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The celebration in London of NATO's 70th year has ended with a renewed purpose: the "challenges" posed by China. NATO is a military alliance, but the attendees were careful to point out that they do not view China as an enemy. So what is the point?
 By Chris Rossini
Whenever you see a big government, or worse, a big government that sets out to be an empire, you know that people have messed up -- BIG TIME! The wrong road has been taken. Big government politicians (and everyone that believes them) have to inhale and exhale a constant stream of lies. That's the only way that big governments can sustain themselves. That's why you've heard Ron Paul repeat over-and-over that "Truth is treason in an empire of lies." So today, since the U.S. federal government has become the biggest government to ever exist in mankind's history, it follows perfectly that finding a kernel of truth uttered anywhere is almost impossible. Just as kryptonite would sap Superman of his powers, the truth saps big government of its powers. So truth has to be relentlessly suppressed and avoided. Now, thousands of years of recorded history shows us that the wrong road always ends, and sound economic theory explains why the wrong road always ends. Rarely (if ever) does big government reverse its own course. Politicians don't decrease their own powers. Rather, they keep making up new powers. They keep conjuring up new "rights" from their imaginations. Politicians never decrease their budgets or debts, but keep piling them on as well. They never stop looking for enemies, but keeping seeking new bogeymen to conquer. There's a reason why since ancient times, people have warned about the lust for power. It's the worst addiction of them all. As the mountains of power, debts, laws, regulations, and enemies pile up, the lies to sustain them have to get more and more outrageous. The lies don't even have to make sense. They just have to be told, and repeated over-and-over. Fortunately, for the perpetuation of human life, nature has a built-in rehabilitation process for this addiction. It's called economic law, and it cannot be broken. Every single big government and empire that has ever existed has been dismantled by economic law. What the people will not do for themselves, economic law does for them. For those that live through the dismantling, it is always considered a 'surprise' and is referred to as a 'crisis.' But it's not a surprise to everyone. After all, has not Ron Paul been warning for decades that the U.S. government is headed for economic catastrophe? So it's not really a 'surprise,' and it's not really a 'crisis' either. When you drink way too much, is the hangover a crisis? No, its biological law bringing you back to reality and health. The hangover is the cure. When you pollute your body beyond its limits, is the subsequent fever a crisis? No, the fever kills the bacteria and viruses. The fever is the cure. So that which is known as 'economic crisis' is actually the economic cure. Yes, it is painful, in the same way that a hangover is painful. But the problem is not the hangover itself. The problem is the prior reckless actions that preceded it. With the economy, the problem is the irrational beliefs that government can micromanage everything and everyone (not only in America, but in the world), rack up debts that cannot be paid, make welfare promises that cannot be paid, and bailout everyone to boot. In an Empire of Lies, this is what people believe. That's the problem. History has taught us that when economic law does its thing to big government, the people finally have an opportunity to see the truth. The illusions are shattered, and the free individual has a much better chance to discover himself. That doesn't mean that everyone discovers Liberty, and all humanity lives happily ever after. Not at all. It just means that the ideas of Liberty are much easier to discover, and are much more attractive now that big government has lost its credibility. Liberty, freedom and free will have always been the natural and built-in condition of each human being. Government (while it tries its best) cannot change that, but it can cover it up with lies. However, always hidden underneath those lies, there remains the timeless truth that we're all individual sovereigns. When big government loses its credibility, individuals have a much better chance and incentive to ask themselves: "What is it about ME that put me in this situation?" "What can I do to change my circumstances?" "What have I thought and believed, that turned out to be false?" Self-contemplation can be painful. We tend to avoid admitting that we were wrong. It's much easier to blame others. That's why politics is such an attraction to people. It's an outlet to blame others instead of yourself. But when big government has to contract, blaming others won't do any good anymore. The politician is broke and busted. He can't act as your bully anymore. Of course, there's no need to wait for any of this. The ideas of Liberty can be embraced right now. The question: "What is it about ME...?" can be asked right now. Reading Mises, Rothbard, Paul and Rockwell can happen right now. Teaching your children that no one (including government) has the right to use violent and aggressive force against anyone else, can happen right now. Force is for defense only. It's for the suppression of an aggressor. The proper role of government is to punish aggressors, not be an aggressor itself. The limits to Individual Liberty are so simple that a child can understand them --- Your liberty extends to the person and property of other individuals. Their life and their property are their own personal kingdoms, just as your life and your property are your personal kingdom. Interacting with other individuals is done on a voluntary and consensual basis.....by contract, not by fiat. Now you may think to yourself, 'People will never live like this.' That may, or may not, be true. Who knows? But you're not "people" ... You're you, and you can live like this. We can all individually reach...and climb...and aspire. We can keep the ideas of Liberty in the forefront, and daily chip away at our own errors and illusions. The Empire of Lies offers only illusions and delusions. All illusions end up shattered....and all big governments end up like sunken ships. Individual Liberty is the ultimate life preserver.
