US government hypocrisy in Ukraine RPI Director Daniel McAdams explains to RT:

Be among the first to watch this very special evening with Ron Paul in the San Francisco Bay area, speaking extensively on the principles of liberty and freedom. Federal Reserve, taxation, the ill-gotten wealth of those in the military-industrial complex, senseless wars, the nanny state, the drug war, and so much more.

This is a full course on liberty from one of the great masters, so sit back and enjoy!

A special thanks to Independent Institute‘s David Theroux for mentioning in his wonderful introduction that Dr. Paul is Chairman of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity!

US sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis are an act of war, RPI Chairman Ron Paul told Channel 4 News in the UK. When you tell a country that they cannot trade, it may not be quite as bad as dropping bombs, but it is still an act of aggression, he said. What would the US do if someone from overseas came and said we cannot import oil, for example? 

The American people want no part of a conflict with Russia, just as they wanted no part in a war against Syria last summer, said Dr. Paul. But the US administration is playing games, threatening Russia and putting on sanctions, failing to recognize the large amount of trade between the US and Russia and the unnecessary economic harm that is done with sanctions. Watch the video:

Speaking on the House of Representatives floor on September 17, 1997, then-Rep. Ron Paul warned of the “massive buildup of a virtual army of armed regulators.” Paul, the chairman and founder of RPI, proceeded to comment in his speech that, with the number of armed federal employees approaching 60,000, the Secretary of the Interior was pushing for even the Bureau of Land Management to be armed.

With the continuing rise of SWAT over the following 16 years, the number of armed US government employees continued to grow. According to the bulletin Federal Law Enforcement Officers, 2008 of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, by September of 2008 “federal agencies employed approximately 120,000 full-time law enforcement officers who were authorized to make arrests and carry firearms in the United States,” with 255 of them working for BLM.

We saw the United States government’s armed agents in action recently at the Bundy ranch in Nevada. We also saw them back off, at least for now, when confronted by armed protestors. Paul’s concluding sentences of his 1997 speech seem apropos:

The gun in the hands of law-abiding citizens serves to hold in check arrogant and aggressive government. Guns in the hands of the bureaucrats do the opposite. The founders of this country fully understood this fact.

Read here, from the Congressional Record, Paul’s complete speech:

Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, another Member severely criticized me on the House floor for declaring on C-SPAN that indeed many Americans justifiably feared their own government. This fear has come from the police state mentality that prompted Ruby Ridge, Waco and many other episodes of an errant Federal Government.

Under the constitution, there was never meant to be a Federal police force. Even an FBI limited only to investigations was not accepted until this century. Yet today, fueled by the Federal Government’s misdirected war on drugs, radical environmentalism, and the aggressive behavior of the nanny state, we have witnessed the massive buildup of a virtual army of armed regulators prowling the States where they have no legal authority. The sacrifice of individual responsibility and the concept of local government by the majority of American citizens has permitted the army of bureaucrats to thrive.

We have depended on government for so much for so long that we as people have become less vigilant of our liberties. As long as the government provides largesse for the majority, the special interest lobbyists will succeed in continuing the redistribution of welfare programs that occupies most of Congress’s legislative time.

Wealth is limited, yet demands are unlimited. A welfare system inevitably diminishes production and shrinks the economic pie. As this occurs, anger among the competing special interests grows. While Congress and the people concentrate on material welfare and its equal redistribution, the principals of liberty are ignored, and freedom is undermined.

More immediate, the enforcement of the interventionist state requires a growing army of bureaucrats. Since groups demanding special favors from the Federal Government must abuse the rights and property of those who produce wealth and cherish liberty, real resentment is directed at the agents who come to eat out our substance. The natural consequence is for the intruders to arm themselves to protect against angry victims of government intrusion.

Thanks to a recent article by Joseph Farah, director of the Western Journalism Center of Sacramento, CA, appearing in the Houston Chronicle, the surge in the number of armed Federal bureaucrats has been brought to our attention. Farah points out that in 1996 alone, at least 2,439 new Federal cops were authorized to carry firearms. That takes the total up to nearly 60,000. Farah points out that these cops were not only in agencies like the FBI, but include the EPA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the Army Corps of Engineers. Even Bruce Babbitt, according to Farah, wants to arm the Bureau of Land Management. Farah logically asks, “When will the NEA have its armed art cops?” This is a dangerous trend.

It is ironic that the proliferation of guns in the hands of the bureaucrats is pushed by the antigun fanatics who hate the second amendment and would disarm every law-abiding American citizen. Yes, we need gun control. We need to disarm our bureaucrats, then abolish the agencies. If government bureaucrats like guns that much, let them seek work with the NRA.

Force and intimidation are the tools of tyrants. Intimidation with government guns, the threat of imprisonment, and the fear of harassment by government agents puts fear into the hearts of millions of Americans. Four days after Paula Jones refused a settlement in her celebrated suit, she received notice that she and her husband would be audited for 1995 taxes. Since 1994 is the current audit year for the IRS, the administration’s denial that the audit is related to the suit is suspect, to say the least.

