This week on the Ron Paul Liberty Report, Ron Paul discussed with guest Lew Rockwell their many years working to advance liberty, as well as their shared optimism for the future. For people new to libertarian ideas, the engaging conversation is a good starting point for obtaining a feel for the fight for liberty in America since the 1970s and an understanding of the contributions made by Paul and Rockwell in that fight. For anyone brought down by the relentless advance of leviathan government, watching the interview may provide a jolt of assurance that there is hope for the cause of liberty.

Many people are familiar with Rockwell because of his work as the chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, or because of his much-visited news and commentary website lewrockwell.com. But, before all that, Rockwell was Paul’s chief of staff in the House of Representatives. In the interview Paul and Rockwell discuss their first meeting in the 1970s. Also addressed in the interview are Rockwell becoming seminal Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises’ editor at a young age and later working in Paul’s House of Representatives office.

Looking back at his time working for Paul in the House, Rockwell relates Paul’s “steadfastness” in reaction to demands for more government intervention. Rockwell provides an example from when President Ronald Reagan attempted to lobby Paul to support increasing military spending:

Ronald Reagan once called you to try to get you to vote for military spending. Despite Reagan’s reputation, he wasn’t, of course, lobbying you for less spending; he was lobbying you for more spending, especially military spending to kill people. You didn’t budge. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t twist your arm. Your arm was untwistable. This was true of Newt Gingrich. It was true of all the Republican leaders — the big guys in the Republican Party in the House and the Senate, otherwise in the country. They couldn’t make you do the wrong thing. So, I’ve always thought, that’s the way a man should be; we should all strive to try to be a Ron Paul.

Asked by Paul to “compare where the freedom movement was in the ‘70s compared to today,” Rockwell responds that he thinks there has been “huge progress.” While Rockwell notes that the media and the government are full of “bad guys,” “liars,” and “cheats,” he says that people can now on the internet bypass all of that and seek out news on websites such as ronpaulinstitute.org. While on the surface we see the growth of menacing government powers, Rockwell explains that there is great reason for optimism, stating:

You would absolutely get the impression that we’re sunk, that the bad guys have won everything, they control everything. But, actually, underneath that — especially among young people — and Ron you have been the most powerful reason for this, there is a huge difference, huge progress. I remember so strongly back the last time you ran for president the Pew Research people did a poll of young people who supported you, and they wanted to know what was the key issue. And in those days you were being demeaned as ‘oh, [the young people] just want to smoke pot.’ So it turned out the key issue for young people was war and peace. They were against the wars. They wanted peace. And that’s why they loved you.

One way Paul and Rockwell continue to work together to advance liberty is through the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity where Paul is the chairman and Rockwell is an Advisory Board member. Paul is also a member, with Rockwell, of the Mises Institute Board of Directors.

Watch the complete Ron Paul Liberty Report interview here:

At a Mises Institute event in November of last year, Paul further explored “a tremendous growth in the ideas of liberty” over the last thirty years and Paul’s reasons for optimism that “the militarism of big government is coming to an end.” You may read about and watch that speech here.

At the Ron Paul Liberty Report’s YouTube page you can find many episodes of the show, including episodes featuring fascinating interviews with guests including Jacob Hornberger, Michael Scheuer, and Peter Van Buren.

After covert CIA backing of Radio Free Europe and other organizations was exposed in the 1970s, a group of neoconservatives decided to create a new kind of CIA to do in the open that which had been done in secret: the National Endowment for Democracy. More than 30 years later, even though the Cold War is a distant memory, the NED is still a $100 million per year, taxpayer-funded worldwide “regime change” operation. Yesterday’s death of one of the masterminds of the NED should perhaps prompt Americans to again wonder why they are being forced to finance such dangerous and counterproductive government-funded bureaucracies.

Yesterday the House voted down H. Con. Res. 55, which would have forced President Obama to withdraw US troops from Iraq and Syria by year’s end without Congressional authorization. Congressional leaders clearly have no interest in asserting their Constitutional prerogatives. Meanwhile on the same day, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was telling the House Armed Services Committee that plans to train fighters in Iraq and Syria are failing because no one is signing up. Is this not an argument for an end to US involvement in the region? Tune in to today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Not long ago anyone who suggested that neo-Nazis were involved in the US-backed government in Ukraine would be ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist. Then last week the US House voted to prohibit funding to the Azov Battalion because of its neo-Nazi ideology. As NATO makes plans to station thousands of troops and tons of heavy military equipment right on Russia’s border, the Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look at who exactly is escalating tensions in eastern Europe:

Born 800 years ago today, the magna carta was in essence the result of a rebellion against the unchecked power of the executive to take a country to war and then stick the citizens with the bill. What can we learn from that rebellion and how can we put it to use to preserve and defend our own liberty against a modern unchecked executive power? Today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look:

Despite the ongoing war propaganda and political leaders who seem desperate to do the bidding of Washington, a majority of the population in every European NATO member country would oppose going to war with Russia — even if Russia attacked another NATO member country! That is the surprising result of a recent PEW poll conducted in NATO member countries. Only in the US and Canada — well away from the battlefield — is there majority support for striking the Russians. What does this mean for the proponents of the new Cold War? Tune in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report for more:

President Obama has admitted this week that he has no strategy for Iraq and Syria. But in the absence of a strategy the old familiar tactics are still at play: escalate, escalate, escalate. More US “trainers” to Iraq to perform a miracle: create an Iraqi army that can defeat ISIS; more US weapons on the way (because the last batch ended up in the hands of ISIS); and, to top it off, a new US military base to be built in Iraq’s Anbar Province. All to the delight of the military-industrial complex who is really running the show. Tune in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report for more on the chaos:

Will Ukrainians take to the streets in sufficient numbers to overthrow their US-backed leaders? Over the weekend a large protest in Kiev was violently broken up by masked men while the police looked on. No word from the US condemning the violence. Elsewhere, the US admits sanctions are hurting Europe and not harming Russia, but still it presses for even more of them. RPI Director Daniel McAdams joins RT’s CrossTalk today to discuss US policy toward Ukraine and the possibility of more unrest:

Three weeks after a deadly shootout at a biker rally in Waco, TX, there are more questions than answers. Why are more than 100 of those arrested still being held without any real charges filed? Why do witnesses familiar with firearms insist that most of the shooting came from police automatic weapons? Why won’t the police release any information about the incident? Is it another case of disproportionate police response? Just this weekend in McKinney, TX, we saw another apparent example of disproportionate police response when an officer pulled a gun on unarmed teenagers at a pool party. The Ron Paul Liberty Report takes a look at the increasing divide between police and the people:

On Friday, US drones killed 34 at an Afghan funeral. US officials claimed they were all terrorists but the locals on the ground disagreed. Will family members of those killed seek revenge on the US? Over the weekend, CIA director John Brennan admitted that this kind of blowback could be a problem for the US. As he put it, “sometimes our engagement and direct involvement will stimulate and spur additional threats to our national security interests.” Today’s Liberty Report takes a look at these two important events together to see how the first and second are intimately related:

The current government in Macedonia, elected freely just a year ago, has been under pressure by NGOs financed by the US and European governments as well as George Soros. The problem? Lack of enthusiasm about western sanctions on Russia and an initial agreement to participate in the Turkish Stream gas pipeline project with Russia. Today the Ron Paul Liberty Report looks at this latest color revolution:

Hacked emails show billionaire George Soros is fighting to save the US-backed president of Ukraine. He promised President Poroshenko to call up US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and ask for some more money for Ukraine. He is demanding that the US start supplying weapons to Ukraine to attack separatists in the east. Tune in to the Liberty Report for more on why this super powerful mogul is playing the region like a chessboard: