[Interview conducted by Anthony Wile, Editor-in-chief, The Daily Bell]
Daily Bell: How did you feel about the premier of James
Jaeger's and Matrixx Production's latest film, SPOiLER:
How a Third Political Party Could Win?
Nelson Hultberg: I think it is a stunning effort. It goes
to the heart of why the American political scene is so corrupted with the
poison of collectivism; it exposes the terrible ideological fallacies that
have seeped into our system over the past 100 years. This is a film that
could never have been made in Hollywood. Only because Jaeger and Matrixx are
such independent contrarians could this have been brought about. What was it
Orwell said? "In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary
act." That is our situation today. We live in such a time of deceit in
all areas of our society, and especially in Hollywood, that only the contrarians
and revolutionaries are capable of deciphering the truth and putting it in
front of the people. That's what this film is about - a revolutionary shift
in political thought. It asks questions that the lackeys to liberalism that
run Hollywood will never ask. It unmasks the root causes of our problems. It
points the way toward a restoration of our Republic, which is something you
will never get from the establishment moguls in cinema.
Daily Bell: It's a feature-length documentary that
explores how a third political party could win the presidential election of
2012 or 2016 with four key issues. Obviously, you're the inspiration. Are you
pleased with the result?
Nelson Hultberg: Very much so. It is extremely difficult
in these times for the forces of freedom to get a fair hearing in the media
and the movie houses. This film gives us that fair hearing. It tells the
viewer what has brought about our demise as a free country by contrasting the
two distinct periods of our history - the libertarian-conservative era,
1776-1913, with the progressive era, 1913-2011. It puts forth four strategic
policies that must be enacted if we are to correct the terrible damage done
to us by the Keynesians and the collectivists, and thus save the country.
These are policies that can get a nationally known candidate 38% of the vote
and win in a three-man race. This would begin the salvation process of the
country.
Daily Bell: It features G. Edward Griffin, author of The
Creature from Jekyll Island, Peter A. Lillback, author of George Washington's
Sacred Fire, John McManus, President of the John Birch Society, Pat Buchanan,
well-known author and political analyst, and Edwin Vieira, constitutional
attorney and author of Pieces of Eight. Feel like you are in good company?
Nelson Hultberg: Extremely fine company. These are the
type of "truth-tellers" that Orwell was referring to. These are the
type of contrarian intellectuals who do not worship popularity over principle
as the MSM talking heads do so cravenly. These are the type of minds that are
not afraid of the truth. They know that we live in times of massive deceit,
and their goals are far more profound than receiving acclaim from the
collectivist herd. They seek to expose the usurpations and sickening humbug
that permeates politics in America today.
Daily Bell: Of course it's inspired by the strategy set
forth in your new book, The Conservative Revolution. You launched AFR and the
CONSERVATIVE AMERICAN PARTY to give people that choice. Tell us about its
"Two Pillars Strategy."
Nelson Hultberg: The "Two Pillars Strategy" is
the foundation of the Conservative American Party. It is designed to put in
front of the American people two crucial political reforms that will stop the
relentless growth of government and begin the restoration of what we were
meant to be as a country.
These two crucial reforms are: 1) Ending the Federal Reserve's power to
inflate the money supply at will, and 2) Ending the government's power to
progressively tax its citizens. These two powers give government the ability
to steal wealth from the people by debasing the currency and by confiscating
the earnings of our most productive citizens through progressive tax rates.
Pillar #1 is to enact Milton Friedman's 4% auto-expansion plan for the
Fed. This will mandate by law that the Fed can only increase the money supply
by 4% every year. Monetary expansion will be taken away from the FOMC's
arbitrary discretion and be computerized, which will keep money supply growth
equivalent to the growth of goods and services, which will reduce price
inflation to zero. This will end the Fed's irresponsibility and allow time
for the people to be educated as to the necessity for a gold standard and
ending the Fed, which might require several decades. Such an auto-expansion
plan is not perfect and not a permanent solution, but it will stop the
destruction of our currency. It is a vital interim policy until gold money
can be re-established. Even Ron Paul himself knows that the Fed is not going
to be eliminated right away. Only naïve utopians who don't live in the real
world want to end the Fed today. Good grief! The country would totally
collapse. We need a plan to phase out the Fed. This pillar is the first step
toward that process. Combine it with Edwin Vieira's plan to enact gold and
silver coin alternatives at the state level, and you have a viable means to
rectify 100 years of Marxist / Keynesian monetary insanity.
