Ron Paul talks to Libby Casey

Former Republican congressman and three-time presidential candidate Ron Paul is a champion of nonintervention and limited government. Libby Casey spoke to him at the studios of his Internet channel to talk about foreign policy, the state of the two major political parties and the presidential ambitions of his son Rand.

Libby Casey: Former congressman, we're in Clute, Texas, home of your new Internet video venture, the Ron Paul Channel. Congratulations on starting that, and tell us why you've chosen to use that medium.

Ron Paul: Well, because it sort of came to me. You know, in the presidential campaigns and what I’ve been doing for a good many years, it seems like I’ve gotten a lot of attention on the Internet. A lot of the philosophy I’ve talked about has been very attractive to young people, and they seem to like the Internet. After I left Congress, people knew I was still interested in the issues … so that's why we ended up here, and I’m really looking forward to it.

You're known for having a noninterventionist stance. So let's look at some of the global hot spots. What would be your red line in Syria?

If any country, including Syria, if they attack the United States, threatened us and came and bombed us or sent a drone missile over here or something, that might qualify as a requirement to retaliate, but under today's circumstances, I can't imagine any moral justification for us getting involved in another war, because it's been morally unjustified for the involvement that we've had already. It certainly isn't authorized under the Constitution that we should be the policeman of the world. It makes no moral sense, it makes no constitutional sense.

Just think of the last 10 years of this policy of intervention. We've spent trillions of dollars, and it's ongoing, and the results are lousy. Iraq is still in shambles, and Afghanistan is in shambles, and Egypt is a mess, and now we're talking about Syria. What will be the outcome in Syria? So I see this as a strong argument for the policies I’ve been advocating for years, but they're not my arguments. I didn't invent nonintervention. This is something that was placed in the Constitution. We can defend our country. We weren't to be the policemen of the world. We weren't to print money to pay for wars. We're involved in wars all over the place, but there's no declaration of war anymore. So we've chucked the whole rule of law. And so I would say that there's no justification for us to be doing what we're doing in the Middle East or in Syria, but if somebody attacks us, we certainly need to retaliate.

Some say people will hate the United States if we sit idly by and let killings happen overseas. So at what point are we, in our best interest, taking preventative measures?

I think our intervention creates the terrorists, because we're in their country and they don't like it. I try to get people to think of, how would we react if they did it to us? What if somebody came into our country? What if China put their navy in the Gulf of Mexico and said that we're going to occupy the Gulf of Mexico or Chesapeake Bay?

After 9/11, the explanation was that they want to kill us because we're free and prosperous — you know, we have a good economy and we're free, and that's why the radicals hate us. And there's no evidence whatsoever to that. I mean, if we send a drone missile over there and target a so-called bad guy, how do we know who the bad guy is? Who gave us the evidence? Has he been tried? We even do it on American citizens. And what happens if there's an accident, and we kill somebody in a wedding party or at a funeral? They all have a resentment for this, so I see that as the problem and not as a solution.

What's our responsibility to allies, countries we hope will come help us if we should ever be in crisis, if we should ever be attacked?

I see that as a joke. Do you think if the Soviets came into Alaska during the Cold War, do you think the British would come and rescue us? I mean, no, that's not right. Matter of fact, I don't even like these multilateral treaties. To me, they're not even legal. You can't repeal and amend the Constitution in that manner. So I think these so-called agreements are very dangerous, they're wrong, they're not technically constitutional because you cannot commit to war in generations in the future, and that's essentially what we have done. We have said that we're going to come to the rescue of all these countries, and it has been a major contributing factor to our bankruptcy, which is really the threat that we should face up to — the attack on our civil liberties, the bankruptcies that we’re facing. And looking to see how foreign policy has contributed to that, and in a big way it has.

Let's talk about the economy — the auto bailouts of 2008 and 2009. Reflecting on that, was it the right move?

I don't believe in government taking care of special privileges — wealthy bankers or wealthy companies. I don't think that's what our government was set up to be. But, no, the bailouts, even if it did work — I don't think it was really worthwhile — but even if it did work, it's sort of like saying, you know, if a bank robber were successful and nobody got hurt, and he got away with the money, well, nobody got hurt. He got away with the goods, he robbed the bank and he had this neat little trick. Nobody got shot, but somebody got the benefit. That's what bailouts are all about.

What about the jobs, though? There are estimates that a million jobs could be lost because of the trickle-down effect to all the other industries dependent on those auto industries.

They caused the bubble, and they caused the bust, so you put it all at the feet of the Federal Reserve for creating these problems. So, yes, that is a big problem, but to turn around and say that free markets create unemployment, it's exactly the opposite of this. But you take the housing bubble — it's more clearly seen than, say, the bailout of the car companies, which I think was morally wrong, and bad economic policy. But the housing bubble — who made all the money when it was going up? They said, "Well, everybody deserves a house. Make easy credit, give people easy credit, and write laws that say you have to make credit even if they're not creditworthy," and everybody's getting houses and the value of the houses are going up. It's a beautiful, wonderful system. They're going to have perpetual wealth.

So along comes a lot of speculation, derivatives, the mortgage companies are making a lot of money, the bank is making a lot of money, and they overextend themselves, and they go broke. "Oh, the world's coming to an end. If we don't do this, there'll be no jobs, and we have to bail them out to save the people, save the average person and save their houses." None of that happened. They bailed out the big companies at the expense of the little guy. On housing, the people lost their jobs, then they lost their houses. With all that bailout, it didn't help the average person, and the jobs went down. We're still starved for jobs today because they do not understand free-market economics and the business cycle and how the Fed did this.

You're against the federal health care law known as Obamacare. Let's look at pre-existing conditions. Should they be required to be covered by insurance companies?

No way. If you want to transfer wealth from one person and say that you must pay for the care of somebody else, yes, that would be a socialistic system, and that's one thing, but to call it insurance is just total foolishness. There's so much gross distortion of language that you can't call it insurance. Call it something else. Be more honest with them. But I am so convinced that government medicine is atrocious for the patient, for everybody.

So what do you do now? Would you throw out Medicare, get rid of it?

Yes, I mean, eventually you don't need it because it's broke. It's going to go broke. Our country is on the verge of becoming Detroit. Can the city of Detroit provide medical care for the people of Detroit? Not anymore. The only way they can is if they come and get some money out of another city that was more frugal. So this whole idea that people who use government force and tyranny to transfer wealth are the only ones who are the humanitarians — that's a falsehood. If you truly care about your fellow man, you have to endorse freedom, because the greatest prosperity is always associated with the greatest amount of freedom. So if you want people to be prosperous — the largest middle class and the wealthiest middle class that ever occurred was in this country, and it's not there anymore. The characteristic of Keynesian economics and the monetary system that we have is the destruction of the middle class and the transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy. I mean, the wealthy get wealthier, Wall Street is doing great, but the middle class, the people are suffering, and it all has to do with the philosophy and the confidence in a free market and individual liberty.

Three-time presidential candidate, twice on the Republican ticket, once as a libertarian — what should be done to the Republican Party? It's accused of being too white, too old, too out of touch. What's its path forward?

Forget them. Forget the Democrat Party and forget the Republican Party. They're all one party. All this pretense that they're different is just pure nonsense because both parties endorse the Federal Reserve, both parties endorse all this military intervention overseas, both parties depend on monetizing of debt, and both parties believe in planning the economy and the welfare state, and deficit increases. No matter what they say, the same procedures continue. So I forget about them totally and completely.

What would your advice be to the Republican Party to become more relevant?

Well, it's sort of irrelevant because there's no competition. You have two parties, but do the third and the fourth parties ever get in the debates? Do they get a fair shake? They can't even get on ballots. So we go over and kill people in the Middle East to make sure they have elections. Then they have an election, we don't like it, so we get rid of the guy that we had elected. In this country you don't have a fair shake at all. Whether it's the major media or anything else, there's no fair shake. The majority of the American people don't care about the Republicans and Democrats. Oh, yeah, we have this big contest, and people get convinced there's some slight difference, but most people just stay at home because they're sick of it all.

Your son Rand Paul, senator from Kentucky, said he is thinking about exploring the presidency in 2016. What do you think about his position in the Republican Party? Where he stands?

Well, only time is going to tell, but, you know, it's a tough thing to challenge a party. I remember one time in a debate somebody said, "Ron Paul, why are you up here? You're not a Republican with all your sins." I said, "Yeah, I’m for a balanced budget, limited government, strong national defense, sound money, and the Constitution and personal liberties, and there's no place for me in the Republican Party?” I would say there's something wrong with the Republican Party. So he's going to have to face that same type of thing because his views are obviously being close to mine, but if the Republican Party doesn't welcome him with open arms, there's something wrong with the Republican Party because they want to be a big party, and, like I said, the leadership in both parties are pretty close together.

We're facing a crisis because both parties are owned by the corporations who make a lot of money on this, and that is the challenge that we have as Americans, to find out whether or not we're going to save our country by restoring the principles of individual liberty.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

This episode premiered in September. Check back here for repeat dates.