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NOTE Tom Woods Guest Hosts the Peter Schiff Show

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All right, welcome everybody to The Peter Schiff Show. I'm Tom Woods in for Peter Schiff on this October 13th, 2011.

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We've got a great program for you today because later in this hour, we're going to be joined by Judge Andrew Napolitano,

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great hero of many listeners of this program, senior judicial analyst at Fox News. Don't hold that against him.

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He's going to be with us talking about his new book, It is Dangerous to be Right when the Government is Wrong.

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Then in the second hour, we've got another great guest, Bradley Thompson has a book called, from last year, called Neoconservatism, an obituary for an idea.

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So this is going to be one hot couple of hours, so stay tuned with me. Let's get rolling.

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I am watching a lot of polls lately. It's very interesting to watch what's been going on in the Republican field.

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It's like there's a flavor of the week who's way, way up, and then that flavor is out, and it's Romney at the top again.

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And there's another flavor of the week, and then that one's out, and it's still Romney.

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So Romney, you've got to hand it to him. As plastic as the guy is, he has staying power.

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and it's with one of these guys like nobody really wants like even his own

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supporters you know can't be bothered to click on an online poll for the guy but

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there he is though standing there in the background grinning at you like hey look

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I'm still standing here you know make fun of me all you want but here I am

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standing here but it seems like lately it's been quite astonishing to watch

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the the rise of Herman Cain who when he announced however many months ago that

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I genuinely, I'm not trying to be snarky, I genuinely want to know what's the attraction.

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And people say, look, he's well-spoken, he seems like he's a tough cookie, he's been

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in the private sector, and he debates well, he comes across well when he's talking.

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But what are the specific plans that you like?

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And I very rarely do I get specifics.

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Some people do like his tax proposal, which I think is at least debatable, but I hear

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things like, you know, he's a businessman, so he can run government like a business,

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and that's just what we need.

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And that's what the Romney people say, right?

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Mitt Romney's been in the private sector, so he can run government better than these

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jerks who've been running it all this time.

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And I understand there's a superficial plausibility to that.

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And so I want to get back to that in a minute about running government like a business.

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But I want to start off dealing with the biggest weakness that I see that Herman Cain has.

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And it's not just that he was with the Federal Reserve of Kansas City or things of that nature,

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which are problematic.

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His defense of Alan Greenspan the other night was pretty, pretty creepy.

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I mean, clearly the worst Fed chairman ever.

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And he was saying, well, you know, at least early on he was pretty good.

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And he wasn't actually willing to say, but later he made mistakes.

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What they want to hear. Which is admirable, right? I mean, how many politicians are going to do that?

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Say, the opposite of what you want to hear. But Cain, I think, is the anti-shift.

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He's the anti-shift because September 1st, 2008, he gives the economy a clean bill of health.

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I talk about this on my own site in some of the writing I've been doing on Cain.

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He gives the economy a clean bill of health September 1st, 2008.

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You know what happened in September 7, 2008? Fannie and Freddie were taken over by the U.S. government.

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You know what else happened in 2008? Lehman Brothers collapsed. AIG was bailed out.

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We were told by Hank Paulson that the economy is so bad that we need a $700 billion tarp package just to keep the lights on.

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We won't even have an economy without this money, is what Ben Bernanke said.

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So how did we go from being so good on September 1st, that Cain can't think of a word to say about it, to being so bad that the bottom is going to fall out of the whole thing if we don't get 700 billion bucks pronto handed to the banks?

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Well, of course, the answer is things weren't so good on September 1st, 2008.

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But that's his big problem. And I said I made a video on my YouTube channel, Tom Woods TV, the other day, saying this is Ron Paul's question.

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This is his question for Cain in the debates. Ron Paul can say, in 2001 I said precisely that we had just gone through a boom and bust with internet stocks

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and that now the Federal Reserve was substituting a real estate bubble for the internet, the tech stock bubble.

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and that this bubble too would burst as they all do well that was seven years in

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advance Herman Cain seven days in advance you're not seeing this coming you

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don't think that's a problem that Americans should be concerned about you

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don't find this a source of embarrassment you know that would be the

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headline that would be the news right there Ron Paul says that so I throw that

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out there for the consideration of anybody who might be listening I know

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I know it's not Ron Paul style to call people out, but you know what, sometimes you got

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to adapt your style when the circumstances demand it, and I would say the dire situation

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that we are in demands it.

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Well, we've got a great program, as I say, we've got Judge Napolitano coming up later

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this hour.

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We're going to be talking about neoconservatism, which is a term you hear all the time, right?

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What is this term?

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Who are the neocons?

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What are they up to?

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What do they want?

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Are they going to just keep on succeeding and being part of every presidential administration

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from now till the end of time?

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These are all good questions that we are going to be entertaining.

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On the other side of this break, I'm going to take on this Can You Run Government Like

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a Business?

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And I'll be taking your calls as well.

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Don't forget, 855-4-SHIFT, that's 855-472-4433.

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Make your voice heard.

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Let's get this conversation going here on this Thursday on The Peter Schiff Show, the gold

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standard in talk radio.

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The Peter Schiff Show.

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To President Obama, Secretary Geithner, Madam Pelosi and all of the socialist econ professors

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across America, we're sorry.

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Peter Schiff is back on the air!

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Herman Cain government and business are entirely different things because how

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does a business succeed right how does an entrepreneur succeed you succeed by

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making profits by making sure that what's coming in in terms of sales

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revenues more than compensates you for the costs that you've incurred for your

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inputs and it's got a more than compensate you to a particular degree

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Well, how do you figure out if you're doing well or not in business? Well, you calculate it through profits. You have a profit and loss signal. That's how the market tells you, are you wasting resources, or are you adding value? That's how you know. That's the only way you can know. Am I doing the right thing? Am I locating my physical plant in the place that's most economical, that conserves resources the most for society? Am I using the most efficient input that I have?

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Process. Am I using the best materials in terms of cost? Do I have too many people in my call center? Do I have too many people in customer service? Do I have too few people in customer service?

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This is not an arbitrary thing. Profit and loss signals give you the answer to that question. Government doesn't get those signals because it's not selling a product. We have to take it. They're going to take our money no matter what.

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They're going to take it from us no matter what and give us whatever service it wants to give us.

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So it has no profit and loss mechanism because there's no voluntary action on the part of the consumer.

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The stuff is simply taken away.

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So there's no way they can know whether they should be doing X or Y.

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They're completely groping in the dark.

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How do they know whether there should be more police or fewer police or more of this service or less of that service

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The State is always groping in the dark.

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All right, I want to go to the phones now. I've got Ed in Florida. Ed, you're on the Peter Schiff show. Welcome.

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Good morning, Tom. It's a thrill to speak to you. You were one of my heroes.

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I love that lecture you did out in LA. That was just the most inspirational thing I've ever seen.

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Oh, you're very kind. Thank you.

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And you have the judge coming on and I hate to use the word draft, but if Ron Paul would select the judge to be his running mate, I think it would be a slam dunk.

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Now, I feel that you would be a great vice president and Peter, Bob Murphy, Stefan Malin, who is not an American citizen, but you know what I mean?

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You guys have just completely blown my mind, and I mean, what are your feelings? You know, like I said, the word draft is an ugly word. You know, the judge is obviously free to do what he wants, but he, unfortunately, you guys don't really have the high profile, and that's, it's horrible, you know, to say that.

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Oh, well, I appreciate that. Oh, yeah, let's talk about this, about running. I mean, you know, it's in some ways premature, but it's kind of like, you know, doing like a baseball dream team. Like, what could it hurt to sit around and think about it?

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I've joked with the judge about this myself. And, you know, maybe we'll talk to him a little bit about this. And I suspect he'll be sort of cagey about it the way anybody would be.

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I'm smelling cabinet position, Tom.

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Tom?

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Well, look, I would never get past the Senate, but I appreciate that.

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I would never get past it.

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Only if martial law had been declared and all Senate confirmations were suspended would

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I have any chance, but I do appreciate that.

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But talking about when you choose a running mate, I mean, the usual political calculation

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that you have to make is what does this person bring to the ticket that I don't have already?

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I mean, that's the way that if there were, you know, if Ron Paul were to get the GOP

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The Party Machine is going to be thinking, well, what does he not have?

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Well, he's got to appeal to our base.

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And there is, to some degree, a disconnect between Ron Paul and the base.

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I think there's no reason for that.

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There are ways to explain and defend all of his policies in ways that can appeal to conservative Republicans.

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And that's what he does in his book, The Revolution of Manifesto, is basically to explain, here's what I'm saying.

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And I'm just saying what a lot of people on the political right have said over the years.

