October 8, 2025 • 25 mins
This is a rebroadcast of ep 173
In this episode of Libertarians Talk Psychology, we take a deeper look at the idea that America is flawed—but who really does it better? Inspired by the honest insights of Ron Paul, we explore the structural, political, and cultural flaws that continue to affect freedom and governance in the United States.
While critics and patriots alike can agree the U.S. has serious issues—corruption, bureaucracy, surveillance, and economic manipulation—this discussion also reminds us that perfection doesn’t exist anywhere. By examining the Index of Economic Freedom, we compare the U.S. to countries that rank higher in liberty, transparency, and limited government, searching for lessons and realistic solutions.
Join us for a thoughtful libertarian perspective that challenges mainstream narratives, encourages critical thinking, and asks the essential question: If America is broken, what’s the better model—and why?
👉 Listen, think, and question with Libertarians Talk Psychology—where logic and liberty meet.
The whole video
“Ron Paul: What If?“
Follow Us:
YouTube
Twitter
Facebook
Bluesky
All audio & videos edited by: Jay Prescott Videography
In this episode of Libertarians Talk Psychology, we take a deeper look at the idea that America is flawed—but who really does it better? Inspired by the honest insights of Ron Paul, we explore the structural, political, and cultural flaws that continue to affect freedom and governance in the United States.
While critics and patriots alike can agree the U.S. has serious issues—corruption, bureaucracy, surveillance, and economic manipulation—this discussion also reminds us that perfection doesn’t exist anywhere. By examining the Index of Economic Freedom, we compare the U.S. to countries that rank higher in liberty, transparency, and limited government, searching for lessons and realistic solutions.
Join us for a thoughtful libertarian perspective that challenges mainstream narratives, encourages critical thinking, and asks the essential question: If America is broken, what’s the better model—and why?
👉 Listen, think, and question with Libertarians Talk Psychology—where logic and liberty meet.
The whole video
“Ron Paul: What If?“
Follow Us:
YouTube
Bluesky
All audio & videos edited by: Jay Prescott Videography
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to the podcast Coffee with Mike and Julie
Libertarians Talk Psychology. This is current commentary from an NBA
businessman and a PhD psychologist.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I spoke this week with my buddy Hossein. You know.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
The topic was, you know, what's wrong with America and
all that sort of thing. But he was a little
defensive about America, and he was born in Iran.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And came over here.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
But he emphasized the point that it's not so much
about what's wrong with the United States, it's what are
the alternatives?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
What countries?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
You made that point, Yeah, that was his point.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, the country is the United States is a damn
fine country compared to other countries if you compare it
against perfection, which we all tend to do, which you
and I tend to do too. All we talk about
is what's wrong with things.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
It's kind of like Churchill's comment that democracy is pretty bad,
except it's better than anything else, a.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Good point, better than the alternative, better than anyway. So
I want to get into that discussion. I'm pulling up
my famous thing that I really love, the Index of
Economic Freedom.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm pulling that up.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Just look at other countries and see how we compare
to other countries when it comes.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
To it, which is really a good measurement.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It is good.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
But first I think the correct to start from the
premise of what's wrong with our country. And no one
does a better job of that than Ron Paul. And
this is thirteen years ago he had this speech to Congress.
I'm going to play two minutes of Ron Paul talking
about what's wrong with.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Them, which everybody needs to hear.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, here we go, Madam speaker. I have a few
questions for my colleagues.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
What if our foreign policy of the past century is
deeply flawed and has not served our national security interests.
What if we wake up one day and realize that
the terrorist threughout is a predictable consequence of our meddling
in the affairs of others and has nothing to do
with us being free and prosperous on the propping up
(02:11):
repressive regimes in the Middle East in dangers both the
United States and Israel. What if occupying countries like Iraq
and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the
hatred directed toward us. What if someday it dawns on
us that losing over five thousand American military personnel in
(02:35):
the Middle East since nine to eleven is not a
fair trade off with the loss of nearly three thousand
American citizens, no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghan
people are killed or displaced. What if we finally decide
that torture, even if called enhanced interrogation technique, is self
destructive and produces no useful information, and that contracting it
(02:58):
out to a third world nation is just as evil.
What if it is finally realized that war and military
spending is always destructive to the economy.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
What if all.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Wartime spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil
process of inflating and borrowing. What if we finally see
that wartime conditions always undermine personal liberty. What if conservatives
who preach small government wake up and realize that our
interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government.
(03:34):
What if conservatives understood once again that their only logical
position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire
throughout the world. What if the American people woke up
and understood that the official reasons for going to war
are almost always based on lies and promoted by war
propaganda in order to serve special interests.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
So how do you like that?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
For two reasons, One is the content is very dramatic,
but the delivery of the what if statement? And I'm
kind of catching up with you this morning. I slept
really late. I'm just waking up. But I love the
mechanism for presenting an idea in a what if statement.
I'm going to try to use that. It makes your
(04:21):
mind twist around in a good way.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
It makes you rethink the topic.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Yeah, what if you're thinking is all screwed up about this?
And what if this other theory is the real thing?
And for some reason, when you couch it that way,
you tend to be more open. For some reason, we
walk around in lockstep with these group think ideas and
we don't question them. So it makes you question it.
(04:47):
I love the technique.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
One thing that I find powerful about this particular dialogue.
He did this thirteen years ago, and he could have
done this yesterday. Yeah, this is chronic. These are problems
we have in this country. And now I'm going to
transition into Hossain's topic, which is this is chronic problems
(05:08):
that every government has. The United States is a very
big and successful government, so we can abuse our power
even more than other smaller countries.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, but every one of.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Those things he mentioned is still relevant today thirteen years later.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Well, with the Ukraine war, it's very relevant. We're funding
a war without declaring war, and I mean, god, you know,
it's hard to believe that we're doing the right thing
because I don't think I don't think Ukraine is any
better off.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Well, that last comment where I chose to end it,
where he's talking about feeding the industrial military industrial complex,
you know, live, cheat and steel in order to feed
the industrial complex. I mean, that's powerful stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Yeah, where the lobbyists are making the congressman, and that
reminds me of the Matt Gates is Aha stuff about
how it all works in Congress. Is the lobbyists set
your schedule up and tell you what to vote on,
and you know, you're just you're just hoes and just
you're just financial whores.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
And he said, you know, and then if you don't
play that game, then you're I mean he kind of
described the game and it's kind of it's horrifying how
we actually run.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
It is so I can launch into the Index of
Economic Freedom. But I think first i'll play it. I'll
tell a couple of jokes that are really off topic,
but it's about other countries.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So here's some jokes.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
So on China. Everything is made in China except for
baby girls.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Oh that's horrible.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
It is horrible, isn't it. Okay?
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I thought you said that, and then I thought, what,
it's not a joke. That's not a joke.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That's what's what's the Cuban national an them row row
row your boats.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Well that's sort of funny, Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
A British man is visiting Australia. The customs agent asks him,
do you have a criminal record? The British band replies,
I didn't think you needed one to get into Australia
anymore anymore.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Well, that's the same thing in the United States, didn't
they send the criminals? You know? That's I've heard people
argue that our gene pool is a bunch of criminal
gene pools.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Sort of, it was more I think it was more
direct for Australia. I mean, those people, well I agree
with that.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
I think they were actually, you know, a colony. They
were the penal colony for a while people and I've
heard the same criticism.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
For we were escaping Europe, our ancestors were escaping Europe. Okay,
so here's Ireland. Which country's capital is growing the fastest
Ireland every day?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
It's Dublin. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
That is really a silly jack.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It's a silly one.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Okay, here's one about which country does not accept cash,
the Czech Republic.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
These are getting very, very lowly.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I got to worse and worse jokes until you're starting
to reject.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Because she started with a really bad joke. That's yeah, Well,
you government, I mean government and intervention in China has
caused genocide of little girls. Well, I don't want to
get into that.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Well, it's relevant. I think it's relevant to the topic. Governments,
why cheat and steam? And they control things and sometimes
they control silly things that have no relevance, and we
could we could talk about COVID all day long over this.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Yeah, that's what when you say governments, so you know,
from the psychological standpoint, what you've got is a bunch
of people who have power who get together and make
bad decisions. Right, that's what a government means. And the
more I watch the local government around me in my community.
(09:17):
The more convinced I am that there's just like they're
brain dead. You know, they don't have any corrective mechanism.
It's not like industry, where you have a goal. In
industry that the group wants to reach. You know, they
want to perform properly. The group members want to perform properly.
(09:38):
That's missing in government. They may say they want to
perform properly, but there's no there are no checks and balances.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
If I judge them by their behavior. The only thing
that slows down government abuse is when the population stands
up against them. Information doesn't do the trick.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Yes, I agree with that. Information logic, logical information does
not work. I thank you for bringing that up because
we're in a situation now where we're having to go,
you know, the small group of people.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
In your local community and then.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
The local community, which is my laboratory learning experience, where
we're having to go to a political solution. When you
say political, you're talking about power. You have to go
to power. So information logic, scientific information has not worked.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
And this is withside the psychologists.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah, and this is you've got to at least briefly comment.
