00:00:08.000We talk what's going on in D.C., where do rights come from, and so much more.
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00:02:10.000Senator, you are one of the most articulate voices when it comes to liberty and the Constitution.
00:02:16.000I'm going to ask a little bit about D.C., but actually, I'm less interested in what's happening in D.C. than ever before because it can easily be explained as the totalitarians want to take our rights away.
00:02:27.000I just want to get deeper later in this conversation of where rights come from and why it's important to protect them.
00:02:35.000Well, they're trying to make government bigger, trying to make it a bigger part of people's lives, trying to increase the amount of money that has to be paid to Washington, D.C. so that people in Washington, D.C. can control their lives.
00:02:56.000And it must be really frustrating to be in D.C. right now.
00:02:59.000Terribly, especially because so few people in Washington, D.C., particularly in the governing party, seem to have an appreciation for the fact that freedom isn't free and that government can't expand except at the expense of individual liberty.
00:03:17.000Nor do they seem to grasp most of the tendency toward tyranny that exists in any government.
00:03:24.000Government power is no less than electricity or fire or water, something that, while necessary, has to be very carefully guarded.
00:03:34.000Otherwise, it'll become destructive of the very ends that it's there to protect.
00:03:42.000I'd love to get your thoughts on kind of the motives behind some of these people.
00:03:46.000It seems as if it's hard to get into motives because you don't know everything that drives someone, but it's hard to explain a pure motive when they want to expand government this dramatically, all the while keeping our borders wide open.
00:03:59.000Expanding our national debt and deficit, taxing job creators and people that create wealth in our country, and then also kind of pandering to a small subset of corporations.
00:04:12.000It might be the number one question we get, Senator.
00:04:14.000Look, I'm willing to assume for purposes of this conversation, any conversation really, that there are probably as many mindsets within the Democratic Party as there are mindsets within the Republican Party.
00:04:28.000I'm also willing to assume that some of them, maybe many, maybe most, I really don't know, genuinely believe that they are advocating on behalf of America's forgotten man and forgotten world.
00:04:53.000In other cases, there might be other people who just want to make it easier to get re-elected, or perhaps they're secure in their reelection prospects, but they want to be praised by the liberal media establishment and by the liberal entertainment media establishment, by the establishments of various sorts in all these disciplines, all of which are decidedly liberal.
00:05:21.000And it's easier to do liberal things and get praised.
00:05:25.000So it might be something as simple as that.
00:05:27.000But regardless of what their motives are, it's actually easier for me as a human being, given that there are a lot of people I know and like and want to assume the best about who have fallen for this stuff.
00:05:40.000It's easier for me to assume that most or all of them maybe have very good motives, but they're mistaken.
00:05:46.000They're mistaken because they've fallen for something that, by its very nature, isn't populist, can't care for the poor.
00:05:53.000Government lacks the capacity to love any more than it lacks, it has no more the capacity to love than it has the capacity to hug.
00:06:04.000And so that's what we have to battle: the public perception that they're the friend of the poor and middle class when really they're working to undermine it, whether they're intentionally or otherwise.
00:06:14.000And it seems that no matter what the circumstance is, there is always either a federal government-style response that they want to try to empower.
00:06:24.000And this virus and our reaction to it has only allowed that to happen with very few Republicans standing up to that.
00:06:31.000I remember you and I shared a conversation last spring.
00:06:51.000Because I believe the only stimulus very well could have been reopening the American economy, not creating money and indulging in Keynesian economics as if that's going to somehow save us.
00:07:02.000I was very unsuccessful in trying to steer one vote.
00:07:06.000I think I don't know how you would have voted if you would have.
00:07:08.000Well, Rand Paul and I were both quarantined at the same time.
00:08:02.000And the idea that we are made in the image of some creator, and who are you in the state of nature?
00:08:09.000And we have a moral right to be able to speak.
00:08:12.000We have a moral right to protect our family.
00:08:14.000We have a moral right to not be searched and seizured against.
00:08:17.000And I'm afraid, Senator, that we now have a small group of corporations that arguably might be more powerful than our government.
00:08:24.000And you could call it because of technology or Section 230.
00:08:28.000But we're seeing a dramatic consolidation of power, unlike anything that's different than even the early 1900s with what they would call the robber barons.
00:08:36.000But I know that there are some people that would take exception with that.
00:08:40.000We call these the tech companies, but they really are acting in a behavioral pattern against any sort of any of the best interests of the American people.
00:08:49.000What do you think our approach to these companies should be?
00:08:52.000In some ways, Standard Oil has got nothing on them.
00:08:58.000At least with Standard Oil, there were alternatives.
00:09:02.000There were substitutes in a way that there aren't really substitutes here.
00:09:06.000Many Americans get their information from their phone, from an app on their phone.
00:09:11.000And it's very difficult for many Americans to get information except through one of several corridors controlled by some combination of Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon.
00:09:27.000If you can control those five levers or any one of them, you can control access to information.
00:09:32.000And if you can do that, you can change all sorts of things, including the use of force that we call government.
00:09:57.000Keep in mind, Charlie, our antitrust laws don't make it illegal to be a monopoly, but they do make it illegal to acquire or maintain monopoly power using anti-competitive conduct.
00:10:12.000That is arguably what we're looking at now.
00:10:15.000When you've got a small handful of them, again, having monopoly power isn't per se illegal, but how people get there and how people maintain it very often is.
00:10:26.000It's starting increasingly to look a whole awful lot like some type of some combination of antitrust, anti-competitive behaviors that they've used either to acquire or to maintain monopoly power.
00:10:39.000And the way I look at it is very similarly, how would we act if a government agency was acting this way?
00:10:49.000Now, it is important for us to bear in mind differences between this and government, because it's those differences that determine the kind of remedy to which we have access.
00:11:02.000Clearly, if any of these companies were doing any of the things that they're doing relative to speech, it would violate the First Amendment.
00:11:12.000And we've got to keep that lane clear so that we're talking about the right thing.
00:11:17.000We lose credibility insofar as we say, oh, what Google is doing is unconstitutional.
00:11:22.000It's not the right way to think about it.
00:11:27.000In fact, with the exception of the 13th Amendment, all provisions of the Constitution deal with governments and not individuals or corporations.
00:11:36.000But that doesn't mean that what they're doing is okay.
00:11:39.000And so that's why we would describe it, not in the same terms we would use for a government, but we would describe it in terms of bad things that corporations can do that are often illegal, sometimes even criminal.
00:12:07.000And I believe that in many circumstances, existing law already does that.
00:12:11.000In other circumstances, we might need some tweaks to the law to further empower government to protect us from the dangerous accumulation of power in the hands of the few.
00:12:20.000In many respects, our existing antitrust laws are sufficient because these folks have become increasingly emboldened and brazen about their anti-competitive behavior.
00:12:32.000Look at the antitrust action that was filed against Google just a few months ago by the Department of Justice.
00:12:41.000Very well researched, very well reasoned.
00:12:45.000And I think it's that sort of thing that's possibly going to have significant hope of bringing about a remedy that will stop some of this anti-competitive behavior.
00:12:56.000And I think there's a game being played where some of the people on the left are using the threat of antitrust to try to get these tech companies to act in a more aggressive way with censorship.
00:13:07.000Almost like having a sword of Damocles over Google, saying, like, if you do not censor Trump and conservatives, then we're really going to punish you.
00:13:16.000And it's one of the things I serve on both the Commerce Committee and on the Judiciary Committee, both of which in different ways have significant roles over these areas.
00:13:27.000In those hearings through those two committees, I've had the opportunity to question Jack Dorsey at Twitter.
00:13:37.000And each time we raise this issue with them and the rather blatant viewpoint discrimination that they engage in against conservatives, religious Americans, and libertarians, they'll always respond with a curious combination of answers.
00:13:55.000Usually leading with, look, we've got people on both sides of the aisle mad at us.
00:13:59.000It's not just conservatives and libertarians.
00:14:02.000It's also progressive liberals who are mad at us.
00:14:05.000And I'm always quick to point out when they say that, that is not an answer.
00:14:09.000First of all, they're mad at you on the left for an entirely different reason that you're not doing enough to censor, that you're not punishing conservatives, libertarians, and religious people enough.
00:14:19.000I've also asked them on multiple occasions, both of them.
00:14:22.000You know, we can all think of 5, 10, 15, 20 examples of prominent conservative, religious, or libertarian groups or candidates who have been blocked, censored, otherwise had adverse action taken against them by Facebook and by Twitter.
00:14:37.000And I've said, can you name me one liberal, one, that has endured that sort of thing.
00:14:44.000And they always will say in a public setting, oh, there are a lot of them.
00:15:24.000And under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, it ought to be punished as such.
00:15:29.000I've run a bill, legislation called the Promise Act that would clarify that and would direct the Federal Trade Commission to assert its Section 5 authority when they do that.
00:15:37.000Because what they're doing is they're claiming publicly that they do not tip the scales politically when in reality they do quite the opposite of that.
00:15:46.000That is fraudulently selling a service that they've mischaracterized.
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00:17:14.000With the Hunter Biden story, for example, where they didn't allow that story to be spread, which very well might have had an impact on early voting in some of these states.
00:17:21.000That should have been the October surprise.
00:17:27.000Over and over and over again, they've done these things.
00:17:29.000And then the intelligence community came out of nowhere, which has now been debunked, and they said, oh, this came from Russian intelligence.
00:17:41.000It's one of the reasons, Charlie, one of many reasons why I am instinctively, reflexively resistant to anytime someone comes out and claims, purports to speak for the intelligence community.
00:17:56.000It's so broad that it could mean anything and everything and nothing at the same time, which is their whole point.
00:18:03.000And then when they use the word debunked in the same sentence as the intelligence community, you know that's BS because they've used that trick so many times.
00:18:12.000It's usually what they say, what they say when they're trying to say something that they're doing.
00:18:15.000Well, it's the same three guys that are giving marching orders, Brennan and Clapper.
00:18:20.000They're all kind of saying the same thing.