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over the years. I'm not saying anything that's particularly crazy. It's only crazy in the

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current situation where the mainstream runs from Joe Biden to Mitt Romney. Yeah, well,

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if that's the mainstream, then by definition, we're all crazy. But that shouldn't be the

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mainstream.

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It's a lunatic asylum.

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No, it totally is. The inmates are running it. But my point is that they might say, well,

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the judge appeals to this libertarian base that Ron Paul already has. But my answer to

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The Judge is very, very good. I've seen him do this. He'll go to a Glenn Beck event, and he'll go out there, and everybody loves The Judge. He's a tough, big, Italian, libertarian conservative type. How can you not love this guy? Outspoken and loud and in-your-face and doesn't apologize for where he stands. People love this guy, but the great thing about him is he can talk to a crowd like that. He can speak their language.

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The Theory of Money and Credit

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of Money.

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He would be a bulldog.

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He would really compliment Ron Paul's personality.

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And at the same time, the ticket would be plausible.

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Ron Paul slash Mitt Romney is not plausible.

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Romney would indeed bring you the Eastern establishment.

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That's true.

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But the ticket is not coherent.

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So I love the idea of the judge.

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And I mean, what's Fox News going to do then?

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What are they going to black out Ron Paul when their own guy is on the ticket?

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I mean, then that would be a fun thing to watch.

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Thanks so much for the call, much appreciated. Make sure and join in the conversation, everybody, 855-4-SHIFT.

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That's 855-472-4433. We've got just a couple minutes before our break at the end of the first half of this hour, break coming up the bottom of the hour.

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But I just want to just say a little something about the judge here because I want to not spend so much time introducing him so that we can spend all his limited time just chatting it up, chatting up a storm here.

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I want to first of all tell you guys that you ought to be watching his program on the Fox Business Network and I'm still surprised at how many freedom lovers out there who are 100% out there for the cause who don't know about the judge's program. It's unbelievable. We all have to tune in because the better the ratings are, the greater the prospects for the judge in the future. Freedom Watch is airing at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Eastern Time Monday through Friday on the Fox Business Network.

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Network. Now, you may have to request that from your cable company, but go ahead and do that, because this is a show where the judge will have guests on that nobody else is going to have on. He's going to talk about topics that no one else is going to talk about, and he's going to hit a lot of those people who are tuning in expecting to see a standard Fox News program, and instead they are going to get a dose of liberty, the likes of which that they just did not see coming. So he is so

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The gold standard in talk radio.

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We now return to The Peter Schiff Show.

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Call in now.

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855-4-SHIFT.

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That's 855-472-4433.

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The Peter Schiff Show.

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All right, everybody, welcome back to The Peter Schiff Show.

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I'm Tom Woods in for Peter.

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About to talk to Judge Andrew Napolitano of Fox News, the senior judicial analyst there.

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There's just been breaking news over at Fox, so the judge is over giving his commentary,

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doing the Lord's work, so to speak.

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So we're going to give him a little break, a little time to get over here.

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So in the meantime, I get to tell you a little something about what I've been reading this

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weekend, which is the judge's book.

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So he gets from Voltaire, it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong and

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his subtitle is the case for personal freedom.

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And what we've got here really is a primer on all kinds of topics you can think of, starting

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with the Declaration of Independence and then you get a chapter on the right to own properties,

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the property rights, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to travel, the right

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to privacy, you own your own body, the right to self-defense, and then the right to enjoy

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Enjoy Peace, the Right to Sound Money, to Spend Your Own Money, and even at the end,

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the Right to Ignore the State.

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Whoa!

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So this is some serious stuff we got coming out here from the judge.

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I'm going to ask him some tricky little questions here about this because now I get, the tables

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are turned, I get to talk to the judge and ask him what I want to know from him.

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But it's true that in looking through this, I find repeatedly that the judge is willing

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to take on the sorts of things that you would be skewered alive for trying to do if you

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took them on in a political campaign.

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But the judge is the sort of guy who he will stick by what he's saying, regardless of

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the pressure that's put on him.

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And it's interesting to note that when you look at what sorts of things the judge says

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is about civil liberties, personal liberties, the drug war, the Patriot Act.

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These aren't just things that he has been saying over the past few years because he's

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grown disillusioned with Obama or the Bush administration.

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He's been saying these things through his whole career.

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Like, you can see this year after year after year.

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This is a guy who is completely consistent and we're very, very grateful to have him.

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While we're waiting for the judge to come on, I'm going to take one quick call and then

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we will get an update on where he is. So let me jump over to Dave in New Jersey. Dave,

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welcome to the Peter Schiff Show. Okay, we ain't got no Dave, but we do have an Alex.

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Alex in Brooklyn. Oh, hold on, hold on, Alex. Continue to be patient because I'm just told

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that we do indeed have the judge on the line. I don't know how this guy does this, running

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around like a chicken with his head cut off, doing a million things every day. It's extremely

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to spend some time with us. Judge Andrew Napolitano, Senior Judicial Analyst at Fox News, who is an adjunct professor for 11 years at Seton Hall Law School, who had quite an interesting tenure as a judge in all different areas of the law, and he is so generous to spend some time with us this morning. Judge, thanks so much for being on The Peter Schiff Show. Well, it's a pleasure to be on The Peter Schiff Show with Tom Woods. Thank you so much, Judge. I was just saying before you came on, the tables are turned.

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Look who's interviewing whom now.

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Well, I'm so thrilled to be able to talk to you and have a chance to see an advanced copy of your book.

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But let's start off just saying a little something about Freedom Watch, your program.

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I was plugging it before you came on because I want to make sure every freedom lover needs to know about this show.

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We can't take for granted that everybody is plugged in and knows about Freedom Watch.

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Just give us a quick overview.

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Well, it fills the gap that is needed for watching the government. I mean, I refer to myself, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as the night watchman. I watch the government as it steals your liberty and steals your property. And we do this for an hour a day, 8 p.m. Eastern, and it's repeated at 11 p.m. Eastern on the Fox Business Network. And we unabashedly challenge the government to do this.

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challenge government in almost everything it does. It's in a typical Fox interview style and sometimes debates and always we have a panel where we have a strong libertarian, a sort of middle of the road but big government person and then a progressive slash liberal debating what the issues may be.

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address everything from foreign affairs to the constitution to civil liberties to

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economics to where the progressives and libertarians agree to what is the

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proper role of the federal government in our lives today what is the proper role

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of government our lives today and you know me Tom I'm not afraid to say what I

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think and not afraid to provide the troops with the intellectual ammunition

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that they need to challenge those in government well I think both of things

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Both of those things are fantastic because it does give people arguments that they can

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use with their friends when they're badgered all the time, why don't you support the jobs

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program or whatever, but also, and I'm not just saying this to flatter you, we already

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got you for the interview so I don't need to do that, is that your example is very important

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for people to see somebody in your position who knows that he might hurt his own ratings

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by saying something very unpopular at a time when 80% of the country feels one way and

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and maybe eighty or ninety percent of Fox news viewers feel one way the judge will stand

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up there fearlessly and say the opposite.

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That's a great example to a lot of us who sometimes feel beaten down by the establishment.

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We, you know, there's a temptation to just cave in and give up and you don't do it night

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after night after night.

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That's a great example to all of us.

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Well, I'm very kind to say that I do my best to stay true to first principles and at the

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end of each of the shows, I give what we call a ramp.

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It's like a closing argument. It's maybe between three and a half and four minutes long. And

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I try to draw on first principles in those arguments. That government is best, which

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governs least. The people are entitled to a government that stays within the confines

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of the Constitution. The Constitution was written to keep the government off the people's

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backs. Now, sometimes that means saying things that are unpopular, like the president had

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no authority to assassinate Osama bin Laden. He would have had authority to have arrested

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him and had him extradited here for trial, but if the guy doesn't have a gun in his

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hands and he's not shooting at American troops, there's no authority to kill him.

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The same goes for Anwar Al Aqee.

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If the government has a case against him, present the case, but for the president to

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become judge, jury, and executioner is not authorized by the Constitution.

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Now when you make that argument, Tom, you go against the popular will that perceives

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This is the same president who started his own war in Libya while the Congress sat there

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like a potted plant.

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Why?

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When you make those arguments, you sometimes run against the grain of well-intended people

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who are happy when bad guys are dispatched from the scene.

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But my job is to pay careful attention to procedure.

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Justice Felix Frankfurter, an FDR appointee, but occasionally faithful to the Constitution,

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once said, the history of human freedom is paying careful attention to procedure, not

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what is the government's end result, but how did the government get there?

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Right.

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That's what we do on Freedom Watch.

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Well, that's absolutely fantastic.

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I want to shift, I want to talk about your book, It is Dangerous to Be Right When the

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The Government is Wrong. I suspect the official release date is next Tuesday, but it's already available on Amazon, so I felt it was okay to go ahead and have you on and talk about it.

