Summary
âž¡ This text discusses the ongoing conflict between government power and individual freedom, highlighting the dangers of excessive government control and the importance of liberty. It emphasizes the need for a more sophisticated understanding of the market economy and the limitations of government power. The text also explores the concept of liberty, its evolution over centuries, and its current debates. Lastly, it touches on controversial topics like abortion, urging readers to think critically about these issues, with the ultimate goal being liberty and the opportunity for individuals to provide for themselves.
âž¡ The article discusses the moral and legal complexities of abortion, arguing that it’s more of a social issue than a legal one. It highlights the inconsistency in how society values a fetus before and after birth, and questions why economic reasons often outweigh moral considerations in decisions about abortion. The author suggests that the availability of abortion may increase unwanted pregnancies and diminish respect for life and liberty. They propose that the issue should be handled at the state level, rather than nationally, and that society needs to change its attitudes towards abortion, rather than relying on laws to do so.
âž¡ The text discusses the author’s advice for medical professionals to avoid participating in actions that disrespect life, such as abortions, euthanasia, and torture. It also criticizes the fear tactics used by the government to control citizens and justify immoral actions like torture and assassination. The author argues against the misuse of power by the government, including the manipulation of elections and the overreach into personal lives. Lastly, it questions the contradictory views on life preservation, such as supporting the death penalty while opposing abortion.
âž¡ The author has changed their stance on the death penalty after witnessing the government’s mistakes and potential for abuse of power. They argue that the death penalty often unfairly targets the poor and innocent, while the rich and guilty can avoid it. They suggest life imprisonment as a safer alternative, as it allows for the possibility of correcting wrongful convictions. The author also criticizes the government’s use of the death penalty against its enemies, and calls for a more peaceful society that values human life.
âž¡ The speaker is tired but committed to providing content for their audience. They plan to upload several videos about historical topics and will continue their regular shows. They appreciate their audience’s support and look forward to interacting with them the next day.
Transcript
I do feel bad, but I wouldn’t. Nothing I could do. So, anyway, let me just kind of refresh this thing and make sure it is live, and I am live. Um, anyway. Okay. Yeah, kind of. All right. I’m good. All right. So, tonight, um, well, and I don’t know, just out of curiosity, did you guys, like the. The new, like, holder, the placeholder? It’s. It’s, like, got a two minute loop. And so I did another. I did another song, uh, another Pink Floyd song, and I thought instead of doing a space shot, I would do. For a shot of, like, space, I would do New York in, like, 1900, and it’s like.
I think it’s, like, 1901 or 1902 or something. So, anyway, just. I thought it was kind of cool. So, anyway, just trying some new stuff. But anyway, let’s see. Let’s go ahead and jump into liberty. Define this is liberty to find the book by Ron Paul. And it’s. I like this book because it is. Hello, Yarn. How you doing? I like this book because it’s. It really gives a clear definition about what real liberty is and some of these issues. So, the reason that I was running a little bit late is because I was scanning this book, the portion that I wanted to get done today, and it was.
Anyway, it was proving to be a little more challenging than I anticipated, so I spent the better part of the hour getting this done. So, anyway, I didn’t get everything that I wanted, but I got enough to at least get a good hour in tonight. So let’s go ahead and jump into this. This is essentially going to lay the foundation for what I want to do and how I want to go with what I said, mentioned last week, how I want to get into the. Kind of, like the. From reconstruction all the way up through the progressive era, kind of really dive deep into a lot of those, into that time frame, that era, and see just how far off the rails we’ve been for as long, you know, how long it’s been since we’ve been so far off the rails.
But let’s see. Let me bring this in. Okay? Let me make this bigger. Okay. So this is the introduction. America’s history and political ethos are all about liberty. The Declaration of Independence declares that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are unalienable rights. But I believe that both life and the pursuit of happiness also depend on liberty as a fundamental bedrock of our country. We use the word almost as a cliche, but do we know what it means? Can we recognize it when we see it? More importantly, can we recognize the opposite of liberty when it is sold to us as a form of freedom? Liberty means to exercise human rights in any manner a person chooses, so long as it does not interfere with the exercise of the rights of others.
This means, above all else, keeping government out of our lives. Only this path leads to the unleashing of human energies that build civilization, provide security, generate wealth, and protect the people from systemic, or, excuse me, from systematic rights violations. In this case, only liberty can truly ward off tyranny, the great and eternal foe of mankind. The definition of liberty I use is the same one that was accepted by Thomas Jefferson and his generation. It is the understanding derived from the great freedom tradition. For Jefferson himself took his understanding from John Locke, 1632 to 817. Oh four.
I use the term liberal without any irony or contempt for the liberal tradition in the true sense. Dating from the late Middle Ages until the early part of the 20th century, was devoted to freeing society from the shackles of the state. This is an agenda I embrace, and one that I believe all Americans should embrace. It’s interesting, and I’m gonna. This is just a personal note. Um, I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we use the term liberal appropriately today. Liberal is code for a marxist or a leftist or somebody who is, um, you know, hardcore wanting to push tyranny.
But liberal in the classical liberal sense is somebody who is really, um, you know, pro liberty. Uh, and almost. I. Maybe the proper term would be libertarian. So. And I. And that’s kind of what he’s saying here. To believe in liberty is not to believe in any particular social and economic outcome. It is to trust and the spontaneous order that emerges when the state does not intervene in human violation and human operation. It permits people to work out their problems for themselves, build lives for themselves, take risks and accept responsibility for the results and make their own decisions.
Do our leaders in Washington believe in liberty? They sometimes say they do. I don’t think they are telling the truth. The existence of the wealth extracting Leviathan state in Washington DC, a cartoonishly massive machinery that no one can control, and yet few ever seriously challenge a monster that is constant presence in every aspect of our lives. It is proof enough that our leaders do not believe neither party is truly dedicated to the classical fundamental ideals that gave rise to the American Revolution. Of course, the costs of this leviathan are incalculably large. The 20th century endured two world wars, a worldwide depression, and four at a 45 year cold war, with the two superpowers facing off with tens of thousands of intercontinental missiles armed with nuclear warheads.
And yet, the threat of government today, all over the world may well present a greater danger than anything that occurred in the 20th century. We are policed everywhere we go, work, shopping, home and church. Nothing is private anymore. Not property, not family, not even our houses of worship. We are encouraged to spy on each other and to stand passively as government agents scan us, harass us, and put us in our place day after day. If you object, you are put on a hit list. If you fight to reveal the truth, as WikiLeaks or other websites have done, you are targeted and can be crushed.
Sometimes it seems as if we are living in a dystopian novel like 1984 or brave new world, complete with ever the with ever less economic freedom. Some will say that this is hyperbole. Others will understand exactly what I’m talking about. What is at stake is the american dream itself, which in turn is wrapped up with our standard of living. Too often we underestimate what the phrase standard of living really means. In my mind, it deals directly with all issues that affect our material well being and therefore affects our outlook on the life itself. Whether we are hopeful or despairing, whether we expect progression or regression, whether we think our children will be better off or worse off than we are.
All of these considerations go to the heart of the idea of happiness. The phrase standard of living comprises nearly all we expect out of life on this earth. It is simply how we are able to define our lives. Our standard of livings, our standards of living, are made possible by the blessed institution of liberty. When liberty is under attack, everything we hold dear is under attack. Governments, by their very nature, notoriously compete with liberty, even when the stated purpose for establishing a particular government is to protect liberty. Take the United States, for example. Our country was established with the greatest ideals and respect for individual freedom ever known.
Yet look at where we are today. Runaway spending and uncontrollable debt a monstrous bureaucracy regulating our every move, total disregard for private property, free markets, sound money and personal privacy, and a foreign policy of military expansionism. The restraints placed on our government and the constitution by the founders did not work. Powerful special interests rule, and there seems to be no way to fight against them. While the middle class is being destroyed, the poor suffer, the just, the justly rich are being looted, and the unjustly rich are getting richer. The wealth of the country has fallen into the hands of a few at the expense of the many.
Some say this is because of the lack of regulations on Wall street. But that’s not right. The root of this issue reaches far deeper than that. The threat to liberty is not limited to the United States dollar or to the United States dollar. Ah, the threat of liberty is not limited to the United States dollar. Hegemony has globalized the crisis. Nothing like this has ever happened before. All economies are interlated. Ah, getting frustrated. All economies are interrelated and dependent upon the dollar maintaining its value, while at the same time, the endless expansion of the dollar money supply is expected to bail out everyone.
This dollar globalization is made more dangerous by nearly all governments acting irresponsibly by expanding their powers and living beyond their means. Worldwide debt is a problem that will continue to grow if we continue on this path. Yet all governments, and especially ours, do not hesitate to further expand their powers at the expense of liberty. In a futile effort to force an outcome of their design on us, they simply expand and plummet further into debt. Understanding how governments always compete with liberty and destroy progress, creativity, and prosperity is crucial to our effort to reverse the course on the which we find ourselves.
The contest between abusive government power and individual freedom is an age old problem. The concept of liberty, recognized as a natural right, has required thousands of years to be understood by the masses in reaction to tyranny imposed by those who only desire to rule over others and live off of their enslavement. This conflict was understood by the defenders of the Roman Republic, the Israelites of the Old Testament, the rebellious barons of 1215, who demanded the right of habeas corpus, and certainly by the founders of this country, who imagined a possibility of a society without kings and despots, and thereby establish a framework that has inspired liberation movements ever since.
It is understood by growing numbers of Americans who are crying out for answers and demanding an end to Washington’s hegemony over the country and the world. And yet, even among friends of liberty, many people are deceived into believing that government can make them safe from all harm, provide fairly distributed economic security, and improve individual moral behavior. If the government is granted a monopoly on the use of force to achieve these goals, history shows that that power is always abused every single time. Over the centuries, progress has been made in understanding the concept of individual liberty and the need to constrain, remain, and constantly remain vigilant in order to limit government’s abuse of its powers through steady progress.
Pardon me. Though steady progress has been made, periodic setbacks and stagnations have occurred. For the past 100 years. The United States and most of the world have witnessed a setback for the cause of liberty. Despite all the advances in technology, despite a more refined understanding of the rights of minorities, despite all of the economic advances, the individual has far less protection against the state than a century ago. Since the beginning of the last century, many seeds of destruction have been planted and are now maturing into the systematic assault on our freedoms. With a horrendous financial and currency crisis both upon us and the looming into the future.
As far as the eye can see, it has become quite apparent that the national debt is unsustainable, liberty is threatened, and people’s anger and fears are growing. Most importantly, it is now clear that government promises and panaceas are worthless. Government has once again failed, and the demand for change is growing louder by the day. Just witness the dramatic back and forth swings of the parties in power. The only thing that promises of that the promises of government did was to delude the people into a false sense of security. Complacency and mistrust generated a tremendous moral hazardous, causing dangerous behavior by a large number of people.
Self reliance and individual responsibility were replaced by organized thugs who weaseled their way into achieving control over the process whereby they looted wealth of the country. Whereby the looted wealth of the country was distributed. The choice we now face further steps toward authoritarianism or a renewed effort in promoting the cause of liberty. There is no third option. This course must incorporate a modern and more sophisticated understanding of the magnificence of the market economy, especially the moral and practical urgency of monetary reform. The abysmal shortcomings of a government power that undermines the creative genius of free minds and private property must be fully understood.
This conflict between government and liberty, brought to a boiling point by the world’s biggest bankruptcy in history, has generated the angry protests that have spontaneously broken out around the country and the world. The product. Excuse me. The producers are rebelling, and the recipients of the largesse are angry and restless. The crisis demands an intellectual revolution. Fortunately, this revolution is underway and if no one, excuse me, and if one earnestly looks for it, it can be found. Participation in it is open to everyone. Not only have our ideas of liberty developed over centuries, they are currently being eagerly debated, and a modern, advanced understanding of the concepts is on the horizon.
The revolution is alive and well. The idea of this book is not to provide a blueprint for the future or an all encompassing defense of a libertarian program. But I offer here our thoughts on a series of controversial topics that tend to confuse people, and these are interpreted in light of my own experience and my thinking. I present not final answers, but rather guide points for thinking seriously about these topics. I certainly do not expect every reader to agree with my beliefs, but I do hope that I can inspire serious, fundamental, and independent minded thinking and debate on them.
Above all, the theme is liberty. The goal is liberty. The results of liberty are all the things we love, none of which can be finally provided by government. We must have the opportunity to provide them for ourselves as individuals, as families, as a society, and as a country. And off we go, a to z. And so what he’s done here, um, on Liberty defined is he’s done these in alphabetical order. And the first one, miraculously, is abortion. So this is going to be interesting. It’s been a long time since I’ve read this book. So, um, I feel like if you haven’t, you know, after a certain period of time, if you don’t pick up a book after a while and then you do, it’s like, okay, uh.
It’s almost like it’s brand new again. So on one occasion in the 1960s, when abortion was still illegal, I witnessed, while visiting a surgical suite as an Ob Gyn resident, the abortion of a fetus that weighed approximately two pounds. It was placed in a bucket, crying and struggling to breathe, and the medical personnel pretended not to notice. Soon, the crying stopped. This harrowing event forced me to think more seriously about this important issue. That same day in the Ob suite, an elderly, an early delivery occurred, and the infant born was only slightly larger than the one that just was aborted.
But in this room, everybody did everything conceivable to save this child’s life. My conclusion that day was that we were overstepping the bounds of morality by picking and choosing who should live and who should die. These were human lives. There was no consistent moral basis to the value of life under these circumstances. Some people believe that being pro choice is being on the side of freedom. I’ve never understood how an act of violence, killing a human being, albeit a small one in a special place is portrayed as a precious right. To speak only of the mother’s cost in carrying a baby to term ignores all the thought of any legal rights of the unborn.