This has to do with Louisiana's Psychology Board restricting these
PhD candidates from being able to practice with a license.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
They don't give them a license if they score lower
than the fiftieth percent time. And of course it ends
on one poorly design test that is like poorly designed
and that profits the test publisher.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, I don't want to get too far into the chance.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
She brought it up.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
I got sick of it.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I got to describe that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
You know, it has a heavy impact on minorities and
poor people. I mean it has a heavy impact with them,
and the white privileged class does real well.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Well. Then the point is that a government agency, a
small government agency in Louisiana, presented with the facts, presented
with all the facts, has not made the right decision.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
And that is what happens at the large level.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Every country level, every level.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, so what countries are any better? Okay, So I'm
going to get I want to get into that. This
is the twenty twenty two ranking of countries, and launted out.
LSU almost said, LSU, the USA has fallen even further
in the rankings, as you would expect, but they have
(12:06):
fallen to number twenty five in the rankings of Oh
my God, they fell out of the category of free
a long time ago. Only the top seven countries are
considered to be free. The United States is down to countries.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Twenty five is really way down there.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Twenty five is pretty down there. Here are the countries
that are more free than the United States now free
of the English speaking countries in the top seven, Ireland
and New Zealand are in the top seven. So that's
worth knowing that they are significant.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
They're going to move to Ireland.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, they're significantly more free than the rest. But here
are countries that are more free than the United States. Netherlands, Finland, Sweden,
they're all a lot more free. There kind of need
that well, I don't know it because the socialists keep
pointing it to that little group of countries because those
(13:10):
countries have a little segment of their economy that's heavily
controlled and they want to say, hey, that's a socialist country.
That is not a socialist Yeah, those are free countries,
more free than the United States. But anyway, Australia, Canada, Chile,
they're all more free than in the United States and
the United Kingdom. As just well, the United Kingdom.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Can you give the variables in and in it as
to what? Okay, okay, so how the ranking is established?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Okay? They claim they use five.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Broad categories, and I tried to get into what I
thought was the most important category.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
What are the five? Can you say those?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
I can quickly, I can. So they measured They measured
the country on five variables.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, but let me say I tried to pick the
one that I thought was the most important one because
I wanted to talk about that, which I thought was
property rights. They list property rights as one of the
five general categories, and I'm going to tell you the five.
But once I looked at it, I realized that the
(14:23):
ranking is heavily weighted to property rights, and all the
other categories are heavily weighted to property rights.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
But it's, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Property rights, judicial effectiveness, government integrity, government size, tax burden,
government spending, fiscal health, regulatory efficiency, business freedom.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I think that's.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
It is that five sounds labor freedom.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well, they're five major categories. They're getting into sub monetary freedom.
But so anyway, they have a lot of criteria.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
That thing is.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
But from what I can tell, the major heavily weighted
one property rights, property rights, which I agree with, that's
the most.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
To me, that's the most you have the right to
own stuff. So when I look that makes sense. Yeah,
it does make sense. And so when I look at that.
Oh and by the way, you know these countries that
are that are better than the United States. Let me
go ahead and comment own some big countries like Japan
(15:34):
is number thirty five, the US is twenty five, France
is fifty two, Mexico is sixty seven, all kind of interesting.
Russia is number one hundred and thirteen, China is number
one hundred and fifty eight. At the very bottom of
the ranked list is North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba are the
(15:58):
ones that are right at the bottom, Yeah, which is understandable.
But when I looked at property rights, just to try
to distinguish, oh, and I guess it's worth noting that
Hong Kong has always been since they've been doing this ranking,
Hong Kong has always been the freest country. Singapore does realize,
(16:20):
Taiwan is real all.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
Those do there well at the top.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah, But when it comes to property rights, there are
a bunch of countries that do well on property rights, Australia, Canada, Chile, No, No,
I'm sorry, Chile is not.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I got that wrong.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Well you got us scale Denmark, Germany is decent home
property rights. Ireland is excellent own property rights. South Korea
is a surprisingly free country.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I wonder why Ireland is excellent in property rights. Do
you think the Irish have more independent thinking about property
rights because we're Irish? Yeah, maybe that's why we're big
on it. I don't know that between us, Between us,
we're big and property each other's property right. Yes, we
are very independent thinking between us. Yeah, we have a
(17:16):
strange relationship.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Sometimes strained relationship because we're independent.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Yes, we object to people putting us in a unit,
you know, even though we're a couple. We object to
the state putting us in a unit where I lose
my property rights and become a wife a misses him.
I've always objected to that.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, I guess so, especially when they distort social security
laws and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah, the whole thing is like, the whole thing is
against women.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
But this thing about different countries and this thing about Ireland,
I think my memory of it is that Ireland did
about ten years ago did a real turnaround on there
in their country about freedom law and laws that had
to do with freedom.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We need to look at that.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yeah, that'd be good because.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
That's that's unusual. Governments usually do not go back toward
more freedom. Usually they go toward less freedom.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Well, that's a very good point.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
So I really as far as being organized.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
About you looked organized. But you know, I have a.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Lot of papers here, but I don't. I don't need
to get into any more of it. That is my
point is that I do think Hossein's point is very good,
that we shouldn't be obsessing about what's wrong with our
country without also talking about comparing our country to other countries.
(18:47):
I mean, we do pretty damn good. Even at number
twenty five.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
We disagree. I thought, I think twenty five we've dropped below.
You know, we now have a D. We need at
least a C or a B minus score. I wanted
to ask you to talk about the variables and how
they're rated. Again. Your assessment is that if you look
at all these different variables, the major variable is property rights.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
That's what it looks like.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
That's what it looks like to you. Yeah, and so
we've dropped in property rights. So how would you describe
like why we've dropped, I mean, what's happened we're property rights?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, I'm not prepared to answer that question. I haven't how.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Many variables, how many vary? They have five major variables,
and how many sub variables do they have?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Do you think you're going to have to look it
up in Wikipedia?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You know, I just looked at enough of it to
satisfy myself about it.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
But so your assessment, though, is the ones that score
higher than us, particularly like the top ones, they are
very very keen on people's property rights. Well, it would
make sense that the more you protect an individual's economic
property rights, the less government can get that person. Okay,
(20:03):
government grows like a blob. And if the government decides
that the individual doesn't have a certain boundary or right,
then the government's going to eat the individual. It's going
to consume the individual. Like in the people that score
the countries that score at the bottom, you know, the
group consumes the individual rather than the individual coexists with
(20:28):
the group.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
And there is some criticism out there about the index
of economic freedom, but it's pretty weak. I was looking
at it. It was not very significant, especially when you
consider some of the research we've seen about the index
of economic freedom compared against country productivity and country quality
(20:53):
of life and all that sort of thing. It seems
to be a very good measure, a correlation, a good correlation,
a very good thing to shoot for to improve the
quality of life of the people in your country.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Well, it makes sense that those other two variables would
be high and correlated with economic freedom because when a
person has let's just say, they have property rights in
economic freedom, they're going to make the best decisions for
them themselves. So their quality of life and their productivity
is going to be higher because they have more power
(21:28):
over their own decision making, right, I mean, it makes
logical sense from psychological theory.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, so I'm going to go ahead and conclude. You know,
it's a little early, but I do think it's.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Worth well, I would add one thing before you conclude. Okay,
this thing that we touched into is how women give
up their property rights when they get married.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Ooh, that's what that is women.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
You know, it's it's been a lifelong challenge for me.
I remember going into Seers after we got married. I
went into Sears. This was like before they did. They
are they still in business? I don't think sears anyway.
And I was applying for a credit card and they said, well,
you have to have your husband sign, and I said,
I haven't ever had my husband's sign, you know, on anything.
(22:18):
I'm a doctor. I'm doctor Julie Nelson. I can't remember
if I had my doctorate then. And they said, well,
you still have to have a sign. I said, well,
then you can take this credit card and shove it
up your ass, because then I don't want a credit
card with you. And they scrambled around and decided that
maybe I could get it without you co signed. I
(22:39):
was hesitant to do it, but I remember.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
What I would have signed.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
It's like my guide. You know, my credit now is
not any good. So I get married, and my credit's
no good anymore without having Daddy, my husband, you know,
my father figures sign. Now. I kind of understand them,
because my credit card, you know, there was this issue
with that if you're married, then you have this community
(23:06):
property thing then, which was a good intention, but it
worked against women. Your debt is now my debt, and
my debt is now you're dead. I kind of understand
their hesitance.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Of course, I say government, but it's you know, it's
big organizations. How centralized decision making is so harmful, and
it always hurts the very people that they think they're protecting.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
You know, they think they're protecting.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Women, well by having laws that are taking care of women.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Well maybe they felt that way, but you know, but
you know, you make a good point. You can't always
tell where these laws the intention was good or bad nefarious?
Are you know? Kind? But minute I'm married, I lose identity.
I mean, of course, now that's different these days. That
was in we got married in seventy nine, seventy eight,
(24:05):
seventy eight. That was long ago. But I remember it
wasn't the only property right I lost when I got married.
