Ron Paul Liberty Report
  • Home
  • Archives
  • About

Ukraine In NATO? Foreign Ministers Flex (Jaw) Muscles in Bucharest

11/30/2022

 
At the NATO foreign ministers summit in Bucharest this week, Member states talked tough about endless support for Ukraine "whatever it takes." They also reiterated a 2008 pledge to eventually welcome Ukraine as a Member. Are they serious? Also today: Biden's neocons are reportedly considering sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine despite Russian warnings that it would be a major escalation. How far will they go?
Picture
Watch Here

Finally! MSM Outlets Call For Charges Against Assange To Be Dropped

11/29/2022

 
Five major mainstream media outlets, including the New York Times, have issued a letter calling the US Administration to drop the charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Assange has been a political prisoner in the UK since 2019. Also today: Twitter announced an end to its Covid "misinformation" policy...and the White House freaks out. Also: More demands from global welfare queens in Ukraine.
Picture
Watch Here

Fauci's Back...And He Wants You To Take The Shot!

11/28/2022

 
No longer fearing the wrath of a Republican-controlled Senate, Tony "The Science" Fauci is settling into his post-retirement gig: making the rounds on mainstream news outlets hectoring Americans about taking more boosters. He's even threatening that schools might "need" to be shut down again. Also today: Republicans in the House call for MORE long-range missiles to Ukraine. Finally, Liz Cheney accused of politicizing the January 6th Committee.
Picture
Watch Here

Separate Tech and State

11/28/2022

 
Picture
By Ron Paul

Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) recently got in touch with his inner mobster and threatened Elon Musk — the new owner of Twitter and the CEO of electric car company Tesla and space ventures company SpaceX. He told Musk, “Fix your companies” or “Congress will.” As part of this threat, Markey referred to an ongoing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigation into Tesla’s autopilot driving system and Twitter’s 2011 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Markey has done more than make threats: He is one of a group of Democratic senators who wrote to the FTC urging an investigation into whether Musk’s actions as the new owner of Twitter violated the consent decree or consumer protection laws. Since FTC Chair Lina Khan wants to investigate as many businesses as possible, it is likely she will respond favorably to the senators’ letter.

President Biden has also endorsed an investigation into the role foreign investors played in financing Musk’s Twitter purchase. Biden may be concerned that Musk is not likely to ban tweets regarding Hunter Biden’s business deals.

Concerns that Musk would allow tweets containing information embarrassing (or worse) to the Biden administration point to the real reason many Democratic politicians and progressive writers and activists are attacking Musk. They support efforts to suppress conservative, libertarian, and other “non-woke” speech on social media. They view the prospect of a major platform refusing to silence those who dissent from the woke mob or the Democratic Party establishment as a threat to their power. Musk further angered the left by committing what, to many Democrats (and Liz Cheney), is the ultimate hate crime — allowing Donald Trump back on Twitter.

The threat against Musk shows the threat to liberty is not just from big tech; it is from the alliance between big tech and big government.

Some conservatives think that increasing government’s power over social media is the correct way to make big tech respect free speech. However, increasing the US government’s power over social media can just end up putting more power behind government threats like those from Rep. Markey. Expanded government control over how social media companies conduct their business can also further incentivize the companies to work with the federal government to shut down free speech.

Once the government steps in with increased regulation, the risk is that greater government control over what is communicated on social media will follow. The question will just be who is calling the shots on the exercise of that control. Will the result be an increase of the liberal or “woke” pressure on social media companies to silence conservatives, libertarians, opponents of teaching critical race theory and transgenderism in schools, and those who question the safety and effectiveness of covid vaccines? Alternatively, will a new sort of pressure become dominant, maybe pressure to comply with conservative or Republican preferred limits on speech? Either way, liberty loses.

Big tech companies silence their users to curry favor with politicians and bureaucrats, often after “encouragement” from politicians and bureaucrats. Therefore, to end big tech’s censorship, Americans should demand that all government officials — including the president — not violate the First Amendment. We must work to put an end to government officials pressuring or even “encouraging” social media platforms either to silence any American citizen because of his opinions or to downplay or suppress any news story. The way to protect free speech online is to separate tech and state.

What Could Make the Constitution a PERFECT Document?

11/28/2022

 
Picture
By David Rehak

I'm certainly not opposed to the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights is an almost perfect document, better than any other, and whoever wishes to see all these good and noble things about it can easily access and read it online. But there are a few specific things which it would be well to add, delete, or change to improve it substantially, and quite possibly, make it the very best it can possibly be.
​

If I were one of the Founders and Framers long ago (or even a contemporary elected representative today able to help amend the Constitution), I would strongly argue for:
  1. Add a balanced budget amendment or at least make it not permissible for the government to spend more money than it collects in revenue.
  2. a) Make not permissible the taxation of income as a person should be entitled to all the fruit of one's labor,  b) make not permissible the taxation of property which is also an inherently evil idea from the feudal era when kings and lords forced people to pay tax on their own property for no reason or forfeit ownership.
  3. Abolish eminent domain, which allows the government to seize property against the wishes of the owners simply because the government decides it needs the land.
  4. Make not permissible the establishment of a national central bank with authority to print unlimited amounts of paper (fiat) currency.
  5. Repeal the Commerce Clause in Article 1, Section 8 which grants the government virtually unlimited power over the economy and replaces personal economic individual choice with mandates to force people to  a) participate in federal pension programs,  b) monopolizing federal health insurance and forcing people to buy it [Obamacare],  c) enabling the failed war of drug prohibition and mass incarceration for personal choices for one's self which shouldn't be crimes (the government should have no authority over commerce in this regard).
  6. No entangling military alliances with other nations permitted, no hostile meddling in foreign wars or disputes, and only a strong, defensive military to secure the nation's borders.
  7. No unilateral government economic trade sanctions permissible, which always do great harm to people in either or both countries. Good standards and vigorous ongoing diplomatic efforts are always preferable to resolve matters, even when a mutual understanding and resolution is not possible; goodwill rather than hostility should be maintained. Evil regime action should be condemned but trade which benefits the people should be allowed regardless of moral or political differences. 
  8. Restrain the growth and power of  administrative agencies; overthrow the permanent bureaucracy of so many federal departments and agencies which do almost nothing worthwhile and are not accountable to the people. Some departments and many agencies would be dissolved or heavily downsized. 
  9. Specify more rights, chiefly, the right to earn a living.​
  10. Most importantly, no chief executive to be called King or President with vested powers which cannot be reigned in; abolish the office of presidency and divide its executive power among three people. ​
I would wish to do none of this alone but only with the support and help of my colleagues, elected officials, with the approval of the people, to the highest benefit of the people and responsive local governance. 
​

Although believing in the separation of church and state, I would also unapologetically uphold the standards of Christian virtue and morality in my personal life, and defend the religious liberty of others. Up until the middle of the 20th century before God and the Ten Commandments were kicked out of the public schools, Scripture class was literally one of the subjects in the school curriculum. I would not make this mandatory but I would allow it as one of the optional subjects for those who wish to take it in middle school or high school.

From 4th Grade onwards I would also introduce a morality / ethics course for kids to learn good moral principles and healthy positive social skills (including a strong work ethic and self-reliance) in a non-political, non-religious way without any left-wing or right-wing ideological slant. This would contribute to the betterment of society and individual growth which are especially sorely needed in our morally bankrupt times.

'Cancel Culture And Cultural Marxism' - Ron Paul at RPI Lake Jackson Conference, 11/2022

11/25/2022

 
What are the greatest threats to liberty today? Attacks on freedom of speech and expression. Watch Ron Paul's speech at the Ron Paul Institute Conference - 'Shut Up! Cancel Culture and the War on Speech' - earlier this month.
Picture
Watch Here
Picture

Mises Institute 40th Anniversary - An Evening With Ron Paul

11/24/2022

 
This speech was given in Oct. 2022, celebrating the 40th Anniversary of The Mises Institute. Be sure visit https://www.Mises.org
Picture
Watch Here
Picture

Gold Standard, Immigration, Austrian vs Chicago School - #AskRonPaul

11/23/2022

 
Dr. Paul again takes questions from our viewing audience, including one on how the country might be different had the US never gone off the gold standard. Some good lessons and interesting commentary.
Picture
Watch Here

Can a Deeply Unserious America Fix Its Economy?

11/23/2022

 
Picture
By Jeff Deist

​Does America simply lack the political will to face economic reality?
​

In the teeth of the Depression, Treasury secretary Andrew Mellon famously told President Herbert Hoover to “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate”—in other words, to resist bailing out any industry through state intervention. This was a tough sell even in those days, and of course Hoover succumbed to politics and took the opposite approach, greatly and needlessly damaging the US economy for decades to come.

Less often quoted are Mellon’s follow-up words to Hoover: Liquidation would “purge the rottenness out of the system,” so “people will work harder” and “live a more moral life.”
Mellon, having lived most of his life in an America without a central bank, understood economic recessions as necessary cures rather than ills to be avoided. But he also understood the human price that would be paid in the aftermath of a period of phony economic prosperity. Only hard work and personal sacrifice, person by person and town by town, could get America out of its economic mess. Fiscal and monetary policy would provide no free lunch, as millions of Americans learned the hard way in the 1930s.

Fast-forward to 2022, and it’s hard to imagine Janet Yellen calling for liquidation or telling Americans to improve their moral fiber. Nobody votes for austerity or personal responsibility, and any politician or bureaucrat or central banker who even suggests it is doomed today.

Yet this mythology of austerity persists, that a stingy federal Treasury and reticent central bank don’t intervene enough in economic crises. Consider this howler from Paul Krugman back in 2011, apparently delivered with a straight face: “One thing is clear: Mellon-style liquidationism is now the official doctrine of the G.O.P.” Keep in mind he wrote this several years into the most “extraordinary” monetary intervention in the history of the world—one which ultimately saw the US Fed purchase several trillions’ worth of Treasury debt from the “market”! Yet for Krugman, it is never enough.

As the bruising midterm elections recently demonstrated, America is a deeply unserious country. A serious political discussion at the federal level would center on existential structural problems of war and peace, debt and the dollar, and entitlements. But these issues can be addressed only by real austerity and real pain. So instead, we distract and divert ourselves worrying about whether Donald Trump should be allowed on Twitter. We argue over flu viruses, guns, transgenderism, climate, and abortion (none of which the federal government has the slightest jurisdiction over) rather than the material standard of living we will leave our grandchildren.

This is possible only because millions of Americans, maybe a majority, are simply economics deniers. They either don’t believe economic laws exist or think economics can be overcome by legislation, regulation, or central bank actions. And there are plenty of deniers among the ranks of professional economists! The profession does itself no favors when it cheerleads for politics, providing an intellectual veneer for interventionism. Human nature makes us want to believe untrue things, but economics should help disabuse Americans of political fantasies.

Let’s face it: the US is not a free-market economy because we don’t much believe in markets, despite our lip service. Most Americans, and virtually all political, media, academic, corporate, and banking elites, believe economic intervention (fiscal and monetary stimulus) form the basis of our economy—not production and saving.

So, what would a serious America do to correct our disastrous economic path? This may seem like an academic or rhetorical question, but it’s worth laying out the actual steps necessary to build a real economy rather than a fake one dependent on monetary or fiscal interventionism. As Dr. Mark Thornton recently explained, these steps may be conceptually simple even as they are wildly beyond political imagination today:
  • a wholesale adoption of laissez-faire economic doctrine by national politicians;
  • immediate deep tax and regulatory reductions;
  • immediate sharp reductions in government spending at every level (leaving federal spending well below federal revenue);
  • rigorous entitlement cuts, using some combination of means testing and raising age eligibility for both Social Security and Medicare;
  • rigorous defense spending cuts of at least 50 percent, combined with a radically reduced US military footprint overseas;
  • cessation of new debt issuance by the US Treasury;
  • cessation of active monetary “policy” by the Federal Reserve Bank, meaning no intervention with respect to the money supply, interest rates, or credit and debt markets (including US Treasurys);
  • a radical reduction in the Fed’s balance sheet by letting existing Treasurys mature and roll off;
  • an entirely hands-off approach allowing the US dollar to float freely relative to other currencies and commodities;
  • an express policy against bailouts or subsidies of any kind to any industry or company, regardless of the severity of an economic downturn;
  • allowing troubled industries or companies, no matter how big, to fail—through bankruptcy and asset sales; investor losses; and firing boards, management, and employees when restructuring is possible;
  • actively encouraging business and individuals to save (through market/floating interest rates);
  • elimination of any price ceilings or floors on prices, wages, and profits;
  • elimination of any unemployment subsidies to individuals, along with abolition of minimum wage laws; and finally,
  • the immediate sale of federal land and other assets to reduce debt service on the $31 trillion in Treasury obligations and to restore worldwide confidence in the US economy.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a real program of austerity looks like. That these actions are politically unfeasible—complete nonstarters—shows how politics dominates economics in America. The profession charged with explaining how no free lunch is possible instead mostly operates as a handmaiden to the state and its bosses. But politics won’t fix this, and we won’t vote our way out of trouble. The best path forward is at the state and local levels, attempting to build regional economies with less fragility in the face of the warring, borrowing, spending, and devaluing mania of Uncle Sam.
This article was originally published at The Mises Institute.
Picture

War Party Rising! Incoming House Speaker McCarthy Touts Super-Neocon Agenda

11/22/2022

 
Incoming Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has vowed to put "confronting China" at the top of his agenda as speaker. Washington Neocons cannot survive without an enemy. Also today, Daniel Larison lays out what a President DeSantis foreign policy may look like...and it ain't pretty. Are neocons firmly back in the driver's seat?
Picture
Watch Here
<<Previous

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015



  • Home
  • Archives
  • About