Even if it is coincidental, do not try to convince the American people. Most Americans, justifiably cynical and untrusting toward the Federal Government, know the evidence exists that since the 1970’s both Republican and Democratic administrations have not hesitated to intimidate their political enemies with IRS audits and regulatory harassment.

Even though the average IRS agent does not carry a gun, the threat of incarceration and seizure of property is backed up by many guns. All government power is ultimately gun power and serves the interests of those who despise or do not comprehend the principles of liberty. The gun in the hands of law-abiding citizens serves to hold in check arrogant and aggressive government. Guns in the hands of the bureaucrats do the opposite. The founders of this country fully understood this fact.

RPI Chairman Ron Paul gives his take on the recent stand-off at the Bundy Ranch to Fox News’s Neil Cavuto. Dr. Paul is encouraged by people demonstrating against government unfairness. He says:

I’m hoping this is positive and a sign of things to come where the people stand up and object to the federal government’s intrusion into our lives. And when people do get together and stand up I think governments will be forced to back down. But the other thing is, governments don’t give up their power easily, and they may well come back with a lot more force like they did at Waco.

Dr. Paul is in favor of protests such as these, but warns about the use of force:

I really encourage the demonstrations against unfairness by our government, but I would like to see it all non-violent.

You can also read Ron Paul’s statement on the standoff here.

With the Thursday announcement that Stephen Colbert will succeed David Letterman as the host of the Late Show on CBS next year, it is a good time to look back at Colbert’s in-studio interviews of RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul. While humor-filled, the interviews gave Paul a great opportunity to introduce his views to the Colbert Report audience on Comedy Central.

Paul’s first interview on the Colbert Report, in 2007, starts with loud applause in reaction to Colbert announcing Paul’s “no” votes on the USA PATRIOT Act and Iraq war. Paul elaborates on his pro-liberties and pro-peace ideas:

If you obey the Constitution, though, you will be a freer person than if you disobey it. If you allow the president to run wild and, you know, investigate and spy on people and start wars that aren’t declared, you could lose your liberties.

Paul proceeds to expand on what he describes as his constitutionalist perspective:

That’s especially when you should criticize the government — when they go to war incorrectly. Randolph Bourne, a famous writer many years ago, said, “War is the health of the state.” If you believe in liberty, you want to reduce the size and the scope of the state. So, therefore, you want to stamp out all wars and prevent wars from starting, whether it’s a war on drugs, a war in Iraq, or a war against poverty. All these wars are just to scare the people in order to give up their liberties and give up their money to the government so that they can solve all our problems.

Watch the full interview here:

Paul followed up his 2007 interview with additional fun and informative in-studio Colbert Report interviews in 2008 and 2011.

Speaking with RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze, RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul presents a masterful, in-depth critique of the US government’s actions related to Ukraine. Among many matters discussed, Paul addresses the US government’s foolhardy imposition of sanctions as part of its Ukraine policy:

A sample from Ron Paul:

…why don’t we try to see it from the other perspective – how would we react if we couldn’t import something? What if China or Russia or somebody came in and said: ‘You cannot import certain things, or we’re going to prohibit you from trading?’ The American people wouldn’t like that very much, and yet we too causally do that with others.

But, in principle, it’s not quite like a shooting war, but it is a war. I mean it is something that’s used in an active war, and the ultimate of is a blockade – but sanctions is a form of a blockade. Sanctions, ‘you can’t do this, you can’t do that,’ and I think it only leads to escalation, and the countries that had sanctions…The sanctions against Iran have been on there for a long time, and on Cuba – but the leaders never suffer. The people suffer, in both countries, so this is the reason I think that sanctions in principle are wrong.

Read a transcript here.

NATO’s bureaucrats — and the military-industrial complex that supplies them — are thrilled with the new lease on life given them by the Ukraine crisis. That is why NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen keeps telling anyone who will listen, that NATO is needed more than ever and it must be given even more new missions. Old cold warriors are coming out of the woodwork to wave NATO flags and talk about the glories of “collective security.”

In the below edition of RT’s Crosstalk, watch RPI academic advisor John Laughland and fellow NATO skeptic Eric Kraus debate a neoconservative hawk from the Heritage Foundation on the subject of whether NATO has any real value or purpose more than 20 years after the Warsaw Pact shut its doors. The inability of the hawk to provide any reasonable defense of NATO is very telling. Watch the video below:

While United States Attorney General Eric Holder’s support for reducing some drug crime sentences promises to help some drug war victims and their families, RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul has advocated for decades the comprehensive solution of ending the war on drugs. Watch here Paul promote that the US government stop building “more courts and more prisons” and instead “repeal the whole war on drugs” during the 2007 PBS Republican presidential candidates debate:

What do the new US sanctions on Russia mean and how far might they go? RPI Executive Director Daniel McAdams is interviewed today on RT to offer some perspective:

RPI Advisor John Laughland weighs in on the Crimea vote to rejoin Russia, the breathtaking hypocrisy of the western governments and the disconnect between US and EU citizens and their governments. Of course the secession is illegal, Laughland says, but that also means that even the US Declaration of Independence was, strictly speaking, illegal. Dr. Laughland also offers his forecast as to the two possible outcomes of the standoff between Russia and the US/EU over Ukraine and Crimea.

