paul. the three-time presidential candidate talked about u.s. foreign and monetary policy and the rising popularity of libertarian ideals. the host of internet's ron paul channel is the author of several books including "the revolution: a manifesto, "and "the fed" and "the school revolution."book >> host: dr. ron paul, in your book from 2011, "liberty defined: 50 essential issueslled that affect our freedom," you write that so-called moderatet politiciansis who compromise and seek bipartisanship are the most dangerous among the entire crew in washington. compromise is too often synonymous with selling out, bue it sounds a lot better. >> guest: it sure does can. moderation always sounds good,od and people want it.

.. coalition. .. if in the conventional definition of moderation. if i want to be a true free-market person i have to give up all little bit of free-market in order to get -- cooperate with someone else. i see giving up on the principles of non-aggression on foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties will have a smaller nsa, a

little government intervention, a little bit of welfare, the president fight little wars but not big wars. that is so dangerous because you endorse the principle 100% and that is wrong so we find other people where you come together and build a coalitions and that is where the answer will be found in a stalemate in washington. >> host: when you see what is going on, the house, the senate, the president, they want to work together but nothing seems to be getting done. >> they work together, both parties agree on the big issues, they don't have any disagreement but don't want to work together if they are looking for power. power is a real struggle. people want to have power and take care of their friends so that is a very real issue so i think the problem in washington right now is it is more

difficult to continue to spend on some military industrial project, totally unnecessary. democrats want to spend on welfare program conservatives don't like. when we were very wealthy and the debt wasn't outrageous and we didn't have the problems where we see bankruptcies of cities and towns and states it was endless but that has ended and they are not admitting the country is bankrupt. they are fighting over a pie that keeps shrinking and shrinking and this is a problem but on the big issues the issues are coming to work, the president's do it, the nsa, they both like nsa, the irs, they argue publicly but neither party will get rid of the irs. but the very big issues, they are very much to get there. when it comes to civil liberties

like nsa, where the republicans any better than the democrats? they got along together on this and this is why i think we won't admit that, not only financially bankrupt but foreign policy is bankrupt too, american people are sick and tired of it and you just have to listen to the last ten years, afghanistan and the mess we are creating in ukraine, the american people know it and they are saying why don't we get home and yet both parties want to keep the intervention going. >> host: back to "liberty defined: 50 essential issues that affect our freedom" the ethos is the job of the elected politician is to serve the company that employs the mend that company is government. they are told they should serve the system or get another job. very few new politicians can reject this logic. >> guest: i helped a lot of

individuals getting to congress as an incumbent you have a little bit of ability to help. for the most part most of them didn't do well after they got there. some of the unexceptional well in recent years but i have always said that i can tell within a week or so how they are going to go because the member arrives, gave one story back at home, got the support of conservative libertarians, limited government and all the sudden they get in the atmosphere or have to get on this committee and the big pressure is in washington to get ahead you got to go along and have to be a team player. i you going to be a team player? sacrifice your principles and everything you promise at home because you got to be a team player and besides you could get kicked off your committee which has happened, you can get kicked

off your committee and strike the money from your district deliberately, line item veto your district which acts happened to me. it is the vicious game they play in order for you to tell the line and most people k of to a large degree and there are a couple dozen right now that are doing a good job not jumping in and being part of the system. there are certainly individuals -- it won't be hard to find out when there is a vote of 400 to 5, go to five votes, dennis kucinich and i are going to two individuals voting against some needless intervention, that they're going to start another war. you confined out who the people are who will stick to it and

won't kowtow and do exactly as the leadership tells you, there was one time an individual was voting with the rebels, trying to to change things, he was voting with and all of a sudden the voting pattern changed. he is to vote with me on this, he said i am in leadership now. he was appointed to something like on a whig team or something. i am part of the leadership so he becomes leaderless, he leads nothing, became a follower by joining leadership. >> host: did you ever get offered anything? >> guest: i don't think so. >> host: was uncomfortable to be you in the republican caucus? >> guest: a social personal basis, i have deceived myself a little bit because i always thought was fine because it was not the hostility. nobody argued and they left me

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

front 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, fumbling with the cash and getting change. you don't even have to sign. under $50, so tempting. there's also a record. the record is kept, the government knows what happens, they know where you go but it is also a financial information, government hands this information and it is connected to the big companies that collect information. there is commercial value to this too but i had debate before that in the 80s with another person who firmly believed in it. we can raise more money for the government. my goal in life, to defend individual liberty, not have more money. this is why i have an argument with the supply-siders who are pretty good on most issues,

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

for the birdy is still very active and that is an action group and it was the group that was able to mobilize a lot of individuals to get -- audit the philip -- the fed bill passed a couple times and 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 fit is and who they bailout and to the special interests are. i am pretty active and still go to college campuses, i work with young americans for liberty to have campus organizations, spoke with the young americans for liberty last night and i have to admit i enjoy that a lot. >> host: your most recent book is on education, school revolution, a new answer to the broken education system. wants to read a little from that and have you expand on it. the leadership training program i have been developing i emphasize the following skills first, the ability to think

critically, second, the willingness to act responsibly taking full responsibility for your own actions, third, prospective leader needs to know the basics of communication and this certainly involve writing and public speaking. force is a system of exercises that help a person develop real competence. competence is important for step 5, self-confidence, someone who is not self confident about what he believes in and his ability to improve his life in terms of what he believes in will have a difficult time persuading others. sixth is integrity. there can be no successful leadership if there is no followership and one of the followership if the followers do not trust the honesty. >> guest: the last one is 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. there is a lot of self education, they go with their own pace and talked to other students and there is a lot of writing to do. they have to write on a routine basis and the building of confidence, but overall there is a lot of home school programs, a lot of them are very very good. mine is unique and somewhat different because up front, what we are motivated to do is teach about liberty and the free pilafs of the. there's a home schooling group over here that is religiously oriented fare is nothing wrong with that. mine isn't that way. it teaches about religious history but it isn't religiously oriented. i want to preserve a society where everybody has freedom to enter into it so the different

homeschooling groups would be legal so it is understand what a free market is all about. obviously american economic courses you won't learn about socialist economic keynesian economics and you are not going to learn about why paper money is superior to gold money, these kind of things and is very upfront about teaching a whole system of values. >> host: welcome to booktv and c-span2, 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend. this is our in-depth program. every month we invite one author to talk about his or her book. this month is former congressman and medical doctor ron paul, three time presidential candidate. we will put the numbers on screen, 202-585-388 zero on the east and central time zone if you want to participate, 585-3881 for those of you in the west and mountain pacific time zones. if you can't get through on the

phone lines and wants to get a comment in to dr. paul you can do that via twitter at booktv is our twitter handle. you can make a comment on our face book page, facebook.com/booktv and finally an e-mail, booktv@c-span.org. we will begin taping those calls in a minute and those comments. here are some of dr. paul's books of the years. in 1987, "freedom under seige: the u.s. constitution after 200-plus years" came out. 1991, "the ron paul money book," "a foreign policy of freedom: peace, commerce, and honest friendship" came out in 2007, "pillars of prosperity" 2008, "the revolution: a manifesto" also came out in 2008. "end the fed" 2009, "liberty defined: 50 essential issues that affect our freedom" came out in 2011 and his most recent

"the school revolution: a new answer for our broken education system". just came out last year. dr. paul, when do you and how do you right? from your home in texas? >> i don't know if i want to tell anybody, is pretty primitive. when i was in high school i could type very well but i got spoiled by my wife and others who did all my typing. i got sloppy so i am slow on the computer but i am speeding up. most of this was done writing out longhand, dictating and then correcting it but i am much better with the computer now. i have a program where i can dictate into the computer and do my corrections and i do more creative work at the computer so i am learning better. a lot of it was very tedious, to write it out and have somebody type and up and keep getting that. i don't brag. i won't be taught that in my home schooling because i don't know how to type it use a computer much better than i ever

did. >> host: nathan kelly e-mails would you agree the best form of government is none at all or put another way the only legitimate form of governance is individual governance? >> guest: i am 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 is what my goal is to always move in that direction. today to be a participant in the debate and to say tomorrow we will get rid of every single government, if one person does it and nobody else, that won't work but we're moving in to the age when governments are much less important and i think we should -- people are realizing governments mess up, the 20th century was a horrible century.

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

wouldn't exist. all the regulations and details and taxations and abuse of rules and the president writing laws and bashing congress for not speeding up and riding an executive order and all this, that wouldn't be true. that is the trend we have to reverse. i am optimistic to think that we are changing the views of a new generation. the millennials are looking at this and seeing what they are in error in. they cms and they are open to the views of saying yes, the biggest problem we have is too much government, too much centralized government and more self responsibility and self governing the better. >> host: when you see what is going on on the border in your home state of texas what is the solution? >> guest: it is all government created so you correct the government state. under our constitution the

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

solution. we should have better border control but should be more generous allowing workers to coming and more restrictive in giving out free stuff to people who come here illegally and getting them to vote. that part doesn't make any sense but there was a day not in my lifetime when the work permits were easy. and the workers would go back home and take money. today when i was in congress not many years ago, a lot of constituents, we need workers, we need them on the fields and on shrimp boats and couldn't get americans to work there but this is all a consequence of bad management by government and the argument for local management and self-government. >> host: when and how did you develop your philosophy? >> slowly and steadily. i believe all of us are born with an instinct for freedom. that is what little children do at the age of 2 and 3, showing

their independence, that is what teenagers are all about. i had a natural instinct. i don't know where i got the idea we should be consistent but i end up with that early on that in order for something to be consistent in order to be credible. then, when i got into economics some of the things were very natural and their natural to most people because people want peace and prosperity. you don't have to read that in a book but in the 60s i came across semiconscious who actually wrote great books, great intellectuals, these guys are smart and they agree with me so yes, this is it so that got me really excited but then it was coming to get there, i got in politics, financing and work,

the monetary system 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 economy is and sensible foreign policy which the founders -- it comes together and the nicest compliment i get when i am on the road is i don't know why more people don't agree with you because it is common sense. i like that complement because that is why lot of people agree with it, but they don't get to hear it. politicians if they have to contradict what they think their district might want even if it is common sense, as they have to play to the audience and most are not willing to do this. they say i have to do this, i work for the constituents and they want more money for this project and i have to go along or i will get kicked out.