Pillar #2 is to enact an equal-rate income tax of 10% for everyone (i.e.,
a genuine flat tax). If we are to uphold "equal rights" in America,
then we must have "equal rates" in our tax system. And all citizens
must be assessed the tax. No exemptions. Period. Only in this way can we have
a responsible electorate. When all people have to pay proportionally for
their government services, they will begin to vote for less government every
year at the polls. A 10% equal-rate tax for everyone will be revenue neutral,
and thus not threaten the stability of the voters' lives. Because all the
people will have to pay the tax, the overwhelming majority will demand that
the 10% rates be lowered every year and government spending be reduced. They
will start sending Ron Pauls to Congress instead of Chuck Schumers, for this
is the only way they will be able to get more freedom and money into their
lives. Consequently we could have a 5%-7% flat income tax in a decade or two.
At that time we could then switch to a national sales tax of 5%-7% and
completely eliminate the income tax along with the IRS.
Daily Bell: What do you think of James Jaeger's efforts
and freedom philosophy?
Nelson Hultberg: James Jaeger is the kind of
scintillating rebel that is so needed to move a confused and horribly
apathetic populace into action. He has a grasp of the big ideas that move
history, and he has the talent to express them in film imagery to show the
intelligentsia of a country what is really happening and why. Without this
type of didactic filmmaking, a country in the modern day cannot be saved from
the fallacies of collectivism that are consuming us. We used to read books to
learn about the world and threats to our freedom that lurk behind the
ideologies and politics of our time. But modernity has ushered in the
video/film age. The masses now get their worldview visually rather than
literarily. Jaeger has mastered the medium, and he doesn't give a damn about
being popular. He cares about truth. Thus he is a very important piece on the
political chessboard that comprises today's America and the crucial fight she
is in.
Daily Bell: How can a third political party avoid being a
spoiler and actually win?
Nelson Hultberg: If a third-party is structured properly,
it can bring about a vital exposé of the monopoly of ideas that Democrats and
Republicans have fashioned. If it does not marginalize itself like the
Libertarian Party and Constitution Party have done, if it puts forth
substantive policies (such as the four cornerstones of the Conservative
American Party) that will appeal to 38% of the voters and actually solve
problems rather than create them, then that party will NOT be a spoiler. It
will be a winner. It will change the paradigm that is destroying us as a
country.
Daily Bell: Is it true that the status quo is leading the
country, and possibly the world, into totalitarianism?
Nelson Hultberg: Absolutely. We have descended into the
"rabbit hole" of Alice and Wonderland politically and
philosophically. Up is down, and down is up under the collectivist worldview.
"When I use a word," said Humpty Dumpty to Alice, "it means
just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." The
collectivists have so corrupted our language that the slavery of socialism is
now a "new kind of freedom." Marx understood all this very well. Corrupt
the money and the language, and capitalism will fall. The statists are
shameless in their shyster usage of words. And the masses are unable to see
the semantic fraud involved. Thus with each passing decade, we drift further
and further into total government. The status quo of statism that began in
1913 and solidified itself with FDR and LBJ is bankrupt. It has no answers.
It destroys freedom and prosperity as tuberculosis destroys lungs and breath.
Yet it continues to move us into the morass of political absolutism because
the integrity of our money and the clarity of our language have been turned
into tools of tyranny.
Daily Bell: You wrote an article entitled Who Will Be Our Modern Day Jefferson? Tell us about it.
Nelson Hultberg: I think that article is extremely
important if we are to overcome the negativity toward third-parties in
America today. It refutes the common complaint that if we form a
libertarian-conservative third-party challenge to the Democrats and
Republicans, we will merely draw votes away from the Republican candidate and
guarantee four more years of a Democrat (i.e., Obama).
But as I point out in the article, this is a false fear that is
stultifying the freedom movement. Here's why. If an independent third-party
candidate loses and Obama wins as a result of the GOP support being split,
Obama's socialist agenda can still be stopped because Republican
conservatives will pick up a considerable number of seats in the House and
Senate in 2012 - adding to their sizeable gains in the recent 2010 elections.
This will create gridlock and force Obama to come into the center and govern
no differently than a Romney or Perry.
So what do we lose in 2012 by splitting the Republican vote? Nothing. What
we gain, however, is the means to dramatically explain to America what is
really happening by getting a freedom candidate into the National TV
Presidential Debates! Our message of freedom gains access to 70 million
voters! The Demopublican monopoly of ideas is broken! A genuine third choice
is offered. This has never been done in the entire 50-year history of the
presidential debates.
What's important to grasp is that the country is finally ready to
establish a libertarian-conservative era of government. The past 80 years of
Marxist-Keynesian ideology have created the ruination that is driving the
people to this realization. All that is necessary now is for a courageous
leader to enter the scene and crystallize such a realization with a Ross
Perot style campaign in 2012. If a third-party is structured properly, it
could draw 38% of the vote and actually win. We live in revolutionary times.
We have to think outside the box. We have to stop trekking the same path that
we have been trekking for the past 50 years -- the path of DemoPublicanism.