The EU revealed itself as “oligarchic” and “anti-democratic” by calling the Crimean referendum illegal, John Laughland of the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation told RT. He added that more sanctions against Russia will only hurt Western economies.

RT: Western powers have denounced the referendum and this reunification treaty as illegal. Are they right? Do you agree or disagree with their position?

John Laughland: I strongly disagree with it. I think their hypocrisy is absolutely breathtaking. And I think many Europeans also see through the hypocrisy. If you look at the comment threads on the internet sites of newspapers on the issue, you will see that a large number of Europeans understand that there are double standards at issue here. The reason why I say so strongly that I disagree is that the EU yesterday, following the referendum held on Sunday, condemned the referendum as illegal. When it did that, it showed its profoundly anti-democratic nature because a referendum is, first of all, a very legitimate thing to have in a democratic system. And secondly, the Ukrainian constitution itself – Article 138 – allows the Autonomous Republic of Crimea to hold local referendums. So the EU really showed its face as an oligarchical and an anti-democratic organization when it condemned the referendum, rather than the secession. The secession, of course, technically speaking, is illegal. When every state secedes from another state there’s rupture in the legal structure of the state, from which the territory is succeeding. That’s the very definition of secession. So it’s a bit of stating the obvious to say that the secession is illegal. Obviously, it’s illegal in terms of Ukrainian law. But that means that nearly every single secession in the history of the world has been illegal. As well, the Declaration of Independence of 1776 by the American colonies against the British Empire was illegal in that sense.

RT: President Putin in his speech today mentioned the Kosovo precedent set by the West – do you think it’s a fair comparison?

JL: It’s totally fair. And it’s not just a matter of precedent because there’s a principle of law that a violation of law can’t be a precedent in law. It’s a very important principal in Roman law. And many people, myself included, consider the Kosovo Declaration of 2008 was itself a violation of international law because there had been a UN Security Council resolution proclaiming Kosovo to be an integral part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. However, since the Declaration of 2008, the international law situation has been clarified in a ruling of the International Court of Justice, which Mr. Putin quoted quite rightly. The International Court of Justice is a supreme arbiter in matters of international law and their advisory opinions thought by Serbia. Unfortunately for Serbia, the judges there found against Serbia and ruled that the declaration of independence had been legal – and also, more generally, that throughout history, declarations of independence are never in conflict with international law. And they went even further. They said that the 20th century declarations of independence have been regarded as compatible and indeed supported by international law in the name of the principal of self-determination. So it’s not just the fact of independence of Kosovo in 2008, it’s more importantly – from a legal point of view – the Court of Justice ruling of 2010, which as I said, Mr. Putin rightly quoted.

RT: Everyone in the West and Russia seemed to be expecting this decision on reunification – and yet the sanctions imposed were limited in scope. Now that it looks irreversible, will Western powers see any point in imposing further punishment on Russia? What would they stand to gain?

JL: Well, they stand a lot to lose. I think Russia is going to reply. We’ll have to see whether the reply triggers further reply and how far each side is ready to go. I mean it’s very difficult to predict the future. The situation in Ukraine itself is very fluid. And we don’t know how things are going to evolve in the East or in Odessa. We don’t know how long the regime in Kiev is going to last. So, it’s very difficult to say what will happen. I think there are basically two scenarios. There could indeed be a severe degradation of East-West relations based on tit-for-tat sanctions, on increasing hostility, and, indeed, based on violence, instability in Ukraine itself. That’s quite possible. There’s also another possibility. And that’s that the West more or less, without admitting it, accepts fait accompli. After all, as many people have said, the sanctions are purely symbolic. They are a joke, in fact. No one really takes them seriously. France, for example, has said it will continue to deliver its aircraft carriers to Russia, the second of which is due for delivery in 2015 and bears the name of Sebastopol, the Crimean port. So far, the sanctions are very minor. And therefore the second possible scenario is that not much more will happen to Russia than happened to Turkey after it effectively annexed – not formally, but effectively annexed – northern Cyprus in 1974. Let’s not forget, there are many other occasions where states have annexed or effectively annexed other territories for reasons similar to that that is now operating in Crimea.

RPI Chairman and Founder Ron Paul, speaking on the Fox Business show The Independents Wednesday night, addresses the Central Intelligence Agency’s spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee — seemingly to cover up torture revelations against the agency. Paul notes the irony that Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) “doesn’t care about our privacy, but, lo and behold, she does care about her own.”

Watch the complete interview here: