’m filming just to make sure everyone is held accountable,” and the officer advised him to stand behind his vehicle and then he asked Jason to step out of the vehicle.

So Jason came out and Jason was told to stand in front of the RV, so basically we’re all kind of separated and at that time, a second officer appeared and walked directly towards Adam with the video camera and asked what he is doing and before Adam had a chance to fully respond, the officer had ripped the camera out of his hand and cuffed him and they’d put him at the back of the car.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Now, let me just interrupt you at this point. Where were you coming from, where were you going to, what are or what is Motorhome Diaries, and why do you think the cops roughed you guys up?

Pete Eyre: Well, there’s a lot of questions there. Basically, we’re coming from… basically the Motorhome Diaries is… Jason and I had previously worked at Libertarian Think Tank World, so we can have a bigger impact from taking our message from K Street to Main Street, USA. The message that people should be free to act as long as they don’t initiate force against others. So bought an RV. We got Adam Mueller who moved in and we’re traveling around the country and meeting with freedom-loving people; people that reject government violence and in favor of voluntary society. We, yeah, basically we have real-time documentary. We videotape people who share their stories and hope that, you know, to motivate other people and hopefully then can learn from each other.

So we had just come from New Orleans where we had a really good meet up with a lot of liberty minded people and then we were driving to Nashville, Tennessee for a meet up there and along the way, we got pulled over.

So basically, we’re peaceful travelers and I was pretty cooperative with Officer Atkins. He pulled me over. After they’d put Adam at the back of the car, another officer arrives and they asked Jason to produce identification and because he was a passenger, he didn’t feel the need to do so.

You know, he respectfully and politely declined. They asked him three times, and then they asked him to put his hands on the RV and he did not do so. They put Jason in a chokehold and pepper sprayed him. They took him and tackled him and took him to the ground and then arrested him.

Then they brought a K-9 officer and, you know, they kept asking me if we had any drugs or anything like that and I said that I’d already answered these questions. Are we free to go, are we free to go?

And they eventually, the K-9 officer threatened me with… he said, “I’m going to get the ATF involved. You’re going to face some time like 10 years in federal prison for transporting firearms and I said, “Hey, I believe I am operating within the law and if I’m not, maybe they’ll allow me to be changed.”

But, you know, he asked me, “Well, you can tell me if there’s drugs. Maybe they’re not yours, maybe they’re with these other guys.”

But they ended up bringing the dog around. I did not consent to a search. So he brought the dog around. He said the dog was triggered and I said, “Well, I know, you know, in some instances, dogs can be trained to be triggered by their handlers,” and he got up in my face and said, “Are you calling me a liar? Are you calling my dog a liar?”

But they ended up searching the RV, externally and internally, and basically ripping it apart without a warrant, and then I was brought to the jail as well where Adam and Jason already were, so we were kept in a cage there for about 10 hours. We got pulled over at 9:30 in the morning.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Was one of you sprayed with mace in your eyes?

Pete Eyre: Yeah, Jason was. That’s correct.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: All right. You know, my producer, George Szucs, called the Sheriff’s Department and asked them to participate in the show and, of course, they wouldn’t. He asked them for a statement, which they said they

But Jason, I think you’ve found some absurd statement in the local newspaper from this sheriff probably in anticipation of the litigation that I hope you guys will file.

But did they ever say anything publicly about why they stopped you, why they arrested you, why they threatened you with dogs, why they sprayed you with mace, why they ripped apart the RV just because you had an out-of-state license tag on your vehicle?

Jason Talley: Well, Judge, we’re hoping that maybe you can represent us in court, but we can talk about that later.

But the officer, the sheriff there at Jones County, he said that “we had no idea what their plans were” and this is a statement that he gave to the local newspaper as justification for why they, like Pete said, pepper sprayed me, choked me, tackled me, confiscated our camera, something he didn’t mention was that they had our camera and they told us that we would get it back on our court date.

But then when we went in to our RV, which was completely ransacked and things were broken inside, the camera was there. The footage that Adam took, about five minutes’ worth, was deleted.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Was there obvious evidence inside the vehicle that you guys are libertarians, civil libertarians, freedom-loving people, Ron Paul supporters, supporters of the Free State in New Hampshire. Was that obvious to these cops as they and their dogs were ripping your RV apart?

Jason Talley: Well, here’s the interesting thing, we always had plans to modify our RV. Actually, we painted it just yesterday and so now, it looks like a libertarian mobile.

But at that time, it looks like a bunch of the members of AARP could be driving around this. Now, we’re young people and some people say that we might have been profiled because we were young people driving in this RV, but when they walked inside illegally without a warrant, of course, one of the officers saw some of our stickers because we were originally sponsored by Libertystickers.com.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Wow.

Jason Talley: And I mean, the entire inside is saturated with pro-freedom stickers, a lot of Ron Paul stuff and so he was like, “Oh, I knew it. I know what kind of guys you are.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano: I know what kind of guys you are.

