They Laughed at Him, But Now?
March 21, 2024
From the Tom Woods Letter:
Three or four weeks ago I heard that Ron Paul had traveled to Tucker Carlson’s studio for what was sure to be a “Ron Paul was right” episode.
Fifteen minutes of that interview have been released on Twitter, with the remainder available only to subscribers at Tucker’s network.
When I spoke at Dr. Paul’s Rally for the Republic in 2008, it was Tucker who introduced me — and the other speakers. He wasn’t the Tucker he is today, but he emceed an event that was held on the other side of the Twin Cities from where the execrable John McCain was in the process of being nominated.
At the time, it was common for people — especially Republicans, who were used to being spoken to in slogans, which Dr. Paul avoided like the plague — to call Dr. Paul “crazy.”
He said the U.S. government’s foreign policy was expensive, counterproductive (that much is obvious!), and flat-out evil, and needed to be chucked. And like all hideous things in American life it rested on a corrupt bipartisan foundation.
He criticized the Federal Reserve, which nobody in a presidential election was supposed to mention — and, dutifully, nobody had for 100 years. This sent the policemen of approved opinion into a frenzy: why, only a crank would criticize the Federal Reserve, which was created to give us a stable economy!
Yes, people — Republicans included — really said that preposterous thing. (You know how to refute that because you’ve read my free book Our Enemy, the Fed.)
The rest of the Republican field could barely name a federal pencil sharpener they’d cut, so when they encountered someone who actually intended to do what Republican talking points pretended they wanted to do, no one could compute this. He must be crazy!
Supposedly right-wing outlets and networks and individuals pretended that concern about the economy in 2008 was a left-wing talking point intended to harm George W. Bush.
September 1, 2008, Herman Cain said the economy was fine.
Here’s what happened over the following two weeks:
— Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the U.S. government (Sept. 7);
— Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America;
— Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy;
— The Fed bailed out AIG;
— Washington Mutual was sold to JP MorganChase;
— Treasury Secretary Paulson said the economy was so bad that $700 billion must be spent on bailouts immediately; otherwise, warned Ben Bernanke, “we may not have an economy on Monday.”
In 2001, on the House floor, Ron Paul had said: they’re going to substitute a real estate bubble for the dot-com bubble, and by postponing the crash now they’re going to make it worse later. Precisely what happened.
Nobody wanted to hear that, because they wanted to hear, “Duh, those liberals hate America!”
After Covid, some people who called Ron Paul crazy started to wake up. Their candidates had fallen hook, line, and sinker for Fauci and Covid. But Ron didn’t. Neither did his son.
Now here’s Tucker introducing the Great One.
Wait, warning:
Anyone who parrots CIA propaganda and regime epithets — e.g., if you dissent on Ukraine policy you’re a “Putin stooge” — should just skip this. I don’t want to hear it. I cannot believe anyone who subscribes to me could for one second repeat dumb-guy phrases like “Putin lover” or whatever else. They do this in every single conflict, and most people get caught up in it. Well, not my subscribers — or at least they darn well shouldn’t.
Now for that intro:
Be honest, be honest. Were you paying close attention to Ukraine in 2014? We weren’t. Most people weren’t. And as a result, this country got dragged without even knowing it into one of the pivotal conflicts in modern history to our grave disadvantage. The question is, how did Ron Paul, former congressman from Texas. How did he get that right? How does he know that? Why did he know to pay attention to Ukraine and not just Ukraine, to monetary policy, to the state of our economy, to the state of our country, to the state of the West? How did he know before the rest of us knew? Maybe because his principles haven’t changed in about 60 years, so we thought it would be a good idea to spend a little time with the man himself to allow him a victory lap, a well-deserved victory lap, but also to probe a little bit on how did you see things that nobody else did.
And then this:
I was just saying off air at one of your speeches, probably 20 years ago — I’d never seen you speak before — you went off about the Federal Reserve. And I remember thinking, what a weird what an esoteric subject. I knew nothing about it. I thought only crazy people cared. But again, I was completely ignorant about monetary policy at the time, and I was shocked by how much the crowd loved it. They were completely tuned in. They thought it was really important. Why would the average person 20 years ago have a better sense of that than, say, me, who was paid to follow the subject but wasn’t?
Dr. Paul turns 89 this year, and he’s still out there speaking to anyone who will listen.
But honestly, the Fed is every bit as terrible and indefensible as he says it is, and yet I wonder how many people on our side can actually defend that position.
I’ve had people tell me: I cannot believe you don’t charge for this book.
I’d really like you to read it. Won’t take you long. But you’ll be shocked — even with how jaded we already are — at how much the truth is exactly the opposite of what we hear 24 hours a day.
The Fed is the lifeblood of the empire. In the spirit of Andrew Jackson, let’s kill the monster:
https://www.OurEnemyTheFed.com