I believe that the moral consequence of cavalierly accepting abortion diminishes the value of all life. It is now widely accepted that there is a constitutional right to abort a human fetus. Of course, the constitution says nothing about abortion, murder, manslaughter, or any other acts of violence. There are only four crimes listed in the constitution, counterfeiting, excuse me, counterfeiting, piracy, treason, and slavery. Criminal and civil laws are deliberately left to the states. It is a giant leap for the federal courts to declare abortion a constitutional right and overrule all state laws regulating their the procedure. If anything, the federal government has a responsibility to protect life, not grant permission to destroy it.
If a state were to legalize infanticide, it could be charged with not maintaining a republican form of government, which is required by the Constitution. And that is true. That’s the only thing that the that the constitution requires of the states is that they have a republican form of government. If we, for the sake of discussing a discussion, ignore the legal arguments for or against abortion and have no laws prohibiting it, serious social ramifications would remain. There are still profound moral issues, issues of consent, and fundamental questions about the origin of life and the rights of individuals.
There are two arguments that clash. Some argue that any abortion after conception should be illegal. Others argue that a mother has a right to her body and no one should interfere with her decision. It’s amazing to me that many people I have spoken to in the pro choice group rarely care about the choice in other circumstances. Almost all regulations by the federal government to protect us from ourselves, laws against smoking, bans on narcotics, and mandatory seatbelts, for example, are readily supported by the left liberals who demand choice. Of course, the pro choice group, the precious choice we debate is limited to the mother and not to the unborn.
The fact that it is the fetus has legal rights, inheritance, a right not to be injured or aborted by unwise medical treatment, violence, or accidents. Ignoring these rights is arbitrary and places relative rights on a small, living human being. The only issue that should be debated is the moral one, whether or not a fetus has any right to life. Scientifically, there’s no debate over whether the fetus is alive or and human. If not killed, it matures into an adult human being. It’s that simple. So the timeline when of when we consider a fetus human is arbitrary.
After conception. In my mind, it’s inherent. It’s interesting to hear the strongest supporters of abortion squirm when asked if they support the mother’s right to an abortion in the 9th month of pregnancy. They inevitably don’t support such an act. But every argument that is made for abortion in the first month is applicable to the late pregnancy as well. It’s still the mother’s body. It’s still her choice. Due to changed circumstances, she may well have strong, compelling social reasons to prevent a live birth and assume its obligations even in the third trimester. This is the dilemma for the proponents of the of choice, and they should be challenged as to where the line should be drawn.
Another aspect of this debate needs to be resolved. If an abortion doctor performs a third trimester abortion, for whatever reason, a handsome fee is paid and is perfectly legal in some states. If a frightened teenager, possibly not even knowing she was pregnant, delivers a baby and she kills it, the police are out en masse to charge her with a homicide. What really is so different between the fetus 1 minute before birth and a newborn 1 minute after birth? Biologically and morally, nothing. We must also answer the grim question of what should be done with a newborn that inadvertently survives an abortion.
It happens more than you might think. Doctors have been accused of murder since the baby died after delivery. But that hardly seems just. The real question is, how can a human infant have such a such relative value attached to it? And the age of abortion, with nearly a million being performed each year in the United States, society sends a signal that we place a lower value on the small and the weak. Most young people choose abortions for economic reasons. They believe that they cannot afford to bear the child and would rather wait. Why is it that moral considerations do not trump such fears? Why do these women not consider other options, such as adoption, more seriously? They’ve been taught by society that an unwanted fetus baby has no rights to life and therefore have no real value.
And why do so many young women put themselves at risk for having to make such choices in the first place? Availability of abortion most likely changes behavior and actually increases unwanted pregnancies. The difference, or lack thereof, between a baby 1 minute after birth and 1 minute before needs to be quantified. The Congress or the courts are incapable of doing this. This is a profound issue to be determined by society itself, based on the moral based on the moral value it espouses. Abortion is rarely a long term answer. A woman who has had one is more likely to have another.
It is easier. It’s an easier solution than a change in long developed personal behavior. My argument is that the abortion problem is more of a social and moral issue than it is a legal one. In the 1960s, when I was my in my Ob Gyn residency training, abortions were being done in defiance of the law. Society had changed, and the more and the majority agreed, the laws should be changed as well. The Supreme Court in 1973 and Roe v. Wade caught up with the changes in moral standards. So if we are ever to have fewer abortions, society must change again.
The law will not accomplish that. However, that does not mean that the states shouldn’t be allowed to write laws dealing with abortion. Very early pregnancies and victims of rape can be treated with the day after pill, which is nothing more than using birth control pills in a special manner. These very early pregnancies could never be policed. Regardless, such circumstances would be dealt with by each individual making his or home his or her her own moral choice. As a bankrupt government takes over more of our healthcare. Rationing of healthcare by government mandate is unavoidable. Picking and choosing who should live and who should die may sound morally repugnant, but this is where we end up.