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And one of the topics that you cover in here is a familiar one. I mean, you cover in here so many topics, giving the pro-freedom position. I mean, I just lost count of them.

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But I do want to talk a little bit about an old favorite, because I think it's a useful segue from what we were just talking about.

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And that's the Patriot Act, because this is one of these cases where I think there are people who just, without maybe knowing the details of the Patriot Act, just think, well, look, we have bad people who are, we believe, plotting nefarious plots against us, and, well, you know, if somebody has to look into my library records in order to prevent that from happening, then that's okay with me. I mean, that's going to keep us... How else are we going to be kept safe without doing a little bit of snooping around? Like, what do you say to that?

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Well, I argue that the snooping around doesn't keep us safe, and even if it did, we pay a greater price in the loss of privacy and the loss of freedom.

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Look, the Fourth Amendment, which basically says if the government wants information from you or about you, it has to go to a judge and present evidence of probable cause,

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meaning more likely than not that you committed a crime, is the quintessentially American amendment among the Bill of Rights because it stands for the right to be left alone.

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and that means self-dignity, that means that the poorest person's cottage cannot have the government cross the threshold into it without the consent of the person or without a neutral judge authorizing it.

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The Patriot Act actually permits federal agents to do what we fought a revolution against Great Britain because of what it permitted its agents to do.

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The King permitted federal agents to write their own search warrants. They were granted general permission to go anywhere, but they authorized themselves to go into a colonist's home and look for and seize whatever they wanted.

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225 years later, we find legislation enacted by the Congress that authorizes federal agents to bypass the Constitution and write their own search warrants, and when they hand you the search warrant, they say to you, you can't tell anybody about this.

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Office. You can't tell your spouse, you can't tell your priest in confessional, you can't

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tell a lawyer in her or his office, you can't even answer truthfully in a public courtroom

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whether or not you received one of these self-written search warrants, otherwise we'll prosecute

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you for telling anyone that we came visiting. So not only is the Fourth Amendment violated,

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but the First Amendment is violated. If we don't stick to first principles, if we let

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the government scare us into thinking it's keeping us safe because it's violating our

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The FBI has uncovered 17 plots to attack us since 9-11.

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All 17 of them was created, monitored, controlled and caused by the FBI.

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So it is attempting to say that it saved us from a danger that it created and therefore

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never actually existed.

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If we allow the government to do that, to violate rights in order to make these claims,

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we won't be safe and we won't be free.

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Well, I don't think anyone could have said it better than that and I agree, it's very

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The Government Bats a Thousand on Threats It Itself Creates

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Well, who wouldn't?

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On the other side of the break, Judge, I want to ask you...

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Well, I don't want to give it away. We're going to have some fun on the other side of the break.

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But the book is It is Dangerous to be Right When the Government is Wrong.

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My guest, Judge Andrew Napolitano.

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Make sure and stay tuned to the Peter Schiff Show for another segment with the Judge.

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And for an hour on the neocons.

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Coming up here on the Peter Schiff Show, the gold standard in talk radio.

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The Peter Schiff Show

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Since the Peter Schiff Show was last on the air, the national debt added another $7.89 million dollars.

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Luckily, Peter's intelligence is growing twice as fast.

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That's incredible!

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Welcome back to your source of sanity in an insane world. It's The Peter Schiff Show.

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All right everybody, welcome back to Peter Schiff's show. I'm Tom Woods, in for Peter.

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Joined for one more segment by Judge Andrew Napolitano, great hero to us all.

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Judge, before I get back to your book, which, again, I love this book. It's a great primer on liberty and all its ramifications.

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It's amazing to me that in the midst of 14-hour days at Fox, you have time to be basically writing a book a year.

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I don't see how you do it, but that's your own secret. We have a seminar on that, but I want to ask you something that basically people have been pleading with me to ask. I think you know what it is, but there's been a lot of talk about Judge Andrew Napolitano running for some kind of political office just because you are a take-no-prisoners, tough-as-nails, super smart guy. You'd have tremendous support. You're, I would say, almost the only person outside of Ron Paul that the whole Ron Paul community

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and Humanity Unanimously Trusts, like there are people in the Ron Paul orbit, 80% of us like or 70%, 100% like Judge Napolitano. Is there any chance you would even consider that or is it definitively ruled out now and forever?

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Oh, you're so kind. I'm not even sure you're talking about me, but I'll take all the flattery and praise that I can get.

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Look, I believe in the Liberty Movement and I see the need for a night watchman and the

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megaphone in the audience that I have now as the night watchman for the Liberty Movement

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is extraordinary and it's a gift to me.

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You know, I don't own Fox, I'm just employed here.

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And as long as they want to give me this platform, I think I'm going to stay here because my

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opportunity is really to educate people about the subtle and insidious ways in which liberty

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can be lost.

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And I think I can do far more good in that process of education with the platform that

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I have now than with any other platform.

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On the other hand, were Congressman Paul to be elected President of the United States?

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If there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States during his term, I'd be all ears.

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Well, that is very good to know.

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I'm even qualified for that, but that's something you can't turn down.

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No, no, no. You would have to have your head examined.

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Well, I mean, people talk about you. I just had a call before you came on, somebody saying, look, the judge would be a great VP.

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Well, I'm aware of that. I'm aware of those very flattering websites out there, and I'm aware of the polls that they have taken that's good for the ego. It's also good for spreading our message. I know that sometimes my voice and my unique style can be the messenger, not the message. So to that extent, it's helpful, but it's probably unrealistic.

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Now, it's only fair you have an author on, you've got to talk about his book.

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So getting back to the book, everybody, once again, is it is dangerous to be right when

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the government is wrong, the case for personal freedom.

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Before you came on, I was just going through some of the chapter titles, all the different

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areas that you cover here.

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What do you find is the toughest sell, that people are most skeptical when you try to

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make the case for freedom?

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What's the hardest one?

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That the government can't take freedom away from us.

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Probably the staunch libertarians recognize natural rights, that is, rights that are integral

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to our humanity.

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Even well-educated people, some of whom are running for president, not Ron Paul, slip

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into the idea that freedom of speech comes from the government.

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It doesn't come from the government.

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The government has an affirmative obligation to protect it.

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Probably the right that people are most willing to give up, and this is very unsettling, is the right to be left alone, the right to privacy, and when I argue things like, well, the government can't track your cell phone and track you without a search warrant, they basically say to me, as you did earlier when you were playing devil's advocate, well, what's the harm? If you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to hide. That is probably the most difficult argument to make because

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Most of us have been educated in schools owned by the government.

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Most of us have been taught from day one to show unique, unusual, and in my view, perverse

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subservience to the government.

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Most of us believe that the government is usually right.

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Now, I take the opposite view on all of those.

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The government is almost always wrong in almost everything that it does.

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The government does not create our rights.

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Only God has created our rights.

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That's the message of the book, what I just said in that past soliloquy.

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It's a tough sell with respect to privacy, and it's a tough sell with those who think

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that the government, that the state, is greater than individuals.

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But for people who understand the natural law, who believe that human beings are created

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in the Image and Likeness of God and have an immortal soul, and the government is just

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a temporary human organization based on force, this book is red meat and they love it.

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Judge, we've got just about two minutes, if that, so it's totally unfair of me to

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ask you this question, but toward the end, when you're talking about taxation, you take

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a very radical position here that you can find in this book that's basically arguing

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of Women's Rights that the founders gave us, that we wouldn't need money for the Department of Education or the Department of Commerce or the Department of Agriculture or the Department of Health and Human Services or Housing and Urban Development.

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The government would stay within the confines of the Constitution and it would be financed by user fees. Some of those fees would come from the states when the federal government provided service to the states.

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in the States. Some would come from people using the government's ports and transporting

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goods through them. But look, you wouldn't let a crook steal money from you if he promised

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to give it away in your name. You wouldn't let your neighbors take money against your

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will if they promised to give it away in your name. Why would you let the government take

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your money against your will if they promised to give it away in your name? I don't see

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any difference.

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It's just, it's nuggets like this that make this book so enjoyable.

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The book is, it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

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My guest has been Judge Andrew Napolitano.

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Judge, what a pleasure to have you on.

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Thanks so much for taking some time today.

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Thank you, my friend.

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All right, everybody, stick around for another hour of The Peter Schiff Show.

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Oh, we got more, more, more controversial things to say.

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You're not going to want to miss it.

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Peter Schiff Show, the gold standard in talk radio.

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Everything's gonna be alright, alright, alright

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So long, fool friend, when will we meet?

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You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners.

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One minute you're up half a million in soybeans and the next boom.

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Your kids don't go to college and they've repossessed your bent here. Are you with me?

