Ron Paul Live Discussion | Candidates at Google

Hello everyone. As always with the introductions, you know who he is. I'm Elliot Schrag. This is particularly hard to do because I'm not going to be nearly as good, either as entertaining or as enlightening as Stephen Colbert. So we won't be doing those kinds of clips before in the future. I am Vice President of Global Communications and Public affairs here at Google. I have a couple of announcements as we get started. I know we're pretty full indeed overflowing here. For those of you who want to be able to watch all this and sit down, we have an overflow room in Benghazi downstairs. I don't expect that many of you will be leaving, but I want you to know that that option is available. The other sort of thing that we're going to do a little differently this time is usually I end up asking questions for about 20 minutes, half an hour, and then we open this, we have a conversation and then we open this up to questions from the audience here. I'm pleased to say, or I'm impressed to say that we've never gotten so many questions on our dory system for a presidential candidate who has visited Google. So I'm going to devote much more time today to asking some of the questions that we've gotten and also to make time for questions that you might all have. So with that, again you've introduced and welcomed our guest, Congressman Paul. I'm new to the Congressman Paul presidential campaign bandwagon, so I want to really understand a little bit more about your political philosophy and your background. You described yourself as a constitutionalist. What does that mean?

That means that you have high respect for the Constitution and it's the only oath that you take. When you go into office as a congressman or even when you serve in the military or you're sworn in as a president, you swear to uphold the Constitution against all enemies, domestic and foreign. And that contract is very important. And I believe that our Constitution was probably the best ever written as an agreement between the people and the government. And it's imperfect. Nothing is perfect. Man creates. But the principle of the rule of law should be sought after that is that if you have a contract, you should follow it. If you disagree with part of that contract, you should change it in the proper manner. But ignoring it is the worst thing you can do. And that's what we've done. If you take the war issue, we don't declare wars anymore. We go to war under UN resolutions, We go into war for all kinds of ill advised reasons and the end of the.

It's not the idea of war that you're.

Well, not entirely, but I'm against the idea of war when it's not called for. But going to war in an unconstitutional manner is, Is very, very detrimental because it undermines the whole system. How can. If I vote for an illegal war, why would I be a good defender of your First Amendment rights or your Second Amendment rights or any part of the Constitution? And we unfortunately are delivering to this new generation a system of government where there's very little respect for the Constitution. And, you know, we have the executive branch abusing it constantly. You can't depend on the judicial branch, and you certainly can't depend on the Congress to protect our liberties.

So again, I want to actually go through a bunch of specific examples. So clearly you voted against the war in Iraq. And had it been a properly authorized resolution of war, I assume based on what you've said, you would not have supported that.

I would not have. Matter of fact, when it came up in the IRR committee on which I served, I made them vote on it and said if you, you other members want to go to war, you should do it properly. Get the country together behind you and fight it, win it and get it over with and get. If it's indeed a necessary war. But they didn't have that debate and they just ridiculed that idea and they said that part of the Constitution was anachronistic and we don't do it. But here we are today having the debate that we should have had four years ago, but they didn't want the debate. And now everybody's scurrying around to cover themselves about why they endorse the war and now why they don't. And they could have avoided it twice if they'd have agreed with me that it was an unnecessary war, our national security was not threatened, or if they just would have resorted to the rule of law, they could have protected themselves. So there's two ways they should have been able to protect themselves. But now the Congress is up there passing all kinds of resolutions, pretending that they're bowing to the people's will and they are actually helpless in doing anything serious about getting us out of Iraq.

Would you have voted also against going to war in Afghanistan against the Taliban and the bases that Al Qaeda had?

Well, we really didn't declare war against Afghanistan, and I would have voted against authority to go into Afghanistan, take it over and nation build. Besides, that effort was designed for some economic reasons of oil and gas pipelines and things that's why they had to take over Afghanistan. But I did vote for the authority to go after the Al Qaeda, believing that targeting the individual in the group that was seemed to be very likely. The people who brought about nine, 11, I did, but the authority given and the money given was totally abused. We went into nation building. Where's Osama bin Laden? He's in Pakistan. Pakistan is a military dictatorship that we support and now we subsidize and they have nuclear weapons. So it makes no sense whatsoever with this ridiculous foreign policy that we have. So no, I would oppose and never intended for the President to misuse that authority. I wanted him to go after. So what happened? We ignored Osama bin Laden and said, oh, let's go to war against Iraq. So those are the kind of irrational policies that I'm trying to fight.

So in the Paul administration, what would be the policy given. Given that we are where we are today in Iraq?

Well, the one thing is, is the President is the commander in chief of the armed forces. The President should be reminded, and I would remind myself, you're not the commander in chief of the government, of the country and all the people. I mean, there's no massive definition that the President has these arbitrary powers just because he's commander in chief. But the commander in chief of the forces can move the armed forces around. I'd move them around quickly. I'd bring them home.

So immediately, just.

Yes, I'd bring them home as soon as possible and safely because safely for.

The troops, safely for the people who.

Remain in Iran, safely for the troops and for Americans. Because my responsibility is I have a moral responsibility to protect Americans, American property, the American rule of law and the Constitution.

Do you think at this point America or Americans have any moral responsibility for what happens in Iraq?

Yeah, I think the neoconservatives deserve the blame and they have moral responsibility. But you don't. I don't blame you for their mismanagement of the war. So I can't penalize you. I can do my best to. And I actually sincerely believe that we are the motivation for the civil war over there. So I would not be causing more chaos. If there is, it's because we went in, it's not because we're leaving. Although there may be a blip upward or downwards, but ultimately I'm a bit more optimistic than most. Everybody who's predicting these dire things to happen are the ones who said it would be, you know, smooth and easy and paid for and it'd be no problems whatsoever. But, but I think Vietnam is an example of what can happen if you follow the advice of the founders and follow the Constitution only constitutional wars. Don't get involved and leave. We left under terrible circumstances. I was drafted in 63 and stayed in for five years and it was a terrible, terrible war to be associated with. I didn't have to go to Vietnam, but we left. 60,000 men died and we left. And all of a sudden we started talking to Vietnam and we trade with Vietnam. The president of Vietnam comes here, fulfills the predictions and the advice of the founders, said, talk with people, trade with people, engage yourself, travel, but don't get involved in their entangling alliances with them and don't get involved in their internal affairs. Don't be a nation builder and don't police the world. The American empire is going to fail. It is in the process of failing. And I just want to get out of that empire building smoothly rather than waiting for a catastrophic event like a bankruptcy of this country. And the dollar's weak, is weak because we spend huge amounts of money, you know, for war and welfare, and it's unsustainable. And I think that's one of the reasons that the younger generation is very attracted to this philosophy, is that they have become aware that the great burdens are falling on the next generation, whether it's the Social Security system or the abusive government that's down that's going to invade our privacy, that we're getting rid of habeas corpus. Young people are realizing this and they understand the finances. And actually it has been a great booster to the campaign because of the young people.

I'm sorry, you mentioned, you sort of mentioned the concept of foreign entanglements. Sort of George Washington's reference when he was departing his presidency. Clearly that's part of the constitutionalist philosophy. Your attitude towards doing business with other countries, China, the Middle east, your, you know, the Paul administration is leave them be, let them get their own houses in order. And what should the tenor of US Relationships be in the international.

Well, we should permit trade as fast as possible and evenly as possible. I want low tariffs. Tariffs are taxes. And it doesn't tax the wealthy. It taxes the poor person who would like to buy cheap products.

So why were you opposed to nafta? Why was the hand so high?

Because it, because it's government management of trade for this special interest. It's not, it's not really free trade. There are more requests from our government to NAFTA to raise tariffs. You know, we want protectionism. If you're a big Corporation, you might get some protection from that. Where free trade is different, in Washington, you have managed international trade under the UN NAFTA type ban or wto, which is just bigger government. And I don't, and I don't like that. Or you have the protectionist that says that no, we shouldn't trade high tariffs and punish the consumer by making them pay higher prices for their products.

So I have to ask, I've asked other people, other candidates who've come. So for a company like Google going and doing business in China, you think it was a good thing for us to begin operations?

That's right. That's your right under the Constitution, and it's your right in a free society. And even if there are restrictions, pardon.

Me, Even if there are restrictions that make people uncomfortable in terms of access, that's your business.

That's your business. But the market, if some group in this country frowns upon it, they have the right to try to punish Google in the market, but they don't have the right to come to me to punish Google and say, you can't do it. So your contract is your business. And some contracts aren't as good as others. But what I want to do is protect the right of freedom of contract, which is one of the elements of a free society that's crucial. Its free contract is similar to the free association of two individuals in a social sense and sexual sense. In a religious sense, you don't want to interfere. So in the economic sense, and I apply the same rule to economic volunteerism, that you can come together with any voluntary contract and the government has a responsibility if one side violates it. And there's an argument, you know, I'm still at the point where I don't think you go and shoot each other. You know, I'd still use the courts to settle these disputes.

So immediately the idea of contracts come to mind. So clearly then, your position on issues like gay marriage, you'd be supportive of that?

I'm supportive of all voluntary associations. And people can call it whatever they want.

So prostitution contract, fine.

That would not, you know, I think that's been around a long time and they haven't been able to stamp that out. I wouldn't be having the prostitution police energized from Washington.

So. But, and again, consistent with the libertarian philosophy, what people do on their own time, in their own way, so long as it doesn't hurt other people.

That is the rule. That is the rule. And of course we should, and I do, I extend that, that if you can't hurt me, and I can't hurt you, and I can't take your property. And we're supposed to follow the contracts and the agreements we have. The government should do, too. And that's where people fall down, you know. You mean the government can't take from one and give to another, you know, and can't they ever interfere with. How often does the government interfere with voluntary contracts? What contract can you do today without government approval? And how can you use your land without government approval? How can you maintain your land without paying your rent to the government? So those things are things I want to work away from. I want private property ownership and I want voluntary contracts. And I would like to.

Is that at all levels of government or just the federal. So zoning regulations wouldn't be in favor of that?

Well, not a federal level. At a federal level, I couldn't prohibit it. States can do it. But if you want to argue the case of the market, you come to Houston. The whole city of Houston was built without zoning laws. But, you know, consumer safety legislation. Not legislation, but there could be consumer groups, you know, maybe. Maybe there's some group out there that analyzes electronic equipment and helps me buy things.

Consumer Reports.

Yeah, something like that. And Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. We would have a lot more of those if people wouldn't become dependent on government. They became dependent on government to protect us from those who might invade our airplanes. And the guard is let down. So if the guard. We didn't depend on the government to take care of us, we would have more consumer protection. In the ideal society, we'd have Ralph Nader working in the private sector and really helping us to protect the consumer. But he wouldn't be engaged in just promoting big government, but his intent would be similar.

So, again, I mean, seriously, this is wonderful education. Right to bear arms must be supported.

Absolutely.

Any restrictions on that Submachine gun?

Yeah.

Nuclear weapons?

Well, I think that there's a clear intent of blowing up a country and somebody knows about it, you know, that clear and present danger. You would be able to argue some restraint on that. But whether whether it's an automatic weapon or not is, I think, irrelevant. I think the gun laws today punish the minorities in the inner city because they can't defend themselves. Rich white people and people live in the suburbs, they seem to have their guns and protect themselves. So, no, we need people to be allowed to protect themselves. I think the Second Amendment would have prevented 9, 11. They might not even try it if they knew every pilot had a gun. You know, and the responsibility should have been on the pilots and the airlines, not, not on the government telling us that you can't have a gun and you can't resist. So we set the stage. Oh, you're thinking about blowing up a few places.

So again, not just the pilots, but the airlines can let people, you know, you're welcome to bring a plane gun onto the plane.

Airlines have the total responsibility, just like you would here at Google. You, you would decide if gun ownership was permitted by the state and you didn't want any guns on here. You have a right, you have a right to break your own laws and say there's no guns on Google property. So that'd be fine with me.

I think we probably would do that.

That'd be good. Yeah.

So again, I'm sensitive time, but it's fascinating to me, so let's keep on going around. So contract with, you know, IRS hand went way up there. Thought it was going to go into the studio upstairs, violating a contract. Why? So aren't there, aren't there functions that governments should perform that require people to contribute to the cost?

Contribute? Yeah, if they want to voluntarily contribute, that'd be okay.

National defense, a voluntary checkoff, you would.

But you probably need to spend about one third of what we're spending on the military. That's military industrial complex. It's not defense spending.

So again. So it's not the theory of the IRS or the country, it's the irs.

No, it's a theory. The theory of the IRS is rather repugnant to me because the assumption is made that I, the government owns 100% of your income, and I permit you to keep 5%, 10% or 20%. You're vulnerable, you've sold out. Because the government can take 80% if they want, which they did at one time. So no, I want the money to be held in the hands of people. See, I want a few young people to be energetic and come up with new ideas and go out and start new businesses. For all we know, that's what we want.

Again, in the Paul administration, how would we raise money, Money for national defense, even if it's a small sum?

Well, we could look back and see how we did it before 1913, and that was. It was by a uniform tariff, but not protective tariffs. You could have some type of excise taxes, but the big thing.

So not income taxes?

No, no income tax. Because that's an assumption that the government owns your life, just as a military draft and selective service assumes that the government owns people's lives and they keep it on the books because if things get out of hand like they might with Iran, they could have a lot of people to call on, men and women now. So I don't want any assumption the government owns our life because then they can own our liberties and they can own our property. And unfortunately, we're moving in that direction. I want to go in the other direction.

Any example of a country other than the United States that you feel does a better job protecting liberties or maintaining a smaller government?

Yeah. Unfortunately, there's more and more now starting to encroach upon our reputation for protecting liberties. And I would think, you know, the kind of government they have in Switzerland is probably not all that bad. I think it'd be pretty neat to be president of Switzerland. You heard it here first. Everyone, nobody even knows who the president of Switzerland is. So that's what we need. We don't have to have this dictator type person running the world. I. I want to be president not because I want to run your lives. I don't want to be president to run your economy, and I don't want to be president to run the world. I want to be president to restore liberty. I want a government that protects your privacy and exposes government secrecy. It's reverse of what we're getting. And this idea is spreading like wildfire, and people love it. And they know that we need to change because they know what we're doing and is going to bankrupt this country. We don't have a good national defense now, and nobody seems to have a way out. And we can get out in a very conservative constitutional way of just saying we are protecting liberty, we're protecting the rule of law, we're protecting the American traditions of the Constitution. And it's to me, very appealing. And it's very appealing to a lot of others.

So one of the concepts that you hear a lot of candidates talking about, certainly on the Democratic side, is this concept of a social safety net. It doesn't sound like the concept of a social safety net is compatible with this idea of limited government.

Yeah, but think of it this way. What if I came over here and you have a lot of employees and let's say that I worry about your company and I want to have a social safety net for your employees. Well, it's the environment that provides your prosperity. And I bet people don't worry about a safety net when you work for a good company because there's more wealth, there's more generosity, more health benefits, and people are better off. So you Want the safety net to be provided by strong companies.

Suppose people don't have a job?

Well, there would be a lot more jobs under my society. There would be very, very few people that would be out of work because there would be greater incentives. There wouldn't be a welfare state state. And so the poverty would be greatly reduced. But then again, we have to look toward the 19th century and early 20th century. How many people were out in the ST? I mean, we have never in a capitalistic society ever have seen people starving. It's only under socialism and welfarism, where government takes charge of this, taking charge of making sure that they have education and medical care and housing. And that's why today we're seeing the collapse of the housing bipolar. Who's losing their houses? The poor people can't, you know, meet the requirements of making their payments. So the government was well intended to give houses to everybody, but all of a sudden, the people on the margin are losing their houses. So, yes, if you really care about people and you really care about a humanitarian approach to government, you have to believe in free markets. It's capitalism that eliminated child labor, eliminated poverty. You do not have famines. In true capitalism, you will have poor people. You're going to have people that won't have medical care.

I was just going to ask about medical care.

Aren't there some today? If you're a burn victim, probably any part of the country, but especially in Texas, you can go to the Shriner Hospital in Galveston. Nobody gets turned away. I started medicine in the early 60s. No government. I worked for $3 an hour as an MD in an emergency room. Nobody got turned away. It was a church hospital. Nobody asked him what your income was. And today everybody gets charged a maximum because there are no charity hospitals anymore. And the government's there, and they have a lot of burdens. There's extra expenses and demands that aren't legitimate. And so therefore they have to charge the maximum. If they're not on Medicaid, they put them on Medicaid because it's a bad system.

Did the market create the charity hospitals?

Sure. Freedom does. Freedom. That's who created our great universities early on. Not the government. Our churches did and other private institutions. And we undermined all that. That's what we've been doing for 100 years. We've been systematically undermining a system that was a real blessing to us, that gave us our great prosperity. Today we still have a lot of prosperity, but we have a lot of debt, and it's based on Debt. It's the fact that this country can't even operate. Congress could be brought to its knees, which means the dollar and the country could be brought to its knees if we couldn't depend on the Japanese and the Chinese loaning us money at a good rate. So as long as they're doing that, we're going to have this pseudo prosperity, but it will come to an end. Matter of fact, we're in the early stages of seeing that happen because we see the dollar weakening dramatically right now. I mean we're hitting 30 year lows with the, with the pound and historic lows for the euro and they're not very good currencies. So the only true test is what will your dollar buy? And quite frankly, if you're on, if you're on the margin, if you're low income or poor, your inflation tax, your lower standard living is much more, you know, serious than those in the middle class, high income people. Because in places, no big deal. But if you care about the middle class and you care about the problems you ask about, you have to talk about sound money. You have to talk about making sure governments can't pretend that they can deliver you all these wonderful things. If they don't have enough money, they can't tax us anymore because there may be a tax revolt, they can't borrow anymore. Maybe the Chinese won't do it, they just print the money. I mean, it's the most foolish economic issue I've ever heard of and nobody asks any questions about it. Then they say, well, oh yes, the price of medicine is going up. It must be those terrible doctors, it must be the hospitals, they're the ones who are at fault. But what happens in the marketplace where there's electronic technology, prices go down. The modern age should have driven the price of medicine down. Telemedicine and these things are very helpful and all, but it's one area where prices don't go down, they go up. What about education? The government's involved in education. Prices go up. That's, that's the result of the inflating of the money supply. The supply goes up, the value goes down. It has to go somewhere, it has to hurt somebody. The tragedy of this is it hurts poor people and it wipes out eventually the middle class. And that's why you've had these turmoils in many nations and we're not immune from it. Everybody will be affected. If you have runaway inflation, just think of what happened to Germany, you know, with runaway inflation. And people should be much more concerned about the integrity of the money. And to me it's an economic issue, it's a moral issue, but it's also the reason government can grow in a sneaky way.

So. And that's right again, did I read correctly? You're a gold standard guy?

Well, I, yes, in a way I am, but.

So that our currency and the growth of our currency should be to the availability of gold.

I'm hard and under the constitution you're for gold. Under the constitution you should be gold or silver because that's still the law of the land. But I'm for assets, hard assets rather than, you know, the opposition is easier to state and understand. I'm against this silly notion that you should trust the politician to print the money when he needs it and think the money is going to maintain its value. That's the ridiculous notion. Instead, I do get a lot of fun made of me. Oh, he's the guy who wants to go back to gold standard. I don't want to go back to the gold standard. There's a better value, you know, but the value. There were some shortcomings of the 19th century gold standard. But if you look at 125 years of history, the price levels, you know, in time of war when they inflated, went up, but price levels stayed like this since 1971, since we have separated our dollar from gold, prices have done this and the size of government has done this and our liberties have done this. So that's why money is very, very important. Important because it can be so devastating to the entire economy. And no matter who you are or where you are, you have to think of the monetary unit is one half of every single transaction you make. You know, that's your measurement measuring rod. And it's sort of like if you're an architect and they took away the ruler and the yardstick, you couldn't measure anything anymore. And this is the measurement of value. And it's arbitrary and it makes no sense.

So last set of questions for me before we open it up to people and I start reading some of the questions. Environmental issues, global warming, climate change. Seems like something that wouldn't indeed hasn't been something, hasn't been an issue that's been well addressed by market forces to date. Seems like a perfect example of a so called market failure. That the external costs of pollution don't get absorbed by companies and thus a natural place where some sort of collective action, government intervention might be appropriate.

Well, I see that the failure is more government than the market because I think it was a Lack of a true market and a true principle of private property. Your property looks pretty nice here. And it wasn't because of the government. And if you were instructed to have a business like this in the Soviet Union, I bet you your grounds wouldn't look so beautiful. And because it would be government in charge. So when the government gets a charge, they make mistakes. We don't have enough respect for private property is the main thing in the industrial Revolution. I was raised in the city of Pittsburgh and believe me, I know something about pollution. And nobody respected private property rights. Anybody could pollute anybody's air. They polluted the rivers, the government dumped the sewers in the rivers. It was horrible. But that whole city was cleaned up without the epa. It was cleaned up by local and private sources. But these are global issues. Okay, well, before we can go to global, what we can, we can do is emphasize the fact that you as an individual have no right. Although we can argue you will take good care of the property here, but you have no right to pollute the air or the water or your neighbor's property. You can't dump your garbage next door and all these things. So it's very, very protective. Early on, the courts didn't protect private property. They allowed it. And big corporations and governments were the polluters. And so in the industrial revolution there was not enough respect for private property. When you come to international, the first thing is we shouldn't overdo some of the statistics and some of the reports about global warming because there's two sides of that argument and people, you deserve it for yourself to read both sides of that argument.

And also, which side do you believe?

I don't have the final answer, but, but I tend to think it's overblown. I tend to think it's overblown. But I also think if there is man made pollution, it might be in China. And I know that I'm not willing to tax you or send troops over there to close down plants in there. So what you do, so you talk to them. And if you don't have, if you set a good example here and we don't pollute and don't contribute to bad air. I mean, I think that is important. I think it is a contributing factor.

But it wouldn't be laws that you'd pass. You'd invite our neighbors next door store to sue us. If we're committing.

It would be done more that way. It would be done more local.

The lawyers will be happy.

Local city ordinances would be okay, but no, not necessarily you know, I don't.

Think that's a bad thing.

I don't like those lawyers too much, but, you know, but when they had noise pollution with the early automobiles, there was never a national law that said no more noise pollution. It occurred out of common sense, what the people wanted. Some cities said, hey, you're making too much noise, you're disturbing the peace. That's a legitimate role for local government. Don't disturb the peace. But if you're 150 miles out of town and you have a noisy machine, maybe they wouldn't have had to put a muffler on. But if you have a national law, they pass a law that might put a farmer out of business, you know, because he can't adapt to some federal regulation. I look at the, the EPA approach sort of like, you know, prior restraint in the media. There's lots of bad things the media can do and they have to be responsible and they're liable and they can be checked in the courts. Well, I think there's a lot of things that the regulatory agencies can do in economics. They come in and write regulations and they become a force unto themselves and they live for the themselves and they become. And the money flows to the bureaucrats. And it just isn't the right approach. It should be done through the private property approach. And believe me.

But again, to the extent you think that the greenhouse gas issue isn't overblown, it's not a situation where the neighbor necessarily is aware on a given day how much greenhouse gases have been emitted. This is something that takes place over time, you know, but you think that the courts are an appropriate vehicle.

But why can't after the fact, some consumer groups deal with environment too, you know, just like they do about products. They value products. And if there's a consumer group that might say, I live next to Dow Chemical and they're responsible neighbors and they.

Do well, but there has to be a consumer connection.

Why couldn't they're motivated to, you know, watch their emissions? But what if we didn't have the epa? And what if a group got together and say, hey, look, this is improve the damage and you should have an easy access and recourse in court, which is, you know, has shortcomings, but. And it would be much better than depending on the administrative regulatory bureaucracy that seems to be not very efficient. And then you end up with, you know, FEMA taking care of hurricanes, you know, the efficiency of FEMA and Department of Homeland Security. I feel a lot less secure with that approach.

Sure. Let me I'm going to let people start lining up at the microphones. As I said, we got a tremendous number of questions and I want to sort of follow up on those. Some of them are topics we've touched on. What federal bureaucracies do you think could be quickly eliminated upon your taking office? And which ones will you attempt to eliminate over the course of your administration? We only have 20 minutes left.

Well, I would start off with two pretty easy ones. I just don't think the federal government has the authority to regulate your local schools. So I'd get rid of the Department of Education. I would get rid of the Department of Energy. Energy should be developed in the marketplace just like computers and electronic technology. Free markets. And the Department of Home Commerce. Department of Commerce probably doesn't serve much. I would work on that as well.

Health and Human Services.

Health and Human Services. Eventually they wouldn't be high targets, but those are because I have in my thoughts always transitions on priorities because, you know, you can't turn a switch and eliminate that. You have to have goals. And I also know we don't reach perfection in freedom and fortunately we don't reach perfectionist socialism too. But you have to have goals and you have to move in a direction. So, you know, for medical care and things like that, I would have transitional programs. But I would emphasize that we can do that with getting rid of the taxes.

Medicare would be gone eventually.

Yeah, eventually, because they'll self destruct anyway. What happens when the dollar doesn't buy anything? I mean, they're going to be out in the streets. I want to take care of them until we have a better system. But I want young people to get out of Social Security. Why should they have to pay for it? Because they're going to pay for these trillions of dollars of obligation. They're not going to get anything out of it. So most young people say, yeah, I'd like to get out of that. But how would you pay for the ones dependent? It has to come from overseas spending. If you add up everything that we do overseas and now with the constant additional obligation to take care of all those injuries and sickness, I mean, we're up to over a trillion dollars a year in maintaining our empire. So I'd save hundreds, hundreds, maybe a half a trillion dollars, you could say, have a stronger national defense, have the money to cut some of the deficit down and still tide people over who are dependent, those who have become dependent on government. We don't have to attack them. And sometimes, you know, the conservative approach is, oh yeah, Entitlements, and they are trying to nickel dime some of these programs now. At the same time, they have no remorse whatsoever to sending more and more troops around the world and killing people and our people getting killed. I mean, it's an absurd policy where a more sensible approach would be, come back, stop the killing, save some money, help the people that are dependent on these funds. And it's not as antagonistic. But my own heart, in my understanding of economics, if you really care about helping them, the poor people, you need more Googles. You need more companies that are rich and strong and people are well paid and they get their health benefit. That's what we need. We need more freedom. We don't need more handouts and more safety nets, because the safety nets protect only the bureaucrats.

I want to. Again, I have lots more questions, but I know there's a long line here. Is the microphone on? It doesn't sound like it's on. Can we turn the mic on? Oh, I'm worried about having a play with the mic. Try again. Is it on? Yes.

Thank you so much for coming. The military's don't ask, don't tell policy is really a very dishonest euphemism. In reality, a gay man is prohibited from serving in the military if he talks about his personal life or if it's somehow discovered he's fired regardless of his ability to do the job. If you're elected president, will you revoke don't ask, don't tell end discrimination based on sexual orientation? If not, how do you reconcile that with libertarian ideals?

I answered this question, you know, on national tv, and I started off by being very, well, not very, but at least sympathetic to this idea. You know, don't ask, don't tell doesn't sound all that bad to me. And I think that's what you're referring to. It doesn't sound all that bad because I think as an employer, which I've been and I've, you know, talked to people, I've never asked them anything and I don't want them to tell me anything. But the important thing was what I said was I don't see things. I don't see rights as gay rights, women's rights, minority rights. I see only one kind of rights, the individual. The individual has their right to their life and their liberty, and everybody should be treated equally. Equally. So when it comes to the military, I talked about disruptive sexual behavior. And quite frankly, there's probably a lot more heterosexual disruptive behavior in the military than gay disruptive. Behavior. So I would say everybody should be treated equally and it shouldn't be designated, they shouldn't be discriminated against because of that alone. Which means that even though those words aren't offensive to me, that don't ask, don't tell doesn't sound so bad. I think the way it's enforced is bad because literally if somebody is a very, very good individual working for our military, and I met one just the other day in my office who was a translator and he was kicked out for no real good reason at all, I would want to change that. I don't support that interpretation.

You mentioned. You know, you're all about liberty and individual rights. You know, life, liberty, happiness. What about for people who get to this country but weren't born in this country? Immigrants. Illegal immigrants.

Illegal. I guess I can't enforce illegality. I would say that they should get in the back of the line and we shouldn't reward the people who come across and get in front of the line and punish those who have been waiting.

And so the so called compromise legislation that was proposed in Congress that was voted down, were you supportive of that? Opposed to that?

Well, it never got to the House. I didn't study it in detail, but generally speaking, it sounded like something I wouldn't support because it was allowing citizenship for the people who came. And I don't think you can solve that problem. As long as you have a welfare state, as long as you put mandates on individual states to provide free education and free welfare or medical care, you know it's going to be difficult. So I want to remove the incentives, easy citizenship, automatic benefits, food stamps and all the worst, all the rest. But we also know that there's a tremendous benefit from immigrants coming in. But if you had a free society and a free market and a really healthy economy, we would have a lot of immigration and nobody would care. People would welcome them. Today because of our economy weakening and the marginal working suffering from both loss of jobs and being underemployed. Our manufacturing base is gone. That we have to find scapegoats. It's illegal immigration of the Chinese. You know, we have to blame them for our poor policies. And I want to concentrate on changing our policies. And you cannot solve that problem without addressing the subject of the welfare state. But if all things were equal, I think I would be very generous in allowing people to come and work and have a much more open policy that. But today I can't endorse Anto's policy.

Next question.

Hi. So as a Libertarian, I love your ideas and it's incredibly exciting to see them air it in national debate and to see the response that they get. On the other hand, as a realist, I look at the political betting markets on Intrade and they have your nomination chances in the single digits. And so it seems like maybe the biggest impact you can have is if your popularity helps swing the Republican Party from this sort of neoconservative insanity that it's gone into, back to a more traditional conservatism. Is that something that's sort of a part of your strategy, something that you think will happen or are working on?

Well, it might be part of a consequence which we shouldn't object to, but that's not part of the strategy. The part of the strategy is to run for office and be as credible as possible and get as many votes as possible and win if possible. If it's in the cards. At the same time, if that happens, shouldn't have to complain about it and say, well, you know, I didn't win, but I had an influence. But that I can't set as the goal. But I've been working in the area of ideas for a long time. Quite frankly, I don't think all that much of politicians. I think politicians, for the most part, too often create the problems. I think ultimately society changes through education. So I'm looking toward the younger generation. What you as a generation think is much more important than the next election, let me tell you, because your government eventually will reflect what you think. So I'm interested in everybody being exposed to free market ideas and individual liberty ideas, limited government, the Constitution. And this is where I become very excited. And if I contribute to that, I'll be very happy about it. But there have been some who write off the younger generation thinking that they don't have much to contribute. But what I've discovered in this campaign is the amazing growth of the campaign spontaneously. Not because we're fantastic at running the campaign, but because we've touched a nerve. We've touched a nerve with a lot of young people who say that makes sense. And I don't believe those other guys. And this, this to me is very exciting. And I hope I can say, regardless of what happens, something good should come of it. But in the meantime, my goal is to get as many votes as possible.

Thanks. Another question from outside this room. Under your administration, should other countries which have relied on US Support for their defense continue to do so? Would you continue to support the defense of Taiwan? For example, if China.

No, we should reverse that trend I do not, in the previous generation has had no moral right or a constitutional right to commit a generation to financing a war in defense of anybody. And they do not have a right to use your bodies and limbs and use a draft. I want to get rid of all that. So we would want to reverse those kind of commitments. And if Taiwan is attacked, the American Congress should deal with that. It shouldn't be, what are you going to do about Taiwan? I shouldn't even be asked that. It should be, what do the American people want? Does the Congress, speaking for the American people, want to declare war and drop nuclear weapons on China? You know, something like that? I mean, it should be explicit. I do not think that we have those obligations and we should bring ourselves back and extricate ourselves from those kind of commitments.

Okay, Next question.

Hi, Dr. Paul. I was really excited to become a citizen last year because I really believe in the principles that this country was founded on. And it's really sad to see those principles flattered by a president who thinks his role is to spy on us and wage unprovoked war against sovereign nations. So it was really refreshing to kind of discover you in the first Republican debate as, as far, finally, a candidate talking about the Constitution and about the importance of individual liberty. And, you know, when John McCain and Hillary Clinton were standing up ready to stamp their approval on the Patriot act, you were one of the few people in Congress who said, no, absolutely not, you know, unequivocally, no, that's wrong. And that really impressed me. So I decided to fly down from our office in Seattle to hear you talk today and to write you a check. And if it wasn't.

I think.

So. This may be an example of the market at work, but do you have a question? Do you have a question?

I do. But, you know, if it wasn't for Uncle Sam telling me how I can spend my money, it would be a blank check. But the question. It's not really a question. I just want to ask you to come up to Seattle. You have a tremendous amount of support up in the Evergreen State, and you would receive a reception that you won't forget, and I promise you that. So please come up and speak to us up there. There's a lot of people who are really excited to see you.

You know, if we don't get there, you know who to call. He's my campaign manager because he's from Seattle, and if he doesn't get me there, it's his fault. Thanks for coming.

Let's keep on going Next question.

Hi, Current Guzman, thank you for coming today. I wanted to ask you a question about pharmacists in rural communities.

A little louder.

Just a little louder, please.

Yeah, if we could turn the volume up to whoever's on.

Okay. All right. My question is about pharmacists in rural communities.

Do you believe pharmacists in rural communities?

Do you believe that pharmacists should be allowed to deny a valid prescription from a doctor based on their religious beliefs? And if so, do you then agree that this would limit the freedoms of women to make choices about their reproductive rights if they don't have the financial ability to travel? Right. You compound it, and I think on purpose, and I'm saying this in a negative way by making it rural because there's less options. But the principles have to remain the same whether it's rural or city. And that is that the contract is between the employer and the employee. That if you're the pharmacist and you go and you're being. And you're being hired, you have to have an understanding. And you might say, I refuse to prescribe birth control bills or whatever, and you have to come to a resolution between the two of you. It's the contract between you and your employer that makes the difference. Government shouldn't be involved in that.

The government probably shouldn't be involved in restricting the availability of pharmaceuticals. You must be opposed to all that marijuana, all that. Why should government restrict any of that stuff?

Well, I'm not for that.

Right, not for the restrictions. Right, exactly. So in your scenario, really what I think the congressman says there shouldn't be. Well, but there shouldn't be any pharmacists. It should be free. The medicine should be freely available. There's not going to be many pharmacists.

Not exactly. What I want to emphasize is that the solution comes from a voluntary arrangement between the employer and the employee.

But you also said without the government. But you also said the government shouldn't be in the business of restricting products. That isn't the government, but the governments restrict the reasons we have pharmacists. Is that governments restrictions.

Oh, yeah, that's a good point. Because I've stated the position that I want a lot more medical care available without licensure, you know, whether it's doctors or pharmacies or whatnot. Because there might be somebody across the street that might not be a licensed pharmacist. You're very good on this. I'm listening.

I'm listening.

So yes, the neighbor could have. Could be allowed to dispense, dispense medication like this and solve the problem in the market rather than some federal bureaucrat coming from Washington and dictating what the pharmacist should or should not do. Thank you.

Next question. How are we?

Hi, Dr. Palmer. You mentioned eliminating the.

A little louder, could you.

You mentioned eliminating the Department of Education. Now, something that I really believe in is that everybody deserves a fair shot. And I think that if you eliminate public education, that really you eliminate the chance of children of poor people to get ahead in this world. That if you go to private education, then the children of rich people would get education, would get ahead, and you would just get the huge classification of people.

Well, I did not say I'd get rid of public education. I went through 12 years of public education. All my kids were educated in public schools. But what I did talk about was I didn't want the federal government to take over public education because they're totally inefficient and they're wasteful and cost too much money and cost goes up and they come up with these schemes like no Child Left behind and teachers don't like it and it ruins the education. So the more federal government you get involved, the more you're ruining the education for a lot of these kids. And we are undermining the quality of our education. The federal government's responsibilities keep hands off. Only the states can deal with that. But we wouldn't undermine public education. But quite frankly, if you had a truly wealthy, prosperous, free society, education would be available. But there would be always people that needed it in a local community if they wanted to provide it, they would be allowed to and you would not. There's no attack on public education.

But why do you feel that the states would do better? What's to stop, for example, a very rich, rich state to say, okay, we were comfortable with private education, and then children born there would suffer as opposed.

To another state, because this principle of working toward equality at a national level with national mandates is a form of socialism. And it doesn't work, it always fails and it becomes expensive and the quality goes down. So whether it's education or medicine or whatever, it always gets worse. So we're not putting any prohibitive, we're not prohibiting anybody from doing it. But you're right, there will be some inequalities, but that exists entirely. So you can't have perfect equality, just like you can't have individuals acting exactly the same way with their moral standards. In a free society, you are tolerant, but there you will have to be tolerant some of the inequities in the system. But my argument is that you're going to be a lot better off with the inequalities of local government and less government than the inequalities that come from a government that will undermine the entire public school system. That's what we should really fear. And besides, just think of the control, the control, you know, the curriculum control, you know, should you have sex education or shouldn't you have sex education? And that's what they fight about up there. Those are issues that founders would absolutely be astounded with if they thought that's what we were talking about in the US Congress. Thank you.

So one of, you know, on education, one of the other positions that I actually was, you know, really, really found remarkable was not only do you, with sort of the consistency of your position, you're opposed to, to the concept of student loans for universities. I'm curious how many people in this audience took out student loans to go through university. So that's in case people can't, you know, the videotape, a lot of people, awful lot. And yet you're opposed to it. But also it was something you did not take advantage of and your children did not take advantage of.

So the big question here now, the philosophic question is, do I lose all your votes because I don't support student loans, or do I get your votes because I don't want you to pay Social Security no the student loans, or.

Is the decision to vote based on such narrow commercial interest?

But that's another. Of course, I find the student loan thing one of the least offensive things. I don't campaign on that issue. But in a free market you wouldn't have it. But the question, the moral question is, as well as the constitutional question, I don't have the authority to do that. But the moral question is, why should somebody, you know, there's always a cost or the government wouldn't be involved. A lot of people don't pay them back. There's always a cost. Managing is a cost. So why should people who don't get to go to college subsidize your education? I mean, it's just not fair. I went to medical school before this, any of these loans came up. And I went to Duke Medical School and they were well endowed and if you came up short, they would loan you money at 1% and you paid it back. You know, and it was very private and the monies were available. The country is wealthier without the government and these problems can be solved. So there's a vacuum out there. When government gets involved, the government fills it up. And if you don't give student loans, you don't care about young people anymore. I mean, that's the whole thing. If you don't care about food stamps, you're not compassionate, you don't care about poor people. But only freedom really has compassion.

A couple more questions and then we're going to have to. We'll go a little long, but we're going to run out of time. Please.

Hi, thanks for coming to Google. I have a question that's topical to your presentation here. I'm curious about your position on technology issues and ways that the government should. How government should get out of technology and ways in which the government should encourage more innovation in technology. For example, what do you think of network neutrality? If you have an opinion on that? What do you think of current copyright and patent law? Do you have an opinion about other technology issues? Yes, I want the least amount of government Net neutrality, I think is regulation that would lead to control and I don't support that. I want to protect the marketplace and the creativity of the marketplace. I want things to be developed somewhat like cell phones have been developed and distributed. Can you imagine if we had turned that over to FEMA to have an organization 20 years ago and say your job is to make sure everybody in this country, including poor people, have cell phones.

But don't we do. Didn't the FCC sort of regulate the airwaves?

Well, probably more so than they needed to. I think they should have everyone broadcasting on. Yeah, but they didn't manufacture cell phones and they didn't drive the price down. They didn't make them available to just about everybody in this country. So I want the government out of it. You know, whether it's energy or technology or whatnot, politicians and bureaucrats aren't smart enough to make those kind of decisions. Believe me, I know a few of them. But you want the market to make these decisions.

So for example, the current debate about the use of the 700 MHz spectrum, you know, what role should government say? We're not going to regulate it, we're not going to do anything about it. You're on your own.

Now those are interesting questions. So you could go back to the 1920s and radio frequencies on they should have all been sold. They should be property rights. I mean, we have other property rights. They were new and different. But the idea of licensure is, is very anti free markets because then they intimidate you. You know, the license can be revoked, and then you have fairness doctrines to be concerned about in all these, these other issues. So, no.

So if the government has an asset, its best, its best function is disposing of it.

That is right. And sell it and make it available in the most equitable fashion possible. And I would agree some of those aren't real easy, especially because an average person like me might not understand all this technology. But the principle, the, the principle of the marketplace would be define it and then privatize it and have the courts available to make sure these contracts but give no special benefits to monopolies. When they did these licenses, you know, they gave monopolies out. And that's, that's a big problem in some of these communication, your telephone communication, they've come about through more power and authority coming from the government. So you can't have, you really can't have monopolies or cartels without some type of government protection. Whether it was the railroads a long time ago or whether it's communications now or our utilities, they do become monopolies. But true monopolies keep. Can't occur in a free market. They usually, almost always occur with government assistance. And if a company gets very, very big, they have 99% of the market and it's truly free. You have to have free entry to the marketplace. But they only can be big because they're satisfying the consumer and they drive prices down. And if prices go up too high and there's free entry, somebody's going to come along and nip out you, you know, so we, we want to honor the integrity of the marketplace and freedom because that's where the creativity is, is release the creative energy of individuals. You don't have much creative energy under socialism. You didn't have it in the Soviet Union. And it's available in this country. We have a lot of freedom left, but a lot of underpinnings have been eroded. You know, whether it's our civil liberties, whether it's a runaway war, or whether this intrusion of our privacy and the elimination of habeas corpus, all these attacks, they haven't really hurt us yet. Economically, I think we're more vulnerable because we're basing our economy on borrowed money. But if we get somebody even more authoritarian than our current president, they have way too many powers on the books now that can rule us from day one. And that is one of the things that I'm fighting to stop.

Next question. You describe yourself as a constitutionalist, and at least as I understand the Constitution and Particularly the Bill of Rights. Much of it was designed to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. What role do you think government should currently play in regards to that?

Protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority? I think that's always the greatest threat and it has been threatened by day, since day one. And in many ways, you know, I will at times carelessly use the word democracy, but, but it's really not a very good word because democracy implies the tyranny of the majority. So and unfortunately we're at that point now that if you get 51% of the vote to transfer wealth, it's the law of the land. And really what we want to protect is the minority. The First Amendment doesn't protect speech that is non controversial. It protects the speech of the 1 or 2 or 3% who not only will espouse controversial religious views or political views, but sexual views. So when I defend the second, the First Amendment by not curtailing some things that we might personally consider ugly, I do it on principle, not because I endorse what free people do, but what we want to do is protect this issue that you're talking about so that the majority never can take away the rights of the minority.

Are there any specific governmental functions that you believe are necessary to do so.

In order to protect, to run the government?

To protect the minority.

Protect the minority, yes. And that is to protect the individual. The individual is the true minority, but not in a collective sense. I think that's. We go off on a tangent when we think of ourselves as owning a collective right. And that means that we have to restate the principle of the Constitution. And that is it's never there to restrain the people. The Constitution is there to restrain the government from doing anything against the individual.

Question, just following up on something earlier about technology. How would you ensure that the US stays competitive in technological innovation? And you began to answer. And his specific here was would you reduce funding for such organizations as the National Science foundation or the National Institutes of Health?

In the perfect world, yes. But of course, you know, the least, one of the least offensive things. But no, we don't need to do that. It would be, you know, in a prosperous society somebody's going to, to fund those. And the way you promote is just, if you want international competitiveness, you just get out of the way. I mean, make sure your taxes are low, make sure there's somebody here wants to start a business, he can make sure that they get to keep their money, make sure that the regulations are low. Make sure that they don't have to go through hoops to start a new business. I had a businessman come to me the other day, and he had been to China and he had met a businessman over there. No, he was a journalist. Met a businessman. He said, what are you doing over here starting this business? Why don't you do that back in California? He says it would take me five years. It took me three weeks to get this business started in China. So we're, in a way, and literally we, we push people over to overseas. But it's also very much involved with the monetary system because we have the reserve currency. We can get a better bargain by buying overseas. So we literally encourage exports. And that's a little bit more complicated. But it's regulations, it's tag. Taxation is monetary. We change those things. We could be more competitive, but we don't become more competitive by subsidizing certain industries. We don't want to subsidize your competitor. You know, that's, that's not, not our idea. We want to make sure there's free entry so that the competition is out there. That keeps everybody on their toes. And I think that would certainly help our car industry. I mean, we're not competitive there. And yet they say, well, let's put on tariffs on these cars and take away your right to buy a car that you think is better than American cars. I oppose that.

I just realized something. So you would oppose all restrictions on campaign contributions, for example, Right.

It's your money. Spend it the way you want it.

So. But in an ironic way, your campaign to some extent has been supported by grassroots efforts, but other people who if incredibly wealthy.

But the solution there isn't by writing more laws and restricting your right to petition or participate in election. The only way that is going to be solved is get the government out of the business of divvying up the loot. They're the ones, they've stolen all this and then they're passing it out. And no wonder they go, I mean, what would you expect? So the drug companies line up and HMOs line up for the medical benefits. And the education bureaucrats, they line up for the grants. And you ever hear the military industrial complex, they line up, we want this weapon. No, we want this weapon. One time we had a big.

But it would no longer be of interest to them if there were no regulations.

They could be interested, but they'd have nothing to gain. Right. One day when we were debating the beginning of our involvement in Colombia, where we're still involved. The big debate was which helicopter company would get the contracts. And they were lobbying for our intervention because they wanted to build helicopters. And of course, it was an oil company, that oil was down there. Why we had to send more of your money down there. And we've been more involved in Columbia than most people realize.

I think this may be the last question. So you get the question.

Great.

So thanks for coming. Dr. Paul, I just wanted to say that I'm consistently impressed by, by the way that you use historical precedent and comparisons as the underpinnings for your arguments. My question revolves around why other candidates are so poor in doing that and how do we improve the quality of the dialogue in general in this country so that it's rather than, I believe that everyone should have a good education that somebody makes arguments based on comparisons to other countries and why certain systems have failed.

Okay. I'm real sorry. I didn't hear the thing that you said about the other politicians.

Oh, sorry. It was just that other politicians are not so good about basing their arguments on historical president. Historical precedents or comparisons.

Yeah, well, I think their motivations are different. I think their motivations are to be in office. And that's secondary to, I think, what it should be. People should run because they believe in something and they make promises and they believe that their system would be for the better good of everybody in a very freedom way. And I don't think they have the conviction, I don't think they have the understanding. I don't think they have their interest. They're worrying about the next election and they're worrying about their vote on Iraq. Right now. There's so many in Congress right now. They're talking about when am I going to switch my position? Because they know they are. Well, yesterday said, I guess we're going to wait till September, you know, and then this week. So they're always weighing this. They're motivated by having an office and having power. The parties, their main interest is to have power, not to have true influence on promoting liberty. So there's a big difference. And I guess it's personal motivation as much as anything. I guess that the only way you can correct that is find a favorite congressman or candidate running for Congress or you run for Congress, you participate. If you understand the issues and think it's worthwhile, get involved. I mean, it's worth something. I know I'm very cynical and complaining, but I still use the process and I'm really pretty amazed at how well we do and the spread of information thank goodness to that thing called the Internet or whatever it is. You know, it's rather complex Internet. It's rather miraculous about what's going on. So here I was probably more pessimistic a year ago, thinking, well, as long as there's an opportunity for to make use of our liberties, we should do it before we become dropouts or more belligerent. And I always argue that you should try to change it if you can. And so we don't really understand yet. Maybe you do, exactly how pervasive and how influenced this communication network is. You know, it's surprising us, may not surprise you at all, but politically it's surprising a lot of people, you know, and I think it's coming our way because of the philosophy, and not me personally, but we've had other campaigns sort of making feeling around, well, how did you harness this Internet and how did you do this? I said they did. They harnessed us. You know, they heard the message and they spread the message for. So I think the message is every bit as important as the vehicle. And fortunately for us, what we're doing in this campaign is it's coming together and it's pretty exciting.

Well, Dr. Paul, Congressman Paul, on behalf of everyone here and watching, I want to thank you very much for an excellent education for me and an introduction to your candidacy for lots of people here.

Thank you very much. Thank you.