In a world with scarce means and politically driven decisions about how those means are going to be employed. The federal government will remain very much involved in the abortion business, either directly or indirectly, by financing it. One thing I believe for certain is that the federal government should never tax pro life citizens to pay for abortions. The constant effort by the pro choice crowd to fund abortion must rank among the stupidest policies ever. Even from their own viewpoint, all they accomplish is to give valiant motivation for all pro life forces, as well as the anti tax supporters of abortion, to fight against them.
A society that readily condones abortion invites a tax on personal liberty. If all life is not precious, how can all liberty be held up as important? It seems that if some life can be thrown away, our right to personally choose what we what is best for us is more difficult to defend. I’ve become convinced that resolving this the abortion issue is required for a healthy defense of a free society. The availability and frequent use of abortion has caused many young people to change their behavior if its legalization and general acceptance has not had a favorable influence on society.
Instead, it has resulted in a diminished respect for both life and liberty. Strangely, given that my moral views are akin to theirs, various national pro life groups have been hostile to my position on this issue, but I also believe in the constitution, and therefore I consider it a state level responsibility to restrain violence against any human being I disagree with the nationalized nation, with the nationalization of the issue, and reject the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in all 50 states. Legalization that I have proposed would limit federal court jurisdiction of abortion. Legalization of this sort would probably allow state prohibition of abortion on demand as well as an as in all trimesters.
It will not stop all abortions. Only a truly moral society can do that. The pro life opponents to my approach are less respectful of the rule of law and the Constitution. Instead of admitting wait a second here. Okay, never mind. Sorry, I thought, I thought that I read that. I saw the page eight in there and I was going backwards. The pro life opponents to my approach are less respectful of the rule of law and to the Constitution. Did I read this? Instead of admitting that my position allows the states to minimize or ban abortions, they claim that my position supports the legalization of abortion by the states.
This is twisted logic. Demanding a national, and only a national solution, as some do, gives credence to the very process that made abortions so prevalent. Ending nationally illegalized abortions by the federal court order is neither a practical answer to the problem nor a constitutionally sound argument. Removing jurisdiction from the federal courts can be done with a majority vote in the Congress and signature of the president. This is much simpler than waiting for the Supreme Court to repeal Roe v. Wade or for a constitutional amendment. My guess is that the scurrilous attacks by these groups are intended more to discredit my entire defense of liberty and the Constitution than they do than they are to deal with the issue of abortion.
These same groups have very little interest in being pro life when it comes to fighting illegal, undeclared wars in the Middle East. Orlando preventive or slash aggressive? Worse for religious reasons. An interesting paradox. My position does not oppose looking for certain judges to be appointed to the Supreme Court or even having a consult constitutional definition of life. Removing the jurisdiction from the federal courts would result in fewer abortions much sooner, but it wouldn’t prevent a national effort to change the Supreme Court or the Constitution by amendment. And it makes one wonder why the resistance to a practical and constitutional approach to this problem is so strong.
Just about everyone knows that the hippocratic oath includes the pledge not to do abortions. In the 1960s, most medical schools, rather than face the issue, just drop the tradition of medical school graduating seniors repeating the oath. The class of my class of 1961 ignore the oath at graduation. Just think the oath survived for so many years and then ended right before the drug. Right before the drug and Vietnam war culture when it was most desperately needed. By 1988, when my son, doctor Rand Paul’s grant doctor Rand Paul, graduated, the oath was made voluntary in a special back baccalaureate ceremony.
But strangely, the oaths were edited to exclude the provisions pledging not to do an abortion. Today, sadly, medical school applicants in some schools are screened and can be rejected, or at least intimidated on this issue. As a pro life, libertarian physician, my strong advice, regardless of what is legal, is for medical personnel to just say no to participation in any procedure or process that is pro death or diminishes respect for life in any way. Let the lawyers and the politicians and I, mercenary, unethical doctors deal with implementing laws regulating death, deregulation, or deregulating the adoption market would also make a margin of difference in reducing abortion.
This would make it easier for nonprofit groups to arrange for adoptive parents and for them to compensate the mother enough to absorb the expenses and opportunity costs associated with carrying the child to terminal. Small changes could make a large difference here. Finally, here is my program for pro life mds and medical personnel. Do not perform abortions for convenience or social reasons. Do not be the agent of active euthanasia. Do not participate in any manner, directly or indirectly, in torture. Do not participate in human experimentation. I’m not referring to testing new drugs with the patient’s consent. I’m speaking of our long history of military participation in human experimentation.
The Tuskegee experiment, in which black soldiers who had syphilis were deliberately mistreated, is one example. Do not be involved. Excuse me. Do not be involved with the state in executing criminals or in any way approve the carrying out of the death penalty. Do not participate in government run programs where medical care is rationed for economic or social reasons that place relative value on life. Do not give political or philosophical support for wars of aggression, referred to as preventative wars. All right, let’s see here. Um, yeah, this is. How you doing there, Porter belt? Yeah, I am back.
All right, the next is assassination. A foreign policy that endorses worldwide intervention and occupation requires that people live in perpetual fear of a supposed enemy or of supposed enemies. And the post 911 period proponents. And by the way, this is this book. I think I’m going to pause it here for a second. I believe this book was written. Actually, I have it right here. Let’s see that. So, the first edition was 2011, and I think this is the. Yeah, I think this is the. This is the first edition. It says first trade edition was January 2012.
So this is from 2012. Liberty defined. All right, so I’ll start over here. A foreign policy that endorses worldwide intervention and occupation requires that people live in perpetual fear of supposed enemies. In the post 911 period, proponents of such policies have been quite able to promote the fear needed for the american people to accept policies they otherwise would have rebelled against. Fear has enabled permanent Runway domestic surveillance and the sacrifice of privacy through legislation such as the Patriot Act. A citizen walking through the airport today is bombarded with 1984 style propaganda messages that are designed to make us fear some amorphous threat that also be suspicious and also to be suspicious of others.
I can attest, man, I. You know what? It’s been a minute since I’ve flown, and I flew this weekend. I flew yesterday, and, man, I’ll tell you what, going through the airport and security, it’s absolutely. It just. It. My blood boils, um, when I’m. When I see TSA, because they literally. They don’t give two shits that I actually think that they take joy in, you know, in putting us through all the shit that they do. I really do. I really believe that they. They take a measure of happiness when that happens. Anyway. Fear has enabled a.
See, a citizen walking through the airport already read that the government. The government designs these messages to make us feel dependent and heavily lorded over in every aspect of our lives. These messages are becoming ever more pervasive, hitting us even in grocery stores when we are shopping. If we are fearful enough, we will willingly. We are willing to tolerate what might otherwise be regarded as immoral means of dealing with the enemy. For example, the use of torture to combat evildoers has been accepted by a large number of otherwise reasonable Americans as a result of those who purposely successfully used fear as a tactic to achieve their mischievous goals.
And now we are moving toward the acceptance of assassinations of american citizens as necessary to provide national security. As I will be, as I will show below. This, to me, signifies that we are no longer a nation of laws, but rather a nation of people who act outside the law without restraint. The corruption in ideals has been so grave that many conservatives regarding regard criticism of assassination as a sign of liberal wimpiness and sentimentality. In fact, we are dealing with the fundamental issue of human rights. Here we are told that we are at war against terrorism.
Yet terrorism is a tactic and described in federal law as a crime. The war is worldwide, so lawlessness by our government can be perpetrated anywhere in the world, including within the borders of the United States. In wartime, the government assumes greater emergency powers to make secret arrests, build secret prisons, torture and the use of secret rendition, allowing other, more ruthless countries to do our dirty work. The term war on terror should never be used as anything more than a cliche like war on drugs, poverty, illiteracy, et cetera. But it is used. But. But its use is deliberate, even in these symbolic usages, to.
Can, um. To con the people into thinking that all citizens must cooperate and sacrifice our liberties to win the war. These. Excuse me. Though these violations are fully endorsed by the Obama administration, they were introduced and generally used by the Bush administration. We’ve moved much further along in the dis and the disintegration of american jurisprudence. Indefinite detention without charges or a right to counsel is now an established precedent for should be legally barred from influencing opinion. The rights of the media are not consequential considering how the media can make or destroy a candidate with biased reporting, especially close to elections.
Boy, ain’t that the truth. Do you guys see what’s going on with that guy from North Carolina? I guess they found. Allegedly, they found some messages that he said from, like, ten years ago where he was, like, going on some anti racial tirade or tirade or whatever. I mean, it’s just like Mark Rock. Mark. Mark Robinson, I think is his name. Anyway, it’s just. I mean, it’s like, really, really. Timing is very suspicious. This whole complex issue is nothing more than a predictable consequence of government overreach and a flawed attempt to rectify what appears to be an injustice.