00:18:22.000And then all of their former employees that are now staffers at some college, like, oh, yeah, they'll sign a letter that says that we were briefed on something.
00:18:30.000Now, isn't it Brennan and Clapper that in the past deceived us about they lied under oath in front of Congress regarding mass surveillance of Americans?
00:19:57.000Sometimes people in today's society have a tendency to describe as a right anything that they think is good or necessary or necessary or is important.
00:20:08.000So if they want to say, I really like X, they'll say X is a right.
00:20:56.000In some instances, it's also appropriate for the government to be involved in public goods, transportation corridors, for instance.
00:21:05.000That's something that we've accepted in modern society as a role for government to play.
00:21:09.000The further afield you get from those basic items, the more concerning it is.
00:21:15.000Because government action is not only not a right, it's the opposite of a right.
00:21:22.000Government acts only at the expense of individual liberty.
00:21:25.000So if I can share with you my concern, Senator, and I do not have a good answer to this, it's a question of whether or not liberty is sustainable.
00:21:33.000And Thomas Jefferson wrestled with this because he said eventually people will vote enough stuff in and this idea of self-governance, this idea of the pursuit of virtue, will fall upon itself.
00:21:44.000Do you think we're on that last gasp of liberty where just the hordes and the masses are going to vote those of us that care about natural rights into oblivion?
00:21:52.000I'm not asking you to make a prediction.
00:21:54.000It's that I'm trying to ask philosophically, is liberty sustainable as a long-term governing model?
00:22:02.000It does not mean that liberty will in fact be sustained.
00:22:05.000The difference lies in understanding the distinction between the French Revolution and the American Revolution, which ultimately comes down to the distinction between a democracy and a constitutional republic.
00:22:17.000The difference is that the pure democracy exists in the abstract for the purpose of carrying out the blanket will of the collective, the whole, the simple majority.
00:22:27.000Whatever it wants is the right thing in the case of a democracy.
00:22:31.000In the case of a constitutional republic, the point is let the people elect their own representatives and let those representatives determine the course of government, but make them bound to act only in certain areas where they are authorized to act and in the manner in which they're authorized, carving out certain areas as beyond their control.
00:23:55.000Jefferson would say crazy crap like that, in part to get a reaction out of Madison, who he knew would reliably pull him back down to earth.
00:24:04.000And Madison was kind of the more deliberate, deeper thinker.
00:24:48.000And the word that lefties in both political parties often use, they're obsessed with saying our democracy, our democracy.
00:24:57.000And, you know, I made some headlines, not necessarily favorable ones.
00:25:02.000When during the vice presidential debate last fall, I was live tweeting the whole thing.
00:25:08.000And while I was live tweeting the whole thing, I got tired of Vice President Harris, then Senator Harris, using our democracy over and over again.
00:25:16.000And I tweeted emphatically, we're a constitutional republic, not a democracy.
00:25:34.000You don't want the use of officially sanctioned violence, coercive force, being brought to bear for light and transient reasons.
00:25:43.000You want that force to be reserved to only those circumstances that we as a society have constitutionally adopted as appropriate and within the power of government.
00:25:53.000And so we are seeing the trend that all of us have feared, which is totalitarianism.
00:26:50.000Ultimately, democratic government, if it really is a pure democracy, ultimately it leads to people coveting each other's property and using the blunt instrument of government to get it.
00:27:05.000What do you think are the tangible steps that are necessary to change the trajectory, not save the nation overnight, really change the trajectory?
00:27:12.000This is a tough lift because as soon as people start to get a little bit of addict, a little addicted to their sugar-high stimulus checks, why not keep them going?
00:27:33.000In order for the restoration of the document written by wise men raised up by God for that very purpose back in 1787, to restore that document, which has fostered the development of the greatest civilization human history has ever known, we're going to have to start restoring the twin structural protections of the Constitution, which are more important in my view than any other single feature of it.
00:27:56.000The vertical protection of federalism, keeping most of the power at the state and local level, and the horizontal protection of separation of powers, saying that each entity within the federal government has to fit within one of the three branches of government, and each branch has got to stay in its own lane.
00:28:11.000To restore federalism, you have to restore separation of powers.
00:28:14.000The best tangible first step we could take to restore federalism and thereby start the ball rolling toward both federalism and separation of powers is actually through the Reigns Act.
00:28:26.000The Reigns Act, an acronym standing for Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny, is aimed directly at restoring separation of powers.
00:28:36.000The minute you start to restore separation of powers by preventing the excessive delegation of lawmaking power to unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, all of a sudden Congress will have to take more votes on more topics, including things like labor, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, powers that were stripped away from the states starting about 80 years ago.
00:28:56.000And Congress, when it has to take more votes, will start realizing it's absurd that we regulate everything from Washington.
00:29:02.000So federalism will start to be restored as we restore separation of powers.
00:29:08.000If I had one single shot to take in the legislative chamber, in Congress, if I could have one free pass at passing legislation, it would be the Reigns Act.
00:29:42.000Senator, thank you for your leadership.
00:29:45.000And I would love to talk even further about the philosophical basis of our country and our civilization because there's so much misunderstanding behind all of this.