Jason Talley: And so, yeah…

Judge Andrew Napolitano: We have a lot of listeners and viewers who have been sending their tweets and, of course, you’re aware of the support that has come to you from all across the country, but my colleague, Shelly Roche, has some tweets and some e-mails for the two of you.

Shelly Roche: The biggest question I’m getting is both for the Judge and for the Motorhome Diaries’ crew that, “How do we know what our rights are in this situation? What should we do? What are we obligated to tell to the police if they pull us over? And then, you know, what happens next?”

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Let me give you just a little bit of advice and your timing was bad. You should have gotten arrested a week later. I’m kidding because a week after this incident, the Supreme Court of the United States came down with an opinion called Arizona vs Gant, which said that the police cannot inspect a vehicle or the contents of the vehicle on the basis of a motor vehicle stop.

Now, that’s already the law in some states on the basis of state law and the state constitution, but obviously not in Mississippi. It is now the law of the land.

You will be able to use that case when and if, and I hope you do, we’ll talk about it off the air, of course, sue these guys in a federal court, but it now is absolutely unlawful for them even to ask to go inside the motor vehicle without probable cause of crime, something they see with their own eyes.

Anything else you want to tell us before we wrap up, Pete?

Pete Eyre: Yeah, this is Pete again. I just want to echo what Shelly said about the support we have. Right before Jason got arrested, he was able to take a picture, send out a tweet, and that was the last communication we had with the outside world for about 12 hours and the support we received was just amazing.

It really showed the strength of the freedom movement. We had some people step up and we raised a few grand in a just a few hours to post our bonds and get our RV out of there, and the phone calls, we got 300 to 500 phone calls to the jail, the sheriff’s office, the attorney general and governor.

So from the bottom our hearts, thank you to all of you and hopefully this helps inspire other people to stand up for their rights knowing that the community is there.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Well, we just want you to respond to one more twit and you probably should know we have Motorhomediaries.com up in the screen. Well, what is the e-mail or what is the website for people that want to follow the progress of this case and support you?

Pete Eyre: Motorhomediaries.com is our main website, but they could go to Motorhomediaries.com/jonescounty. We are keeping track of what’s happening.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Right.

Pete Eyre: Because we feel… I mean, we’re lucky, right? We know our rights and we stood up for them, but motorists all the time in Jones County are getting harassed, whether they’re out of towners like us or they’re residents.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Got it.

Pete Eyre: So we’re going to be back in their community. We’ve decided we’re going to spend a week there and we’re going to do some live video, talking to the residents there, people who have or had problems with the Sheriff’s Department, and it just like… it will also show the good side about the Jones County community.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Well said.

Pete Eyre: There are some great people there. They just have a very bad sheriff.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: The camera is the new gun today and it’s absolutely lawful in Mississippi and in any state of the Union to film the police when they are in public and just keep those cameras rolling.

Shelly has one more tweet for you, and then we’re off the air until next week and I hope you guys will come back.

Shelly Roche: Yeah, so now, a lot of people are asking what’s next for you and you kind of talked about that you’re going to be spending some time back there and educating the people and I think that’s what I’m getting a lot of feedback about, you know, what happens next? You know, what do we do in this situation and just to make sure that you document what you’re doing and share that with your network of people.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: I think you should knock on the doors of the homes of the police that tormented you and have the cameras rolling and just shake their hands and say, “Hey, why did you do this to me?”

Everybody would want to see those tapes. Jason Talley, Pete Eyre, thanks very much for joining us. Good luck. Stay in touch with us. You know how to reach me through my producer and we have a lot more to talk about off air.

Pete Eyre: Thanks, Judge, we’ll do.

Judge Andrew Napolitano: Thank you, guys. That’s it for Freedom Watch. Do we have the great Eric Bolling here? Is he ready to take this camera and to take this chair from me? No, he’s not here. All right. You’re going to have to wait for him. Until next Wednesday at 2 o’clock Eastern, 11 o’clock in the West, stay free.

You did it!! Thanks to your support, “Freedom Watch” with Judge Napolitano, Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and more is FINALLY being considered for an open time slot on Fox News Channel.

They’ll make the decision soon, and we’re up against some big name shows, so we’re not quite there yet. We need one more concerted effort to:

1. Flood them with emails requesting the show

and

2. Bump the viewcounts on YouTube AND the Fox website.

Watch on YouTube:
http://bit.ly/EVUvn

Watch on Fox website:
http://is.gd/BPOx

********************
Send as many emails as you can, get your friends to send… here’s the address:

yourcomments@foxnews.com

Here’s a sample email you can cut and paste (from Austin Petersen of the LP):

To Whom it May concern:

I am writing today to request that Judge Napolitano’s Freedom Watch be given a chance to be aired on Fox News Channel.

There are so many people out there I believe that would watch it because there just aren’t any shows that really cater to independent minded people like me who care about things like personal and economic freedom.

Having a show like this on television would really be exciting and I would definitely watch it and get my friends and family to watch it too. Fox would be opening up a whole new market and bring in lots of new viewers! Please put it on air!

Thank you!

***********************
THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR EFFORTS… This is the closest we’ve ever been to having our message heard by millions every week.

Shelly

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