>> host: one of your best selling books, "end the fed" in 2009 you write the federal reserve should be abolished because it is immoral, and constitutional, impractical, promotes bad economics and undermines liberty. destructive nature makes it a tool of tyrannical government. >> i agree with that. sounds like a good statement. i strongly believe that. it is a tool of tyrants. if you have control of the printing presses you can control foreign policy and everything else. we talked a little while ago about the basic principle if you cave in a little bit you open the door for more and more. a lot of people are very good hearted on both sides of the aisle. almost all of the law good hearted and want to help people who are having problems but don't realize the most humanitarian thing they can do for people for their prosperity

is to give them their freedom. excuse me. fact that the fed is involved, they make these promises, the government wants to do this then the fed has so much control that this principle of welfare unfortunately backfires. right now who suffers from most? the shrinking middle class and the poor and they have been going downhill on their wealth since the early 1970s. the bailouts in 7 and 8, foreign governments, foreign central banks, international corporations, all the big companies and who got stranded? for people who were talked into buying a house they shouldn't have bought because the price was too high and they lost their jobs and lost their house. welfare protect the wealthy.

the fit is connected to this. if you run up a debt and you have military-industrial complex the only weapons we go in need, bombers, planes that should have been used 75 years ago but we build some in all 50 states. it goes on and on. they keep making money and for a 5 this and back up by saying this is what i learned in college. my economics teacher said deficits don't matter, spending money is good. people quit spending money not because they lost their jobs or worry about the future but quit spending and if they would only spend it they should borrow the money even if they are out of money, what government does. this whole system is backed up intellectually. this is an intellectual fight. it is not a political fight. the politics is secondary to what i am talking about. we have to change people's minds.

they have to study austrian economics and say is he right about this? the federal reserve and paper money versus goals money? the best thing that could happen is not so much to take this for granted but to say i'd better study this. maybe there's a strong point. maybe it is common sense. >> host: from "liberty defined: 50 essential issues that affect our freedom" h. l. mencken said the urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule. you go on and ride it also requires people's complacency to buy into the free lunch argument. not everyone wants their freedom and accept responsibility for their own well-being. the problem is there are always individuals who want to control others and a significant number of people who believe they will benefit forever from the gravy train. this allows the erosion of liberty. >> host: >> guest: no doubt about that. the whole thing he is talking

about is supported by intellectual leadership. the colleges and our government, what they teach and the media and professors, they all teach these things but if the intellectual leaders explain the fallacies of the system we have, and the number of people, the large number of people, intellectual leadership and education is key to let but you still have to get the majority of people to endorse the government or the government doesn't exist. the majority of people had to endorse communism when it happened. they think they will get something from it. there's always somebody as i said before, that is the fight in washington is the fight over power, not ideology or free-market said or foreign policy. it is power. some people gravitate to

washington politics because it is inbred that they want to dictate to others. the problem with the true libertarian is they don't have a burning desire to take over and run the country. that is not what we want to do. they don't want to put out the effort. i think the effort if you only had one effort has to be on changing people's mines and their hearts to understand, if their goal is to have a humanitarian society that is more productive and more prosperous than they have to study the economics of the doll and why liberty is so important and that will give us the answers we need. >> host: edward perkins asks you why do we have an fbi, cia and nsa? >> guest: to keep an eye on the people so they don't try to

undermine the government. it is to protect the government. some of that, i am on record about the cia and the nsa and all this, but it's true republic you would not have that. if you read the original constitution where does it say okay, we will have a department that is going to establish a secret organization that you can't audits, you don't know what the budget is to go in and undermine the government's of the world and work with the military in order to overthrow governments? it is not fair. this kind of thing if you need somebody to investigate accidents and crime it can be done locally. we should never have been done by the federal government. there was never to be a federal police force. we have 120,000 federal bureaucrats carrying guns to enforce all these rules and

regulations. the worse the situation gets the more authoritarian, you put these groups together the department of homeland security will make us secure. that is not even the purpose of government. the purpose of government is to make sure we live in a free society but the department of homeland security is for security, we will make you economically secure and physically secure and for those -- there was a vision by some that that is what they had to use 9/11 for. this gives us an opportunity to pass things like the patriot act this was an opportunity for the authoritarian this. some just want to be authoritarian. others, i have had members of congress tell me to my face, why are you doing this? you are taking over the problem for the people, the people too stupid.

that is what some of them think. that gives them this moral authority. does that mean i think that if we unleash freedom of all the people everything is going to be flying? heavens no. there will be a lot of problems but just think, if you and i have our freedoms and we do something wrong, we might enjoy ourselves but if we are in the government and we are running the nsa or the cia and they are doing 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 think they know how to do central economic planning? that is what the federal reserve is about, plan the economy. we can make booms, we can always make booms and never cause a bust. day. is this an it always fails so you don't want people in power to be able to have this control

over the people. >> host: links to some calls. bill is calling from bordertown, pa.. >> caller: it is a privilege to be speaking with you. i went earlier mass just to get here and watch your program. question i have, what do we do here? i am not an uneducated guy. the great dennis kucinich lot of times for the only guys that seemed to make any sense and i have been following you sincerely in your career. i am sitting here outside redding, pennsylvania and i have $10,000 worth of property tax bills in front of me that i do for my house and the couple rentals, i pay $16,000 in property-tax the year. my son just joined the pennsylvania national guard. i am afraid he will get signed

over to the ukraine. i know if your son runs i will get behind him and back him but my question to you is what do we do? i know these problems, i'd buy gold, i keep my money in cash but what do we do? >> guest: that is one of the most common questions i have. a lot of college kids 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 have been more active the last several years in the presidential campaigns, many of come back to me and said you told me to do something and start their own organizations and do their own study and get their own jobs and some run for office and other candidates -- politics is secondary to the education but having good people in washington, they can

participate and hold up their hands and say what you are doing is wrong. there are two parts to your question. one is your immediate problem of this heavy tax burden. that won't go away overnight but long term it is a shift toward a free society which isn't going to happen overnight but the mess we got into didn't happen overnight either. the fed was started in 1913 and it gradually got worse every year. and brought us to the catastrophe we are involved in now also what we need to do is those seeds are being planted now. the true intellectual movement is toward understanding individual liberty. a different type of foreign policy, different role for the government that these wars are totally unnecessary, so first thing is educate oneself.

i am sure the gentleman is well educated but it seems like i had these instincts but it took me a long time in the 50s and 60s to find the right people to study and read and understand austrian economics. but today this information is so readily available to us with the internet, people confined this information and that is what is happening and where the revolution is and believe me i am talking to a lot of young people and a lot of the mark very interested and it is very slow. that is the tough part, the frustration, the fact that the fed is the debate of a light demand none intervention overseas is a debatable item, that wasn't true even six years ago. everybody knows about this. there have been various organizations, joins a more make your own or become more informed to. if you are well informed people will come and ask your opinion.

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

here is what you write in 2008 from pillars of prosperity. our willingness over the past 100 years to resort to weapons to impose our will on others has generally cause resentment of america renders than -- >> guest: more doubt about that more so than ever. the other important thing is the recruiting tool is the incitement of people who not just resent us but hate us and want to do us harm. look at farm that has been done overseas. as a consequence the other half has been done by ourselves here at home by a violation of our own civil liberties and spending too much money but no. look at the results of iraq and afghanistan, horrible. this makes no sense whatsoever. we have more enemies right now

that are waiting for us to stumble. we are starting to stumble already. there is an ack-ack. other countries, this use of sanctions when they have no evidence whatsoever of any thing and it is absolutely unnecessary aggravation of russia makes no sense whatsoever to do this. just looking for more trouble. they are going to when you put on sanctions have consequences too. cuba. since the 50s. we have had sanctions on iran for all these years and it continues. people resent it and as we get weaker militarily and

financially, there will be a lot of piling on and i think we will be forced, i am pessimistic in the short run. i think things are going to get much worse. we can't get enough people to shift gears and do the right thing but this thing is going to come apart and we have to make a decision what went on economics and civil liberties and foreign policy and that is when i think we can find a right answers and do a better job. >> host: if you were sitting in the white house right now and russia is involved him ukraine is there a u.s. role? >> guest: no. was it necessary for russia to get involved when we went into haiti? you should be in haiti or all these different countries, we are in 140 countries already.

that doesn't fully answer the question, and the threat to national security. it has nothing to do with national security. going into afghanistan and iraq made it more of a threat to national security. and all the conditions they create and the results are so disastrous, we should have stayed out of ukraine a lot sooner, we were in combination with the europeans to overthrow -- we were the one that participated in the coup, through them out and have been in russia for everything, russia happens to have an argument stronger than ours. ukraine and especially crimea for most of the thousand years,

the perfect solution to get russia to move out and the united states to move out and let ukrainians solve the problem. under these circumstances the only thing i might have more of moral authority or input is talk about our own government. that is we shouldn't do these things because they are not good for us and are wrong, but looking for fights continuously, very dangerous, they don't think -- i don't think there will be a ground war either but obama said no boots on the ground. we have. on the ground. we have special forces and the cia and plenty of boots on the ground and military equipment and begging for more money to be on one side and that is so unnecessary and so harmful.

if european thinks it is a big deal with the russians are doing, as and when the europeans deal with it. why should we put the burden on the poor people of this country? the rich don't suffer, the up for suffer and because that is the way the system works and the way the economy works, the poor get poorer, the middle class is shrinking and we can't afford any more. i have argued that i won't win this argument and all of a sudden ron paul is right, let's bring the troops home but they are coming home. they are coming home because we won't be able to afford them and you will be a blessing in disguise the we just can't afford these wars because we can't afford more of the tragedies we are causing for our veterans and come home and have so many so many physical problems and mental problems and love the a incapable of taking care of them and trillions of dollars of obligations so i would say we can't afford that

any longer and change foreign policy. and since the end of world war ii can you imagine how many lives would have been sold, how many lives in we destroy and how many american soldiers died, coriander vietnam and new wars and all these tragedies, they would have been avoided and we would not have been less threatened under those conditions, we did that to prevent the invasion, baloney. they were not about to invade, they are more likely to invade us now because of pushing ourselves around and being the authoritarian is and now the principal in the government that we should have pre-emptive war. that is aggression. pre-emptive war means they might attack us some day, some day the iranians might get a nuclear weapon so they are 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 americans think they can assassinate american citizens. we are long way from our constitution. and we like to see us move in a better direction. >> host: you were at 4 years old in 1930, d think you would have been america firster before world war ii? >> absolutely. robert taft was in that group and in 1945 too, don't even julian nato, they will get us involved. and gave us the authority to go into libya. and ukraine. nato will undermine our national defense. our presidents get up and argue,

republican and democrat. we don't need a declaration of war, we get our authority from the united nations and nato. they were around back then. robert taft would sit in quite well and we would be a lot better off if we had more people convinced, so some day i would like to see a point where the young people just say i don't need this war and i am not going an i got drafted. i was in for five years, and i if there's a hot war in ukraine, and the sense to the war with the iranians and afghanistan. iraq -- people don't want that

anymore. they get talked into it. there is war propaganda, television stations and all the politicians, and russia, they have been very successful. once this started out there was hardly anybody thought we should confront russia. we come up with this wild story shooting down an airliner, everybody hates russia and approve this -- absolutely absurd. to know who shot the airliner down, evidence popping up, in western ukraine. i don't know, nobody knows for sure, there is a real good argument for why don't we stay out of that mess because nobody had threatened america or our national security. >> host: drew in mill valley,