French president Macron caused a stir last month by stating that NATO is suffering from brain death. At this week's NATO summit marking 70 years of the Alliance, Trump and Macron are clashing. Why is it so hard for NATO to find a purpose? Is this a sign that finally, 30 years after the Cold War, it's time to end the anti-Soviet alliance?
By Ron Paul
The 50-year US war on drugs has been a total failure, with hundreds of billions of dollars flushed down the drain and our civil liberties whittled away fighting a war that cannot be won. The 20 year “war on terror” has likewise been a gigantic US government disaster: hundreds of billions wasted, civil liberties scorched, and a world far more dangerous than when this war was launched after 9/11. So what to do about two of the greatest policy failures in US history? According to President Trump and many in Washington, the answer is to combine them! Last week Trump declared that, in light of an attack last month on US tourists in Mexico, he would be designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. Asked if he would send in drones to attack targets in Mexico, he responded, “I don't want to say what I'm going to do, but they will be designated.” The Mexican president was quick to pour cold water on the idea of US drones taking out Mexican targets, responding to Trump’s threats saying “cooperation, yes; interventionism, no.” Trump is not alone in drawing the wrong conclusions from the increasing violence coming from the drug cartels south of the border. A group of US Senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging that the US slap sanctions on the drug cartels in response to the killing of Americans. Do these Senators really believe that facing US sanctions these drug cartels will close down and move into legitimate activities? Sanctions don’t work against countries and they sure won’t work against drug cartels. A recent editorial in the conservative Federalist publication urges President Trump to launch “unilateral, no-permission special forces raids” into Mexico like the US did into Pakistan to fight ISIS and al-Qaeda! I am sure the military-industrial complex loves this idea! Another big war to keep Washington rich at the expense of the rest of us. And the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force can even be trotted out to fight this brand new “terror war”! Perhaps unintentionally, however, this sudden push to look at the Mexican drug cartels as we did ISIS and al-Qaeda does make sense. After all, the rise of the drug cartels and the rise of the terror cartels have both been due to bad US policy. It was the US invasion of Iraq based on neocon lies that led to the creation of ISIS and expansion of al-Qaeda in the Middle East and it was the US war on drugs that led to the rise of the drug cartels in Mexico. Here’s another suggestion: maybe instead of doing the same things that do not work we might look at the actual cause of the problems. The US war on drugs makes drugs enormously profitable to Mexican suppliers eager to satisfy a ravenous US market. A study last year by the CATO Institute found that with the steady decriminalization and legalization of marijuana across the United States, the average US Border Patrol agent seized 78 percent less marijuana in fiscal year 2018 than in FY 2013. Instead of declaring war on Mexico, perhaps the answer to the drug cartel problem is to take away their incentives by ending the war on drugs. Why not try something that actually works?
President Trump's dropping of the "Mother of All Bombs" in Afghanistan is just the latest example of how the US war machine is delivering a scorched earth to those "liberated" by the US military. Already the environmental and health damage from that one bomb has destroyed the lives of many innocent civilians. There are millions more where that came from.
We hope you enjoy Ron Paul's speech from the 2010 Mises Institute Conference at Jekyll Island, Georgia.
Lew Rockwell joins Ron Paul in the studio for a very special edition of the Ron Paul Liberty Report! Leftist ideas - beginning in the French Revolution - have been a source of murderous and violent events. Get your copy of Lew's latest book 'Against The Left' on Amazon.
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