If You Were King | Larken Rose [Transcript]

If You Were King | Larken Rose

So, the world is a pretty messed up place, but just think how great it would be if you were in charge. If you were selected to be King of the World, just think of all the good you could do if you were given unlimited power to make things right. You would make the world a veritable Utopia: you could feed the poor, and house the homeless, and defeat the wicked, and protect the innocent. You could save the world! Everyone would love you and thank you. If you just had the power, you could make everything fair, and just, and safe.

Well, no, you couldn’t. You might try, and you might mean well, but any great and noble plans you had would soon fall apart, and you would turn into a tyrant. This isn’t because you’re stupid or because you’re a bad person. Even if you’re quite intelligent and have the best of intentions, all your effort to use your power for good would be an absolute, complete, and utter failure. Why?

Well, let’s consider a few examples.

Agenda Item #1: Helping the Poor

Suppose as a benevolent King, you decided to give lots of stuff to the needy to help the poor. Surely, that would be a noble thing to do and would make society better, wouldn’t it? Well, no, and here’s why. Whether it’s a King, a Congress, or anything else, government doesn’t create any wealth. Any wealth it gives away it first has to take from somebody else. As King, before you could give anything to the poor, you’d have to take it from someone else. But, suppose that someone else didn’t want to hand it over. Whether he just wants to keep it himself, or wants to give it away by himself, or thinks you’d do a bad job of it, if for any reason, he didn’t want to fund your plan, what would you do about it?

If you’re King, you don’t just ask people nicely. Anyone can do that, but no one has to listen to them or cooperate. As King, you would be commanding people to fund your ideas, and those commands if they’re going to be any more than just suggestions, will be backed by the threat of punishment for those who don’t obey you. If some peasant doesn’t think he can afford it, or doesn’t trust you to spend it wisely, or just wants to keep his own money, what will you do about it? Just let it slide? Not if you want to have any power. If your subjects can ignore you without any consequences, then you have no power.

So, the peasant who wouldn’t fund your plan must be punished, and made an example of. Suddenly, you’re not just benevolently giving stuff away. You’re hurting people who don’t want to do things your way. Whether you execute the peasant, or imprison him, or burn his house down, or take some of his stuff, whatever, you’ll be doing harm to him simply because he wouldn’t let you take his money. Suddenly, being King isn’t just about being “caring” and “generous.” It’s not just about “giving” and “helping.” It’s about controlling and punishing. It’s about threatening and hurting people.

Agenda Item #2: Serving the Common Good

Next, maybe you’d want to build public schools so your subjects’ children could get a good education, and you’d build a big library, and a public park, and museums, and zoos, and a great road system, and hospitals, and all things sorts of things that will benefit the people in general. And, your people will love you for being so “charitable” and “thoughtful,” but again, how do you pay for it? Kings don’t get castles and piles of gold by working hard. They get those things by taxing their subjects. Every penny you spend, whether you’re spending it on yourself, or on so-called “public projects,” you first have to take from your peasants. In reality, you’re not giving them anything. You’re merely spending their money for them.

What if they wanted to spend it some other way? Well, if you let everyone spend his own money, you wouldn’t have any power. Asking nicely won’t do it. If some peasant wants to buy a bigger house instead of helping to pay for a library, or wants to buy more land, or save for the future instead of chipping in for a public school, what will you do? If you do nothing and let him get away with that, all your power is gone. Again, to remain King, you have to punish those who won’t fund your agenda.

So, not only are you merely buying the peasantry things with their own money, rather than giving them anything that actually belongs to you, you’re also threatening to cage or otherwise punish them if they resist your efforts to spend their money. You can loudly proclaim that it’s “for their own good” and that your plan is “better for people as a whole,” but if some of them don’t see it that way you’re still going to have to send out your mercenaries to crush any dissenters.

Agenda Item #3: Enforcing Good Choices

So, trying to be a benevolent King by giving your subjects things that you bought with money you first stole from them, turns out less noble and less fun than you would have expected. So, you try out a different approach.

You decide to use your power and authority to make people live healthier lives. You require everyone to exercise for at least an hour a day and eat a well-balanced diet. Undoubtedly, that would improve the health of many of your subjects, so how could they complain about that? What could be wrong with that? Well, what do you do if somebody disobeys? If some peasant won’t eat his vegetables, what do you do about it? Ask nicely? Being in charge isn’t about asking. It’s about telling. It’s about commanding. And, a command isn’t a command if there are no consequences for disobedience. So, the non-compliant would have to be punished. Whether you take some of the peasant’s money and call it a “fine,” or put him in prison, or have him publicly flogged, you would have to intentionally and publicly hurt him one way or another simply because he wouldn’t follow your advice.

If you ban smoking, or drinking, or using drugs, or eating too much candy, there have to be adverse consequences to any peasant who disobeys. No matter how good you think your suggestions choices might be, you’re going to have to have your mercenaries forcibly punish, in one way or another, those who refuse to make the choices you think they should make; the choices you tell them to make.

As a result, suddenly you’re not just a “helpful leader,” you’re a vicious thug. Even if the choices you’re forcing people to make, are what they should be choosing on their own anyway, suddenly your “good intentions,” when combined with the exercise of power, become acts of violence, and suddenly your victims—I mean your “subjects”—don’t seem all that appreciative anymore. In fact, they seem to resent you and your supposedly “benevolent” agenda. But, maybe you can still find a way to use your power for good.

Agenda Item #4: Protecting the Innocent

What if, instead of trying to coerce your subjects into making “good choices” or funding “useful projects,” you stick to something more basic: just trying to protect the good people from any nasty crooks and thugs who might be living in your kingdom, which, in this case, is the entire planet. Surely, there can’t be anything wrong with that! If there is any way to use power for good, it has to be protecting the good from the wicked. So, that’s what you devote yourself to, confident that you’ll finally make the world a better place as King.

But, again, your subjects don’t have a choice about funding it. If they think your enforcers are abusive or corrupt, if they think your view of justice is skewed, if they don’t think your protection services aren’t worth the price, do you allow them to opt out? Not if you want to remain King. The mercenaries you hire, the prisons you built, the army you create with its war machines, not all of your peasants will want it, or will agree with how it functions. Do you just say, “I know best!” and “It’s for your own good!” and then lock up those who doesn’t pay? Do you force your version of “justice,” and “security” on them, force them to pay for it, and expect them to like it, and thank you for it?

To say that all you’re doing is “protecting” people while you’re sending armed thugs to collect payments from people who don’t want your so-called “protection,” makes you look more like the mafia than like a savior and protector. If some peasant wants to protect himself, or wants to hire someone else than you and your goons to protect them, do you let him or do you force him to fund your idea of “justice” and “security”? If a peasant doesn’t like what your army does, or how it does it, do you allow him to choose not to financially support your agenda?

Again, retaining your power requires you to violently impose your agenda on your subjects, forcing them to fund it, crushing any resistance, and doing all of that in the name of “defending” them against thugs and thieves. And, that’s more than a little ironic. It’s hard to feel “noble” and “righteous” or even “honest” while you’re routinely committing aggression against people in the name of “protecting” them.

Agenda #5: Sit in Your Castle and Do Nothing

Well, it seems your ambition of using your newfound, unlimited power to “fix” the world hasn’t turned out so well. You tried to do “good stuff” and be “caring” and “compassionate,” but everything came out as threats and violence because, after all, that’s what law and government are.

So, in desperation you decide to do nothing. You leave your subjects alone, and you hide in your castle, sulking. But, wait! How did you pay for the castle, and your guards, and all the luxuries you have? Even if you do away with most of it, whatever you end up with, are your subjects going to want to voluntarily pay for you to sit on your lazy butt, while they do with the challenges of reality on their own? Doubtful. So, if you intend to continue in this life of luxury as King, you’re still going to have to force your subjects to fund it, and that means, even if you do nothing at all for the peasants, you’re still going to need guards, and an army, and tax collectors, just to remain King.

The Punch Line

And, that brings us to the final agenda item, the one you should have started with. When you were made King, and appointed to be in charge of everything, you should have said, “No.” When offered the opportunity to rule and command your fellow man, you should have turned it down. If given power over others, what you should have done with that power is nothing, absolutely nothing, because power via brute force cannot fix the world.

Authoritarian control, whether wielded by a King, or an elected government, or a constitutional republic, cannot improve society. Why not? Because all such power, by its very nature, is nothing more than the ability to threaten people and hurt people. And, whatever your intentions may be, you can’t improve human society, you can’t create peaceful civilization, by threatening and hurting people. Shouldn’t that be obvious and self-evident?