I got lost other property rights. And you're right, and
someday we need to talk about how social security screws
women out of their property rights. I saw that still
with us. Yeah, it still does. I saw that with
my mother, and I thought, well, not for me, but okay,
(24:29):
so thanks for letting me add that.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
No, No, that's good and it's a good example of
how governments lie, sheat, steal and control things. You just
if you're going to live under a government. You got
to realize you're living under that umbrella, so you might
as well find an umbrella that Isn't it too restrictive
compared to the other countries. I think the United States
(24:53):
is still pretty good even at twenty five, But I
hear what you're saying that we could do a lot
better than this. But these countries, these countries that are
worse than the United States. It is relevant to consider
and compare our country with all its flaws, and those
(25:13):
flaws extend to the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical medical complex.
All those things are bad about our country, but you've
got to compare it against other countries, and you know,
we as individuals have to learn how to exist within
those restrictions.
You're listening to the podcast Coffee with Mike and Julie
Libertarians Talk Psychology. This is current commentary from an NBA
businessman and a PhD psychologist.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I spoke this week with my buddy Hossein. You know.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
The topic was, you know, what's wrong with America and
all that sort of thing. But he was a little
defensive about America, and he was born in Iran.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
And came over here.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
But he emphasized the point that it's not so much
about what's wrong with the United States, it's what are
the alternatives?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
What countries?
Speaker 4 (00:39):
You made that point, Yeah, that was his point.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, the country is the United States is a damn
fine country compared to other countries if you compare it
against perfection, which we all tend to do, which you
and I tend to do too. All we talk about
is what's wrong with things.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
It's kind of like Churchill's comment that democracy is pretty bad,
except it's better than anything else, a.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Good point, better than the alternative, better than anyway. So
I want to get into that discussion. I'm pulling up
my famous thing that I really love, the Index of
Economic Freedom.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I'm pulling that up.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Just look at other countries and see how we compare
to other countries when it comes.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
To it, which is really a good measurement.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It is good.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
But first I think the correct to start from the
premise of what's wrong with our country. And no one
does a better job of that than Ron Paul. And
this is thirteen years ago he had this speech to Congress.
I'm going to play two minutes of Ron Paul talking
about what's wrong with.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Them, which everybody needs to hear.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, here we go, Madam speaker. I have a few
questions for my colleagues.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
What if our foreign policy of the past century is
deeply flawed and has not served our national security interests.
What if we wake up one day and realize that
the terrorist threughout is a predictable consequence of our meddling
in the affairs of others and has nothing to do
with us being free and prosperous on the propping up
(02:11):
repressive regimes in the Middle East in dangers both the
United States and Israel. What if occupying countries like Iraq
and Afghanistan and bombing Pakistan is directly related to the
hatred directed toward us. What if someday it dawns on
us that losing over five thousand American military personnel in
(02:35):
the Middle East since nine to eleven is not a
fair trade off with the loss of nearly three thousand
American citizens, no matter how many Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghan
people are killed or displaced. What if we finally decide
that torture, even if called enhanced interrogation technique, is self
destructive and produces no useful information, and that contracting it
(02:58):
out to a third world nation is just as evil.
What if it is finally realized that war and military
spending is always destructive to the economy.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
What if all.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
Wartime spending is paid for through the deceitful and evil
process of inflating and borrowing. What if we finally see
that wartime conditions always undermine personal liberty. What if conservatives
who preach small government wake up and realize that our
interventionist foreign policy provides the greatest incentive to expand the government.
(03:34):
What if conservatives understood once again that their only logical
position is to reject military intervention and managing an empire
throughout the world. What if the American people woke up
and understood that the official reasons for going to war
are almost always based on lies and promoted by war
propaganda in order to serve special interests.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
So how do you like that?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
For two reasons, One is the content is very dramatic,
but the delivery of the what if statement? And I'm
kind of catching up with you this morning. I slept
really late. I'm just waking up. But I love the
mechanism for presenting an idea in a what if statement.
I'm going to try to use that. It makes your
(04:21):
mind twist around in a good way.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
It makes you rethink the topic.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Yeah, what if you're thinking is all screwed up about this?
And what if this other theory is the real thing?
And for some reason, when you couch it that way,
you tend to be more open. For some reason, we
walk around in lockstep with these group think ideas and
we don't question them. So it makes you question it.
(04:47):
I love the technique.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
One thing that I find powerful about this particular dialogue.
He did this thirteen years ago, and he could have
done this yesterday. Yeah, this is chronic. These are problems
we have in this country. And now I'm going to
transition into Hossain's topic, which is this is chronic problems
(05:08):
that every government has. The United States is a very
big and successful government, so we can abuse our power
even more than other smaller countries.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, but every one of.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Those things he mentioned is still relevant today thirteen years later.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Well, with the Ukraine war, it's very relevant. We're funding
a war without declaring war, and I mean, god, you know,
it's hard to believe that we're doing the right thing
because I don't think I don't think Ukraine is any
better off.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Well, that last comment where I chose to end it,
where he's talking about feeding the industrial military industrial complex,
you know, live, cheat and steel in order to feed
the industrial complex. I mean, that's powerful stuff.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Yeah, where the lobbyists are making the congressman, and that
reminds me of the Matt Gates is Aha stuff about
how it all works in Congress. Is the lobbyists set
your schedule up and tell you what to vote on,
and you know, you're just you're just hoes and just
you're just financial whores.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
And he said, you know, and then if you don't
play that game, then you're I mean he kind of
described the game and it's kind of it's horrifying how
we actually run.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
It is so I can launch into the Index of
Economic Freedom. But I think first i'll play it. I'll
tell a couple of jokes that are really off topic,
but it's about other countries.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So here's some jokes.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
So on China. Everything is made in China except for
baby girls.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Oh that's horrible.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
It is horrible, isn't it. Okay?
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I thought you said that, and then I thought, what,
it's not a joke. That's not a joke.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That's what's what's the Cuban national an them row row
row your boats.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Well that's sort of funny, Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
A British man is visiting Australia. The customs agent asks him,
do you have a criminal record? The British band replies,
I didn't think you needed one to get into Australia
anymore anymore.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Well, that's the same thing in the United States, didn't
they send the criminals? You know? That's I've heard people
argue that our gene pool is a bunch of criminal
gene pools.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Sort of, it was more I think it was more
direct for Australia. I mean, those people, well I agree
with that.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
I think they were actually, you know, a colony. They
were the penal colony for a while people and I've
heard the same criticism.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
For we were escaping Europe, our ancestors were escaping Europe. Okay,
so here's Ireland. Which country's capital is growing the fastest
Ireland every day?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
It's Dublin. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
That is really a silly jack.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
It's a silly one.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Okay, here's one about which country does not accept cash,
the Czech Republic.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
These are getting very, very lowly.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
I got to worse and worse jokes until you're starting
to reject.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
Because she started with a really bad joke. That's yeah, Well,
you government, I mean government and intervention in China has
caused genocide of little girls. Well, I don't want to
get into that.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
Well, it's relevant. I think it's relevant to the topic. Governments,
why cheat and steam? And they control things and sometimes
they control silly things that have no relevance, and we
could we could talk about COVID all day long over this.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Yeah, that's what when you say governments, so you know,
from the psychological standpoint, what you've got is a bunch
of people who have power who get together and make
bad decisions. Right, that's what a government means. And the
more I watch the local government around me in my community.
(09:17):
The more convinced I am that there's just like they're
brain dead. You know, they don't have any corrective mechanism.
It's not like industry, where you have a goal. In
industry that the group wants to reach. You know, they
want to perform properly. The group members want to perform properly.
(09:38):
That's missing in government. They may say they want to
perform properly, but there's no there are no checks and balances.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
If I judge them by their behavior. The only thing
that slows down government abuse is when the population stands
up against them. Information doesn't do the trick.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
Yes, I agree with that. Information logic, logical information does
not work. I thank you for bringing that up because
we're in a situation now where we're having to go,
you know, the small group of people.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
In your local community and then.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
The local community, which is my laboratory learning experience, where
we're having to go to a political solution. When you
say political, you're talking about power. You have to go
to power. So information logic, scientific information has not worked.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
And this is withside the psychologists.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yeah, and this is you've got to at least briefly comment.
This has to do with Louisiana's Psychology Board restricting these
PhD candidates from being able to practice with a license.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
They don't give them a license if they score lower
than the fiftieth percent time. And of course it ends
on one poorly design test that is like poorly designed
and that profits the test publisher.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah, I don't want to get too far into the chance.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
She brought it up.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
I got sick of it.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I got to describe that.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
You know, it has a heavy impact on minorities and
poor people. I mean it has a heavy impact with them,
and the white privileged class does real well.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
Well. Then the point is that a government agency, a
small government agency in Louisiana, presented with the facts, presented
with all the facts, has not made the right decision.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
And that is what happens at the large level.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Every country level, every level.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, so what countries are any better? Okay, So I'm
going to get I want to get into that. This
is the twenty twenty two ranking of countries, and launted out.
LSU almost said, LSU, the USA has fallen even further
in the rankings, as you would expect, but they have
(12:06):
fallen to number twenty five in the rankings of Oh
my God, they fell out of the category of free
a long time ago. Only the top seven countries are
considered to be free. The United States is down to countries.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Twenty five is really way down there.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Twenty five is pretty down there. Here are the countries
that are more free than the United States now free
of the English speaking countries in the top seven, Ireland
and New Zealand are in the top seven. So that's
worth knowing that they are significant.
Speaker 4 (12:46):
They're going to move to Ireland.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
Yeah, they're significantly more free than the rest. But here
are countries that are more free than the United States. Netherlands, Finland, Sweden,
they're all a lot more free. There kind of need
that well, I don't know it because the socialists keep
pointing it to that little group of countries because those
(13:10):
countries have a little segment of their economy that's heavily
controlled and they want to say, hey, that's a socialist country.
That is not a socialist Yeah, those are free countries,
more free than the United States. But anyway, Australia, Canada, Chile,
they're all more free than in the United States and
the United Kingdom. As just well, the United Kingdom.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Can you give the variables in and in it as
to what? Okay, okay, so how the ranking is established?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Okay? They claim they use five.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Broad categories, and I tried to get into what I
thought was the most important category.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
What are the five? Can you say those?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:51):
I can quickly, I can. So they measured They measured
the country on five variables.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, but let me say I tried to pick the
one that I thought was the most important one because
I wanted to talk about that, which I thought was
property rights. They list property rights as one of the
five general categories, and I'm going to tell you the five.
But once I looked at it, I realized that the
(14:23):
ranking is heavily weighted to property rights, and all the
other categories are heavily weighted to property rights.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
But it's, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Property rights, judicial effectiveness, government integrity, government size, tax burden,
government spending, fiscal health, regulatory efficiency, business freedom.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I think that's.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
It is that five sounds labor freedom.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Well, they're five major categories. They're getting into sub monetary freedom.
But so anyway, they have a lot of criteria.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
That thing is.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
But from what I can tell, the major heavily weighted
one property rights, property rights, which I agree with, that's
the most.
Speaker 6 (15:10):
To me, that's the most you have the right to
own stuff. So when I look that makes sense. Yeah,
it does make sense. And so when I look at that.
Oh and by the way, you know these countries that
are that are better than the United States. Let me
go ahead and comment own some big countries like Japan
(15:34):
is number thirty five, the US is twenty five, France
is fifty two, Mexico is sixty seven, all kind of interesting.
Russia is number one hundred and thirteen, China is number
one hundred and fifty eight. At the very bottom of
the ranked list is North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba are the
(15:58):
ones that are right at the bottom, Yeah, which is understandable.
But when I looked at property rights, just to try
to distinguish, oh, and I guess it's worth noting that
Hong Kong has always been since they've been doing this ranking,
Hong Kong has always been the freest country. Singapore does realize,
(16:20):
Taiwan is real all.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
Those do there well at the top.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah, But when it comes to property rights, there are
a bunch of countries that do well on property rights, Australia, Canada, Chile, No, No,
I'm sorry, Chile is not.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
I got that wrong.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Well you got us scale Denmark, Germany is decent home
property rights. Ireland is excellent own property rights. South Korea
is a surprisingly free country.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
I wonder why Ireland is excellent in property rights. Do
you think the Irish have more independent thinking about property
rights because we're Irish? Yeah, maybe that's why we're big
on it. I don't know that between us, Between us,
we're big and property each other's property right. Yes, we
are very independent thinking between us. Yeah, we have a
(17:16):
strange relationship.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Sometimes strained relationship because we're independent.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Yes, we object to people putting us in a unit,
you know, even though we're a couple. We object to
the state putting us in a unit where I lose
my property rights and become a wife a misses him.
I've always objected to that.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, I guess so, especially when they distort social security
laws and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
Yeah, the whole thing is like, the whole thing is
against women.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
But this thing about different countries and this thing about Ireland,
I think my memory of it is that Ireland did
about ten years ago did a real turnaround on there
in their country about freedom law and laws that had
to do with freedom.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
We need to look at that.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
Yeah, that'd be good because.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
That's that's unusual. Governments usually do not go back toward
more freedom. Usually they go toward less freedom.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Well, that's a very good point.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
So I really as far as being organized.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
About you looked organized. But you know, I have a.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Lot of papers here, but I don't. I don't need
to get into any more of it. That is my
point is that I do think Hossein's point is very good,
that we shouldn't be obsessing about what's wrong with our
country without also talking about comparing our country to other countries.
(18:47):
I mean, we do pretty damn good. Even at number
twenty five.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
We disagree. I thought, I think twenty five we've dropped below.
You know, we now have a D. We need at
least a C or a B minus score. I wanted
to ask you to talk about the variables and how
they're rated. Again. Your assessment is that if you look
at all these different variables, the major variable is property rights.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
That's what it looks like.
Speaker 4 (19:11):
That's what it looks like to you. Yeah, and so
we've dropped in property rights. So how would you describe
like why we've dropped, I mean, what's happened we're property rights?
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Well, I'm not prepared to answer that question. I haven't how.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
Many variables, how many vary? They have five major variables,
and how many sub variables do they have?
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Do you think you're going to have to look it
up in Wikipedia?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
You know, I just looked at enough of it to
satisfy myself about it.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
But so your assessment, though, is the ones that score
higher than us, particularly like the top ones, they are
very very keen on people's property rights. Well, it would
make sense that the more you protect an individual's economic
property rights, the less government can get that person. Okay,
(20:03):
government grows like a blob. And if the government decides
that the individual doesn't have a certain boundary or right,
then the government's going to eat the individual. It's going
to consume the individual. Like in the people that score
the countries that score at the bottom, you know, the
group consumes the individual rather than the individual coexists with
(20:28):
the group.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
And there is some criticism out there about the index
of economic freedom, but it's pretty weak. I was looking
at it. It was not very significant, especially when you
consider some of the research we've seen about the index
of economic freedom compared against country productivity and country quality
(20:53):
of life and all that sort of thing. It seems
to be a very good measure, a correlation, a good correlation,
a very good thing to shoot for to improve the
quality of life of the people in your country.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
Well, it makes sense that those other two variables would
be high and correlated with economic freedom because when a
person has let's just say, they have property rights in
economic freedom, they're going to make the best decisions for
them themselves. So their quality of life and their productivity
is going to be higher because they have more power
(21:28):
over their own decision making, right, I mean, it makes
logical sense from psychological theory.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, so I'm going to go ahead and conclude. You know,
it's a little early, but I do think it's.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
Worth well, I would add one thing before you conclude. Okay,
this thing that we touched into is how women give
up their property rights when they get married.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Ooh, that's what that is women.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
You know, it's it's been a lifelong challenge for me.
I remember going into Seers after we got married. I
went into Sears. This was like before they did. They
are they still in business? I don't think sears anyway.
And I was applying for a credit card and they said, well,
you have to have your husband sign, and I said,
I haven't ever had my husband's sign, you know, on anything.
(22:18):
I'm a doctor. I'm doctor Julie Nelson. I can't remember
if I had my doctorate then. And they said, well,
you still have to have a sign. I said, well,
then you can take this credit card and shove it
up your ass, because then I don't want a credit
card with you. And they scrambled around and decided that
maybe I could get it without you co signed. I
(22:39):
was hesitant to do it, but I remember.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
What I would have signed.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
It's like my guide. You know, my credit now is
not any good. So I get married, and my credit's
no good anymore without having Daddy, my husband, you know,
my father figures sign. Now. I kind of understand them,
because my credit card, you know, there was this issue
with that if you're married, then you have this community
(23:06):
property thing then, which was a good intention, but it
worked against women. Your debt is now my debt, and
my debt is now you're dead. I kind of understand
their hesitance.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
Of course, I say government, but it's you know, it's
big organizations. How centralized decision making is so harmful, and
it always hurts the very people that they think they're protecting.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
You know, they think they're protecting.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Women, well by having laws that are taking care of women.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Well maybe they felt that way, but you know, but
you know, you make a good point. You can't always
tell where these laws the intention was good or bad nefarious?
Are you know? Kind? But minute I'm married, I lose identity.
I mean, of course, now that's different these days. That
was in we got married in seventy nine, seventy eight,
(24:05):
seventy eight. That was long ago. But I remember it
wasn't the only property right I lost when I got married.
I got lost other property rights. And you're right, and
someday we need to talk about how social security screws
women out of their property rights. I saw that still
with us. Yeah, it still does. I saw that with
my mother, and I thought, well, not for me, but okay,
(24:29):
so thanks for letting me add that.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
No, No, that's good and it's a good example of
how governments lie, sheat, steal and control things. You just
if you're going to live under a government. You got
to realize you're living under that umbrella, so you might
as well find an umbrella that Isn't it too restrictive
compared to the other countries. I think the United States
(24:53):
is still pretty good even at twenty five, But I
hear what you're saying that we could do a lot
better than this. But these countries, these countries that are
worse than the United States. It is relevant to consider
and compare our country with all its flaws, and those
(25:13):
flaws extend to the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical medical complex.
All those things are bad about our country, but you've
got to compare it against other countries, and you know,
we as individuals have to learn how to exist within
those restrictions.
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