Sadly, any effort to remove the incentive by government simply by shaping, or, excuse me, by sharply reducing the size and scope of government, thereby making less available to buy in the first place, would be met with great resistance from both liberals and conservatives. The $2,400 campaign donation limit per person in federal elections makes no sense. How could it be that the right to support a candidate is arbitrary, limited to a dollar amount? And why that dollar amount? Yes, it is correct that the amount of money being spent on elections is obscene. But it is understandable to me, since much is to be gained by financially participating in the process.
Government is a growth industry, and tragically so. The real obscenity is the size of government and its intrusion into every aspect of our economic and personal lives, which generates the financial interest and involvement in the elections. Campaign laws simply won’t solve the problem, even if stricter laws are passed. The stakes are so great at the financing will just go underground or under the table as to not in, uh, enter and as. As is not infrequently done under the current conditions, the corruption is not eliminated it merely takes other forms. As bad as this process is, there is even worse solution offered.
Taxpayer financed elections talk about abusing rights. Can anyone or can one imagine the corruption of the tea party anger if those who are disgusted and angry would have to pay out of pocket for the campaign of two individuals they find grossly offensive. All right, and the next one is capital punishment. Again, for you guys who are just kind of recently joining, what I’m doing here is I’m going through the the book Liberty defined by Ron Paul. All right, let’s see. All right, I do not like the way this thing worked out, how it scanned believers in the omnipotence of state military power are enthusiastic supporters of the death penalty.
It’s strange to me that those who champion the best the rights of Preborn are generally the strongest supporters of the death penalty and preventive, that is, aggressive war. Ironically, those who find the death penalty and affront to life are usually the strongest supporters of abortion. I grant that there are. I grant that there certainly is a difference in the life being protected. One is totally innocent, the unborn, and the other usually a person convicted of a horrible crime like murder or rape. The difference of opinion is usually along the lines of conservative versus liberal. This is one issue in which my views have shifted in recent years, especially since being elected to Congress.
There was a time I simply stated that I supported the death penalty. Now my views are not so clearly defined. I do not support the federal death penalty, but constitutionally I cannot, as a federal officer, interfere with the individual states that impose it. After years spent in Washington, I have become more aware than ever of the government’s impetus, or, excuse me, ineptness and the likelihood of its making mistakes. I no longer trust the us government to invoke and carry out a death sentence under any conditions. Too many convictions, not necessarily federal, have been found to be in error, but only after years of incarcerating innocent people who later were released on DNA evidence.
Rich people, when guilty, are rarely found guilty and sentenced to death. Most people believe OJ Simpson was guilty of murder but went free. This leads to a situation where innocent people, let’s see where I just lost my place. This leads to a situation where innocent people without enough money are more likely to get the death penalty while the guilty, rich people with good lawyers, get off. For me, it’s much easier just to eliminate the ultimate penalty and incarcerate the guilty for life in case later evidence proves a mistaken conviction. The cost of incarceration is likely less than it is for the death penalty appeals drawn out not for.
Not for years, but for decades. This issue is not only about mistakes that governments make. It’s about the power they wield. If the government can legally kill, it can do just about anything else. Short of that, it’s no. I no longer believe that government should be trusted with this power. All power is likely to be abused, and disproportionately so, against the government’s own enemies. This is not to argue that some of the convicted are not truly guilty of the charges and deserve the death penalty, which they might have received, and instantaneously if caught in the midst of a violent, life threatening act against a loved one in someone’s home.
The ineptness of government, the mistakes it is capable of making, the innocent people convicted, the power rush that judges might get from taking away life, the advantage of the rich over the poor are not the only things that influenced my change in attitude. The numbing effect on the executioner, that is society, is also a factor. It contributes to the dehumanizing of society and the casual acceptance of the relative value of life. People realize this, and most want no part of the process, except maybe out of vengeance. Why are executions made sterile and easy? Nothing more than a medical procedure.
Would the public support execution by beheading on tv? No way. Killing in a deliberate manner, not out of immediate self defense, fortunately, is not something most people want to gloat over. If individuals do not want to watch or participate in it, it indicates there’s something uncivilized about it. Even the killing by our soldiers, though they have been conditioned to be killers, is a significant cause of psychological devastation and mental illness, which is obviously made worse when those killed are innocent by standards, written off as collateral damage. This is all tragic and indicates that taking life has consequences, even on the living.
The death penalty does not or does have an effect on the society that endorses it. The more civilized the society is, the more likely it has moved away from the casual or careless administration of the death penalty. The more authoritarian a government becomes, the greater the number of executions. Those who are vocal supporters of the right to life on the unborn should be encouraged to rethink the issue of a blanket support of the death penalty and their militant support for aggressive wars. The founders of this country, I would assume, supported the death penalty, though the way the constitution was written.
That decision was left to the individual states. They wrote only three federal crimes into the constitution, counterfeit treason, and piracy, with slavery, including involuntary servitude being added by the 13th Amendment and the Coinage act of 1792, the death penalty was authorized for counterfeiting the currency. This is not an unexpected application of government power over life and death. Too often it is used not against actual criminals, but rather enemies of the state. Consider the case of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. After he spread diplomatic documents, the long knives came out. Bill O’Reilly said that Assange was a traitor and should be executed.
Sarah Palin said that he ought to be targeted like a taliban. Ralph Peters of Fox News said, I would. I would execute leakers. Mike Huckabee said, I think anything less than the execution is too kind of penalty. Glenn Beck said Assange should be executed. G. Gordon Liddy said he should be put on the kill list. And the end. Assange is just one man with a laptop, and he was merely releasing what is true information that embarrassed many but harmed no one. And this is the man that so many think ought to be subject to the death penalty.
Government always uses its power to punish its own enemies, but its enemies are not necessarily our enemies. Plus, there is a terrible hypocrisy at work here. It is the government really the. Is government really the institution to stand in judgment? Just think of what it would be like if all those individuals in Washington responsible for counterfeiting our currency or forcing unconstitutional penalties on us through the tax system were to be punished with the death penalty. It wouldn’t be pretty. And, God, I hope that’s the case. Just putting it out there. It’s best we change our system rather than think such.
Rather than think people such as Assange or others digging for the truth are treasonous and should be executed through. Pardon me, though the individual states have discretion on how to punish those who commit violent crimes. At the national level, the consistent right to life position should be to protect the unborn and oppose abortion, to reject the death penalty and firmly oppose our foreign policy that promotes an empire requiring aggressive wars that involve thousands of innocent people being killed, we would all be better off for it. And a society dedicated to peace, human life, and prosperity would more than likely to be achieved.
All right, let’s see here. I’m at 49 minutes, so I’m gonna pause. I’m gonna, like, kind of end it there. And I just want to talk about a few of the things here. You know, when it comes to abortion, I. He makes some very good points, and I don’t want to rehash some of. Some of what he talked about in there, because it was. It was kind of graphic, but I don’t. I think it’s it’s, it’s, it’s helpful to be graphic sometimes. I’m not necessarily for the death penalty, because I I do believe that there are a lot of states that railroad people and what they do by railroading people.
You know, I know enough police, and I’ve seen enough stuff where police get it wrong. What they do is they’ll target an individual, and then, I mean, it’s like they find, they’ll find, they’ll find a person, and then they’ll make them fit the crime, and then they railroad them and do everything they can to make it so that this, so that the evidence supports that person. So, you know, in that respect, I understand what he’s talking about, and I don’t disagree. But in terms of the people who have been operating at government level and are responsible for all this crap that we’re fighting to deal with today, to me, I think they absolutely deserve the death penalty, and they deserve a very painful, slow, public death.
You know, all these people that have been, that are doing, you know, child trafficking or, you know, adrenochrome, you name it, stuff like that. Those people. I’m sorry. There’s not a, there’s not a place that I. There, there’s, there’s no safe place that would, that, that I could find for them. I say kill them all and do it. And do it in a way that is slow, painful and public. Make it so that they have to endure a grueling pain so that, you know, I don’t think that it should go on in perpetuity. But I think everybody involved with this thing that we’re fighting now definitely deserves the death penalty because they have wanted to enslave society.
So everyone should read the penal colony by Franz Kafka. That sounds interesting. That sounds very interesting. A thousand percent, Mel. Anybody who hurts a child should be. Yeah, exactly. I agree. Exactly. Yarn publicly as to be a warning. I could not agree more. The next topic he goes into is the Central intelligence Agency. And that, that actually gets, that’s actually kind of lengthy, and I want to keep it, I want to keep my videos a little bit shorter. So. Well, guys, I’m, I’ll tell you the truth. I’m, I have had a hell of a day. I intended to go a little bit longer, but I’m, but I’m just, I’m done.
I’m really done. I’m sure you guys can tell. I don’t know if you can see it on my face, but I’m really, really tired. So maybe you hear it in my voice. I don’t know. But anyway, I had to get out here to do a show for you guys today, so, and I’ll be back tomorrow, do the constitution and to do Tuesday with Mike. And I do intend on uploading the videos that I had talked about last week to lay the foundation of kind of the progressive era, the reconstruction, all that stuff. So anyway, guys, that said, I’m going to let you all enjoy the remainder of your evening.
I’m going to cut it short, a little bit short of the hour, but I’m just tired. So I appreciate everybody for tuning in. And I will see you guys tomorrow. Actually, we’ll probably do some stuff in the morning. I probably will upload about four or five videos tomorrow. So I hope everybody enjoys your evening, and I will chat with you manana. Have a good night, everybody.
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