Sadly, almost everyone has fallen for the utterly insane notion that the human race can be made more moral and more civilized by taking a few human beings and giving them permission to threaten and hurt, to forcibly rule and control everyone else. Such an idea is pure lunacy, no matter how popular it may be, and no matter how much rhetoric and how many excuses you pile on top of it.

You can pontificate all you want about constitutions and elections, representative government, “consent of the governed, and so on and so forth, but that won’t change reality. And, anyone who dares to objectively consider things for five minutes will see that the reality of the situation is this. The authoritarian power, in any form, regardless of the goal or motives, is nothing more than the addition of aggressive, immoral violence in this society. It doesn’t matter how many nice suits, fancy hats, grandiose buildings, and pompous rituals and ceremonies you use. Whether it comes from King, you, or a bunch of elected politicians, the power to rule is always, and inherently, diametrically opposed to the power of being human.

Want to fix the world? Throw the crown away. Ignore politics. Don’t threaten, attack, or rob your neighbor, and don’t vote for anyone who offers to threaten, attack, or rob your neighbor on your behalf. Don’t, by yourself or by way of those in power, try to force others to be what you wish they were, or force them to fund what you wish they would fund. Instead, try treating your neighbor as if he owns himself, because, he does.

If you want a more thorough understanding of why the game of politics is always destructive and immoral, get a copy of The Most Dangerous Superstition, available at Amazon.com.

—Larken Rose

Reasons to Oppose and Repeal the North American “Free” Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

The use of eminent domain to pave the NAFTA superhighway.

It isn’t really free trade. It’s, in the words of Ron Paul, “regulated, managed trade for the benefit of special interests.” Real free trade, of course, doesn’t require years of high-level government negotiations. Murray N. Rothbard argues,

Real free trade doesn’t require codicils and compromises and agreements. If [America] had wanted real free trade, all they’d have had to do is to cut tariffs and quotas, abolish the International Trade Commission, the ‘anti-dumping’ laws, and the rest of the panoply of monopolistic trade restrictions that injure American consumers and coddle inefficient producers.”What the Establishment wants is government-directed, government-negotiated trade, which is mercantilism not free trade…. The current treaties are very different; they are made by centrist mercantilists to advance such anti-free trade and collectivist policies as internationalist supra-government, regulated trade, and export subsidy. Whatever tariffs may be reduced, they are more than offset by the march toward regional, and eventually world, super-government that is the essence of Nafta and all similar treaties in today’s world. Nafta would not bring us “half a loaf” of free trade; if we can continue the analogy, it would bring us a “negative loaf.” Nafta is worse than no agreement at all.

The goal is to form a North American Union leading to the “abolition of national sovereignty,” “diminish[ing] the ability of average Americans to influence the laws under which they must live.”

Sources:
http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2007/07/ron-paul-for-fr.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul349.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/ir/Ch20.html

Libertarian Disillusionment

Let’s face it: the libertarian movement is in shambles. There is no commonly understood definition of what libertarianism is even among self-proclaimed libertarians, and to the extent that there is, this is only loosely based on a handful of principles which are nonetheless still interpreted and applied in many different ways. Self-proclaimed libertarians can’t even agree with each other on simple single issues like immigration and intellectual property. Hell, there isn’t even a consensus on what anarchism and statism really is, and some people’s favor for a government/state distinction sometimes adds to confusion.

Frankly, some of the positions taken by certain self-proclaimed libertarians are outright psychopathic. I’ve even debated with people who will actually defend the absurd implication of being allowed to arbitrarily shoot a child for being on your lawn, and to add insult to injury this is defended in the name of non-aggression and property rights! It seems like an alarming number of self-proclaimed libertarians defend aggression in the name of non-aggression. They have latched onto libertarianism only as a sugar-coating or legitimization for their own personal motivation to get away with psychopathy.

This is especially true in the case of explicitly right-wing libertarians, who appear to only nominally oppose the current secular state because they view it as competition to their own preferred forms of authoritarianism. Libertarian concepts are only useful to these people as a means of justifying racism, classism, parental authority, the church and feudal landlords. This extends well beyond the normal implications of a vulgar libertarianism, as it is vulgar in every sense possible. These right-wing libertarians only dislike the state because they mistakenly see it as standing in the way of “natural hierarchy” and “natural authority”.

They then go on to essentially propose their authoritarian preferences as the new state, while sugar-coating it with libertarian concepts or terminology to give it legitimacy. Their views on the establishment of a libertarian society almost directly mirrors the aristocratic justifications for political systems. This can be blatantly seen in Hans Hoppe’s concept of “natural elites”, which is just a right-libertarian version of the exact same aristocratic justification for the state that traditional conservatives give, despite having a veneer of being opposed to the current statist intellectuals (who are mostly disliked for their socially liberal tendencies of all things).

By no means am I letting some of the crazier elements on “the left” off the hook here either though. Frankly, many of the anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-communists are practically indistinguishable from Stalinists in my experience. Oh, sure, they might have some sensible egalitarian rhetoric sometimes, but they often fall back on explicitly Marxist and authoritarian socialist positions out of their zeal to oppose private tyranny. This is particularly true of the Chomskyites, who worship whatever Chomsky says without any second thought, all the while advocating the practical universalization of state power in the name of egalitarianism! We’re supposed to tolerate the increasing encroachment of the state into our lives out of the false promise that it will rid us of economic exploitation and the state will then just wither away. Nonsense!

Just as I’m highly skeptical of the “private city” models of anarcho-capitalists, the idea of a global federation of unions terrifies me, and the “worker’s council” models of anarcho-communists may very well give reason for suspicion that mirror the reasons for having suspicion about anarcho-capitalist models. Now, I know that ideally this federation of unions idea is supposed to be decentralized and leave an option for secession, but sometimes I get the sneaking suspicion that some of these people aren’t really advocating them that way, they are normatively advocating them as a uniform or absolute system. I’ve even seen some anarcho-communists justify using violence to stop people from making or engaging in wage labor contracts, even against the consent of the worker in the scenario. This perplexes me, especially since the anarcho-communist is actually going against “the workers”!

So what do we see? We see an incredibly divisive and one-dimensional split between two completely wrong parties: anarcho-capitalists and right-wing libertarians who arbitrarily defend the status quo and tradition on one end, and anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists who advocate arbitrary violence in the name of turning the world into a gigantic ant farm on the other end. As these two parties fight more and more, they are radicalized even more in their respective wrong directions. The anarcho-capitalist and right-libertarian’s knee-jerk opposition to all things “left” leads them down the path of becoming arch-conservatives, and the anarcho-communist’s knee-jerk opposition to all things “property” leads them down the path of becoming just another group of authoritarian socialists.

When I made the jump from being a minarchist to an anarchist, I had the impression that I had crossed a hurdle that leaves room for more clarity and consensus. I was wrong. The minarchist vs. anarchist debate is actually being mirrored within the anarchist movement in all sorts of different ways. Hence, you will find some market anarchists opposing the proposals of anarcho-capitalists on the grounds that such proposals are indistinguishable from a state or blatantly risk devolving into a state, and you will find social anarchists opposing the proposals of anarcho-communists on the grounds that such proposals are indistinguishable from a state or undermine basic principles. These are the more rational people in the bunch to the extent that they are genuinely being sure not to let authoritarianism be sneaked in through the back door.

This gives good reason for disillusionment.

-Brainpolice
http://polycentricorder.blogspot.com/2009/01/libertarian-disillusionment.html

Libertarianism ≠ Go Screw Yourself

Why do people think libertarianism equates to “go screw yourself”? Sure people need help at times, and if other people want to help them, that’s cool. It’s about not FORCING people to do things, it’s about getting the hell out of the way so they can do them on their own and not micromanaging into a state of disgust and despair. It’s about voluntary exchange and mutual consent. The best government is that which governs least. I am at a loss as to why some of you think that society OWES you a handout. Society does *not* grant you the right to a welfare check. Entitlements are not a right. Have you read the Constitution? Ever? A helping hand should always be voluntary, not with a gun pointing at our heads thru the implicit force of taxation. It is not at ALL about self-interest; it’s about not dominating others and forcing them to serve you involuntarily. It’s the opposite. We just don’t believe that you have the right to FORCE us to do your bidding at your whim. What you exhibit is selfishness. Go volunteer. Rally up your congregation to help others. Gather your friends and open a soup kitchen. Do all of this and more but don’t force government down our throats to make us help you. Ask and you shall receive. Stealing is wrong when we do it. Why is it OK when government does it for you?

Everyone sounds confused about libertarianism, like they have never really done any reading on the subject other than brief glances at some questionable webpages that only talk about marijuana legalization. That is just one of thousands of issues that we address, to ignore the rest is, well, ignorant.. Libertarianism is a political philosophy that respects the individual. Every person is the absolute owner of their own life and should be free to do whatever they wish with their person or property, as long as they respect the liberty of others to do the same.

To learn more about our philosophy, for starters, you all would do yourself a great favor by watching the Philosophy of Liberty. It is the very foundation of libertarianism.

To the Idiots on Wall St. who Complain about Capitalism and Globalization

The idiot socialists on Wall Street are protesting globalization, which is to say they believe only Americans are deserving of a decent standard of living, that Chinese and Indians don’t deserve their jobs. These jobs help alleviate poverty and lower costs for American consumers. It’s a win-win. If Americans want jobs and a higher standard of living they need to go back to school to compete for 21st century jobs in a global economy. Outsource the low-skill manufacturing and service jobs to the developing countries and let America lead the world in 21st century green jobs or jobs that require more skill…

Free Market Capitalism & Globalization

Wealthy people have the financial leverage to buy material goods that flaunt wealth and status, or to start a business and hire people to work for them. Famous people have celebrity giving them influential power. both of which rank him higher in the social hierarchy. However, financial leverage is not exclusive to a privileged “elite” class. With a good credit score anyone can have access to credit to start their own business.

The American Dream is that everyone has equal opportunity to be successful, though we are not guaranteed equal success. But with hard work and dedication it is possible for one to make it from rags to riches in America.

In a free market economy the only role of the state is to protect our property rights. But capitalism in which the state creates monopolies (via licensing and intellectual “property” laws) and picks winners and losers (via subsidies, tariffs and mandates) is indeed exploitative and not a level playing field. So what anti-capitalists rail against isn’t really pure, free market capitalism. It’s a state-sponsored, crony capitalism they blame… And BTW I believe it’s mostly jealousy, not a fear of a ruling elite class, that fuels resentment towards the super-rich and the desire to tax them more.

Anti-capitalists tend to be anti-globalization. Capitalism and globalization go hand in hand in creating a level playing field for all people in this world, to make a decent living and be successful. When people in the US complain that their wages fall due to globalization what they are saying is that they are, on account of being American, more deserving of a high standard of living than other people in the developing world. It’s quite a selfish position to have.

Libertarian Ron Paul v. Conservative Laura Ingraham

Laura Ingraham (conservative): Why were we attacked? Why are we the ones who attack? I’m going to throw this out to you, Congressman: Why was Bali attacked? Why was the British underground attacked? Why was Madrid attacked? Why was Kenya attacked? Why was Tanzania attacked? You know, why was any number of Saudi Arabian neighborhoods attacked? I mean, I think…

Ron Paul (libertarian): It’s the same reason…

LI: Well, you’re going into treacherous territory when you look like you’re pointing the finger at us…[inaudible]

RP: Well, that’s what they would like to do because if you do that then you say you’re blaming America. I don’t blame Americans, or you, or me, but I blame bad policy. So, even before 9/11 we’ve been involved in the Middle East since World War II. Actually, we started propping up the Saudi government against the will of the people, and they had a dictatorship since World War II. Roosevelt started this because he thought it was necessary to protect our oil, so there is a high degree of resentment. Even Paul Wolfowitz admitted that it was our base in Saudi Arabia that motivated the terrorists to come here. So, it isn’t like it’s new and strange and that nothing happened before 9/11 and these countries say Spain, they had a few token troops, you know, in Iraq, so they get punished. So, close allies…

LI: Why was Bali…

RP: Well, I don’t know the details…

LI: The Bali nightclub bombing, 123 people incinerated; a horrific attack by Al-Qaeda [inaudible]…

RP: Well, you’ll have to ask… Al-Qaeda is not one unit. They must have had some beef.

LI: No, but, maybe it’s just evil, and maybe it’s just something we need to stand up against…

RP: Well, no, there’s always evil in every group of people, but you have to motivate people to give up their lives. Now, the only individual who has come up with a detailed study of that is Robert Pape (Dying to Win), and he explains it. And the Muslims do not commit the most suicide terrorism. It happens to happen in Sri Lanka. It has nothing to do with the Muslim…

LI: Sri Lanka? I must have missed that…

RP: Well, that’s where the greatest amount of suicide terrorism occurs.

LI: Well, Pakistan is certainly creating its own share of terrorists…

RP: Yea, of course. How long has our CIA been in there picking and choosing? We propped up [Pervez] Musharraf. We just gave him 10 billion dollars!

LI: You spend a lot of time, Congressman, talking about what’s wrong with America. Tell us what’s right about America right now.

RP: America is the greatest country ever. We had the greatest document, we’ve had the most amount of freedom and the most amount of prosperity. We have a lot of goodness, but you can’t spread goodness with force. So, we cancel out all our goodness when we go around telling people that they either do it our way or we’ll bomb you; if you do it our way, we’ll give you money. That is not what made America great. America is great because we have a great institution and great traditions. We believe in freedom of…[unintelligible], but we’ve lost our way. Not only the Republican party but the country has lost their way. This is what made America great, and this is what we have to restore.

LI: After 9/11, what would you have done?

RP: Well, I would have gone after the people responsible (Al-Qaeda) and I did support that, but also supported going after…you know, going in Afghanistan and getting Al-Qaeda.

LI: But you just said that Al-Qaeda is hard to identify. It’s clearly a global force…

RP: Right, but we knew where Osama bin Laden was because he used to be our allies and we had propped him up in the Afghan war. But I also looked to the Constitution for guidance. So, a country didn’t attack us. There were a couple hundred radical nuts that were responsible for this. So, I introduced a bill to revive the interest, the idea, [of] the letter of marque of reprisal because our Founders understood that this could come up because of the pirates on the high seas. But they didn’t want to go to war with a country; they went to war against the individuals and you limited the war… there was a mini declaration of war against the pirates, so we could have done that.

LI: But this isn’t pirates, Congressman. I mean this is talking like Johnny Depp land. This is like Islamist terrorists who are unified in their hatred of, not just America, but…

RP: No, no, no. You’re blaming the whole Muslim world.

LI: No, no, I’m not.

RP: No, you are. You’re doing that, but…

LI: Did I just say Islamic Jihadists? Did I say all Muslim people? No, I didn’t, so don’t put words in my mouth.

RP: Yea, but when you do that… this…

LI: Here’s the problem, Congressman… is that when you go around and you say, “After 9/11, I would have gone after Al-Qaeda.” Well, tell me something I don’t already know. What would you do with dictators who refuse to live by, and live up to, resolutions that we were involved in with the UN, shot at our planes, defied our, um, absolute… what they signed and what they said that they would do… You know, they said they were going to do this and they didn’t.

RP: [Laughing] You know, this is the argument… one of the arguments when we talked about the resolution to go to war, which I strongly opposed, and I said, “No aggression has been committed against the United States,” and I thought that this is one of the most preposterous thing. They said they had been shooting at our airplanes…

LI: That doesn’t matter to you?

RP: We were bombing them! They shot at us… they didn’t have an army, they didn’t have an air force, they couldn’t even touch an airplane. We were 6,000 miles away. We had put sanctions on them. Hundreds of thousands of kids died because of our sanctions in Iraq.

LI: Well, yea, but you know what our sanctions were in Iraq? You know what ended up happening with those, right (at the UN)? I mean the US sanctions were…

RP: Well, why do we go along with all that UN stuff?

LI: Well, you and I are in agreement with a lot of that…

RP: Let’s get it out of the UN. We went to war with Korea under UN resolutions. We’ve been going to war…

LI: Right.

RP: And this war was to enforce UN resolutions…

LI: But, right…

RP: This war in Iraq. You have to remember that.

LI: Congressman, we’re there now and, um… Have you been to Iraq?

RP: No, but…

LI: Why haven’t you been to Iraq when…?

RP: Because I don’t need to go to Iraq to understand the Constitution! [LOL]

LI: You don’t? You don’t need to talk to the troops, or talk to the military commanders?

RP: Well, read the Constitution. Why do I have to read the Constitution in Iraq? [LOL!!!]

LI: Well, we’re in Iraq…

RP: I know. It’s an undeclared war.

LI: Well, we, we’ve… [LOL]

RP: Why don’t you read the Constitution? We don’t go to war without a declaration, and I don’t need to go to Iraq for that. [LOL]

LI: So, you don’t think it’s important to talk to the military leaders about what’s happening on the ground?

RP: Not for policy. They’re not policymakers; they take directives. So, why go over there?

LI: But [inaudible]…

RP: The war isn’t just mismanaged. We’re not supposed to be there. It’s unconstitutional. It’s illegal. We’re there to enforce UN resolutions. There was no threat to American security. There was nothing—no connection to Al-Qaeda, no connection to 9/11, no weapons of mass destruction.

LI: Well, if stockpiles of weapons had been found, and you would have admitted they were there at some point. Saddam did have…

RP: Yea, we gave them to them. We know they were there because we gave them those weapons at one time.

LI: So, if they had been found, you would have admit then you were right or you were wrong or would you say…[inaudible]

RP: No, they weren’t a threat to us. How did we handle the Soviet Union? They had 40,000.

LI: So, 9/11… but 9/11 did not change the calculus at all, to you?

RP: Against Iraq?

LI: About how we deal with other countries in a preemptive way.

RP: No, with Iraq. We went to war with Iraq. It’s preposterous to think that 9/11 justified attacking and invading and crusading in Iraq. That is the reason they come here! If you don’t understand that, we can’t solve our problems.

LI: Right.

RP: We’re going to have more terrorists come because they have to have an incentive to come.

LI: Right, but we’ve helped a lot of Muslims in the Balkans and we’ve clearly helped them in the…[inaudible]

RP: And all the Republicans opposed it. And a matter of fact George Bush ran in the year 2000 condemning that interference by…

LI: Look, my point is, before 9/11, I mean, we have done an enormous amount to help the Muslims. Whatever the party that agreed or didn’t agree, we helped the Kuwaitis, we had done an enormous amount for Muslims across the globe, and you know what we got for it? We got 3,000 of our fellow Americans incinerated. That’s what we got. Or is it Israel’s fault?

RP: You’re arguing my case. We didn’t get any thanks, we lost 3,000 men—that’s intervention blowback, unintended consequences. You just made the case for the constitutional position that the Founders taught is: “Stay out of entangling alliances. Don’t get involved in internal affairs of nations.” George Bush says, “No nation-building, no policing of the world, a humble foreign policy…” That’s what I’m talking about.

LI: He said that when he came in. He did. He wrote a big article…[inaudible]

RP: Yes, but he said that… he changed his mind before 9/11. Read Paul O’Neill’s book and he says the first thing on the agenda was invading Iraq.

LI: Can we defeat China economically, and as [inaudible]?

RP: Not at the rate we’re going now. They’re our banker. They’re capitalists. They don’t waste their money and energy by invading countries. They take our money. They take their investment, and they’re making deals in Iran.

LI: Well, they’re making deals in Africa, too, which is…[inaudible]

RP: Sure! But we spend all our money on the military and doing it by force.

LI: But they’re spending an enormous amount of money on the militarization of Spain.

RP: But they earned it. They work hard.

LI: Right.

RP: They sell us stuff. We print our money and they take their money and they invest. They’re capitalists.

LI: You would agree that this world… it is a bit different than it was when we had the old gold standard. I mean, people could move easily, commerce can move easily, and obviously things can come into this country, whether it’s containers or people, and ease of travel does change, a little bit does it not, our ability to compete by retreating. I mean, I’m not where these total free marketers, of free trade regardless of what it does to American people, but I do believe that it is hard to just say, “Okay, we’re going to pull back. We’re going to pull back.”

RP: I’m not even talking about that. I’m talking about not telling other people how to live and not bombing and giving foreign aid, but I’m a free-trader. I don’t want sanctions. Why can’t you go to Cuba? You might like a trip to Cuba. Canadians can go to Cuba.

LI: No, thanks.

RP: They have more rights in Canada…

LI: Do you think CAFTA and NAFTA has [sic] been good for America?

RP: No, I voted against that. I think those managed trade agreements are terrible, but I still think low tariffs are good because tariffs are high taxes for the consumer. So, we want free trade. We don’t want managed trade for the benefit of big corporations, but that’s what managed trade does and the WTO does.

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