calif.. >> caller: i have been a big fan of yours for a while. in 1988, the deficit was $155 billion i believe. now we are looking at trillions of dollars that we are in, the think we need to change our economic structure? if so, how do we go about it? what would be the plan? >> we needed different one. real practical politics and economics, and 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 is recognizing the truth of the situation, $17 trillion debt will never be paid, it will be

liquidated. and debase the currency which are working hard's and the prices aren't going up quite as pass 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 is 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 sound currency, get rid of the fed, but you have to change the attitude of the people. the people can't say i am on food stamps, i will die if i don't have food stamps and the military-industrial complex says what about our food stamps because we are the important people, we make weapons to protect our country and of course the weapons aren't necessary. as long as you have that is

going to be very bad. so we have to at the time the bankruptcy occurs and liquidation of the debt occurs, then we have to have people firmly convinced the economic system and foreign policy system we have today is completely wrong, there has to be a respect for our privacy and civil liberties and it is all back to getting a 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 are nowhere close to that and when it is recognized we have gone wrong way for long time that we have a chance to pick up the pieces and restore liberty and prosperity to this country. >> host: if you can't get through on the phone lines go to facebook, twitter or e-mail as well and we will flash those addresses up as we go but here's a comment from our facebook

page, this is from marchner, when did vice can you give to a german political science student? what studies would you like to see at the university? we don't get educated in the ideas of liberty at all. >> guest: i can't speak for german universities. they have more freedom of shoelaces and we have here. i would say don't depend on the university. go to the internets and look up austrian economics, looked up the writings of hayak and others and find out what that is all about because that understanding by many people as possible that will make a difference. there may be some good professors that understand free-market its end of the european schools. i get a lot of invitations to europe and south america. i will be going down to a group

in brazil. these ideas are spreading and that is very good. it is 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. this whole idea is spreading easily now that we have this available technique through the internet. >> host: from your book "the school revolution: a new answer for our broken education system" colleges want to get students enrolled as freshman because this is where they make their money. it costs relatively little to teach freshmen or sophomores yet it tuition payment is the same for upper division years. the upper division is where the student majors in a particular subject, where he gets taught by ph.d. holding professors rather than graduate assistant. to 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 write, economically or academically, but it is not in the self-interest of colleges the families understand. >> there is something flaw in the system. a few do very well and there are good universities in science and engineering. there is too much college degree. if i had to start over today and still wanted to do ideas i would still be forced into the conventional system because i wanted to be an m.d.. you go through the ritual of college and a medical school but there are so many others. everybody here is the stories, these people have a few bucks and make a lot of money never went to college but they have to get -- that doesn't mean they

don't get educated. it is just that it is a boondoggle in the education system is not at the college level but at all levels because government is so involved. there is no authority in the constitution for the federal government to be involved in education. there is the printing press money which means there is a lot of extra money and laws passed and money goes in certain directions based on fat. because we are involved in education, what it does, more people get degrees but the degree gets cheapened and costs more money. a lot of people coming out with degrees and a lot of debt and no job so people have to ask themselves maybe there's something wrong with our educational system. the degree is and meaning much many more. it is not necessary for

everybody. >> host: $60,000 a year for top university? >> guest: i guess i'd better catch up. everybody feels, everybody has been brainwashed, you got to sacrifice for your kid to go to school. what a change in my lifetime. i could get a few jobs on campus and pay for my tuition in the 50s and their five of us in our family who were real close, we were expected to take care but some are working jobs on campus, we could pay our own tuition but now those prices are inflated and it is -- they are teaching you bad economics and you're getting punished by bad economics but we never change anything. have to borrow the money and participate. government has $17 trillion of debt. i could educate my child for $400,000 but i will be doing them a great service but then they might not get a job. we have to let me stop and ask

some questions about this. that type of thing is the consequence of bad economic planning by government that should not be in the business of economic planning and should be subsidized through printing press money which means there's a lot of money out there. housing bubbles can be explained in the same manner. >> host: gus in naples, fla. you are on with ron paul. >> caller: an honor to speak with you. tweet to questions. do you think janet yellen has more power and influence than the president of the united states? the second question is what should the guidelines be for trade agreements? thank you. >> guest: the chairman of the federal reserve board has more clout and more power than up president on economic matters. the president has tremendous power and military matters. on economic matters such chairman of the fed is very powerful and is done in secrecy and that is the big problem and

why i argue so we should have an audit. you asked about what should be the traditions on trade agreement, the constitution said congress should be in charge of trade agreements and it was assumed to be bilateral. if congress wanted to act on free trade zone between the united states and canada can risk could pause a lot and set the trade standards, founders were strong free traders. they didn't want a lot of barriers and didn't want a lot of problems even though it was legal but when you had these trade agreements, the worst is the wto. they are nothing more than grooves of big companies getting together and getting permission to put on sanctions when they feel their competition is arming them. they spent as much time putting

on tariffs and prevent imports to protect what they are selling, as they do trying to reduce tariffs so we don't need that. we should argue the case for free trade but it should be the congress. i always voted against from because i did not believe the president should have the power and authority to write these trade agreements and that was another issue dennis and i agreed on on economics because they would violate his concept of labour laws. giving power to the president's is the problem and it should be in the congress. it would create a perfect world but it would be better than the world we have today where special interests controlled trade agreements. >> host: do you stay in touch with dennis kucinich? >> guest: he is on my board for the institute for peace and prosperity which is a foreign

policy board. he is an adviser there. >> host: from your book "end the fed" you write the supreme court has never been a friend of sound money and has really been a protector of the constitution. the only unique power the fed possesses is the power to inspire support the creation of new money out of nothing. his knees that? >> guest: banks like it, governments like it, i find a means years like it but the people do not benefit. just the reverse. >> host: that is the conclusion of it. >> guest: some people believe they will benefit by it. we talked a little bit about the housing bubble when low interest rates were if there and it looked like it would last forever. the people endorsed that but it backfired. it only benefit special-interest and they should not have this power and it when it goes to the courts as far back as throughout

history say never ruled in favor of some money especially during the civil war period when they cried about the greenback's and things like this and they are not likely to come around to supporting that position today so there has to be a new group of supreme court justices. .. 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. ...

>> guest: overall i don't want the federal government involved, i don't want money being spent. one of the worst things ever done by the pro-abortion people is tax the people who have this fervent belief against abortion. take money from them and send it to clinics that do abortions. and, you know, that really is spitting in somebody's face, you know, to do that.ght but i'm, even though states have a right to regulate this, i think once again it's aon reflection ofed society. i mentioned that, you know, when that abortion was done at my hospital where i was a residenti and it was illegal, it was in the '60s. 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. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪

>> c-span2, created by the cable tv industry and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on facebook and follow us onomin twitter. >> here's a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around thetv country. on august 30th, booktv will bek live at the national bookat t festival. the annual festival will take place at the washington convention center in washington d.c.h then on september 6th, the bookmarks festival of books and authors will hold their tenth annual festival ina winston-salem, north carolina. it's the largest of its kind in north carolina and features both indoors and outdoor events. on september 21st, this year's brooklyn week festival will be held ath the brooklyn borough hall and plaza. the festival will host more tha 100 u.s. and international

authors.28th and from september 26th flu ther 28th -- through the 28th, the annual baltimore book festivalot takes place at the city's inner harbor. let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area, and we'll add them to our list. e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> host: ron paul, you list youn parents as one of your biggest influences. who were they? >> guest: howard paul and margaret paul, and they wereu both from pittsburgh. they were, they met in lutheran church activities. washington any 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. st: ..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 sta and gold coin. they were wild gold collins. was illegal. the legal right to own gold in 1976. roosevelt made it illegal in 1933 because he wanted to call the golden, i think gold if worried about paper money, the stock market, a couple days ago had me quoted in the newspaper ron paul thinks there is a stock market bubble. next few days it is 400 points and they watch it. i think the stocks are terrible place.

that is my opinion. they made a lot of money doing this. and you buy gold and this sort of thing, $34 an ounce, just think of all the time, all the money you didn't make in regular stock market, gold at $35 an ounce, $1,500, real assets are good. property is good, stocks and bondss don't make any interest. try to practice good habits vaughn that. what the bottom line is, and it is nothing based on your

freedom. and investing and promoting the cause of liberty, might benefit for me to live in a free society and my family and everybody, the only investment that counts, governments are -- have a lot of guns. and however immoral and wrong the irs is, are powerful. they abused power for a long time. they frighten me, we have an organization, campaign for liberty and helping us. and takes the money out of our checking account because we wouldn't turn over names of people who donated and yet the supreme court ruling says we don't have to turn over the names in this organization. that is why we are involved in.

educate friends and neighbors and promote good government and if we don't live in a free society, it will not be enough to be protective. it might help now and then against gangsterism but right now we have to address the subject of a runaway government. >> host: two quotes from two books, from "freedom under seige: the u.s. constitution after 200-plus years," a right is a god-given birth received at birth to act in your own self-interest to with total control over one's don't like and liberty as long as others are not injured northern property taken or damaged, to follow that up, liberty defined book from 2011. in a free society, individuals are allowed to the creeps and pick and choose their association.

they can discriminate when the majority disapproves of their choices. >> guest: a hard one for a lot of people. must accept the first amendment. the government cannot write any laws about our speech. we can criticize the government and we can say controversial things and i always a to make the point that the first amendment isn't there because to regulate talking about the weather, it is there to regulate and permit controversial speech, controversial personal practices should be legal too. this protect everybody no matter what your personal beliefs are, you might be very liberal or very conservative and might have different reasons to want your liberty or one the government out of your life and that is why i believe you should be able to bring liberals and conservatives together to defend liberty, even

though we might use liberty differently but there were some rules in here and both emphasize the non-aggression principal, you can't aggress against your neighbor or initiate force. you can't initiate force, if you have that, take a person's property, it would be a wonderful perfect world if everybody followed this but we have a government that doesn't follow it, that is where the real problem is, there is confiscation of wealth and abusive regulations, micromanaging personal activities and personal associations and that is made up on association, everything we do is making a choice. am i going to be here or here? all of a sudden people want to get into this micromanaging of what we do with personal lives.

we are going to work on is the obsession with political correctness. the libertarian would say if i am a businessman and i am a real goofball the libertarian message is boycott him. boycotts during the civil rights movement was great, boycott them. don't subsidize them. you should be able to do that. what happens when everybody gang is up on you, you didn't to anything illegal, you have common sense and did something impolite, everybody from government people down to everybody in the media piles on until they lose their property, lose their job and could go bankrupt because of this. it seems there should be a limit but i don't know where that would be because i am such a

free spirit that you want to allow people to do what you want but there are conditions which it looks like political correctness is getting around the first amendment, that if we, outside of government if we bear down and punish that person it will be good but i would lean toward the side of saying the government shouldn't be involved when people do things that are due fee even if they don't deserve to the pundits, if they said something stupid, if people are so obsessed with trying to punish them and show how good they are most of the time when they do this the people who come down hardest on individuals who spoke in discreetly and said something, the people who come down on them are very insecure with these issues that have to prove how saintly they are and bear down on those people and wants to destroy them. >> host: from 1987, on

individual rights, you simply writes a valid when employers pressure employees in to sexual likes of a. why don't they quit once the so-called harassment starts? obviously the morals of the harasser cannot be defended the cow had -- how can the harass he escape responsibility for the problem? seeking protection under civil rights legislation is hardly acceptable. does that get you in any trouble? >> i am sure plenty out there would say that is too much freedom on that. voluntary contract. everything is voluntary. if you are the businessman and i am the employee and i decide to work for you and you tell me what the rules are, i have to live up to them. if you enjoy me that i have a right but if you just annoy me and bug me and do things and

offend me i should quit. and if i, and that would not be need for a federal policeman to try to settle these things. i think the voluntary contract and non-aggression principle can deal with this. if you aggressively hurt people and this doesn't have to wait until somebody hits you in the nose because if there is a threat of force. if people point a gun at you you don't have to wait until people shoot you. you have a right to defend yourself. the bureaucrats are not capable of sorting these things out. >> host: jeremiah on booktv with c-span to with ron paul. >> caller: you are a great

statesman. my question is about social security. congress has been a bipartisan slush fund. and i don't understand all these public retirement funds. and if every american worker contributed social security it would be solvent tomorrow. can i have your thoughts please? >> guest: i guess he is referring to contributing money to bailout the public pension funds. i would have to get a further understanding of this but most of those programs shouldn't exist. it is easy to talk about a

pension fund for the military. somebody in the military for 1020 years and have a contract that we have to pay for but the money should be saved. books should be balanced, we shouldn't have deficits, shouldn't have welfare being run. lot of times we have funds. the user fee type of fund isn't the worst idea as an interim. highway trust fund for instance should be there but if it is it should be honored. what happens is you have trust funds, social security or highway trust funds. that money gets taken, immediately putting to the cash fund and that money is spent on militarism and other things. the whole system of government of overspending. we are seeing the beginning of

this. and there will come a time the we will see real trouble in social security and pension funds. >> host: next call from stephanie in michigan. please go ahead. >> caller: i am a 30-year-old merc, recently decided to further my education and have been considering becoming a nurse practitioner, biomedical engineer or a leading health care altogether, under electrical engineering. my question is do you think with the government intervention and regulation within house care, can health care become a prosperous industry in the future or is now a good time to exit? >> guest: it depends how the vote you are to participating in medicine because of the good you can do with that and also if you

enjoy doing it. we have three physicians, i never went out of my way to encourage them to do it. they all went into medicine for the right reasons but there's a lot of hesitation. it is going to get worse, medicine today is so much more difficult than it was when i started. it is very difficult. if you leave one field to you think you will be free from some of the obstacles you face? with obamacare and taxing, things can't get much worse. i wouldn't tell people not to do it. are you really going to get some personal enjoyment out of changing right now? also if we keep the right to do things privately, if you can opt out, there will always be a

place for people to work even in medicine. today it is shaky and they're trying to take that away from us. that will be a personal decision on your part, you will have to decide whether to risk going into a completely different fields. >> guest: >> host: tricia tweets in the next generation of people want to defend liberty and politics to be effective? >> guest: they need to understand the freedom philosophy, what liberty is all about, what it really means and to understand well enough to explain it. they meet the demagogues. if you are a free-market person, you hate person -- for people and let them starve in the street and not give the medicine

not realizing it is put welfare system and social system where people end of not having enough to eat and not having good medical care. it is the understanding that and realizing freedom is controversial because you allow a lot of activities that seem to be immoral and people will be critical and say you would let people smoke marijuana cigarettes? this is horrible. but you have to remember if you legalize something and make it their own choice to doesn't mean you endorse the activity. that is a big difference. if you understand this and people are not frightened by it, studying it and understanding and believing in it and knowing how to answer comments about it. people who care about people,

and make sure nobody starves in the street. what they do after is that is individuals, everyone has a chance. anything, start an organization, it depends on the individual. what should i do? whatever you want to do, do what you want. knowing how wonderful that is or how untested has been. a short period of time, you look at a reported history of thousands of years, a couple hundred years when they talked about personal liberty, industrialization of our world and improvement of society, just a short period of time,

everything is authoritarian is a man individualism isn't important. we only have a little taste, we had a great period of time in early history, it was fantastic. more liberty, more prosperity, than any place else in the world. we keep moving in the right direction moving as long as we know what the principles are. and people i talked into endorsing these principles and shouldn't be intimidated by the demagogues and people who pumped out war propaganda, we have to always go to war to save the world or always have to raise taxes in order to make sure the middle class is doing well. at the same time realizing we are destroying the middle class and making the 4 poorer and rewarding the rich. when they realize that they will find a job. >> caller: >> host: people and did 25 or

more likely to recognize you and people who are 55. >> guest: more likely to come up to me. maybe 35, 40, 50 are more reserved. the young people come up to me and they're always very polite. the younger generation, how terrible they are and they show you some pictures of the wild things they do but i tell you what. the ones that come to our rallies and meetings i am really impressed. that gives me high hopes that we do have a generation very interested in these issues we have been talking about. they have already studied and already very engaged. i have kids that are 14 years old and are dragging their parents to my congressional office. it was the kids the wanted to come in.

they would know about the federal reserve and are reading about this. how old are you? 14 years old. i didn't have the faintest idea what was going on when i was 14. they are very engaged and that is why we shouldn't be too pessimistic. >> host: christopher tweets in do you broadcast c-span booktv channel in hd? if not why not? yes we do broadcasts in hd. several systems across the country are carrying that signal in hd. it is up to each individual system. thanks for that. charles in georgia. >> caller: that is correct. >> host: go ahead with your question or comment for ron paul. >> caller: i followed you throughout the 2012 primaries and you won every debate. you were head and shoulders above all the other candidates. everybody i know voted for you but i don't think our votes were

any good. excuse me. i am 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 delegates to go down was good but they changed the rules on you. what is your comment on that? >> guest: you are close to being on target. the rules to get change. there were several states where it was very blamed and they just refused to have our delegates go. they were so cautious that they had to work hard to make sure none of those were counted. the process is very questionable. 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 it is too common. i tend to agree with what you are saying. >> host: david in fairfax, va.. >> caller: i would like to start like a mother lot of other callers have said, a liberty movement used to be a huge new conservative, i went to afghanistan and after i came back, started reading about you and your views seem to be the only ones that made sense from all the politicians i read about. as a libertarian i also believe in the non-aggression principal and one question that comes up a lot, something i haven't been able to answer very well about taxation because the way i see and the way many people see it

is taxation, taxation i would say is a form of aggression, forcing someone to give the money but not doing it voluntarily but you run into the paradox that the government at some point needs income of some sort even if it was a very small government. how would you apply to that as far as how the government would receive income? >> guest: in a more perfect system if we could scrap what we have when we were devising it i wouldn't have an income tax certainly. the constitution permits and taxation but i would move in the direction of the user tax. the gasoline tax and all the money collected goes there and not in to some other welfare programs so a user tax is a good idea.

along the gulf coast we have the intercoastal canal and it takes a lot of maintenance and people who use the canal pale lot of money to use it but then they have -- that money gets spent and they have to come back and lobby to get congress to appropriate the money to take care of the intercoastal canal. user fees are a good idea. it is far from perfect but the most popular bumper stickers that i had was on my desk for a long time and i still use it. don't steele, the government hates competition. taxation in many ways is stealing especially when it is for the redistribution of wealth and i would say probably 80% of it is redistributing from one group to another and unfortunately it isn't going to the people who really needs the help, we pretended is read distributed to help the poor but it is registered bidding to help

the very wealthy group that are able to manipulate the federal reserve system and the financial system and the military system. >> host: you said you won't run for president again. would you run for congress? >> guest: i have done that a few times. if you read that a little bit, i am going to have to brendel little bit on one's thing. i don't know how many have done it. you can't beat incumbents. as much as they complain about congress incumbents are pretty secure. it is starting to shift with the tea party. every once in awhile we see incumbents losing, but i ran at two different periods of time and two times i'd beat an incumbent so it was a challenge but i am not going to go for another record and say i'd beat an incumbent third time. i am very content to do what i am doing now. if people want to pay a little

attention that is good with me but i never really expect to get very much attention. i didn't expect to get elected and i thought if i talk about what i really believe in they won't elect me and i was pleasantly surprised. then i thought what if i vote this way all the time? that would mean i would have to vote against a lot of stuff from my district. i got reelected and i just -- i am not ready to do that. i am not going to do that again but i will keep trying to spread a message and i thought i would just be setting a record washington that even if it had to be one or two or three by myself to one record i have is having voted by myself more than anybody else put together. i thought it was to set a record. we go back and say i wonder how

he voted and have an interest in this particular philosophy. i was thinking in the distant future i would quietly go about my business and make my statements but then something happened six years ago and all of a sudden i think there was an explosion of interest in what is going on. economy crashed, the wars went badly and i was more visible in the presidential races so the reception change a lot from what i had expected. >> host: cynthia, virginia city, nev.. >> caller: wonderful to see you in such a vibrant good health. i was one of those national delegates from nevada who voted for you in tampa when you were denied your nomination speech. right now the rnc has placed draconian rules for electing delegates to the national convention.

the winner of the primaries in each state will be able to handpick the national delegates, circumventing the grass roots. we have been trying really hard to change that rule which wasn't even passed by the majority at that convention. if you watch the video you see a huge majority of nos. what can those of us working within the gop do about this? we have had no luck or success at the rnc meeting is. >> guest: you do more than what you are doing, let us know about that. you have firsthand experience in this and you know what they are doing. we changed the rules and the interesting thing is it is a worthwhile effort because they talk about the ron paul people thinking only they were published and any ron paul people doing this again, but there were a lot of people who were not in that category, they

were not 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 grass roots. there's a big coalition. they didn't even have the votes or force the votes. i would say that people between now and convention time there has to be a lot of grassroots effort which is a really tough job and has to be done individually and local communities and each state in order to get the people to these conventions to get these rules changed but there was a little bit of publicity on this when the pools >> reporter: 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: after the 2012 convention you held your big rally at the university of southern florida, did the romney

campaign reach out to you? did you endorse him or speak to him? was it just -- >> guest: i would say no. no. .. 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. ..

>> guest: sign the treaty, and they say, well, the treaty's the law of the land. but what if the treaty is with the united nations, and you go to war under a u.n. resolution? you shouldn't be able to do that. and the counts should deal with this. it should be taken, and it should be thrown out. but even engaging in theseties treaties undermines our

sovereignty. i don't like the treaties at all, but when it literallyng i repeals something in the constitution, that's not the wat the constitution should beld b 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. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies 35 years ago and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. >> and now from washington, d.c.'s politics & prose bookstore, elizabeth drew talks about the new edition of her book, "washington journal." the book, originally published in 1975, covers the dissolution of the nixon administration from september 1973 to august of 1974. this weekend marks the 40th