the three-time presidential candidate will discuss u.s. foreign and dietary policy and the rising popularity of libertarian ideals. the host of the internet ron paul channel is the author of several books, including the revolution, a manifest though, and the fat in the school revolution. >> host: .or ron paul, in your book from 2011, liberty defines it essential issues that affect our freedom. you write the so-called modern politicians that compromises the bipartisanship are the most dangerous among the entire crew in washington. compromises too often synonymous with sally now, but it sounds a lot better. >> guest: it sure does hurt moderation sounds good and we always wanted. we are reasonable people. but there is a different between moderation worries that i sent

to you believe and cooperated with them videos who might have a disagreement that comes together and build a coalition. .. i see giving up on at the principle of nonaggression will have a smaller nsa, little bit of government intervention.

a little bit of welfarism. and we'll have the president fight little wars but not big wars elm that's why it's so dangerous. you endorse the principle 100%, and i think that is wrong. so you find other people where you can come together and build coalitions and that's where the answer will be found to the stalemate in washington. >> host: when you see what is going on right now, the house, the senate, the president, and they all want to work together, but nothing seems to be getting done. what's your. >> guest: i'm not sure they work together. both parties agree on the big issues, but they don't want to work together if they're looking for power. power is a real struggle. people want to end the power and take care of friends and that's a very real issue. i think the problem in washington right now is that it's more difficult to continue

to spend. conservatives like to spend on some military industrial project that is probably totally unnecessary. democrats want a spin on some welfare program conservatives didn't like. when we were very wealthy and the debt was not outrageous and we didn't have the problems we have, bankruptcies of cities and towns and states, it was endless. but that has ended and they're not admit thing country is bankrupt so therefore they're justifying over a pie that keeps shrinking and shrinking, and this is the real problem. on the big issues, the parties come together, on going to war, let the president does it, on nsa, they both like nsa. at the irs, yes, they argue replying include about the irs, neither party is going to get rid of the irs like i'd like. but the very big issues, they're very much together. when it comes to civil liberties

like nsa, were the republicans any better than the democrats? no. they got along together on this. and this is why i think that they -- we won't at mitt that. not only -- admit that not only financially bankrupt but the foreign policy is bankrupt. the american people are sick and tired of it and all you have to do is look at the last ten years. afghanistan, results in iraq, and the mess we're creating in ukraine, on and on. the american people know it and they're saying, why don't we come home. and yet both parties want to keep all that intervention going. >> host: and back to "liberty defined" the ethos of washington is that the job of the elected politician is to serve the company that employs them and that company is government. they're told that they should serve the system or get another job. very few new politicians can reject this logic. >> guest: i've helped a lot of individuals get into congress as

being an incumbent you have a little ability to help. for the most part, most of them didn't do well after they got there some have done exceptionally well in recent years. but i've always said that i can tell within a week or so how they're going to go, because the member arrives, he gave one story back at home, he got the support of conservative libertarians, limited government, and then all of a sudden they get in the atmosphere of, i have to get on this committee, and the big pressure is in washington, to get ahead, you have to go along, and you have to be a team player. that's the ultimate argument they use. are you going to be a team player? sacrifice your principles, sacrifice everything you promised back at home because you have to be a team player. besides you could get kicked off your committee, which has happened. you can get kicked off your committee, and also say we'll

strike the money from your district deliberately, just line item veto your district, and has happened to me. so it is a vicious game they play in ford you -- order for you to toe the line, and most people cave to a large degree but there's a couple dozen right now doing a pretty good job of not jumping in and being part of the system. >> host: who are some? >> guest: i'm not going to name names because i might forget something, but certainly individualed have helped in the past. won't be hard to find out. when there's a vote of 400 to 5, go look at the five votes. dennis kucinich and i would be the only two individuals voting against some needless intervention, someplace where they're getting ready to start another war. you can find out who the people are that will stick to it and won't kowtow and doing and has

the leadership tells you to do. there was one time an individual was voting sort of with the rebels. we were trying to change things, and there would be four, five, six of us, and he was voting with us, and all of a sudden his voting pattern changed. i said, you used to vote with me on this. he said, i'm in leadership now. he was appointed to something, you know, like in a whip team or something like that. i'm part of the leadership. so he becomes leaderless. he leads nothing. becomes a follower by joining leadership. >> did you ever get offered anything? >> no, i don't think so. >> host: was it uncomfortable to be you in the republican caucus? >> guest: actually, on a social, personal basis, i probably have deceived myself a little bit because i always thought it was fine because there was not the hostility. nobody argued and fought. they left me alone. they knew they weren't going to

change my views. they didn't come and say do this, do this, do this, we need you. it was just, he has his mind made up. we know that. the lobbyists never bothered me either. so leader ship knew where i stood but they loved to have me when i was agreeing with them because they've knew it was based on a firm principle, the constitution, and they were delighted to have me on their side under those circumstances. >> host: this is from your book in 1991, "the ron paul funny book." and this is again, 1991. and here's what you write: the cashless society is the irs's dream. total knowledge of and control over the finances of every single american. >> guest: we're still moving in that direction. not a lot of people use cash anymore. a lot of it is out of convenience, and people get sucked into this. and i have to admit that when i see it -- i used to worry about somebody in front of of the line

that was going to use a credit card. today you can pay with a credit card faster than you can pay with cash. they fumble around with the cash and getting change. you don't even have to sign. under $50. so tempting. but it is also a record. it's a record that is kept, the government knows what happens, they know where you go, and also financial information. government has this information and it's connected to the big -- the companies that collect information. but there's a commercial value to this, too. but government -- i had debate probably back before that, in the '80s, with another person who firmly believed in it. his whole motivation was we can raise more money for the government. of course that's not my goal. my goal in life is to have a government defend individual liberty, not to have more money. this is one reason why i have an argument with the supply-ciders, who are pretty good on most issues and taxes and things.

they argue low tax rate. it's fine. but their argument is if you lower the rate, business will pick up and the government gets more money. that's fine. lower the rates, business picks up, but reduce the taxes because we don't want to be the vehicle to raise more taxes. that shouldn't be the reason we're in washington. it should be there to protect liberty and not to manage people's lives and not to manage the economy. >> host: since you left congress last year, what resident doing? >> guest: a few things. i continue to write. i have a ron paul channel that i work on almost every day, send a report into the ron paul channel this morning. so, i have a home school program. of course i get some help on that. i'm not one that's going to design each individual program. that's a ron paul curriculum. so, i work with that. and of course campaign for liberty is still very, very

active. and that's a action group, and it's the group that was able to mobilize a lot of individuals to get the fed bill passed in the house a couple times, and now the american people, 80% of the american people agree not with me on getting rid of the fed but they agree with me that the american people deserve to know who the fed is and who they bail out and who the special interests are. so i'm pretty active and still go to college campuses, which i really like. i work with young americans for liberty, who have campus organizations, and spoke with the young americans for liberty last night, and i have to admit i enjoy that a whole lot. >> host: your most recent book is on school education. want to read a little bit from that. have you expand on it. in the leadership training program, i have been developing emphasize the following skills. first, the ability to think critically.

second, the willingness to act responsibly, taking full responsibility for your own actions. third, leader needs to know the basics of communications, and this certainly involves writing, also involves public speaking. fourth is a system of exercises that help a person develop real competence. competence is important for step five. self-confidence, someone who is not self-confident about what he believes in or his ability to improve his life in terms of what he believe in will have a difficult time persuading others. and sixth, integrity there can be no successful leadership if there is no followership and there will not be followership in the lin libertarian sense if the the followers do not trust the honest of the leader. >> guest: the last one is probably the most important because you don't accomplish anything else unless there is integrity. but the program is designed to

be self-motivating. you have to want to do it. the parents don't have to sit and do this. there's a lot of self-education. they go at their own pace, encouraged to talk to other students, and there's a lot of writing to do. they have to write on a routine basis, and in the building of confidence, but overall, there's a lot of home-school programs available. a lot of them are very, very good. mine is probably unique and somewhat different because up front i say, what we're really motivated to do is teach them about liberty, teach them about the freedom philosophy, and so if there's a home-schooling group over here that is religiously oriented, there's nothing wrong with that at all. mine isn't that way. it teaches about religious history but i doesn't -- it isn't religiously oriented. and i want to preserve a society where everybody has freedom to enter into it so the different

home-schooling groups would be legal. so it's understanding free markets. obviously on our economic courses you're not going to learn about socialist economics or why paper money is superior to gold money. so very up front about teaching a whole system of values. >> host: welcome to booktv on c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend. this is our "in depth" program. every month we invite one author to come only this month it's former congressman and medical doctor, ron paul, three-time presidential candidate as well. we're going to put the numbers up on the screen. 202-585-3880. east and central time zone, want to participate. 585-3881. those in west and the central -- mountain, pacific time sewn zones and if you can't get

through on the phone line you can tweet, @booktv, and facebook, facebook.com/book tv. and on e-mail, booktv@chance organize organize. we'll they can those in a minute here's doctor paul's books. 1987, freedom under siege. 1991, the ron paul money book. a foreign policy of freedom, peace, commerce, and honest friendship came out in '07. pillars of prosperity, '08. the revolution, a manifesto, also came out in '08. end the fed, 2009-liberty defined, 50 essential issues that affect our freedom came out in 2011, and his most recent, the school revolution, new answer for our broken education system.

just came out last year. -- -- dr. paul, when do you and how do you write? from your home in texas? >> guest: it's pretty primitive. i don't know if i want to tell everybody. when i was in high school i could type very well. then i got spoiled by my wife and others who did all my typing and i got sloppy, so i'm very slow on a computer. but i'm speeding up. so, most of this was done writing out long hand, dictating, and then correcting it. but i'm much better with a computer now. i can -- i have a program where i can dictate into the commuter and then do my corrections and i do more creative work at the computer. but a lot of it was very, very tedious. to write it out and have somebody type it up and then you keep editing that. so, i don't brag. i don't want to -- won't be taught that in my home schooling. they'll know how to deep and use a computer much better than i

ever did. >> i. >> host: an e-mail from nathan kelly. would you agree that the best form of government is none at all, or put another way, the only legitimate form of governance is individual governance? >> guest: well, i'm glad he put the last sentence on, because you always want government. who should be the government? the perfect world, if we were all perfect people, there would only be self-government, and our responsibility would be to ourselves, and that's what my goal is, to always move in that direction. today, to be a participant in the debate and say that, tomorrow, we're going to get rid of every single government. well, if one person does and it nobody else, that's not going to work. i think we're moving to the age where governments are much less important and i think we should. i think that people are realizing that governments mess up. i think the 20th century was such a horrible century that we're waking up to the fact that

you can't trust government. you can't trust them to run the economy. you can't trust them to run the monetary system. you can't trust them to run foreign policy. it's just a total disaster. so, i think the least amount of government is the best. i do not caw myself an anarchist but to have the goal of self-government is a very good goal, and if you can't have that, then as close to home as possible, and i think that's a natural tendency to have individuals and family government, local community governments, and if you had a free society, we probably wouldn't have a lot more than that you wouldn't have to -- our founders intended that to be. but when they went -- wrote the constitution, and -- i think they planted some seeds there that have grown to the point where, if the constitution had worked perfectly, we wouldn't have this monster over here in

washington. it wouldn't exist. but all of the regulations and details and taxations and abuse of the rules and the president writing laws and bashing the congress for not speeding up, i'll write an executive order and all this. that wouldn't be true. that is the trend we have to reverse. i'm optimistic to think we are changing the views of a new generation, the millenials are looking at this and they're seeing what they're inheriting. i think they see a mess, and i think they're very open to the views of saying, yes, the biggest problem we have is way too much government, too much centralized government, and the more self-responsibility and self-government we have the better. >> host: so when you see what is going on, on the border in your home state of texas, what's the solution? >> guest: it's all government-created. you want to correct the government mistake. it's a mess. under our constitution, our federal government has some

responsibilities. but it's a -- our borders are a result of the welfare state. welfare at home teaches people not to work, then we have a need for workers, and people are being punished in central america and mexico because of their bad economic system, and there's jobs up here, go begging, and people come up, and then those who come, they get subsidized, free health care and free education and so we subsidize illegal immigration. so it's a real mess. if youd a a truly libertarian society, free market there would be a great need for labor and they wouldn't be seen as the culprits. right now i think illegal immigrants are considered -- they're the scapegoats. they cause all the problems. that's one of the symptoms of the problems we have with government, but i think that obviously there is no easy

solution it to. we should have better border control and we should be more generous in allowing more workers come here and more restrict enough giving out free stuff to people who come here illegally. and then getting them to vote. that part doesn't make any sense whatsoever. there was a day in my lifetime, when the work permits were easy. they'd come and the workers would come in and go back home and take their money. today, even when i was in congress not too many years ago, i had a lot of condition state opportunities, we need workers in the fields, on our shrimp boats, and they couldn't get americans to work there. so -- but this is all a consequence of bad management by government and argument for local management and self-government. >> host: when and how did you develop your philosophy? >> guest: slowly and steadily. but i believe that all of us are born with an instinct for freedom. i think that's what little children do at the age of two and three.

they're showing their independence. i think that is what teenager is are all about, and i had a very natural instinct to try -- i don't know where i got the idea we should be consistent but i ended up with -- i had that very early on, that in order for something to be presented you ought to be consistent in order to be credible, and then when i got in economics, some of the things were very natural and i think they're natural to most people because people do want peace and prosperity, you don't have to read that in books. but it was in the '60s when i came across economists who actually wrote great books, great intellectuals, and i thought these guys are smart and they agree with me. so i would say, yes, this is it. so that got me really excited. but then it wases the coming together, and most people see that i got involved in politics because of the financing of war, the monetary system and the gold

and all this in the '70s, and it is true that was the particular issue, but it was the overall issue of individual liberty, which is connected to free market economies and money and a sensible foreign policy. so it comes together. and i think the nicest compliment i get when i'm on the road is, i don't know why more people don't agree with you because it's common sense. so, i like that compliment because -- i think that's why a lot of people agree with it but just don't get to hear it. politicians -- if they have to contradict what they think their district might want, even if it's common sense, no, they have to play to the audience, and most of them aren't willing to do this. they say, oh, i have to do this. i work for the constituents and they want more money for this project so i have to go along or i'll get kicked out. >> host: one of your best

selling books, "end the fed" you write: the federal reserve should be abolished because it is immoral, unconstitutional, impractical, promotes bad economics, and undermines liberty. it's its destructive nature makes it a tool of tire tyrannical government. >> guest: i strongly believe that. it is a tool of tyrant. if you have control of the printing presses, you can control foreign policy. everything else in the finances. now, we talked a little while ago about the basic principle, if you cave in a little bit, you open up the door for more and more. well, a lot of people are very good-hearted on both sided of the aisle. almost all of them are good-hearted and want to help people who are having problems but they don't realize the most humanitarian thing they can do for people for prosperity is to

give them their freedom, and -- but the fact that the fed is involved is the -- as they make these promises and the government wants to do this, then the fed has so much control that this principle of welfare unfortunately backfires. right now who suffers the most? a shrinking middle class and the poor, and they've been going downhill on their wealth since the early 1970s. now, who got the bailouts in '07 and '08? foreign governments. foreign central banks. international corporations, all of the big companies, and who got stranded? it was the poor people who were talked into buying a house which they probably shouldn't have bought because the price was too high and they lost their job and lost their house. the welfarism really protects the wealthy. the fed is connected to this.

you can see if you run up a debt and you have a military industrial complex building weapons we don't need. bombers, planes that maybe should be used 75 years ago but we build them anyway becauses we build them in all 50 states, and this just goes on and on. they keep making the money, and then they fortify this and back it up by saying, that's what learned in college. my economic teacher said, deficits don't matter. spending money is good. the reason you have recessions is people quit spend can their money. it's not bass they lost their job or worry about the future. they just quit spending, and if they would only spend -- they should borrow the money and spend, even if they're out of money. exactly what government does. so this system is backed up intel length actually. it's not political fight. politics is secondary. we have to change people's

minds. they have to say, is he right about this? on the federal reserve and paper money versus gold money? and that is the best thing that could happen, is not so much to take all this for granted but to say, better study this and find out. maybe there is a strong point. maybe it is common sense. >> host: from liberty defined you quote hl pinkin. he said, the urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. then you go on and write, but it also requires people's complacency to buy into the free lunch argument. not everybody wants freedom and accepts responsibility for their own well-being. the problem is there are always individuals who want to control others in a significant number of people who believe they will benefit forever from the gravy train. this allows the erosion of liberty for progress. >> guest: there's no doubt about that. yet that whole thing that he is talking about there is supported

by intellectual leadership. we're taught in colleges and our government, what they teach, and the media, and the professors and they all teach these things. but if the intellectual leaders all of a sudden explain the fallacies of the system we have and the number of people -- the large number of people will shift. intellectual leadership and education is key it to. but you still have to get the majority of the people to endorse the government or the government doesn't exist. majority of people probably had to endorse communism when it happened. always think what menkin said. there's always somebody that loves power. as i said before, that's the fight in washington right now, the fight over power. not over ideology of free markets and the foreign policy because they endorse it. it's power. and some people gravitate to washington and politics because

it's in bred they want to dictate to others. the one problem with true libertarianist, they don't have a burning desire to take over and run the country. that not what we want to do. so they don't want to put out the effort and i think that the effort -- if you only had one effort. has to be in changing people's minds and hearts to understand, if their goal is to have a humanitarian society and the society that is more productive and more prosperous, then they have to study the economics of it all and why liberty is so important, and that i think can -- that will give us the answer we need. >> host: edward perkins asks you via twitter: whoa do we have an fbi, a cia, an nsa, a pentagon? >> guest: keep an eye on the people so they don't try to undermine the government.

that's to protect the government. i certainly have been strongly on record about the cia, and the nsa, and all this. but in a true republic you would not have that if you read the original constitution where does it say that, okay, we're going to have a department that's going to establish secret organization that you can't audit, you don't know what the budget is and they're to go in and undermine the governments of the world, and work with the mel tear in order to overthrow governments. it's not there. so, this kind of thing, if it's necessary, if you need somebody to investigate accidents and crimes, it can be done locally. it certainly should have never been done by the federal government. there was never to be a federal police force, and believe me, we have about 120,000 federal bureaucrats carrying guns to enforce all these rules and regulations, and the worst the

situation gets the more authoritarian it gets. department of homeland security. they're going to make is secure. that's not the purpose of government. the purpose of government is to make sure that we live in a free society. but the department of homeland security. oh, it's for security. we're going to make you economically secure and we're going to make you physically secure, and for those -- there was a mission by some that that's what they had to use 9/11 for. this gives us an opportunity. actually, to pass things like the patriot act, because that kind of stuff had been sitting around. authoritarians who just -- and they -- some just want to be authoritarian. others -- i've had members of congress tell me to my face, why are you doing this? you're just taking over this problem for the people. he said, the people are too stupid. and that's what some of them

think, and that what gives them this moral authority they know what is wrong. does that mean if i think we should unleash freedom on the people everything will be fine? heavens no. there's still a lot of problems. but just think if you and i have our freedoms and we do something wrong or we don't -- we only might injure ourselves but if we're in the government and we're running the nsa, or the cia and they're doing all these bad things, it affects everybody, when they have bad policy. so you don't want people making mistakes. what if you get people in washington that thick they know how to do central economic planning, and that's what the federal reserve is all about. plan the economy, and we can make booms and we can always make the boons and never cause a bust, and they'll do this and of course it always fails so you don't want people in power to be able to have this control over the people. >> host: let's take some calls.

bill from pennsylvania, go ahead, bill, you're on with ron paul. >> caller: hi, ron, it's really a privilege to speak to you. i went to an earlier mass so i could get here and watch your program. the question i have is: what do we do here? i'm not an uneducated guy. i agree with dennis cassini and you were the only guys that seemed to make sense and i've been following you since earlier in your career. i'm sitting here outside of redding, pennsylvania, and i have $10,000 worth of property tax bills that are due for my house and a couple rentals. i pay $16,000 in property taxes a year. and my son just joined the pennsylvania national guard. i'm afraid he's going to get sent over to the ukraine.

i know if your son runs i'm going to get behind him and back him. my question to you is, what do we do? i mean, i know all these problems. i know the fed. i buy gold. i keep my money in cash. but what do we do to try to -- >> host: all right, bill, thank you very much. >> guest: that's one of the most common questions i have. a lot hoff the college kid ask me about this. and i don't have the answer because everybody has to do something, and it won't be the same for everybody else. since i've been more active publicly in these last several years and the presidential campaign, so many of them have come back and say you told me to do something and they start their own organization, do they're own study, some of them run for office and other candidates. i said that politics is secondary to the education, but having good people in washington, they can participate

in at least hold up their hands and say, whoa, wait, what you're doing is wrong. there's two parts of your question. one is your immediate problem of this heavy tax burden, and that's not going to go away overnight. but long term it's a shift toward a freer society. which isn't going to happen overnight. but the mess we got into didn't happen overnight, either. matter of fact the fed was started in 1913, and it just gradually got worse every year, and then brought us to this catastrophe we're involved in now. so, what we need to do, and what is happening, is those seeds are being planted now. the true intellectual movement in this country is, to to understanding individual liberty, different forepolicy, different role for the government, that these wars are totally unnecessary. so, first thing is educate ones self and i'm sure the gentleman

is well educated. but just seems like i had these instinks but took me a long time in the '50s and '60s to find the right people to study and understand. today this information is so readily available to us with the internet, people can find this information, and that is what is happening and that's where the revolution is, and believe me, i'm talking to a lot of young people, and a lot of them are very interested, and it's very slow, though. that's the tough part. the frustration. but just the whole fat fact that the fed is a debatable item right now and nonintervention overseas, a debatable item. that wasn't true even six years ago, and everybody knows about this. so there's been various organizations, join them or make your own, become more informed. if you're well-informed, people will come to you and ask your opinion.

the one thing that can't be dean, if you have the absolutely correct issues and the correct answers for this, you cannot push it on people because they will rebel against it. it is only when they will come and finally sit down and congress has been a few occasions i was just lighted with, that i'd be voting by myself or two or three other people and another member would come down and sit down and honestly ask me, why are you doing is? and explain it to them and finally come around to my position, just by sitting and talking. so, there's a lot of room. changing people's mind changing people's hearts and realizing it's best interests of everybody to move in the direction of more liberty and not less, that doesn't answer the question wholeheartedly but it's going to be a long answer but we're at the beginning stages and going in the right direction. >> host: ron paul, bill also mentioned that his son joined pennsylvania national guard, fearful he was going to be sent to the ukraine. here's what you write in 2008

from pillars of prosperity: our willingness of the past 100 years to resort to weapons to impose our will on others has generally caused resentment of america rather than -- >> guest: there's no doubt about that, more so than ever. the other important thing there is the recruiting tool, and the incitement of people who not just resent but hate us and want to do us harm, and look at the harm that's been done to us. half of the harm has been done overseas but as a consequence of this, the other half has been done by ourselves here at home by violation of our own civil liberties and spending too much money. but, no, look at the results of iraq and afghanistan. horrible. and all the deaths, and just makes no sense whatsoever. we have more enemies ruth now that are just waiting for us to

stumble. we're starting to stumble already. there's an attack building on our dollar, other countries -- this willy-nilly use of sanctions when they have no evidence whatsoever of anything, and right now this absolutely unnecessary aggravation of russia makes no sense what to do this. they're just looking for more trouble. and when you put on sanctions, the people who put on the sanctions have consequences, too, and the europeans will have consequences on the current thing, but just think of how many countries we have had sanctions on. and they've been not worth much. cuba since the '50s, and we have had sanctions on iran for all these, and -- all these years and it continues. so i think people resent it, and as we get weaker mill tearily and financially, there's going

be alet of piling on -- a lot of piling on and we will be forced -- the gentleman asked what can we do. actually i'm pessimistic the very short run. i think things are going to get much worse. we can't get enough people in washington to convert and do the right thing bump this thing is going to come apart and we'll have to make a decision on what we want on economics, on civil liberties what kind of foreign policy we want and that's when i think we can find the right answers and do a better job jive you were sitting in the white house right now and russia is involved in ukraine, is there a u.s. role? >> guest: no. i mean, we are -- was it necessary for russia to get involved when we went into haiti? the russians should -- you should be in haiti and you shouldn't be in all these different countries or central america. and we're in 140 countries

already. but that doesn't fully answer the question because i'm a noninterventionist so i say, stay out of it. unless it's a threat to our national security. has nothing to do with our national security. going into afghanistan and iraq made it more of a threat to our national security, because of all the conditions that they create and the results are so disastrous. we should have stayed out of ukraine a lot sooner because we were in combination with the europeans to overthrow an elected government of yanukovych. so we were the one that participated in the coup, threw him out, and now we're blaming russia for everything. so, russia happens to have an argument, a little stronger than ours. ukraine, especially crimea, was part of russia for most of a thousand years. so, people should back off a little bit. the perfect solution would be to

get russia to mover out, united states to move out and let the ukrainians solve the problem. but under these circumstances the only thing that i might have more of a moral authority or input is i can talk about our own government. and that is that we shouldn't do these things because they're not good for us and they're wrong. but for us to go and look for fights continuously, because the war drums are beating and it's very dangerous. they don't think there while marriage war. i don't think there will be aground war either, but they said -- obama said no boots on the ground. well, we have boots on the ground. we have special forces over there and thecry agents -- the cia agents. we're sending them military equipment, begging for moyer more money to be on one side and that is so unnecessary and so harmful. if the europeans think it's a

big deal what the russians are doing, then let the europeans deal with that. why should we put the burden on the poor people of this country? because the rich don't suffer. the poor suffer. and because that's the way the system works works and the way e economy works. the poor get poorer. middle class is shrinking. i've argued or made the point -- i'm not going to win this argument and all of a sudden, yeah, ron paul is right, binge -- bring the troops home, but they're coming home because we won't be able to afford them, and i think it will be a blessing in disguise that we just can't afford these wars because we can't afford more of the tragedies that we are causing for our veterans and they come home and they have so many physical problems and mental problems, and the va isn't capable of taking care of them, and trillions of dollars of obligations. we can't afford that n any longer, and i'd change foreign

policy. if we had been following a noninterventionist, constitutional foreign policy, since the end of world war ii, can you imagine how many lives would have been saved? how many lives did we destroy and how many of our american soldiers died? korea, vietnam, and these new wars, and all these tragedies. they would have been avoided. and we would not have been -- we would have been less threatened under those conditions. people say, we did that to prevent the invasion. baloney. they weren't about to invade us. more likely continue avoid us now because of -- invade us because of our pushing ourselves around and becoming the authoritarian. now it's a flint our government established by bush that we should have prepreemptive war. that's they might attack us some day. some day the iranians might get a nuclear weapon. so they're our enemies. so we have the moral authority

to start the war. that is not part of america and shouldn't be, and we shouldn't have part of america now where our presidents actually think they can assassinate american citizens. we have been a long way off from our constitution, but believe it or not i'm still optimistic, the young people realize this and would like so see us move in a better direction. >> host: you were four years old in 1939. do you think you would have been an america firster before world war ii? >> guest: absolutely. robert taft was in the group can, and he was in 1945, too. robert taft, mr. republican. we have a statue for him. he said don't even join nato. they'll get is involved. who is pushing -- who gave us the authority to go into libya and syria and now ukraine? nato. he says it will undermine our national defense. so, our presidents get up there and, republican and democrat, we

don't need a declaration of war '. we get our authority from the united nations and nato. so they were around back then, more of them now, believe me. robert taft would fit in quite well right now, and we would be a lot better off if we had more people convinced of this. so, some day i'd like to see a point where the young people just say, hey, i don't need this war, i'm not going, and i, of course -- i got drafted issue went, was in for five years, but there will be a day coming -- i'd hate to see one of my -- excuse me -- one of my kids ukraine to be sent over there, or to be sent to a war with the iranians or war with in afghanistan? iraq? such a waste. and i just don't think the people want that anymore. i think they get talked into it.

there's war propaganda. the television stations and all the politicians, you have to do it. proven began da now against russia. they have been very successful. when this thing first started there was hardly anybody thought we should confront russia. but now they come up with this wild story about russia shooting down an airliner, everybody hates russia now, and putin is hitler. it's absolutely absurd. at the same time, nobody knows it's actually who shot the airliner down. right now there's evidence popping up that it could have come from western ukraine. and the whole thing is, i don't know, nobody knows for sure, and that a real good argument for, why don't we stay out of that mess because nobody has threatened america and nobody has threatened our national security. >> host: drew, mill valley, california, good afternoon, or good morning. your on with ron paul. >> hi there, how are you?

>> guest: very good. >> caller: so, dr. paul, i've been a big fan of yours for a while. now, 26 years ago, in 1988, the deficit wases 155 billion. i believe. and now we're looking at trillions of dollars in debt that we're in. do you think that we need to change our economic structure? if so -- i think i know the answer to that -- and if so, how do we go about it? what would be the plan? >> guest: well, yes, we need a different one. and if we want to talk real practical politics and economics, the plan can't be depending on changing the face of congress, who all of a sudden will balance the budget and pay down the debt. it's recognizing the truth of the situation. the truth of the situation is $17 trillion debt at this size will never be paid. it will be liquidated.

governments think they can liquidate it by paying it off with bad money. that is, debase the currency, which they're working real hard at, and the prices aren't going up quite as fast as the fed would like because when you debase the purchasing power of the dollar, the real debt goes down. so, the debt will be liquidated. and when it's liquidated, it will be totally liquidated if you have runaway inflation, which is a possibility. then you have to restore soundness to the economy by having free markets and a sound currency, get rid of the fed. but you have to change the attitude of the people. the people still can't say, yes, but i'm on food stamps, i'm going to die if i don't get food stamps, and then you have the military industrial complex that says what about our food stamps? because we're really the important people. we make weapons to protect our country. of course the weapons aren't necessary. so everybodyes going to argue -- as long as you have that, it's going to be very, very bad. so we have to at the time the

bankruptcy occurs, and liquidation of debt occurs, then we have to have people are firmly convinced that the economic system and the foreign policy system that we have today is completely wrong. there has to be a respect for our privacy once again and civil liberties, and it's all back to the majority of the people to go along with our intellectual leaders to say that individual liberty can solve these problems. the constitution is a good document to start with and the founders were on the right track, but we have to admit we're nowhere close to that, and when it is recognized that we have gone the wrong way for a long time, then we have chance to pick up the pieces and restore liberty and prosperity in this country. >> host: if you can't get through on the phone lines and want to make a comment go to facebook, twitter, or you can e-mail as well, and we'll flash those addresses up as we go. here's a comment from our facebook page, ron paul. this is from -- dr. paul, what

advice can you give to a german political science student? what study does you like to see in the future? at my university we don't get ednate the ideas of liberty at all. >> guest: i can't speak for german universities. they may have a lot here freedom of choice than we have here. i would say, don't depend on the university. go to the internet and look up austrian economics and look up the writing of hayak and rothbard and others and find out what that's all about because it's that understanding by as many people as possible that will make the difference. there may be some good professors that understand free markets and sound money in the european schools. matter of fact i'm always encouraged -- i get a lot of invitations to europe and south america, i'll be going down to a green in brazil -- a group in

brazil and i've been to chile. these ideas are spreading and this is very good, but it's going to be not an easy fight to say the least. but for somebody in germany, fortunately we have the internet. here we are talking to somebody from germany, and i think that is great. i think that this whole idea is spreading easily now that we have this ability technique through the internet. >> host: ron paul from your book, "the school revolution" colleges want to get students enrolled as freshman because this where is they make most of their money. i costs relatively little to teach freshman or sophomores yet the tuition payment is the same as for upper division years. the upper division is where the student majors in a particular subject, this where is he gets taught i by ph.d holding professors, rather than graduate assistants. the pay off in education for the

student is in the upper division. therefore, colleges do their best to persuade parents and students that it is necessary to spend the first two years on campus. it is not necessary, you've write, either economically or academically, but it is not in the self-interest of colleges that families understand this. >> guest: and i think there's something flawed in this system. a few do very well and still some good universities in science and engineering, but there's way too much college degree. now, if i had to start over today, and still wanted to do what i did, i'd still be sort of forced into the conventional system because i wanted to be an md. you go through the ritual of college and medical school. there's so many others, and everybody hears the stories, some people who have a few bucks and made a lot of money, probably never even went to college, and -- but they have to be -- that doesn't mean they don't get educated.

just that it is a boondoggle in education system north only at the college level but al all levels because government is so involved. there's no authority in the constitution for the federal government to be involved in education. thin there's the prisoning mess of money -- the printing press of money, and there's extra money and laws are passed and money goes in certain directions based on that. so because we're involved in education, what it does, more people get degrees but the degree gets cheapened but it costs more money. and so a lot of people are coming out with degrees and a lot of debt, and no job. so, people have to ask themselves, maybe there is something wrong with our educational system? if a degree isn't meaning much anymore. so, i think that it's not necessary for everybody. >> host: 60,000 a year for top

university anymore? >> guest: i didn't even realize. i better catch up. $60,000 and everybody has been brain washed. you have to sacrifice for your kid. to go to school. well, you know, what a change in my lifetime. i could get a few jobs on campus and pay for my tuition in the '50s, and there were five of news our family who were real close, so we were expected to take care of it. summer work and jobs on the campus, we could pay our own tuition. but now, those prices are inflated, and it is a -- they're teaching you bad economics and you're getting punished by bad economicses but we never change anything. 60,000, is guess i'll have to work or borrow the money. government has $17 trillion of debt. i can go and educate myself for three or four hundred thousand dollars but then they might not get a job. so, we have to at least stop and ask some questions about this.

but that type of thing is a consequence of bad economic planning bay government that should not be in the business of economic planning and shouldn't be subsidizings it through printing press money. housing bubbles can be explained in the same manner. >> host: gus, florida, thank you for holding, you're on with ron paul. >> caller: dr. paul, an honor to speak with you. i have two questions. do you think -- has more power and influence than the president of the united states, and second question is, what should the guidelines be for trade agreements. thank you. >> guest: i think the chairman of the federal reserve bored has more clout and more power than a president on economic matters. the president has tremendous power on military party matters. so on economic matters the chairman of the fed is very powerful and it's done in secrecy and that's the big

problem there and that's why i argue we should have an audit. you ask about what should be the traditions on trade agreements. the constitution said that congress should be in charge of trade agreements and they should be -- was assumed to be bilateral. so if the congress wanted to act on a free trade zone between the united states and canada, congress could pass a law and set the trade standards, and of course they were very -- the founders were very strong free traders, didn't want a lot of barrier and did not want a lot of problems even though it was legal to put on tariffs. but when you have these trade agreements, multilateral trade agreements -- the word is the wto -- they're nothing more than groups of big companies getting together and get permission to put on sanctions when the feel their competition is harming them. so they spend as much time

putting on tariffs to prevent imports in order to protect what they're selling, as they do trying to reduce tariffs. so we depth need that. we should argue the case for free trade but it should be the congress. i always voted against them because i did not believe the president should have this power and authority to write these trade agreements. that was another issue that dennis and i agreed on, on economics, because they would violate some of this concepts about labor laws. but giving the power to the president is the problem and it should be in the congress, and it wouldn't create a perfect world but be a lot better than the world we have today where special interests control trade agreements. >> host: now that you're both out of congress do you stay in touch with congressman cue --

kucinich. >> guest: we do. >> host: from your book "in the fed" you write: the supreme court has never been a frowned of sound money and has rarely been a protecter of the constitution. the only unique power that the fed possesses is the power to inspire and support the creation of new money out of nothing. who needs that? banks like it. governments like it. high-flying finance years like it. but the people do not benefit. just the reverse. >> guest: that unfortunately this conclusion but some people believe they're going to benefit by it. we talked about the housing bubble when low interest rates were there and lookedded like it would last forever. the people endorsed that but it backfired on them. only benefits special interests and they should not have this power. when it goes to the courts, as far back as -- well, awe through our history they never ruled in

favor of sound money. especially during the civil war period when they tried the greenbacks and different things and they're not likely to ever come around to supporting that position either today. so there has to be a new group of supreme court justices and a few new ideas. >> host: you're watching booktv. currently ron paul is our guest. doctor, congressman, presidential candidate, author of several books, almost a dozen; anthony, extra lensarch kaz, go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: hello, dr. paul. it's an honor to speak to you. >> guest: hello. >> caller: i have one question. and the question is, your view on what is going on today in gaza and israel, the conflict, the genocide. seems like it's getting a lot more news coverage.

not so much -- other media outlets, especially democracy now and amy goodman. i know how you feel. i followed you for years. and i'll get off the line and hear your answer. thank you. >> guest: well, my answer for that is, the answer that i use for all entanglements around the world. we shouldn't be involved. we should be nonintervenors. we shouldn't pick sides. we don't send foreign aid to anybody. foreign aid is nothing more than taking money from poor people in this country, giving it to rich governments or to thern'n2'd miy industrial complex indirectly. so we shouldn't be involved. netanyahu said something to our president this week. he rather aggressively told our president, don't ever second-guess my again on what i should do. and i agree with netanyahu on that. we shouldn't second-guess him. he shouldn't have to give up his

sovereignty. he shouldn't have to be told what to do. should be able to do what they want. they shouldn't get any money from us. we've given israel $100 billion, and then the president of israel is annoyed because the president thinks he hases a little say in the matter? i don't think we should have any say in the matter. i think israel should defend. thes and the palestinians should do what they whatnot to do but i think we have been butting in there for too long. it's cost out lot of money. how many times ay we have been these of a peace process. the get to angry at kerry for trying to participate in it. he didn't say the right things, practically ran him out of town. that's not our role. our role is to provide a national defense and security for our people and provide for liberty. the one thing it, though, if you're a palestinian american, and you want to say, well, don't like the way the palestinians are being treated, you can go to palestine under a free society.

probably can't do it under the laws today. go over there and help them, send them money, same way with israel. your support israel and you want to fight. i know americans get in the israeli carmy should be no prohibition for that but should be no compulsion to send our kids over there or american people's money over there. so i would say that netanyahu is absolutely right. we shouldn't second-guess him, but he should be cautious not to second-guess us because maybe we'll run out of money, or maybe we'll get tired of second money because right this week we sent a bonus of $225 million to help him fight the war against the palestinians. and that is not the road to peace for anybody. i think that is -- that makes us a moral participant in what is going on over there, just as we are a moral participant in aiding the western ukrainians against the eastern ukrainians. so, there is a moral

responsibility, and for us to lecture others and say, well, it's all one side or the others, it is just wrong. how many times have you heard on tv in the last several weeks that israel has a right to defend herself? absolutely. she has a right to defend herself. but never once you hear the palestinians have a right to defend themselves. you never hear that. so, we should be more balanced on that, and i think that the best way to do that is for us to not send any money or any troops or any weapons into any region, anyplace in the world. >> from liberty defined, ron paul writes: we should not go to war without a declaration. we senate go to war when it's an aggressive war. we should take a look at all the way u.s. policy incites desperate people to take extreme measures as retaliation for u.s. sponsored political violence. dennis, west palm beach,

florida, you're on the air. >> caller: dr. paul. you're a champion of liberty and the first amendment to our constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise our religion. we pay all of our adult lives taxes to the government for education. my question is, should the parents of america receive their taxes back in the form of avoucher to send their children to the school of their choice, including a religiously affiliated one 0, should to the government continue to have the power to force our children to go to athiestic schools? >> guest: shouldn't have -- >> host: what do you think, dennis? >> caller: i thick the parents should have the right to exercise their religion and choose -- the u.s. supreme court in 2002, dr. paul, said that school vouchers did not violate the u.s. constitution as long as the voucher was given to the parent to use where they saw figure but it would be a violation of the first amendment

if the voucher were given to a'llly affiliated school. >> guest: i don't want the federal government involved in education so i don't want them collecting money from one group and giving it out to somebody else. i see this more as an intervention in education by the government rather than a first amendment issue. i think that people should go to any schools they want. and it should be local. if you're going to have government, under the constitution the states can do what they want. but it was much better when it was only your local community. just the town you lived in. where the highest authority was the school board. and that would be the authority. but i don't -- another reason why i'm not too gung ho over vouchers-sounds like it's helpful -- i support evidence bill that would give you a tax credit, where you just wrote it off and if you spent so much moistening your kid to a school you can deduct that off your taxes, but the voucher, when the

government sends you your voucher and says this is what you can do, then they can send the regulations and tell you where you can use your voucher, and say, well, okay, what school? and then you have to get into this thing that we he to monitor the school and what you're teaching and these different things. so, i would much rather see just the use of tax credits but not the voucher. >> host: next call for ron paul from michael, white plains, maryland. you're on booktv. >> caller: yes. thank you, dr. paul, for waking me up from the dichotomy of arguments laid out by our current bipartisan systems. regarding your remarks on a self-governing america, what is your position on the second clause of article 5 heavily contributed to by george mason, that allows state legislatorrures to bypass congress to create a constitutional amendment, particularly term limits. there.

the constitution the states can call for a constitutional convention. i -- i mean, think it's fine. i'm not that optimistic. i'm not in charge of an organization that is pushing for this because i think you have to change people's minds about what they're going to do, becauses if you have a constitutional convention right now, you don't know actually what will evolve. they might make things worse. depends on what issues they're bringing up. now, did the gentleman say it was to bring it up for term limits? >> host: he said and that he added he was in support of term limits. >> guest: well, you know, let's say there's a constitutional amendment to limit terms. i have always voted for term limits and i introduced legislation that way but i don't have much confidence in it. i seen some people leave when they voluntarily had term limits and the people elected in that position were much worse. wasn't an improvement at all.

so, i don't think that is the answer in itself. but it might help a little bit. but if you don't change people's understanding of economics, if we don't spread the message of how free markets work and the understanding offed the fed and why we ought to bring our troops home, limiting their terms aren't going to help very much. >> host: kate is calling from montclair, new jersey. >> caller: hi. i have a question regarding foreign policy and areas such as darfur and south sudan. would it be an appropriate approach there diplomatically or other means to help people who are undergoing such horrible atrocity? >> host: what do you think would be an appropriate approach, kate? >> caller: well, i'm really confused about it because --

[inaudible] for the people to take on themselves and i do feel that paid assistance pretty much emergency assistance -- [inaudible] by the type of violence that goes on there. but really for me, especially just going on for so long, and so many people have been particularly affected. >> host: thank you, man sunny wasn't able to follow that. >> host: she asked about what do you think the approach the u.s. approach should be for humanitarian assistance when it comes to -- fur or sudan. >> guest: -- to darfur or sudan. >> guest: that's a reasonable question mitchell answer is the same. i if you have money and want to help send them money but it's not proper to do this, to take money from people in this country because you think you're going to help somebody over there.

but the problem is so often when we do that, we send money, it is up into warring factions, and it doesn't end up helping the poor people. a lot of times people will vote for this where they wouldn't vote for any of the militarism, and i can understand that because i certainly would have more sympathy to helping people like that. but they will do that, but first taking the money is wrong, and, second, it doesn't end up doing a very good job. so, i don't think we should do that. now, the only thing that i have an in between process would be that if i could -- say there is some of this problems in a country in africa and they really need some help and we think we can help. if we could tut $10 billion out of some nonsense in building embassies someplace in iraq, and send part of that to feeding

people, and we save $8 billion doing it, i think that would be a. immovement. we save some money, cult spending, send money for foot and in -- for food instead of sending money for weapons. but if it would come up and say you have sympathy for these people, yes, we do but will you vote for the money to take from the american people, is it authorized under the constitution? it isn't. so i wouldn't vote for that. >> host: ron paul from our facebook page, another question for you. this is william: considering the interest on the debt is unconstitutional, could we just eliminate the interest? at least the part created by the federal reserve. it's unquestion include unconstitutional. >> guest: the federal reserve is unconstitutional, and i you're dealing with the debt, and the part the fed owns, you can just write it off. you don't have to -- why pay them the money? so you could write that part off. i think the issue of our

government borrowing money, we unfortunately started very early to do that because we started off with the debt and if foreigners leaned us money or individuals loaned us money and the contract was they would get paid a certain amount of interest, i think if we were working our way out of it we should take care of that. i don't think that will ever happen and we're not going to liquidate the debt with the fed. the whole system might bet liquidated and everything get written off because the dollar collapses, but that's a different story. but you can just forget about the fed and get rid of the fad. >> host: one tweet to you: what would happen if the the dollar collapses? would governments be able to survive? >> guest: oh, yes. unfortunately governments survive ability is pretty good. so they survive. the question is what will the government be like? but i suspect what will happen

is things will get more out of control and you're going to see rampant inflation and interest rates rising, our economy doing very badly, and then they'll realize they have to have reform to pick up the pieces. so, if they don't do that, then if you had total runaway inflation, the dollar collapses, that is bad news. that's bad news economically and then you have a zimbabwe example, but zimbabwe had runaway inflation and we don't even hear them in the news anytime got a new currency and re-established their system and they're back functioning again. so, it can be done. we were close to that happening in our country in 1979, and voelker when he came in, said we have to save the dollar so he took interest rates up to 21%. today circumstances are different and they're at zero percent. but the federal government unfortunately is going to remain

pretty resilient and pretty strong. hopefully when the revamping and reforms that well know how to reduce the size and scope of government. >> host: the ron back report tweets in: the 99% has been losing ground to the 1% ever since the u.s. lost its last link to gold in 1971, when nixon abandoned -- >> guest: no doubt about it. the rich have done very well since 1971. actually real wealth is down, real wages are down, the middle class is smaller, and it is a truism that gold standard is a benefit to the average person, the command man, the laborer, because the wages stay up. they don't collapse. real becames are going down now because the purchasing power is going down faster than the government admits. they say, well, we want the purchasing power of our dollar to go down at a rate of two and

a half percent, they think that's good. how can anybody argue a moral case for saying if i gave you $100 and you pay me back next year and you know it's going to be worth $98, there's something wrong with that. and that is the case. that's what they want. they want to do it by the breakdown of the -- a big item and it is not helped the poor people. >> host: okay. mark tilling of hollywood, florida, e-mails i believe you to be the most constitutional congressman in the history our lifetime. thank you for your @ '.

and become for'll yeares to their nation instead of their party. i know rand is working on this, too. would you consider running for president in 2016. no i'm not going to do that. i have too many things going. >> host: why? >> guest: mainly because i've done that and all those years, the debt kept getting worse, so i have to think, well, where is my strategy now? so whether i'm in office or out of office, i have one goal and that is the campaigning for liberty. so i can do that outside and i'm going to spend a lot of time on education and that's where i think my role is right now. >> host: you're 79 years old. how do you feel? >> guest: i feel pretty good. as long as i get out on my bike. today i came to be with c-span and i'm going to miss my bike ride. >> host: wellber from south haven, mississippi. >> caller: film a true

libertarian and tea party member because of mr. paul and president reagan. you're my hero. i worried about the cia killing you if you get too close to winning the white house. also, they want to cancel our second amendment because of more government control. thank you, sir forks all -- thank you, sir, for all you do. >> guest: he talked about the second amend. he'll be surprised i want gun control but i want gun control on 120,000 federal bureaucrats who are federal policemen. but true security comes from individuals and home owners and people who have guns and i kid, but serious, it's true in texas you don't have policeman guarding most houses. most people know there's a gun inside, and security is quite reasonable. but to depend on the government for that and to attack the second amendment i think is a dangerous direction to go in. >> host: what about his first

point, about the cia? ever feel you were threatening the structure of the u.s. government? >> guest: yes. but -- you know, i was convince third stale saw me as a very long shot but they didn't understand something. that ideas are more powerful than political columns so they sort of said, we can't stop the ideas, and we're not going to try to do that. but politically, yeah, they're capable of doing that. i mean, do you know how many people in this country are really questioning the fact that the cia might have been involved in the kennedy assassination? a lot. and of course i don't know -- i don't think anybody has the final answer but just that american people think that they have been capable of doing that. so, yes, i don't think we should laugh at it. but i am -- in at the same breath i don't go around thinking i'm important enough

for them to worry about me. and they didn't see me as a political threat, but the whole thing is, ideas are more important than guns and bureaucrats and presidents and all that. it's -- ideas have consequences and they are very, very powerful. it's been said that if an army comes to attack us, we can always stand up and oppose them. victor hugo made this comment. but he says when an idea comes, you can't stop it. and that is what is happening. the ideas are out there, and we have this magic thing called the internet so people from germany call and write and all around the world, the ideas are spreading, and so and they're more powerful than armies, and i hope they don't catch on. thecry may change their tactics.

-- the cia may change their tactics. >> host: 38 years ago you were first elected congress, 1976. 40 years ago, about this time, president nixon resigned 0 from office. do you remember where youor during watergate, what you thought about it? >> guest: because '71 the breakup of brenton woods and it dawned on me that tea -- the austrian economists had predicted and it it would lead to the economic chaos we're facing today. so, in 1973, he resigned in -- >> host: 1974. >> guest: in 1973, is when i went to my wife and i said i'm going to run for congress, and she said, what do you want to do that? i said i want to talk about the federal reserve, and chev, desay, don't do it, it's dangerous, you get elected, and i guaranteed her that couldn't be the case. so i signed up and nobody would

run in a watergate year so there were no republicans running and no republicans in texas, so i was the candidate in '74, when that was going on i was a political candidate. in my -- of course, nobody was listening to me and nobody cared about my opinion, but at the time i wasn't like, oh, yeah, with get rid of next of nixon, everything will be okay. i think it was overkill. the can big problems were in economic policies and the federal reserve and the economy was terrible, and i figured these are just political stuff that's been going on for a long time and now looks like some of the things he did were minor compared to now with ther is and is other -- with the irs and other things. so that was minor problem them. i do remember that very clearly. so i think i was in my -- probably never said it outloud but i was sort of rooting he didn't get impeached, and i thought it was too disruptive.

but now i have a little different opinion. i think that the more we change the personnel, the better. >> host: ron paul is our guest here on booktv, here are some of his books: flee dom under siege, the u.s. constitution. after 200 years, came out in 1987. the ron paul money book in '91. a foreign policy of freedom. peace, commerce, and honest friendship, 2007. pillars of prosperity, '08. the revolution, a manifesto, a best seller, came out in '08. and the fed, another betts seller, 2009, liberty defined, 50 seeks shall issues that affect our freedom, 2011, and dr. paul's most recent book, the school revolution, new answer for our broken education system. in congress 1976, '77, 1979 to '85 and then again, 1997 to 2013. presidential candidate, 1988,

2008, and 2012. carlos, cape coral, florida, you're on with ron paul. >> caller: hi, dr. paul. i see you as a person who thinks outside the box. it's one thing four years ago the population was about 700 million. now it's about 6-point something billion. i don't see any official ever talking about this. do you think that it's an issue that we are overpopulating a finite planet, and that maybe causes a lot of the problems we have? back in difficult times, a couple of guys said animals were grazing too much and you go to the left guy to right. now there's no left or right to go to. can you address your thoughts on the population explosion that we're experiencing this last four decades. >> host: carlos, withbe get the

response, can you run those figures by us once again? >> caller: 700 million and a song from the '60s that -- >> host: you're saying there are 700 million people tower years ago, 50 years ago. >> caller: yeah. that's what -- >> guest: i'm not sure -- >> host: sounds a little off. >> guest: the principle. concerned about overpopulation. i don't worry about that. worry about where they get to live in a free society. the more advanced the society gets, the smaller the families get. and the more productive it is, the more you can take care of. so all the -- those that made these dire predicts that it was unsustainable but a that has been going on for hubs of year -- hundreds of years. so it's amazing how technology adjusts to these needs.

agriculture, various things, very productive. so, it is the political system that surrounds the population that makes all the difference in the world. you have authoritarian government, bad economic policy, you have more people living in poverty and we're certainly seeing what is happening today with bad economic policies in central america and mexico and also bad policy here in the united states, and everybody is worried about that. that wouldn't happen in a free society. i have a lot of confidence on how things would work out, and if populations seem to be growing too rapidly, i think at lot of the solutions would be natural. these individuals we should have population control by force, that is something that china goes through, but not in a free society. i think more -- the freer the society, the less this problem

would be even noticed. >> host: ron paul, this is something you write about in liberty defined, but this is an e-mail to you from abby: i've heard ron paul mention abortions over the past few years. i remember hearing him say that in certain hospitals in which he was doing his training he was aware that abortions were taking place and he said later that when he had his own medical practice, women would have a very casual attitude about abortion. could he tell us any information he has on this topic or any stories which have remained in his mind. >> guest: i don't think -- i guess we might not have sent you the book i have, abortion and liberty. that is another book because i write a whole book on it. because i have had a unique opportunity to think of it as an ob doctor, some who has religious beliefs and also been in politics and had to deal with it legally. and i think she is referring to

a story that i quoted that before abortions were legal, i was observing an operation in the operating room where i was doing any residency and they were doing a cesarean section and his of lifted out the fetus, which weighed a couple pounds, and here i found out it was an abortion they were doing. so they took the infant then -- it was born -- put it in a bucket in the corner of the room, and the baby cried and whimpered and breathed a little bit and the amazing thing was everybody just pretended they didn't hear and it there was no effort to do anything. then a day or two later i was walking down the corridor, and a woman had a baby prematurely, it was slightly bigger than that baby, and they had ten doctors surrounding that baby, trying to save that baby's life. i got to thinking, i saw head medicine and delivering babies

as preservation of life and that was such a contradiction so there's a lot of contradictions in the abortion issue, and it really boils down to whether or not you think an unborn fetus has any rights at all. i've come to the conclusion they do because i know that if i did something wrong as a doctor, i could be sued for injuring the baby. if a baby is killed in an accident, the person that did the harm can be charged with murder. and the thing that is amazing to me about this abortion issue, is we teach this disrespect for life and we teach young girls and our whole society that babies aren't worth much and you can throw them away if you don't think it's necessary. but this -- believe it or not there are some young girls who get pregnant, in denial, don't realize they're pregnant and then the deliver a baby and

don't know what is going on so they take the baby and put it in a garbage bag and throw it away. when they get caught they get charged with murder. it's a felony to do this. and i think this sort of has to be resolved. one minute sooner if they went to the abortionist, because it was late abortion, the doctor would have been paid a lot of money do this, but the next minute, when the child is having the baby and society says it has no value, it's a big issue. ...

who have this fervent elysian against abortion. they send it to clinics to do abortion and that really is getting in somebody's space to do that. but even now states have a right to regulate this, i think once again it is a reflection of society. i mentioned, you know, when that abortion was done at my hospital where i was a resident and it is illegal, it was in the 60s. the 60s were wild decade or the vietnam war was going on in the drug crazed. abortion became popular. and then the supreme court ruled it was okay. so it isn't because of roe versus wade. i don't like roe versus wade,

but roe versus wade reflects the culture and veracity of the people. so if we are going to start a problem like this, at the beginning of our country and for a long period of time, abortions were done because people didn't believe in them. the culture was different and i think that will eventually be the answer. there are some pro-life groups that don't even deal in politics. they don't even get involved. they just help the person in distress over the pregnant again i am strongly in favor of that. or think it is a personal, mortal problem and allow sort of catches up to, you know, the careless attitude is established in the 1960s. >> host: aneurin obstetrician? go ahead with your question for ron paul. also yes i'd be interested in his opinion on the current health care system from the viewpoint that we are 5% of the worlds population, but we spend

50% of all the money spent on health care and we have a terrible functionality of life record. that is it. >> i think our medical system is coming in now, and that shape. there's a lot of good medicines still out there. if you have to go to the emergency room and have to have emergency care, it's pretty good. but there are so many distortions. the pricing structure is outrageous. pain for the emerging dram is just unbelievable. there is a physician in oklahoma city that i had interviewed on my channel that has gone private, doesn't take any government, no insurance, anything. he can accomplish a $30,000 operation in a regular hospital for $3000. it's all the bureaucracy. trace it back to the government got involved in the early 1960s, 64 and 65 with

medicaid. i practice medicine a short period of time before any government was really involved and back then, everybody got charged the least and there were hospitals and nobody was on the street with no medical care. now we have the government involved in a third of like when we talk on education. money goes and from the prices go, quality goes down and that is where we are. that is about all we have been talking about on the problems of obamacare. we've given up our belief and confidence that free markets can deliver goods and services much better than any government can. i ain't the only saving grace on any of these programs is always to protect a right to opt-out. if they say you can't go to home school or private school anymore, we are in big trouble. if you can't opt-out of the medical system and go private, we are all in trouble, too. today it is getting harder and

harder to get out of the medical system and it's pretty hard and people are just beginning to feel the prices we are going to get from obamacare. police may come when the person goes up in a rationing goes on, docs get less happy. it will be a real mess and most americans right now is turning to feel the pain. >> host: as someone who is 79 committee supports social security, medicare, to utilize the system? >> guest: i take social security, believing that the government actually spent this program, which it really isn't. but no, it is not a proper function of government. there's a lot of contracts state government had in this imperfect world, are you going to send everything by fedex because we don't want to use this week, the monopoly of the federal

government. but the medicare and social security only talk about a climax weekend, that will all end because the money will be fair and costs will go up in standard of living is going down and people on fixed incomes right now are really struggling because they can't keep a beard that is one of the reasons that pei is always kept low because then they don't have to raise the cost and the benefit, the social security beneficiary. so they see their standard of living showing down. that will continue. don't get much worse it will eventually have a revamping of that. the assumption as if you didn't have it, you wouldn't have been anything. but that's not the case. it might've been a lot better. our city in galveston, which was in my district, their government operations there, the whole

county never got into social security and they are glad they are not into it. but when you are forced into it, it is a different story, you know, and i think it won't be the same for the generation now going into the work force there expect you to pay a lot of money and they are not going to see it and i will have to change. there'll have to be very big changes in social security. >> host: the air, rockledge, florida. hi. >> guest: >> caller: thank you for waking up in my friends in the country a little bit. my question is if you are a voter in the next election, would you vote for a libertarian candidate who has a policy similar to your own? >> guest: from the libertarian party? >> caller: yes, someone like jerry johnson.

or would you vote for rand paul who doesn't seem to necessarily have the same policies as you. >> host: victor, we'll get an answer in two seconds. who are you liking and 2016? >> guest: what i typically do and what i did last time as they voted for jerry john for libertarian and in the final election all switched over to whoever is the closest to freedom. >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: that's an unfair question. that is not fair. saying what i believe against my son. i would be hard to vote against my son. >> host: would you say you agree? >> guest: more than i agree with him or any other candidate. that's pretty easily set. no, i vote for libertarian party candidates quite frequently. yes, quite frequently i do.

i don't think there's anything wrong with that. as a matter of fact, after the 08 primaries, i had a group come together, a green party come together and i want to start this groundswell. just vote for the alternative. we need to also together. as a matter of fact, i got us to agree a basic fundamentals out of the fed civil liberties and the deficit. we had all these groups from left and right coming together. so i want people because it is so unfair. we go over and die and kill people to spread democracy, which is a lot of baloney because in this country if you are in the libertarian party, the american party in all this, you don't get a fair shake. i know i got on c-span in 1888, so you do allow the other candidates to get on. but you know, yucatán database,

you don't get the coverage and you can't get on the ballot. when i ran and 88 as libertarian, i spent half the money trying to get on islet. so that is why i encourage it. unfortunately, it's so back to the whole idea that ideas have consequences for libertarian ideas are worth it, it will invade the republican party, the democratic party and everybody else and it will people's minds. >> host: tuc, i don't mean to get you in trouble at home, but do you think you have the opportunity to vote for your son and president 2016? >> guest: i think there's a very good chance that could happen. the polls right now even suggest that. >> host: this is our conversation on booktv on c-span two come with.ear, author, former congressman, ron paul. an hour and 15 minutes to go in

our interview. every month when i talk to her in that software, we like to ask him or her, what are you reading? what are you some of your influences, your favorite book. we will show you dr. paul's responses in a moment. ♪ ♪ ♪

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>> here's a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. on august 30, booktv will be live at the national book festival. the annual festival will take place at the washington convention center in washington d.c. then on september 6, the hook art festival of books and authors will hold their 10th annual festival in winston salem north carolina. the festival is the largest of its kind in north carolina and features indoor and outdoor events. on september 21st, at this year's brooklyn book festival will be held at the brooklyn borough hall. the festival will host more than 100 u.s. and international authors. from september 26 through the

28th, the annual baltimore book festival takes place at the city's inner harbor. let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area and we will add them to our list. e-mail us at otb@c-span.org. >> host: ron paul, you list your parents is one of your biggest influences. who were they? >> guest: howard paul ann-margret paul. they were both from pittsburgh. they met in lutheran church in committees. but much in carnegie, pennsylvania, the other in washington and his third and my dad had a small dairy and i have four brothers and we sort of helped are currently through college by being milkmen. they had an influence on me mostly on gentleness and also an understanding of the work

aspect. you didn't expect much. we are all born during the depression and then there's world war ii, which i remember very clearly. things are pretty depressed in world war ii because there were and there wasn't much prosperity until after that. there is a strong need for your work ethic. we had to go out and deliver milk and power lines in things like that. i think sometimes what you get from your parents is sort of the subtleness. to me it was gentleness. there is no yelling and screaming and beatings. even when i did things they shouldn't have been doing, there wasn't any harshness and i always thought that was a good standard to go by. >> host: who is carol paul? >> guest: carol paul is this

girl who invited me to her birthday party when she was 16. >> host: pennsylvania? a >> guest: yes. she went to high school together. her dad had always promised her a big party when she was 16 so she came around and she had that sort of anxious to talk to me. so it was set up, so that was their first day. >> host: and you've been married since? >> guest: since dixie seven. >> host: how many children altogether? >> guest: five children. maybe i better not count. 19 grandchildren, six great-grandchildren. >> host: besides another rand paul, any of the others interested in politics including carol? >> guest: they are all interested and supportive, but none of the others have their run for office. even when i was running for

congress, he was more eager. but he was always interested in organization more than i ever was how you organize precincts, which is very helpful in the campaigns. he was always very much involved in that. the others are very supportive and would campaign and do a lot of things. and the campaigner to that he was very well known for his supporters know her army. she's been a big help. >> host: why did she go to med school and how to join up in texas? >> guest: i ended up in texas because my first trip to texas to live there if i was drafted. i was in the middle of my residency at the henry ford

hospital in detroit and the crisis came up so is yanked out in and have been in the air force for five years, but we like texas. when i finished my residency after that in pennsylvania, then we went back to texas. you asked also about how going into medicine. i think i always wanted to do it, but i was very cautious because i never wanted to say what i'm going to do and not be successful. so i wasn't going to fail going to be a doctor because i know it wasn't easy. i wanted to be certain and as i gain more confidence that i decided to do it. i was very influenced by the tragedy of war, the tragedies they knew about as a kid from world war ii. friends and people who didn't come back in korea was the same way and vietnam is the same way. one of the things they knew even

early on that i would never be able to shoot somebody. i thought if i was a doctor i could help people and not in the back of my mind was always coming and how come i always made the assumption i would be drafted and i was right. i was drafted coming in now, and put into that situation. not quite the same situation, but that was one of the motivations. you know, i like science. i liked dealing with people. i ended up doing obstetrics because it was a tough schedule. still a very enjoyable part of medicine bringing new life into the world. >> host: can you estimate how many babies you run into the world? >> guest: about 4000. many delivered a lot are then not, but i took a leave of absence now and then. >> host: ron paul is our guest. if little over an hour left in her and that program for this month and we will return to your phone calls now.

john is calling for more again. you run the air. >> caller: thank you for your dedicated service to our nation. you are perhaps -- actually come you are the only republican from texas i have any respect for her whatsoever. thank you again for that. my question is with treaties and trade agreements having the power to supersede our constitution, mr. paul, i would like your opinion on whether things like the transpacific partnership, the taxed should be released for the american public to review before any vote is ever taken to enact or defeat such a trade agreement. and again, congressman paul come i thank you for your service. >> guest: all of this stuff is readily available and they get it out to everyone with an

interest and they can make a there congressman because i don't like these multiple agreements and i don't like the way they are devised because of course the president is giving authority to negotiate these treaties and i don't get should be the congress so i think they're all bad. but i've always been annoyed by these multilateral and unilateral treaties and how many countries have a promise that we would go and defend if they were ever attacked. well, the idea that it's a mutual defense treaty is they will calm with us. we had to sign treaties about these countries because if we get attacked, and helped us. that is not a. that is for instance a treaty to defend taiwan.

what moral right is the one generation, 56 years ago have to sign a treaty that treats our kids and tax dollars to defend taiwan. i'm sympathetic. i hope nothing ever happens to them, but that treaty shouldn't be a proper treaty. in the moral sense. i think some of these treaties you take the united nations treaty. we have to go along with the rules and they say we have to fight a war in the sort of thing. well, these treaties should be challenged and of course the supreme court would never rule any of these things unconstitutional. but there is way, way too many treaties that this type of commitment and i just think they're wrong. >> host: carl linker asked e-mail, what do you think is the single biggest cause of

government growth over the last one? >> guest: it is a philosophy. it is a philosophy of government and it's the acceptance of interventionism that people believe they have to be protected by the government. the government has a right and obligation to intervene, to manage the economy and tell us what we can eat, drink, smoke, whatever. we are so smart and so good and so exceptional that we have the obligation to tell everybody around the world how to live. his whole philosophy, which is opposite of liberty, interventionism is where the government takes over and cancels out all your liberty. so this acceptance of interventionism that promotes big government, then they work in collusion with paying for the government and inspiring attacks

to the hill and then you don't have enough to just print the money and you end up in a mess like we have today. >> host: jerry in ann arbor asked via e-mail, does ron paul think we should do anything about climate change? >> guest: well, i would like them to send me some warmer weather to texas. i've had a frost at home for the last five years. i'm tired of it. my fruit trees are freezing. this last winter is terrible. we had a cold winter and it made the sea we grow like never before. the seaweed on our beaches are three feet high and they say it's because the water is too cold. i'm looking forward to the day we get warmer weather. we are having a cool summer, too. the little that you could do if i don't like to deal with changing the climate because you can't change the climate per se. but you could feel something with pollution. pollution is a violation of property rights and for too long, big business and government in collusion together

to allow pollution and right now our military is a big polluter. you have to do is go to iraq and look at the burn pits and all the carbon and other things going on. so when i lived in pittsburgh as a kid, we had the worst skies on the worst water in the world. that affect entire city and there was an outfit that the epa because you shouldn't have the right to pollute your neighbor's property. if anybody is serious about worrying about global warming, they need to look at some of the statistics over the last 100 years because it is far from conclusive. you have a 15 year period of temperatures gradually getting warmer and a 50 year period gradually getting colder and maybe half of a degree here and there. i think it is way overblown, but i don't think you should ignore pollution in the air and would

solve most of the problems of property rights. storms will come and go and you have earthquakes and hurricanes and volcanoes for a long time to come and you want to compare what a big volcano does to our atmosphere compared to other things. but what i don't like about it is you didn't say yes, mankind has to be reined in. mankind has destroyed this world and is coming to an end. that's a bit over the top because the evidence is quite fair and they say no, if you don't endorse global warming, you're some kind of a political atheist and you deserve to be crucified and it's a religion for some people. i think they need to calm down a little bit on that because i think they are using it as a tool to promote, you know, their

agenda and this whole idea that government has solved this problem. i think governments are so often, you know, contributed to the cost. these people who are doing the preaching, most of the time they have their own private jet flying around. they don't seem to curtail the run activities. if they really want to work on it, they had, they had to work on government pollution, you know, before they close down industry. >> host: gym, then hoover, washington, go ahead with your comment. >> caller: dr. paul, would like to thank you for your service. my question to you is i have been doing some reading about a financial credit rating that our nation that i wasn't aware of this, but our financial rating could be downgraded and precipitated see how via saudi arabia, something like that.

what you know about that and how does that really relate to us? >> guest: it has been downgraded one time but totally ignored because we have the military might and we still have most of the wealth. it has been downgraded, can get downgraded again. there has been a little bit of a move in that direction of foreign holders of baghdad. recent weeks i've looked at the statistics and it shows there's been a little bit of selling with china and other countries in our federal reserve has been buying more. not too long ago, there were some statistics showing that maybe russia might have sold a lot of the bonds because they were threat would be confiscated and it looks like all of the sudden bolivia ended up dying a lot of it and there was no way bolivia had the money. so it had to be shenanigans of the fence extending credit and telling them we don't want our balance sheet to look so bad.

that's the big issue in its bowl about when the momentum will build and lose control of it. right now they have been able to comanage it, but it's also the reason they haven't gotten out of the recession because it's hanging overhead and the debt problem is the one problem i haven't been can't held under today's conditions. >> host: you want in government anymore so i don't think you have to answer this question. and he sent an e-mail. where does ron paul keep his money? stocks, bonds ,-com,-com ma real estate or under the mattress. >> guest: sure. well, i think i've mentioned these things over the many years. i had an investment letter one time and everybody knows that talk about old and i hate paper. i've always favored real assets, something that government can't reduplication. you know, as a kid i was raised

a silver coinage. i was a coin collector and then when i started studying the money issue i started saving silver coins and gold coins. when i was a kid, you weren't even allowed gold coins. it was illegal. we only got the legal right to own gold in 1976. sir roosevelt made it illegal in 1933 because he wanted to call the old man at pinellas announced in a minute $35 an ounce, cheating people out of the appreciation of the gold dollar value. so i think gold, if you worry about paper money, buy a little cold and a little silver. the stock market a couple days ago had me quoted in the newspaper, ron paul thinks there's a stock market bubble. now i think -- i think stocks

are a terrible place to have your money. but that's my opinion and the ones who were in the market have made a lot of money doing that. they get on tv and they say ron, we understand you would buy gold in this sort of thing and it was $35 an ounce. and they said yeah, but just think of all the time -- all the money you didn't make in the regular stock market. not that yeah, gold at $35 an ounce. now for $1500. i think real assets are good. i think property is good. i think docs and bonds don't make any interest. so all of that is important and i try to practice good habits are not. but you know, the bottom line is if you are survivalists, you gold and silver, a god, food and

you have a haven someplace to go to, but none of it is worth anything if you don't have your freedom. that is why invest every bit as much and that is my biggest investment is investing in promoting the cause of liberty to live in a free society and for my family and everybody in america to have freedom because that's the only investment that really counts because they are big and they have a lot of guns and no matter how immoral or wrong the irs is, they are very powerful and they've abused their power for a long time and they frighten me. in fact, we have an organization, campaign for liberty. they're hounding us and threatening us to close us down and take money out of our checking account because they wouldn't turn over names for their supreme court would say we don't have to turn over the names in this organization.

so that is the investment we should all be involved in. educate yourselves. educate your friends and neighbors and try to promote good government. if we don't have any free society, i'll tell you what, your guns aren't going to be enough to protect us. it might help now and then against gangsterism, the right now we have to address the subject of a runaway government. post those two quotes from two different books. this is freedom under siege, 1987. a right is a natural god-given permit received a berth to act in one's own self-interest with total control over one's own life and liberty as long as others are not injured or their property taken or damaged and to follow that up with a liberty defined book from 2011. and a free society, individuals are allowed to be creeps and

pick and choose all their association. that is they can discriminate even when the majority disapproves of their choice. >> guest: at the hard one for a lot of people. but the first amendment says government can write any laws about our speech. which means that we can criticize our government and we can say things that make us say controversial things. i would say to make a point that the first amendment is in there because -- it isn't there to regulate, you know, talking about weather. it is there to permit the controversial speech, the controversial personal practices to be legal, too. this protects everybody. no matter what your personal beliefs are, you might be very liberal or very conservative and you might have different reasons to what your liberty and want the government out of your life

and that is why you should be able to bring liberals and conservatives together and even though you might use their liberty different. there's some rules in here at the nonaggression and both of them emphasized the nonaggression principle is you can't impress or initiate force. but you can't initiate you can't take on a person's property and they would be a wonderful perfect world. that's where the real problem is the abuse of the regulations of micromanaging our personal association. all life is made up of discrimination. every thing we do is making a choice.

all of a sudden people want to get in this micromanaging of our personal lives. right now, one thing i struggle with that i'm going to work on his list with political correctness. a libertarian would say, you know, if i am a business man and i am a real goofball, the libertarian is the boycott in the civil rights movement was great and emphasizes the good. don't subsidize done. so you should be left to do that. what happens when anybody ganged up on you. you didn't do anything illegal. he just didn't have good common sense and something very impolite but everybody, government people down to everybody in the media piles on until they lose their property, lose their job and they could go bankrupt because of this.

i'm such a fierce. and do it a lot, and there are conditions and political correctness is getting down the first amendment that outside of government if we bear down and punish that person, it will be good. i was leaning towards the side when people do things that are goofy. even if they don't deserve to be punished, if people are so obsessed with trying to punish them and show how good they are, when they do this, the people who come down hardest on individuals who spoken discreetly, i think the people who come down on them are probably insecure themselves that these issues and we have to prove how savvy they are and they want to destroy them.

>> host: from 1987 on individual rights, you write employee right are said to be valid when employers pressure employees into activity. obviously the morals of the harasser can't be defended, but how can the harasser you escape responsibility, seeking under civil rights legislation is hard to accept the role. if that paragraph between any trouble? >> guest: i'm sure there's plenty out there. that too much freedom i'm not. voluntary contract. everything is voluntary. so if you are the business man and i am the employee and i decide to work for you when you tell me what the rules are, i have to live up to them. if you intervene, then i have a right of recourse.

and offend me. i should quit. you can't force me if i can't leave. i should have the right to leave and i think that there wouldn't be a need for a federal police man to come in and try and settle these things. i think the voluntary contract and the nonaggression principle can deal with this. if you aggressively hurt people and this doesn't have to wait until somebody you in the nose because if there is a threat of force, if people point the gun at you, you have a right to defend yourself. i think the bureaucrat or capable of sorting these things

out. >> host: jeremiah, lost beach, california, you are on with ron paul. >> caller: it's an honor to speak with you, doctor. your great statesman and a wonderful patriot. my question is on security. ever since protections got watered down, congress has failed a bipartisan slush fund and i don't understand why the congress allowed all these public retirement funds to not pay in social security. my answer if i had the power, if every american worker contributed a small amount of social security would be solved tomorrow. can i have your thoughts, please? >> guest: i guess he is referring to contributing money to bail out the public pension funds. well, i have to get a further understanding of this, but most of those programs shouldn't

exist. but if you had -- it is easier to talk about a pension fund for the military. if you have someone in the military for 20 years and we have a contract and have to pay for them, the money should he saved. our books should be balanced. we shouldn't have deficits. we shouldn't have welfare being run. a lot of times we have fun. the user fee type of fund isn't the worst idea as an interim. you know, the highway trust fund, for instance, you shouldn't be there, but if it is a should be honored. what happens if you have these trust funds weathers social security or highway trust fund. that money is taken and immediately put into cash fund and not in a spent on militarism and other things. so it is all a system of government of overspend and and

i think these pension funds you are only seen the beginning of this, whether they are local government and. but even nationally, i think there will come a time when you are going to see some real trouble in social security and pension funds. >> host: the next call is from stephanie and alger, michigan. stephanie, please go ahead. >> caller: hi, dr. paul. i am a 30-year-old nurse for seven years experience tonight decided to further my education had been considering becoming a nurse practitioner, biomedical engineer relief and health care altogether to enter electrical engineering. my question is coming to you think with all the government intervention and regulation within health care, including medical device tax can how scary can become a prosperous industry futurity think now is a good time to cut ties the next of health care? >> guest: welcome i think it depends on how devoted you are to participate in medicine both

because of what good you can do with it and also if you enjoy it and enjoy doing it. we have a firefight children, we have three physicians. and medicine is so much more difficult than bureaucratic than when i started. so it's very difficult. besides, if you leave one field, you think you will be free from some of the obstacles that you face their tanebaum i care and taxing things can get much, much worse. so i wouldn't tell people not to do it. i think you'll really get some personal enjoyment out of changing right now.

also, if we can keep the right to do things privately, if we can opt-out, there's always going to be a place for people to work. even in medicine today, it's shaky and they're trying to take that away from us. that is a personal decision and you'll have to decide whether you want to risk going into a completely different field. >> host: tisha tweets into you, dr. paul, what can the next generation of people who want to defend liberty in politics do? >> guest: first, they need to understand the freedom philosophy, love liberty is all about, where it comes from and what it really means and understand -- they understand it well enough to be able to ask my net because they will meet the

demagogues, believe me. if you are a free market person, you hate poor people and you let them starve in the street and never give them any better than, not realizing that it is the welfare system and the socialist system where people end up not having enough to eat and not having good medical care. so it is understanding that and realizing that reagan is controversial because you have a lot that seem to be immoral and people would be critical in day you let people smoke marijuana cigarettes? this is horrible. you don't what to do that. but you have to remember that if you legalize them think, it doesn't mean you endorse the activity. that's the difference. if people are frightened by, i think studying, understanding, believing and knowing how to answer the negative comments about it because they are very serious and people who care

about how they are doing poorly. we've got to make these people that are morally. if you understand that, then what you do after that is going to be up to the individuals. everybody will have a chance. i think if a person is teaching her journalism on tv, or run for office. i get asked the question so often on a college campus, what should i do? i said whatever you want to do. do what you want. know what you're talking about. note the philosophy is and knowing how wonderful it is and find out how untested it has been. in such a short period of time, if you look at all recorded history of thousands of years, it has only been a couple hundred years where they really talk about, you know, personal

liberty and industrialization of our world and the improvement of society. it's a short period of time. everything else has been authoritarianism and the individual was an import. i think we've only had a little taste. we had a great period of time in early history. it is sometimes day. more liberty, more prosperity than anyplace in the world. and now we have given up on it. but i think we can keep them in the right direction as long as we know it the print beaux-arts and that people are talked into endorsing his principles and they shouldn't be in god's and the people who pump out the war propaganda, why we have to always go to war to save the world and raise the taxes to ensure that the middle classes to read while at the same time we are destroying the middle class and making the poor are

poor and all we are doing is rewarding the rich. go find a job. >> host: before we got started, you mentioned people under 25 are more likely to recognize even people who are 55. >> guest: at least they are more likely to come up to me. maybe if they are 35, 40, 50 they are more reserved. but the young people will come up to me. you know, they are always very polite. i just think, you know, there's a lot of talk about the younger generation and how terrible they are and i'll show you pictures of the wild things they do. i'll tell you what, the ones that come to our rallies and readings, i am really impressed. that's what gives me high hopes that we do have a generation very interested in these issues we have been talking about. they vardy studied and they are already very engaged. i mean, i have kids that are 14 years old and tracking their

parents through my congressional office. it was the kids that wanted to come in. i looked and said they would know about the federal reserve and their reading about all of this. how old are they? 14 years old. i didn't have the faintest idea what was going on when i was 14, let alone what they are doing. so they are very engaged and that's why we shouldn't be too pessimistic about what is happening. >> host: christopher tweets and commit to broadcast the c-span booktv channel in hd? if not, why not? christopher, yes we do broadcast in hd in several systems across the country are carrying a signal in hd. it's up to each individual system. thanks for that. charles and georgia is asante mukherjee, georgia? >> guest: >> caller: dr. paul, i followed you through the

primaries and no one would debate your head and shoulders above all the other candidate. everybody i know voted for you, but i don't think our votes were in a good. excuse me, i'm a little nervous. due to computer fraud. that is the only way i can explain why you didn't win every primary. your idea of having delicate go down was good, but they changed rules on you. i want to comment on that. >> caller: i think you're pretty close to being on target. the rules do change and there were several states where it was very blatant they just refused to have her delegates go. they were very, very frightened. you know, if they have six states or something. i mean, they were so cautious that they even had to work very hard to make sure none of those were counted. so yes, the process is very

questionable. but that is unfortunately the way so much of the politics are. from the very first race i ever ran, we had some shenanigans going on and i think it is too common. so i tend to agree with what you are saying. >> host: david, fairfax, virginia in the suburb. hi, david. >> caller: hello. dr. paul, i would like to start off with the liberty movement. i used to be huge neoconservatives before i went to afghanistan and after i came back, started reading about you and your views seem to be the only one that makes sense. but my question today is a libertarian and the nonaggression principles and one question that comes up a lot time talking to people about libertarianism that i haven't

been able to answer very well is about taxation in general because the way i see it in the way many people see it is that taxation eisai is a level of aggression since you have to force someone to give your money that isn't doing it voluntarily. however, you do run into the paradox that the government at some point needs income of some sort, even if there was a very small government. so how would you reply to that as far as how the government would receive income? >> guest: well, in a more perfect system if we can scrap what we have and we were devising it, i wouldn't have an income tax certainly. the constitution permits taxation. but i would move in the direction of a user tax. if you want government involved in highways, the people who drive on the highways, you know, make sure all the money collected goes there and not off

into some other welfare program. a user tax is a good idea. along our gulf coast we have the intercoastal canal and it takes a lot of maintenance and they pay a lot of money to use it. but then that money gets spent and they have to come back and lobby to get the congress to appropriate the money to take care of the intercoastal canal. so now, user fees are good ideas. i know it is far from perfect, but the most popular bumper sticker that i had was on my desk for a long time and i still use it and that is it says don't steal. the government hates competition. i think taxation in many ways is stealing, especially when it the redistribution of wealth and i would say probably about 80% of it is redistributing or one group to another and unfortunately, it is that going

to the people who really need the help. we pretend it's been redistributed to help the poor, but to help is very, very wealthy group that are able to manipulate the federal reserve system and the financial system and the military system. >> host: you said he won't run for president again. could you see yourself running for congress? >> guest: i've done that a few times. as a matter of fact, you did read that a little bit. i will have to brag a little bit on what thing. i don't know how many of done it because you can't beat incumbents. as much as they complain, incumbents are pretty secure and starting to ship at the tea party. every once in a while we see incumbents losing. i ran two different periods of time and the two times i beat an incumbent. so it was a challenge. but now, i'm not going to go for another record and say i beat an incumbent a third time.

i am very content to do what i'm doing now and if people want to pay little attention, that is good with me. but actually, i never really expected to get very much attention. i did expect it to get a leg and i thought if i talk about what i believe and they won't elect me. i was utterly surprised. and then i thought what if i post this way all the time? that would mean i'd have to vote against a lot of stuff. i got reelected then, too. i'm not going to do that again, but i will keep trying to spread a message and i thought i would be just having a record, you know, even if you had to be one or two or three by myself, the one record i have better of anyone else being put together. i thought it was just to set a

record that some days later we go back and look at bay we always heard about this guy. i wonder how he voted to have an interest in this particular philosophy. in this future i would quietly go about my business and make my statement. but then something happened about six years ago and all the sudden there was an explosion of interest in what's going on in the economy crashed and the wars that badly and i was more visible in the presidential races. the recession changed a lot from what i had asked acted. >> host: cynthia comer virginia city, nevada. good afternoon. >> caller: is wonderful to see you in such vibrant in good health. when you are denied your nomination speech.

right now the rnc hasn't placed ricardian rules for electing delegates to the national convention. the winner of the primaries in each state will be able to handpick the national delegate, circumventing the grassroots. we have been trying very hard to change that will, which was even passed by the majority at that convention. if you watched the video, you hear the huge majority of nose. what can most of us within the gop do about this? we've had no luck with success at the rnc meetings. >> guest: they have to do more of what you are doing, letting us know about that. they have first-hand first-hand experience in that and you know what they were doing. but yeah, they just flat-out change the rules. the interesting thing is that it is a worthwhile effort because you know they talk about the ron paul people thinking they were being punished and it was direct it at them and they don't want

any ron paul people doing this again. but you know, there were a lot who weren't in that category. they were part of our organization. but they were part of a decent, conservative wing of the party that could see the same thing you just described undermining the grassroots. so there's a big coalition. he pointed out they didn't force a vote. so i would say that people, you know, between now and convention time, there has to be a lot of grassroots effort, which is a really, really tough job that has to be done individually in each state in order to get people to these conventions in order to get these rules changed. but there is a little bit of a city on this in the rules have changed. but they need more people to do exactly what you are doing and you keep doing what you are by calling in and getting this information out. >> host: ron paul, after the

2012 convention in tampa you held your last big rally down there at the university of southern florida. did the romney campaign reach out to? did you endorse him, speak for? >> guest: i would say no. no, i mean ,-com,-com ma mitch and i got along real well and there were politics and, you know, when we did not talk about politics a sort of liked him because he had a large family, one son that was in a local school and mrs. romney was very nice and she got along real well with carol. so in a social sense we did. politically it was a different story. i mean, we just had such strong disagreements. but it was also strategy for his part, you know come into a piece on the surface be as friendly as possible because we had a

significant amount. some people think it was a very significant number of delegate so we are not going to yell and scream and curse at us because they would not and could politics and that means that ideas have consequences and even if they don't want you, they have to recognize and i was part of the reason during the campaigns, the romney campaign wanted to sort of appease us a bit and they asked boehner to call up the vote, which was my bill, a big issue. we won overwhelmingly banal the republicans supported it. this was an idea and i saw this as a victory in ideology because it was a big issue because openness in the financial system was a good idea. but aspires speaking, no, i don't think. it would have been difficult for me because we wouldn't have been

able -- it would've been difficult for him to expect that, too because we had such strong disagreements on foreign policy and the point of civil liberty and the nsa and cia and its police and the cia was much stronger than me. >> host: larry, oklahoma, you're in booktv with ron paul. >> caller: i still have my ron paul bumper sticker. my question is about the constitution itself. the treaty clause and it seems to be the way to big government takes it and adjust the people by making contracts with the people. for example, the birth certificate. our parents treat a tax to traders into slavery. ..

it should be taken and it should be thrown out that even engaging in these treaties undermines our

sovereignty. i don't dislike the treaties that all but one that literally repeal something in the constitution that's not the way the constitution should be amended. it was meant to be amended in a much different manner. >> host: liana on our facebook page asks i'm finding myself more distant from government involvement in general. is it healthy to think like an anarchist and what are your views on back? >> guest: well i think if somebody is an anarchist and they totally believe in no government and they don't use force at the moment to go and start shooting up the government so we don't have any government that would be wrong but to be an anarchist and assume responsibility for yourself i think this is a great idea. there are a lot of people, there are a lot of very close friends of mine who think political action is terrible. i happen to be one that believes

that education is paramount but political action can be very helpful and sometimes political action, my elections and things and galvanizing interest is a measurement of our success on our ideas so i think this is very important. but anarchy is not harmful to me. especially if you give up -- if you are a true libertarian you have rejected the use of force. i don't have to worry about you. but if you don't want to your biggest problem in being an anarchist and a government that doesn't agree with you is that while i want to opt out. they are going to come with guns but you know we do have incidences where some people do get to opt out and when you think about the amish and mennonites, i think they get exempted they like to -- just think of those groups. why couldn't all of us have that

opportunity? we voluntarily want to get out and we don't want to -- we want to take care of ourselves. either an individual should be allowed to do that, get no benefits from a government or your group can do that. a libertarian society actually gives full permission for socialism, voluntary socialism. if you want to get together and do experiments with that in our history you are voluntary socialism. if you go together and we agree and we are running this community large, small endeavor on the social scheme you should be allowed to. we should be allowed you know to stay out of that. the problem is it's so inefficient that the socialists know their system is going to fail so they have to use the force of a government gone to take money from the people who aren't socialists in order to subsidize their program. libertarianism is full legal protection of anybody who wants to have voluntary socialism but socialists never will endorse

the idea of you having your personal liberty where you can take care of yourself and not ask for nothing from anybody else. >> host: if you were to recommend one of your books for people, which one would you recommend? >> guest: well i think probably "liberty defined" because it goes over 50 issues and most people ask specific questions about these. i think they get more out of that. of course if somebody's interested in the monetary issues, it's "end of the fed" and "the revolution" is one that talks about what was going on back in 08 with the first campaign. because that was actually when the tea party movement started that nobody remembers that. it started in 07, you know on tea party day. i think it was december 17 or something and that was one that

started spontaneously without a campaign. but soon morphed into something else because the republicans said a this is a movement so we had better get a little bit of control of this thing and make sure there are noninterventionist. so that's a mixed bag now that the revolution book goes over a general philosophy. the fed of course is monetary but the 50 -- "liberty defined" goes over each individual item so you could go through the index. it wouldn't take you long to find something controversial and there are say hey not this issue. >> host: are you working on a book currently? >> guest: in many ways, yes. i have done an outline and i've put some work into it and i can't get it quite concluded. hopefully in the next several months i can and it's a book about you never would guess, it's a book just on war.

the issue of war and why peace is better than war. i attended -- intended the title and made on it was swords into plowshares, which tells the story you know of why cant we have an advancement in civilization where we go from the assumption that we will always have wars and move into a period of time where why can't we use all this energy and advancing civilization to work toward peace. think what has happened technologically in 200 years about the amazing things that have happened technologically. everything from energy to bombs and planes. most of the time is always used to make war more efficient to kill more people. why can't we use the intellectual advancement of society and the social advancement were all of a sudden we started using this for peace.

i am of the believe it's conceivable that you could usher in a whole civilization that you would have to move in the direction of late president talking about, no government talking about less government. government is the one that starts war. the one story i tell in the book is that about world war ii, we had cousins that were in the military and they were overseas fighting. we have relatives in germany and we as kids were taught to pray for our relatives that they didn't get killed in the war. and our cousins ended up in prison camps so here we are trying to pray for them not to be killed and it doesn't make any sense at all, you know. i must have been less than 10 when the war was over and that was close to my grandmother who was very german.

i must have been talking to her about it and she said do you know what? you know that people don't want war. the people were still her relatives. she says, people don't want war. it's only the government. think about that. that's pretty profound because even today a lot of people believe this, that it's the governments that get us into trouble. people don't all of a sudden say oh let's go have a war. it doesn't happen that way. they have to be else up to have a hitler to challenge. saddam hussein is hitler and now putin is hitler and that changes the atmosphere and builds up the war propaganda. people need to understand that. i think there is room right now for recognition and i try to do that in this book and it may or may not come, to recognize we

live in a special age. we are witnessing something fantastic and that is the 20th century has shown us a total failure of government, government wars. think of it, world war ii one, the war to end all wars and the war to end all peace totally senseless war that gave us world war ii that's been going on and on. i think now it's recognized that government running wars makes no sense and intervention is economics and paper money makes no sense. now we have this wonderful opportunity to have a new system which would be more dense than anything we have ever had before and we have the ability to spread these ideas with the tool we have never had before. it was slow moving. think of what has happened technologically what is happening in 200 years with the slow movement of technology.

but now in social science of ideas, these ideas can move more quickly than ever before. i am convinced that people like my grandmother who said we don't want wars, the military don't want wars. i don't know if you remember that during the campaign i got more money from the military than all the rest put together. one man who called and said he had been in afghanistan and converted and came over from a neocon. they are the ones who are involved. i was in the military in 1965 when they escalated in vietnam and i had gone into the reserves and gone back to my residency. i'm in the military. the last thing i want is my government to expand the war. the war made no sense anyway and the military are very good people. there are good military people and i actually said well i have to be able to defend my country.

they go went for a good purpose that they were recognized as fast as anybody that these wars made no sense. i think this is, i think there is a major sea change in there but we still have lots of problems or they don't have the soviet system. the soviet system collapsed. the american system is going to collapse. we are into many countries and we abuse our privileges way too much and our dollar is in tough shape. so we are ripe for some very very great things to happen in this country as long as we keep our eye on the ball and it all has to do with our individual liberty, where it came from and why it's important and why self-respect and self responsibility and solve the problems that governments have only made worse with hundreds if not thousands of years. >> host: ron paul.

william in tennessee you are on the air. >> caller: yes, dr. paul. it is a pleasure and an honor to speak to you. i was 20 years old in 1988. you kind of lit my fire in a campaign for harry brown in tennessee. i just really appreciate the break you gave me through the 80s and 90s. i just want to ask you a question. many questions have been answered by previous scholars and your answers to them especially about as emma goldman said i will not rule and i will not be ruled. i would like to ask you what you think about the quote of the country should go more than 20 years without a violent uprising

in a bit beat -- that the republicans will almost and the decree must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants. [inaudible] i know it would be suicide for people with these formal issues but just your thoughts and ideas. >> host: all right, we got the point. >> guest: okay, i guess that you have never heard me use that quote from jefferson and you probably won't because it wouldn't be one of my favorite quotes. he has a point there that you have to fight for your liberties and you have to reestablish its it's a little too much bloodletting in those quotes. my personality just doesn't lean in that direction. i think you have to renew the spirit of liberty and build on it and improve on it but i lean much closer to gandhi approach

you know, then i do that you have to have blood in they have to shoot and you have to change things he did i recognize how powerful ideas are and persistence is very good. it might be my personality. like i said i became a doctor because i never wanted to carry a gun and shoot somebody. i want a revolution and i'm fighting for that. i write about it and it's high on my agenda but my revolution is not with the need of violence. but i do believe in self-defense. as much as nonviolent of a person that i am if someone came into my household and my family threatened me i believe i would have the moral right and obligation to use lethal force. still when it comes to politics i sort of like what martin luther king did with nonviolen nonviolence.

he preached that as well as gandhi. he was taking on the british empire and its my personal way of doing it. i am always hoping that my views could prevent the need for a violent overthrow. >> host: just a few minutes left with our guests. cincinnati. >> caller: hi. thanks for taking my call. my question concerns medical tort reform and liberty. practicing defensive medicine's for fear of malpractice and ordering diagnostic tests not necessarily for the benefit of the patient. [inaudible] however i talk to legal scholars on the matter that tort reform is difficult because it -- a

right to a fair trial and i was wondering if you have any thoughts on that. >> guest: yes, i have and i've worked on legislation with that and you can find the answer and free market. the governments prevent us from a free-market solution to that. you should be able to contract with patience. the doctor should be able to contract if something goes wrong that there would be an arbitrator. that there may be even an insurance policy that would guarantee this. there could be an insurance policy for an obstetrician for the care of a one for nine months and no matter what happens that insurance should take care of all the problems. it wouldn't be confrontational. we don't go to court and fight it out when there's insurance with our automobiles. in medicine you can do that but the problem is contracts aren't legitimate. they throw the contracts out and say the patient has the right to sue and they have the right to

do this and you can't get them to sign something saying that they wouldn't sue you. but if they would agree to the arbitration it would be a solution to do it. but right now it is a real mess. some of the specialties, ob is one and sba out -- anesthesiology is another. the rates are so high. the struggles i felt about this we had people come up and write national laws dictating to the states and i couldn't support it because i didn't like the vehicle. i didn't think the federal government should be involved but some states have done a better job and some of the tort law has been improved in texas and other places. it could be solved in a free market by allowing contracts. >> host: font in encino california, you are on the air. >> caller: hello. it's good to see you and i want to say you look great for 79.

absolutely wonderful for 79. and it's good to see you peter. you are looking wonderful. my question is, i'm going to get on the race situation. since president obama has been in office it seems like the country is split and a lot of racial tension has emerged again. do you see this racial tension has always been there but it's just morphed in a different way and simmer down for a while until president obama was elected and came into office? and also one more thing. >> host: what do you think, fond? what do you think? >> caller: honestly i feel that it has always been sort of

a racial undertone in the country anyway. that's something that just has to disappear. i feel that it has emerged again and morphed more since president obama came into office areas but there are a lot of things, i am more of a balanced person so people think i'm on the republican side and if i speak more socially people think i'm a democrat. i am neither republican nor democrat. there's so much tension that just has to be released out of the country in order to make a more, say a country with the liberty and justice for all. >> host: thank you, fond and in fact in "liberty defined" you

have a whole chapter on racism. >> host: >> guest: not an easy problem to deal with. there is the racism that exists. i think of our conditions were good and the country was thriving and obama was in charge of the libertarian society and we were having no problems it would be a lot less. there would always be some racial sentiment against the president no matter how well we were doing. but when things go badly those individuals who have a racial tendency, it actually gives them an excuse to do this. so i think it's sort of related to what is happening. i have made comments about some of the problems about our borders that you know it's the economy that leads to her trouble at the borders. if we were doing well at wouldn't be an issue but because we are doing so badly and we have to find somebody to blame much of this stuff and hatred

about illegals is a bit of scapegoating and using this as an excuse. i don't think you'll ever get rid of those and the only solution to me that people have these negative sentiments as libertarianism and accepting in principle you can't use force to hurt anybody and impose your will on other people. it's sort of takes care of that and those people are totally unimportant. they have no value but to sort all that out, i don't know if anybody could tell exactly how much of the resentment is because of race versus what is in the economy. i think our society, our government is in such bad shape and people are sick of the economy and sick and tired of the wars in these other things that happened since obama's president right now. he's an easy target but me personally, i was disturbed as much with a couple republican presidents of lamb with this one may be because i thought they

would say one thing and they were doing exactly the opposite. i was then that every bit as much and it had nothing to do with the color of skin. >> host: caroline littleton colorado e-mails do you believe civil rights would have happened without retro intervention? >> guest: oh absolutely. oh yes because i think we were well underway. all they did do was repeal of the bad laws. most of the civil strife in came from the government all the way back to slavery. that was a government function they should have gotten rid of it. from the very beginning that they didn't. we segregated the military during world war ii. in my lifetime we segregated the military. the jim crow laws. that was government. so is she repeal all of that where were the times that immigration? jackie robinson and branch

ricky. that was fantastic. i think the way it went turned out terribly. the buzzing on arguments, that was not eliminating jim crow laws. where were the biggest riots over bussing? in boston, the people who did the most preaching about those terrible preaching in the south that bussing. you don't need a government to do that. you need the government to act voluntarily and you need to get rid of the laws and all the things that the government did to promote segregation because it wouldn't have happened otherwise. >> host: the last call bolivia in arizona. hi bolivia. >> caller: hello. thank you dr. paul and thank you for inspiring us. i have two questions. one your feelings about the

controversy and impact on our freedom and the second question our current immigration challenge to our security and our liberty. thank you. >> agenda 21 this u.n. stuff and trying to usurp more for sovereignty. i don't believe in the u.n. and i don't believe we should be in it but we are in agenda 21 so that would be dismissed in a libertarian society. on immigration we have talked a little bit about that. that is more complex but it's a consequence of bad policy, bad economic policy, people in this country who wouldn't take a job from outside and wanting to work, a weak economy. it makes people very nervous and jobs are being stolen. it has been a big big problem. we don't have an efficient immigration service. i think it should've been much

more efficient. i think work should have become available more easily. i think if a legal people come in they should get no subsidies. they shouldn't get free health care and free education that we should be more generous in allowing people to calm and work. there were so some time that happened and it would be a great service to our country. the frear we are the more we would welcome people who come in and help us out because we would be getting wealthier. the best we have on the borders are complicated because of the drug laws. the drug lords are fighting and killing with each other. this is why i have always fought against the war on drugs. they have these consequences that we have a lot of criminals on the borders and a lot of money involved. it's not just because there is a bunch of bad people we can't get along with the mexican people. that is probably way down on the list of problems.

it's because of bad policies why we have a mess on our borders. >> host: ron paul what is on your summer reading list? what are you currently reading? >> guest: robert dreyfuss right out the doubles game and he writes about the middle east, a great story about our fallacy in our foreign policy and how we go in and precipitating hatred and how we misunderstood the radical islamist that do exist and why it's partially our fau fault. nobody wants to hear about that but that's part of the trouble. it's a very interesting book. >> host: ron paul has been our guest for the last three hours. here are several of his many books, "freedom under seige," "the ron paul money book," "pillars of prosperity" in 2008 as did the "the revolution" and

"end of the fed" another bestseller in 2009, "liberty defined" 50 central issues that affect their freedom on that ron paul recommends if you are picking up one of his books and "the school revolution" came out last year. you have been watching booktv on c-span2. ron paul has been our guest. starting now on booktv marja mills talks about the life career and opinions of harper lee the author of "to kill a mockingbird."