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The revolution starts now.

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Starts now.

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We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.

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Turn those machines back on!

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You are about to enter The Peter Schiff Show.

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Show me the money!

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If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to.

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This is the last stand on Earth.

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The Peter Schiff Show is on.

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Call in now.

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855-4-SHIFT.

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That's 855-472-4433.

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I don't know when they decided that they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness.

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Your Money. Your Stories. Your Freedom. The Peter Schiff Show.

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All right everybody, welcome back to The Peter Schiff Show. I'm Tom Woods, in for Peter,

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here in the second hour on this Thursday and we are joined by a man I've not met before,

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For, but whose book I have read and very much enjoyed, and that's Professor C. Bradley Thompson

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of Clemson University.

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Professor Thompson is a political science professor there.

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He's also executive director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism.

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And the book we're going to be talking about today is neoconservatism, an obituary for

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an idea.

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We hear the term neoconservative and neocon thrown around a lot.

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I think a lot of people don't know what it is, or don't know much about it, or a lot

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A lot of people are neocons without even knowing it. Just by default, they've become neocons.

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So this is an issue that couldn't be more significant. And I'm particularly grateful

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to Brad for joining us from the airport today. I know what that's like, being on the road

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and somehow you have to find a quiet corner where there's no groping going on, so you

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can have a little bit of time on the air. Brad Thompson, thanks so much for being with

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us today.

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Hi, good morning. It's great to be with you.

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00:41:05.380 --> 00:41:22.380
Thank you. I want to... let's just start right off just defining, if possible, briefly, when we say neoconservatism, and without talking about Leo Strauss, which we'll talk about later, what is it? What do these people believe?

394
00:41:22.380 --> 00:41:29.780
Yeah, that's an important question. They think, they will tell you that neoconservatism is

395
00:41:29.780 --> 00:41:34.460
not a political philosophy, that rather it's a, they call it an impulse, an orientation,

396
00:41:34.460 --> 00:41:40.160
a tendency, persuasion, things like that. I've tried to argue in this book that neoconservatism

397
00:41:40.160 --> 00:41:46.660
is a comprehensive, consistent political philosophy. And in many ways, maybe the best way to define

398
00:41:46.660 --> 00:42:01.660
is to use the definition by Daniel Bell, who was one of the leading neoconservatives, who described himself as a socialist in economics, a liberal in politics and a conservative in culture.

399
00:42:01.660 --> 00:42:13.660
And I think what that means is that neoconservatism is an amalgam of several competing philosophies, which is one of the reasons why it's, I think, always been so hard to define.

400
00:42:13.660 --> 00:42:24.660
More particularly, what I would say is that they are the advocates of what they call national greatness conservatism.

401
00:42:24.660 --> 00:42:26.660
It is, yeah.

402
00:42:26.660 --> 00:42:29.660
It just has a shutter down my spine, that term.

403
00:42:29.660 --> 00:42:41.660
And it should, because it is a rejection of what we might call Jeffersonian liberalism or Goldwater conservatism.

404
00:42:41.660 --> 00:42:55.660
They reject down the line the founding principles of the United States. They reject laissez-faire capitalism, limited government, and the idea of individual rights, and more particularly the neoconservatives.

405
00:42:55.660 --> 00:43:09.660
They advocate government regulation of the economy and government regulation of our cultural life. So in a sense, they're the worst of the socialists, and they're the worst of the conservatives, all rolled into one.

406
00:43:09.660 --> 00:43:17.940
Now, one of my classic, I think, neocon statements that I recall is from David Brooks in the

407
00:43:17.940 --> 00:43:23.180
New York Times, kind of scolding traditional conservatives who, you know, a traditional

408
00:43:23.180 --> 00:43:26.860
conservative is not a national greatness conservative, and they believe in the greatness of America

409
00:43:26.860 --> 00:43:32.740
philosophically, but conservatives believe in finite goals and hearth and home.

410
00:43:32.740 --> 00:43:35.300
They don't believe in global crusades.

411
00:43:35.300 --> 00:43:36.900
That's revolutionary leftism.

412
00:43:36.900 --> 00:43:41.100
And yet, a lot of Americans now, by default, have become revolutionary leftists and they

413
00:43:41.100 --> 00:43:42.100
think they're conservatives.

414
00:43:42.100 --> 00:43:47.740
But I love David Brooks saying, wanting to be left alone, which is precisely what Jeffersonianism

415
00:43:47.740 --> 00:43:51.500
and Goldwaterism was all about, isn't a governing doctrine.

416
00:43:51.500 --> 00:43:54.740
Yeah, that's what we like about it, David.

417
00:43:54.740 --> 00:43:57.020
Yeah, exactly.

418
00:43:57.020 --> 00:44:03.660
And David Brooks is just following the godfather of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, who once

419
00:44:03.660 --> 00:44:10.380
said that neoconservatism is the only conservatism that is, quote, in the American grain, which

420
00:44:10.380 --> 00:44:17.380
is to say that Goldwater conservatism or Jeffersonianism are outside the American grain, that is, the

421
00:44:17.380 --> 00:44:21.860
principles of capitalism, limited government and individual rights, that is, the principles

422
00:44:21.860 --> 00:44:27.860
of the Declaration, are somehow outside the American grain and only this national greatness

423
00:44:27.860 --> 00:44:33.100
conservatism is somehow in the American grain, which is to say that what the neoconservatives

424
00:44:33.100 --> 00:44:48.100
The Neoconservatives have done is to corrupt the very idea of what I have called traditional goldwater conservatism, which I think really is just a kind of Jeffersonianism with the emphasis on limited government and individualism.

425
00:44:48.100 --> 00:45:00.100
And they categorically reject it. One of the things that I tried to do in this book is to show the way in which the neoconservatives actually reject the principles of the American founding.

426
00:45:00.100 --> 00:45:30.100
What's odd about that is they will tell you publicly that they are great fans of the American founding but philosophically speaking they reject those principles and more importantly they reject those principles, the idea of individualism or rugged individualism because they say ultimately it leads to a kind of nihilism, the nihilism that you get from modern 20th century European philosophers

427
00:45:30.100 --> 00:45:56.100
which I think is wrong as a fact and disingenuous on their part. I think they know better, but they want to argue that Jeffersonian individualism leads to the nihilism of the New Left. That is, Jeffersonian or the ideas of Thomas Jefferson lead to the ideas of Abbie Hoffman and the New Left of the 1960s. And that is just simply false.

428
00:45:56.100 --> 00:46:09.100
It's a libel on the human race, really to say that if we don't have them paternally exercising their custodianship over all of us, then we're just going to be a bunch of atomized individuals who don't care about anybody.

429
00:46:09.100 --> 00:46:17.100
We wouldn't have families or civic groups or whatever if they weren't there to cultivate them. It's a very disturbing, elitist kind of thing.

430
00:46:17.100 --> 00:46:26.100
I thought I knew the neocons pretty well. The book, by the way, is neoconservatism, an obituary for an idea. My guest is the author Bradley Thompson.

431
00:46:26.100 --> 00:46:35.100
But here you've really, in addition to your great analysis of what their philosophical presuppositions are, you've got some damaging quotations here.

432
00:46:35.100 --> 00:46:42.100
I mean, Irving Kristol, I think a lot of us know, he supported the welfare state. He gives his famous two cheers for capitalism.

433
00:46:42.100 --> 00:46:47.300
But his son, Bill, and his magazine, The Weekly Standard, I mean, you've got Bill Crystal

434
00:46:47.300 --> 00:46:50.860
in here just coming right out and saying, we don't really want to shrink government,

435
00:46:50.860 --> 00:46:53.600
we just want to turn it to our ends.

436
00:46:53.600 --> 00:46:59.260
This is the great movement that right-of-center people, truck drivers, regular Americans are

437
00:46:59.260 --> 00:47:00.860
supposed to get on board for?

438
00:47:00.860 --> 00:47:01.860
Precisely.

439
00:47:01.860 --> 00:47:08.820
I mean, you will note, for instance, that there is no neoconservative political party,

440
00:47:08.820 --> 00:47:15.700
There is no neoconservative Joe Sixpack. Neoconservatism is not a political movement. It's an intellectual

441
00:47:15.700 --> 00:47:25.580
philosophic movement that does try to influence public policy but from the top down. And they

442
00:47:25.580 --> 00:47:30.380
have, over the course of the last 25 years, they have come to completely dominate the

443
00:47:30.380 --> 00:47:36.460
conservative and even some of the libertarian think tanks and philanthropic foundations,

444
00:47:36.460 --> 00:47:42.460
And certainly in the media, magazines like you mentioned, The Weekly Standard, and even Fox News,

445
00:47:42.460 --> 00:47:51.460
the larger conservative intellectual movement has been essentially taken over by the neoconservatives and corrupted by them.

446
00:47:51.460 --> 00:47:57.460
Well, we've got much more to talk about here. Can this grip ever be removed?

447
00:47:57.460 --> 00:48:04.460
We have much more to say. I mean, I just love this book, really. Neoconservatism and Obituary for an Idea.

448
00:48:04.460 --> 00:48:07.020
Another segment coming up with Bradley Thompson.

449
00:48:07.020 --> 00:48:22.500
Make sure and stick around here on The Peter Schiff Show, the gold standard in talk radio.

450
00:48:22.500 --> 00:48:27.740
Since The Peter Schiff Show was last on the air, the national debt added another $7.89

451
00:48:27.740 --> 00:48:28.740
million.

452
00:48:28.740 --> 00:48:33.020
Luckily, Peter's intelligence is growing twice as fast.

453
00:48:33.020 --> 00:48:40.020
Welcome back to Your Source of Sanity in an Insane World. It's The Peter Schiff Show.

454
00:48:43.740 --> 00:48:49.420
And we are back on The Peter Schiff Show. I'm Tom Woods in for Peter, joined by Bradley

455
00:48:49.420 --> 00:48:56.100
Thompson, author of Neo-Conservatism, an obituary for an idea. Now, Brad, you and I have a different

456
00:48:56.100 --> 00:49:02.100
kind of a critique of the neocons' foreign policy, but what we share in common is we're

457
00:49:02.100 --> 00:49:07.320
We're not convinced about this imperative to spread so-called democracy around the world

458
00:49:07.320 --> 00:49:11.920
as if this were some conservative imperative when it seems to me this is exactly the sort

459
00:49:11.920 --> 00:49:15.420
of thing Edmund Burke would have rolled his eyes at and said, well, this is what a leftist

460
00:49:15.420 --> 00:49:21.280
does, going around trying to uproot traditional societies and remake them like Tinker toys.

461
00:49:21.280 --> 00:49:25.420
No conservative would think that was doable or desirable.

462
00:49:25.420 --> 00:49:27.820
Can you elaborate on the neocons foreign policy?

463
00:49:27.820 --> 00:49:28.820
Sure.

464
00:49:28.820 --> 00:49:30.740
Yeah, I think you're right.

465
00:49:30.740 --> 00:49:36.740
Thomas Edmund Burke, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams would have all rejected the neoconservatives' foreign policy.

466
00:49:36.740 --> 00:49:40.740
The neocons call their foreign policy benevolent hegemony.

467
00:49:40.740 --> 00:49:47.740
The idea here is that we'll spread our love and our power around the world.

468
00:49:47.740 --> 00:49:52.740
So we'll drop bombs and we'll drop food packages all at the same time.

469
00:49:52.740 --> 00:49:57.740
This is absolutely a rejection of the founding fathers' foreign policy.

470
00:49:57.740 --> 00:49:58.740
Policy.

471
00:49:58.740 --> 00:50:04.300
But what's, I think, most important to say about their foreign policy is that, in fact,

472
00:50:04.300 --> 00:50:08.140
it is a branch of their domestic policy.

473
00:50:08.140 --> 00:50:14.940
So for the last ten years, the left have been arguing, again, and partly, rightly so, against

474
00:50:14.940 --> 00:50:18.140
the neocons' foreign policy, but for all the wrong reasons, they don't understand it at

475
00:50:18.140 --> 00:50:19.140
all.

476
00:50:19.140 --> 00:50:23.940
The neocons' foreign policy, its purpose is twofold.

477
00:50:23.940 --> 00:50:35.540
The real enemy for America is not communism, it's not radical Islam, it's the philosophy of nihilism.

478
00:50:35.540 --> 00:50:43.940
They argue that the American people have become morally corrupt, bankrupt, heathen, and therefore in order to overcome this nihilism,

479
00:50:43.940 --> 00:50:50.940
we have to sacrifice ordinary, everyday Americans in military adventures around the world.

480
00:50:50.940 --> 00:50:55.740
Well, they want to put America on a state of permanent warfare, the purpose of which

481
00:50:55.740 --> 00:50:56.740
is actually twofold.

482
00:50:56.740 --> 00:51:02.540
One, as I said, to make ordinary, everyday Americans more virtuous, to get them to focus

483
00:51:02.540 --> 00:51:07.780
their lives in sacrificing for the nation-state.

484
00:51:07.780 --> 00:51:15.580
And secondly, it's also a vehicle by which neoconservative statesmen can exercise their

485
00:51:15.580 --> 00:51:23.580
and philosophical and political virtue. There's statesman-like virtues on a large worldwide platform.

486
00:51:23.580 --> 00:51:32.580
Well, it's interesting that you make that connection between the domestic and the foreign policy, because one of the quotations in your book that really struck me is from Max Boot,

487
00:51:32.580 --> 00:51:42.580
who is, you know, who's written on quite a bit on warfare. He's with the Council on Foreign Relations. He's been a critic of mine in the past. I wear that as a medal on my chest.

488
00:51:42.580 --> 00:51:45.580
But to read Max Boot, right here in your book, he says,

489
00:51:45.580 --> 00:51:52.580
Why not use some of the awesome power of the U.S. government to help the downtrodden of the world, just as it is used to help the needy at home?

490
00:51:52.580 --> 00:51:56.580
Well, who is this, Lyndon Johnson? And these are the people Americans are supposed to follow?

491
00:51:56.580 --> 00:52:09.580
Yeah, exactly. So, in other words, ordinary, everyday Americans, red-state Americans, are going to sacrifice their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor

492
00:52:09.580 --> 00:52:15.580
to Spread the American Welfare State to Iraq.

493
00:52:15.580 --> 00:52:17.980
It's a deeply and profoundly immoral policy.

494
00:52:17.980 --> 00:52:23.380
Also consider, for instance, this statement from Robert Kagan, who is also one of the

495
00:52:23.380 --> 00:52:25.420
leading neo-cons on foreign policy.

496
00:52:25.420 --> 00:52:31.300
He said, quote, the remoralization of America at home ultimately requires the remoralization

497
00:52:31.300 --> 00:52:34.360
of American foreign policy.

498
00:52:34.360 --> 00:52:39.520
So the idea is, I mean, the end goal is to remoralize the American people.

499
00:52:39.520 --> 00:52:45.240
Therefore, we're going to send our military all over the world in order to moralize or

500
00:52:45.240 --> 00:52:48.520
remoralize the American people at home.

501
00:52:48.520 --> 00:52:53.400
Now, Brad, gosh, I've got two really big questions I want to ask you, and only about five minutes

502
00:52:53.400 --> 00:52:54.400
in which to ask them.

503
00:52:54.400 --> 00:52:58.180
So we'll try and keep it as punchy as possible, and then I'd love to, if I have another chance

504
00:52:58.180 --> 00:53:00.620
to have you back, it would be just great.

505
00:53:00.620 --> 00:53:05.480
But two things, one, you know, you talk about the philosopher Leo Strauss and his influence

506
00:53:05.480 --> 00:53:06.480
on the neocons.

507
00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:13.480
What I would say here is that Strauss did seem to believe that there was a qualitative difference between the philosopher king and the great run of mankind.

508
00:53:13.480 --> 00:53:19.480
And the great run of mankind can't really be brought on to our program, honestly, so we have to snooker them into it.

509
00:53:19.480 --> 00:53:24.480
We've got to sell it to them as a kind of religious imperative. We've got to exploit their religious belief,

510
00:53:24.480 --> 00:53:32.480
turn it into some type of civic religion where the US flag is almost like the cross, and people can't even distinguish them, and it becomes like a holy cause.

511
00:54:02.480 --> 00:54:32.480
and there are some absolutely first-rate neoconservative intellectuals. They have a strong foothold in the universities and with that then they just simply took over the conservative foundations and philanthropic foundations. So over time, their ideas have spread down and through the larger or broader conservative culture. I mean, magazines like the National Review, Weekly Standard, for instance, they're all infused by

512
00:54:32.480 --> 00:54:39.480
Neoconservatism. And so, eventually, these ideas trickle down into people, into the heads of people like Sean Hannity.

513
00:54:39.480 --> 00:54:55.480
Now, given precisely what you've just said, that the neocons have just, they dominate, and once they dominate something, they tend to impose a very strict ideological litmus test. So when the neocons took over the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal some years ago, a lot of my friends just couldn't get published anymore.

514
00:54:55.480 --> 00:55:15.480
Socialism and Obituary for an Idea

515
00:55:25.480 --> 00:55:36.480
Well, do you see this coming? Is there any way, other than the complete bankruptcy of the country, which might discredit the neocons, so that we could get something other than neoconservatism that's right of center?

516
00:55:36.480 --> 00:55:40.480
And by the way, we've only got about two minutes to answer that question. Good luck!

517
00:55:40.480 --> 00:55:50.480
Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think the single most important thing is first, we have to identify precisely what the neoconservative ideology is, which the book attempts to do.

518
00:55:50.480 --> 00:55:56.160
do, and I believe it's the first book to really expose neoconservatism as a comprehensive

519
00:55:56.160 --> 00:55:57.160
political philosophy.

520
00:55:57.160 --> 00:56:04.360
And then secondly, and more importantly, the advocates of individual rights, limited government

521
00:56:04.360 --> 00:56:12.480
and laissez-faire capitalism have to be uncompromising advocates of those principles, and at every

522
00:56:12.480 --> 00:56:16.840
opportunity they have to call out the neoconservatives on these very principles.

523
00:56:16.840 --> 00:56:21.840
So for instance, as you suggested earlier and as I read in the book, Irving Kristol only

524
00:56:21.840 --> 00:56:23.800
gave two cheers for capitalism.

525
00:56:23.800 --> 00:56:24.800
Why only two cheers?

526
00:56:24.800 --> 00:56:30.440
Well, he withheld the last cheer because in the end he thought capitalism is simply as

527
00:56:30.440 --> 00:56:35.820
do all Marxists, he thinks it's simply immoral, it doesn't have a moral foundation.

528
00:56:35.820 --> 00:56:41.200
So the primary task I think for the defenders of capitalism and limited government is we

529
00:56:41.200 --> 00:56:48.000
We need to do a much better job of identifying and defining the moral foundations of a free

530
00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:53.720
society, which, unfortunately, I don't think the advocates of those broader principles have

531
00:56:53.720 --> 00:56:54.720
done.

532
00:56:54.720 --> 00:56:57.200
Well, I couldn't agree with you more there.

533
00:56:57.200 --> 00:57:02.760
My guest has been Bradley Thompson, author of Neo-Conservatism, an obituary for an idea.

534
00:57:02.760 --> 00:57:07.140
And I agree with you, Brad, that this book, I haven't seen anyone, you know, you see these

535
00:57:07.140 --> 00:57:09.140
The Theory of Money and Credit

536
00:57:37.140 --> 00:57:40.380
Americanism and Jeffersonianism. Brad Thompson, thanks so much for being my guest today on

537
00:57:40.380 --> 00:57:44.940
The Peter Schiff Show. Tom, thank you so much. All right, everybody, stick around for more

538
00:57:44.940 --> 00:57:51.060
of The Peter Schiff Show, the gold standard in talk radio. Make sure and call in 855-472-4433.

539
00:57:51.060 --> 00:57:59.180
That's 855-4-SHIP. The Peter Schiff Show.

540
00:58:07.140 --> 00:58:10.140
We now return to The Peter Schiff Show.

541
00:58:10.140 --> 00:58:11.140
Call in now.

542
00:58:11.140 --> 00:58:13.140
855-4-SHIFT.

543
00:58:13.140 --> 00:58:16.140
That's 855-472-4433.

544
00:58:16.140 --> 00:58:19.140
The Peter Schiff Show.

545
00:58:22.140 --> 00:58:24.140
All right, everybody, welcome back to The Peter Schiff Show.

546
00:58:24.140 --> 00:58:26.140
I'm Tom Woods in for Peter.

547
00:58:26.140 --> 00:58:28.140
I'm about to go over to the phones.

548
00:58:28.140 --> 00:58:32.140
I do want to just note before that that I'll be speaking in Houston tomorrow

549
00:58:32.140 --> 00:58:36.140
at the Street Talk Advisors X Factor Investment Conference

550
00:58:36.140 --> 00:58:44.140
and also in Jacksonville, Florida, October 22nd as part of the great Nullify Now tour, Nullify Now Jacksonville.

551
00:58:44.140 --> 00:58:49.140
Details on those and other events are available at my website tomwoods.com.

552
00:58:49.140 --> 00:58:53.140
Okay, let's go to the phones and I thank everybody for your patience.

553
00:58:53.140 --> 00:58:59.140
With the guests on, it's hard to get to the phones, but let's go to Bob in Boulder, Colorado.

554
00:58:59.140 --> 00:59:01.140
Bob, welcome to The Peter Schiff Show.

555
00:59:01.140 --> 00:59:06.780
Hi, Tom. You know, for a long time I've been following your discussion of the idea of nullification

556
00:59:06.780 --> 00:59:11.500
and very interested in that, but I've also got something else I wanted to ask you specifically.

557
00:59:11.500 --> 00:59:16.740
It kind of goes along the same lines going into the Constitution, and that is looking

558
00:59:16.740 --> 00:59:22.740
at Article 5, there are basically two ways to get amendments. One is the traditional

559
00:59:22.740 --> 00:59:29.460
route through Congress. The other one is very clearly to me on petition of the states, two

560
00:59:29.460 --> 00:59:34.820
and two-thirds of the states for something that they're referring to in the document

561
00:59:34.820 --> 00:59:37.500
as an amendment convention. Now, this is not

562
00:59:37.500 --> 00:59:42.460
a constitutional convention. Usually, when you bring this up, people roll their eyes or they flip out.

563
00:59:42.460 --> 00:59:45.780
They're thinking you're advocating a

564
00:59:45.780 --> 00:59:47.540
general

565
00:59:47.540 --> 00:59:53.740
constitutional convention. Can you tell me a little bit about your interpretation of article five

566
00:59:53.740 --> 00:59:55.940
and what an amendment

567
00:59:55.940 --> 00:59:59.380
of a convention would look like?

568
00:59:59.380 --> 01:00:05.380
Sure, you're right that the Constitution identifies two ways that you'd go about amending the Constitution.

569
01:00:05.380 --> 01:00:11.380
One is that the Congress approves an amendment and then sends it out to the states for ratification.

570
01:00:11.380 --> 01:00:16.380
But the other process is where the states do a complete end run around Congress

571
01:00:16.380 --> 01:00:20.380
and call a convention of their own to propose amendments.

572
01:00:20.380 --> 01:00:28.380
And that's never been used, but the idea of it was that what if Congress is the problem?

573
01:00:28.380 --> 01:00:31.700
which of course it is in our own day. Congress is the problem. What's the

574
01:00:31.700 --> 01:00:34.780
likelihood the solution is going to come from Congress? What's the likelihood

575
01:00:34.780 --> 01:00:38.100
they're going to submit amendments that might actually have some some good

576
01:00:38.100 --> 01:00:44.660
effect? And so that's why the amendments convention exists as an option. Now there

577
01:00:44.660 --> 01:00:48.620
are some people who say well look you can amend the Constitution all you want

578
01:00:48.620 --> 01:00:52.800
but if they're not obeying the Constitution as it exists now why would

579
01:00:52.800 --> 01:00:57.980
they obey any of your amendments? And to some extent that's a valid concern but

580
01:00:57.980 --> 01:01:27.980
But you can, I think you could, and I say this as somebody who, I'm way past the Constitution at this point, I just feel like the whole thing is beyond repair, but you could make it less corrupt and less ineffective and horrendous than it is, through some structural amendments, like what if there were amendments that expressly codified some type of ability of the states to resist on a corporate level what the federal government is doing, then I think you would see federal laws actually getting repealed.

581
01:01:27.980 --> 01:01:57.980
The Nullification says a state could just not enforce a federal law. But what if you had an amendment that said, you know, if X number of states vote to repeal, not just not enforce it in their states, but repeal for the whole country a federal law, then it would be repealed. That would be a structural change that I think would be better than what we have now. And what are the chances that Congress is going to introduce an amendment that's going to challenge its power in that way? And that's why people are talking about an Article 5 convention. Now, you're right.

582
01:01:57.980 --> 01:02:06.980
The great thing about the Article 5 convention is that it becomes a runaway convention, that before you know it, they're going to impose the Communist Manifesto on us and then we'll be stuck with it.

583
01:02:06.980 --> 01:02:20.980
Now, I wouldn't say I'm rah-rah for an Article 5 convention. I mean, I do think there are some legitimate concerns about it, but I'm not, and each state would decide on its own basis who would be sent to be delegates, in effect, at a convention like that.

584
01:02:20.980 --> 01:02:26.980
It would be up to each state to decide on what basis it would make that determination. That's what it would look like.

585
01:02:26.980 --> 01:02:30.380
What would actually ensue at a convention like this?

586
01:02:30.380 --> 01:02:35.020
Well, I guess I'm not as concerned about it as I once was, and basically for this reason.

587
01:02:35.020 --> 01:02:40.020
I used to be scared away from this on the grounds that, well, think about what would

588
01:02:40.020 --> 01:02:43.260
happen if we had a constitutional convention.

589
01:02:43.260 --> 01:02:46.640
And my response is, well, gee, what could it lead to?

590
01:02:46.640 --> 01:02:51.740
Would it lead to a Congress that can just legislate in any area it wants to?

591
01:02:51.740 --> 01:02:57.460
Would it lead to a president who can just commence military operations anywhere he wants

592
01:02:57.460 --> 01:02:58.780
to at any time?

593
01:02:58.780 --> 01:03:03.860
Would it lead to, in other words, would it lead to exactly what we already have?

594
01:03:03.860 --> 01:03:10.320
I mean, in other words, all the nightmare scenarios that are presented to us typically

595
01:03:10.320 --> 01:03:14.160
are describing the situation we are already in.

596
01:03:14.160 --> 01:03:20.100
And so I don't any longer fear quite so much what they would do to us that isn't already

597
01:03:50.100 --> 01:03:54.660
about amendments, but amendments are explained in the Constitution how it is that they are

598
01:03:54.660 --> 01:03:58.100
to be approved, and you're not going to get three quarters of the country approving the

599
01:03:58.100 --> 01:04:02.860
Communist Manifesto. If they do, then you've got to get out, right? I mean, then at that

600
01:04:02.860 --> 01:04:06.220
point, convention or no convention, you've just got to get the heck out of here, would

601
01:04:06.220 --> 01:04:10.180
be my suggestion to you. All right, Bob, thanks for the call. I'm going to go now to Alex

602
01:04:10.180 --> 01:04:15.180
in Brooklyn, who has been, who wins the prize for most patient caller in the history of

603
01:04:15.180 --> 01:04:18.700
the Peter Schiff Show. Alex, congratulations. Welcome to the program.

604
01:04:18.700 --> 01:04:27.700
Well, thanks. I had made an observation about deflation in the dollar and I'm wondering if you can just tell me if I'm wrong on this.

605
01:04:27.700 --> 01:04:30.700
Okay. It might be more of a Peter question, but I'll do my best.

606
01:04:30.700 --> 01:04:36.700
Sure. It seems like everybody's saying that if we have deflation, the dollar is going to get really strong.

607
01:04:36.700 --> 01:04:43.700
But it seems like to me, if we started having major deflation and there was bankruptcies and everything started kind of collapsing,

608
01:04:43.700 --> 01:04:47.700
the government would be collecting a lot less tax revenue. So then they couldn't really pay off their bonds.

609
01:04:47.700 --> 01:05:06.700
So, once that happens, wouldn't people lose a lot of faith in the dollar? And then if that's the case, wouldn't people probably stop using the dollar as a reserve currency? And if a currency is backed by a country's own production, the US doesn't really produce anything. So how could the dollar stay strong in a deflationary environment, if that's the case?

610
01:05:06.700 --> 01:05:14.700
Okay, it's a good question. I mean, I'll try and answer it this way. I don't think there, and thank you very much for the call, and again, for your patience.

611
01:05:14.700 --> 01:05:30.700
I would answer it sort of this way. I don't think that if we're defining deflation, as I think you are, as a general fall in prices, not as a fall in the actual money supply, which we're not really that likely to see, but if we define it as a fall in prices, I don't think it has to lead to a general downturn.

612
01:06:00.700 --> 01:06:04.700
And that's already going to be reflected in the input prices of the stuff the businesses

613
01:06:04.700 --> 01:06:05.700
buy.

614
01:06:05.700 --> 01:06:09.980
So if, you know, I'm a, I don't know, whatever, I mean, I make widgets.

615
01:06:09.980 --> 01:06:13.980
All the inputs that I need for widgets will already have factored into them the fact that

616
01:06:13.980 --> 01:06:19.180
I know I won't be able to make the same profit on widgets nominally as I used to because

617
01:06:19.180 --> 01:06:20.640
prices are going to be lower.

618
01:06:20.640 --> 01:06:23.500
So the input prices are going to be bid down.

619
01:06:23.500 --> 01:06:28.780
And so therefore I will still be able to maintain my profit spread between costs and sales revenues

620
01:06:28.780 --> 01:06:35.780
The Bankruptcy is Followed by Reorganization and New Owners Now Get that Capital for a Song, for Pennies on the Dollar at Auctions,

621
01:06:58.780 --> 01:07:03.860
and then they can start off very robustly with very low cost so they will be very

622
01:07:03.860 --> 01:07:08.660
competitive at those lower prices so I don't think it has to lead to a general

623
01:07:08.660 --> 01:07:15.580
collapse I think in fact falling prices can indeed and indeed typically is a

624
01:07:15.580 --> 01:07:19.980
very healthy thing for the economy we've got just a couple minutes before we

625
01:07:19.980 --> 01:07:25.540
got to go to our last break of the program so before we do that I want to

626
01:07:25.540 --> 01:07:28.300
make a plug for something that I've mentioned in the past but that I think

627
01:07:28.300 --> 01:07:34.180
I think listeners of this program are really going to love and really want to get behind,

628
01:07:34.180 --> 01:07:37.180
and that is the great economist Robert Murphy.

629
01:07:37.180 --> 01:07:39.100
You see him a lot on the judges program.

630
01:07:39.100 --> 01:07:43.440
We talked to the judge in the last hour, and he is a semi-frequent guest here on the Peter

631
01:07:43.440 --> 01:07:44.440
Schiff Show.

632
01:07:44.440 --> 01:07:51.780
Robert Murphy is an NYU economics PhD who has an outstanding invitation to Paul Krugman,

633
01:07:51.780 --> 01:07:56.140
the guy who drives you crazy every week in the New York Times, to debate him about business

634
01:07:56.140 --> 01:07:57.140
cycles.

635
01:07:57.140 --> 01:08:02.140
and the economy to go up and down. And, of course, Bob wants to talk about the Federal Reserve as being the culprit.

636
01:08:02.140 --> 01:08:05.140
And now you say, okay, whoop-de-doo, everybody wants to debate Paul Krugman. What does this matter?

637
01:08:05.140 --> 01:08:08.140
What's going to happen here? This is never going to come to pass.

638
01:08:08.140 --> 01:08:14.140
But what Bob has done is he has used the Point website, which basically allows you to do something like this,

639
01:08:14.140 --> 01:08:23.140
that Bob Solicits pledges. You pledge money. Your credit card is not charged until the debate occurs.

640
01:08:23.140 --> 01:08:53.140
So if the debate never occurs, you know, you could pledge a million bucks, make sure you're prepared in case it does occur to make good on the million bucks, but the point is that you don't actually get charged until the debate occurs, and when the debate occurs, all that money isn't going to go to Krugman, isn't going to go to Murphy, it's going to go to a home that feeds the hungry in New York City. So it's a brilliant strategy. So if Bob gets up to like $100,000, what are Krugman supporters going to say? Like you can't even spare one hour to debate Murphy?

641
01:09:23.140 --> 01:09:32.140
He's an ogre who doesn't care about the hungry, or he loses a debate with Bob Murphy, and we get to see an Austrian free-market economist debate a Keynesian economist.

642
01:09:32.140 --> 01:09:42.140
Check out KrugmanDebate.com. That's K-R-U-G-M-A-N, KrugmanDebate.com. And let's get that pledge number up there.

643
01:09:42.140 --> 01:09:49.140
All right, everybody, we're coming back after the break with one final segment. I'll be taking more of your calls at 855-472-4433.

644
01:09:49.140 --> 01:09:54.140
The Peter Schiff Show, the gold standard in talk radio, stick around.

645
01:10:01.140 --> 01:10:03.140
The Peter Schiff Show.

646
01:10:08.140 --> 01:10:16.140
To President Obama, Secretary Geithner, Madam Pelosi and all of the socialist econ professors across America.

647
01:10:17.140 --> 01:10:18.140
We're sorry.

648
01:10:19.140 --> 01:10:26.140
Peter Schiff is back on the air!

649
01:10:26.620 --> 01:10:31.500
Alright everybody, welcome back to The Peter Schiff Show. I'm Tom Woods in for Peter.

650
01:10:31.500 --> 01:10:35.700
It's our final segment, these two hours just fly right by.

651
01:10:35.700 --> 01:10:37.700
Let's go to the phones.

652
01:10:37.700 --> 01:10:43.700
We're going to talk to Sean in Lincoln, Illinois. Sean, thanks for your patience and welcome to The Peter Schiff Show.

653
01:10:43.700 --> 01:10:45.460
Thanks Tom, good talking to you.

654
01:10:45.460 --> 01:10:50.340
I want to thank you for the work you've done on Ron Paul's Super PAC. This latest

655
01:10:50.340 --> 01:10:58.060
news with Iran and terror, that seems to be the knock when I'm in conversations with

656
01:10:58.060 --> 01:11:03.620
other Republicans or conservatives is, you know, crazy Uncle Ron wants Iran to have the

657
01:11:03.620 --> 01:11:11.780
nuke and his foreign policy is kooky. I think the latest commercial with what foreign countries

658
01:11:11.780 --> 01:11:18.580
on our Soil. Out of the Super PAC is a good talking point to that, but how else do we combat

659
01:11:19.220 --> 01:11:26.100
this knock on Ron Paul's foreign policy, particularly with the warmongering that seems

660
01:11:26.100 --> 01:11:33.060
to be going on related to Iran? Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, there are a lot of different things we

661
01:11:33.060 --> 01:11:38.900
could say. There's a good article today. First of all, again, thanks for the call and thanks for

662
01:11:38.900 --> 01:11:58.900
The Christian Science Monitor has a very good article today called, Hey America, Iran Still Isn't Threat Number One, that gives a more sober look at the real leadership in Tehran, which is not Ahmadinejad, by the way, who has relatively little power in the grand scheme of things.

663
01:11:58.900 --> 01:12:11.900
And they go down and this article goes through and explains that, you know, you've got, this is a country that ranks 61st in the world in military expenditures, it's 104th in terms of GDP per capita.

664
01:12:11.900 --> 01:12:18.900
That this is another example of a threat being ramped up by people who consistently lie to us, right?

665
01:12:18.900 --> 01:12:23.900
I mean, I just, I can't believe that the Iraq thing was just an honest mistake by well-meaning people.

666
01:12:23.900 --> 01:12:30.900
for People who had their Middle Eastern ambitions long before 9-11, and that was just a pretext to execute them.

667
01:12:30.900 --> 01:12:42.900
But I think Ron Paul's point is that the country is broke, that Iran would be completely obliterated by Israel and possibly even the U.S.

668
01:12:42.900 --> 01:12:51.900
if it were to launch a nuclear missile that it doesn't have with a delivery system that it doesn't have on American soil.

669
01:12:51.900 --> 01:13:06.900
This is a country that has not launched an offensive war as long as anybody can remember, and the leadership in Iran, as I say, is oddball, but it's not suicidal.

670
01:13:06.900 --> 01:13:13.900
And anybody who studies it closely, and not just reads the New York Times, will more or less tell you that.

671
01:13:13.900 --> 01:13:22.900
I would say that basically what this would lead to, what invasion of Iran, which is what would be necessary, would lead to, would just be right off the bat $10 a gallon gasoline.

672
01:13:22.900 --> 01:13:27.900
I mean, that's just absolute guarantee. And then this is just going to persist year after year after year.

673
01:13:27.900 --> 01:13:36.900
I mean, you think Iraq was difficult to subdue. Iran is much more substantial, much, much, much greater size.

674
01:13:36.900 --> 01:13:42.900
Iran has been empowered by the Iraq invasion, of course, as any bonehead could have known.

675
01:13:42.900 --> 01:13:47.900
You take out a Sunni regime that's hostile to Iran, and you let the Shiites get more power.

676
01:13:47.900 --> 01:13:55.900
I mean, hello! You wonder, are these people really being serious with me, that they care so much about the Islamic threat?

677
01:13:55.900 --> 01:14:01.900
These are the same neocons that in the 1990s pushed to have an Islamic state in the heart of Europe, in Bosnia.

678
01:14:01.900 --> 01:14:06.060
in Bosnia. They pushed for that. They were the ones who pushed for bombing Serbia over

679
01:14:06.060 --> 01:14:10.900
the issue of Kosovo, the civil war that was going on there. These are the people who...

680
01:14:10.900 --> 01:14:14.780
You can't take these people seriously. They're all over the map. All they care about is bombing.

681
01:14:14.780 --> 01:14:19.660
It doesn't matter if there's any coherence to the bombing. What they want is just an

682
01:14:19.660 --> 01:14:24.620
enormous amount of expenditure, and it's coming to an end. This could well provoke the fiscal

683
01:14:24.620 --> 01:14:29.180
crisis that just puts the country over the edge. It can't work, apart from the fact

684
01:14:29.180 --> 01:14:37.180
the huge numbers of innocent people, and most Iranians are pretty normal people. If you've seen any footage of them, they're basically just regular people just trying to lead their lives.

685
01:14:37.180 --> 01:14:52.180
And this would lead to countless deaths. Who knows the regional explosions that could result, the destabilization of Pakistan, where you really do have an existing, not just an imaginary, but an existing nuclear power.

686
01:14:52.180 --> 01:14:59.580
or the unintended consequences of this are so potentially explosive and yet the conservatives

687
01:14:59.580 --> 01:15:04.060
who they'll see the unintended consequences of a milk subsidy, but they don't see the

688
01:15:04.060 --> 01:15:11.060
unintended consequence of a war with Iran at a time when regimes across the region are

689
01:15:11.060 --> 01:15:17.340
being toppled and replaced with much more Islamic friendly and anti-American regimes.

690
01:15:17.340 --> 01:15:21.940
You think that's going to throttle that or you think it's going to encourage it further

691
01:15:21.940 --> 01:15:28.940
So every negative trend that is existing right now in the Middle East will be ramped up by ten times.

692
01:15:28.940 --> 01:15:36.940
So right now, as I say, I would check out, because I almost read it on the air and I realized I won't have time,

693
01:15:36.940 --> 01:15:41.940
I would check out this article in the Christian Science Monitor, Hey America! Iran Still Isn't Threat Number One.

694
01:15:41.940 --> 01:15:47.940
And then secondly, I would look for videos and articles by Michael Scheuer, S-C-H-E-U-E-R,

695
01:15:47.940 --> 01:15:51.940
and the C.I.A.'s Bin Laden Unit.

696
01:15:51.940 --> 01:15:56.940
He's not naive. He does not, by the way, hold a rosy view of Islam.

697
01:15:56.940 --> 01:16:01.940
Scheuer believes Islam to be a backward and very illiberal religion.

698
01:16:01.940 --> 01:16:05.940
He is not saying that Islam is full of peace and they just want to throw flowers at us.

699
01:16:05.940 --> 01:16:07.940
He does not take that view.

700
01:16:07.940 --> 01:16:13.940
He said that nevertheless, the foreign policy that the U.S. government is pursuing is bad for us.

701
01:16:13.940 --> 01:16:15.940
It's bad for everybody.

702
01:16:15.940 --> 01:16:26.940
And so check him out. His blog is, I think, called Non-Intervention. So if you type in Non-Intervention and Michael Scheuer, I think you'll get some pretty good resources.

703
01:16:26.940 --> 01:16:34.940
But the bottom line is, as of now, when you add in all the different expenses that are associated with the military, it's not just the Pentagon budget,

704
01:16:34.940 --> 01:16:42.940
but it's the portion of the Department of Energy that's defense-related. It's the Department of Homeland Security. I mean, what is that if not defense?

705
01:16:42.940 --> 01:16:53.940
It's the Department of Veterans Affairs. It's the portion of the national debt, the interest payments on the national debt that's due to previous military strength, previous military expenditures.

706
01:16:53.940 --> 01:17:00.940
This is adding up to about a trillion dollars a year. Plus the appropriations for the existing wars. That's a trillion dollars a year.

707
01:17:00.940 --> 01:17:06.940
Where is this going to come from? And that's assuming that the U.S. can keep borrowing at very, very low rates.

708
01:17:06.940 --> 01:17:14.060
is that we do we want to bring on the great fiscal collapse if there is any chance at all of averting it

709
01:17:14.380 --> 01:17:17.740
Have all options been exhausted? Have they even been tried?

710
01:17:18.660 --> 01:17:23.220
That would be the kind of the kind of question I would want to know where's the money going to come from in

711
01:17:23.740 --> 01:17:25.740
this sort of situation

712
01:17:26.060 --> 01:17:31.520
Well, I can take now gosh we are so close to the end. Yeah, I would Robert

713
01:17:31.520 --> 01:17:33.460
I'd love to get to you and talk about this the subject

714
01:17:33.460 --> 01:18:03.460
We'll have to perhaps wait till next time. We are very much coming up toward the end of our time together, but as I said, I strongly recommend Scheuer and also Phil Giraldi, G-I-R-A-L-D-I, look for his writing on the internet, Phil Giraldi and Scheuer, and also look for ammunition at www.antiwar.com, which has some left-leaning people writing on it, but is a lot of conservatives and libertarians who are sick and tired of the bankrupting foreign policy.

715
01:18:03.460 --> 01:18:05.460
www.antiwar.com

716
01:18:33.460 --> 01:18:40.460
The gold standard in talk radio. Check me out at tomwoods.com and thanks a lot.