Only a third-party can bring about such an important paradigm shift.
Daily Bell: Do you sense a change in how the freedom
movement is being perceived by the larger public? G. Edward Griffin was on
Glenn Beck and Freedom Watch to discuss his book, The Creature from Jekyll
Island. Even Alex Jones is getting mainstream airtime. Are these significant
events?
Nelson Hultberg: They certainly are. This is a prime
example of how freedom now has a chance to be saved. They indicate that
"critical mass" is being reached in the ideological substratum that
undergirds society and is so influential in moving it toward freedom or
toward tyranny. Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Ayn Rand launched the
ideological revolution for this way back in the early 1940s. Their ideas have
now disseminated out to the public sufficiently to be bandied about on
important TV shows. Granted, we in the freedom movement don't command the
equivalent of CNN's Rachel Maddow or Fox's Bill O'Reilly yet, but that day is
coming probably much sooner than we imagine. When the Keynesian monetary
system reaches the final crisis and plunges America into the coming
hyperinflationary depression, that is when the final stage of "critical mass"
will be upon us. That is when our principles of Austrian economics and
limited government will suddenly achieve a huge increase in credibility in
the populace's eyes. And we must be ready for this. That is why we so
desperately need a third-party candidate that speaks the language of freedom
to get into the National TV Presidential Debates. When the final crisis is
upon us, we will need to have articulate spokesmen explaining to 70 million
voters how the DemoPublicans have brought about the collapse and why we must
restore the Founders' vision in order to rectify their carnage.
Daily Bell: Is the two-party system running out of
chances?
Nelson Hultberg: I believe the two-party system ran out
of chances decades ago. It continues to dominate because of inertia among the
people and the monopoly of ideas that the system has used through control of
the Presidential Debates. Throw in a compliant media that mindlessly repeats
the shibboleths of statism and you have the seedbed of DemoPublicanism that
has ruled us politically for 50 years. But such control is doomed because of
the looming economic hardship now facing America. In times of crisis, voters
begin to doubt the veracity of the authorities they have followed over the
years. They begin to open up their minds to new and radical visions. In this
case, they will begin to open up their minds to the legitimacy of a
third-party challenge. The polls already demonstrate this. More than 58% of
Americans feel that a third-party is needed. The approval rating of
Republicans and Democrats is at a all time low in our history. The times are
certainly ripe for a paradigm shift.
Daily Bell: Does Barack Obama have a good chance of being
elected?
Nelson Hultberg: I can't see how he can be returned to
the White House. His unfavorable numbers are in excess of 70% in the latest
polls. No president in history has ever had such horrible numbers a year out
from the election and survived. He is beginning to look more and more like
Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter. So pitifully ignorant of the huge tides of
history that sweep into our lives because of the fallacies of false prophets
such as John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx. His Jewish and Black
constituencies are abandoning him in droves. Hillary Clinton is seriously
contemplating a challenge for the Democratic Party nomination. Much tumult is
converging upon us, and it is going to play havoc with the standard rules of
politics that the talking heads of the establishment have memorized and spew
out so naively in their interviews.
As Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of
incredulity." Unfortunately for the political left, Obama has reigned
over the "worst of times" with much foolishness and incredulity.
Consequently disaster is setting in. I believe a Republican can beat him, and
I believe a good libertarian-conservative independent candidate can get 38%
in a three-man race and beat him.
Daily Bell: How is your new party being received?
Nelson Hultberg: Slowly but surely. Our strategy is to
approach Ron Paul when it becomes certain that he is going to be denied the
Republican nomination and convince him to run as an Independent on the
"Two Pillars Strategy," which we believe will gain him entrance
into the National TV Presidential Debates. If he would pick a strong nationally
known candidate for his vice-presidential running mate, he could do what Ross
Perot did in 1992, only do it better and base it upon a message of freedom
and sound money. This will gain attention for our "Two Pillars" of
reform and give us much needed credibility in the people's eyes. If Paul's VP
candidate is strong enough, then he becomes the presidential candidate for
the Conservative American Party in 2016, while Paul who will then be 80 years
old can take on the role as symbolic head of the new freedom party. Libertarians,
conservatives, and independents will join the CAP, while me-too Republicans
will merge with the Democrats. The GOP will go where useless institutions go,
out of existence. The grand paradigm shift in American politics will begin.
We will then have a true two-party system that offers Americans a genuine
choice. We will have a party of Big Government (Democrats), and we will have
a party of Small Government (Conservative Americans).
Daily Bell: Have you changed your mind about central
banking? Is the Fed doing better these days?
Nelson Hultberg: I certainly have not changed any views
on the Fed. It needs, as Ron Paul demands, to be ended. Our monetary system
must become market-oriented rather than government dominated. The only
question is how to bring this about.
Daily Bell: You want to reduce their destructive
influence, but what will it take to abolish central banking and remove the
graduated income tax?
Nelson Hultberg: Common sense and dogged persistence on
the part of libertarians and conservatives who continue to take the fight to
the establishment in the upcoming years and show how these two institutions
are the lifeblood of government tyranny. They cannot be ended overnight; but
they can be ended over time. The income tax will be the easiest to end; the
Fed will be more problematic. To end the income tax we must convince the
voters that a 10% "equal-rate tax" is the only morally proper form
of taxation for a free country that believes in "equal rights under the
law." Once we can show the voters where the low-income earners of the
nation will not be hurt by a true flat tax of 10% for everyone (which I
demonstrate in The Conservative Revolution), then they will readily vote
it in because it will be in their best interests to do so.
Once it is the law of the land, we will experience an immediate demand on
the part of voters to reduce government spending, which will continue until
government spending is reduced down to a level supportable by about a 5%-7%
tax rate. That is my estimate of what American voters would tolerate if there
were no exemptions to the tax, if everyone had to pay proportionally. The
"infinite demand" for government services that makes up our present
system would no longer dominate elections. At this time, we could then
convert a 5% "equal-rate income tax" into a 5% "national sales
tax" accompanied by tariffs across the board on all imports. The states
would collect the sales tax revenues. It would allow us to eliminate the IRS
and the income tax totally. The reason why we reject the present Fair Tax is
it has two flaws: It is progressive and thus will not induce voters to reduce
government. And it requires a 23% rate, which is unsalable to the electorate.
The CAP's 10% equal-rate tax suffers neither of these defects.
The Fed, unfortunately, will be a more difficult institution to abolish.
It will require that we first educate the American people into the
workability of a free-market banking system. This is not something that is
going to be done quickly. Even if the central banking systems of the West
collapse in the coming mega-crisis, it will still be difficult to sell voters
on free-market banking. They are so used to government running monetary
affairs that they will probably opt for some kind of reformed government
banking system.
This is where immense danger lurks, for if we do not effectively
demonstrate to voters that the Fed and fiat money are the sources of the
boom-bust cycle of modern economics, then they could very well be bamboozled
into adopting some sort of global central banking system as a solution to the
coming crisis. Global government would then be right around the corner.
American sovereignty would be on life support. This again is why a third-party
headed up by an articulate candidate who understands these issues is so
important to put in place. As the mega-crisis unfolds, it will be imperative
that we offer the 70 million voters that tune into the National Presidential
Debates an opposition view to "global government banking" and
convince them that our boom-bust troubles are spawned by the Fed's
irresponsible fiat money.
Edwin Vieira's approach is also crucial to sell to Americans. His plan is
to get the state governments to put into place acceptance of gold and silver
coins as circulating money. Thus when the fiat paper money system fails (as
it surely will), there is already in place numerous state hard money systems
that could function as we climb out of the collapse. The country would then
have a competitive form of money to the Fed's paper issuance that the people
could opt for. This would help prepare for a future system absent the Fed,
i.e., a true free-market banking system
Daily Bell: What will it take to reduce the US's standing
army?
Nelson Hultberg: A thorough rout of the neoconservative
view spewed out by the Bill Kristols, Newt Gingrichs, Richard Perles and
David Frums. Their paranoid view of a militant Islam posing an ideology of
conquest just as the Nazis and Soviets did has to be refuted. We must show
Americans that Islamic militants do not care for Western style individualism,
but they do not have the power to hurt us, much less take us over if we will
only do one thing -- protect our borders. They attacked us primarily because they
hate our military and bureaucratic presence in their countries and our
support of Israeli domination of the Palestinians. We have been doing to them
what the Brits did for so many decades to the Irish. We were in their
territory with bombs and troops and bureaucrats. We were playing the role of
occupiers. Thus the IRA solution to the detested British presence became the
Islamic solution to a detested American presence.
Only when we have refuted the poisonous paranoia of neoconservatism will
we be able to convince American voters that America should not, and cannot,
be the policeman of the world. Only then will we be able to reduce the US's
standing army and end the obsessive nation building that consumes our foreign
policy wonks at the Pentagon. The neocons have so frightened Americans in the
wake of 9-11 that a majority of the voters believe we need 820 military bases
in 135 countries around the world in order to protect our nation.
Imperialism rules. History repeats. Ignorance and arrogance push us into
moral and financial bankruptcy as we try to control the intractable idiocies
of tribalism in the Mideast under the guise of our "national
interest."
Daily Bell: Have you been in touch with Ron Paul about
his participation?
Nelson Hultberg: James Jaeger has been in touch with his
chief of staff, Jeff Deist, regarding the film, and both of us would like to
try and approach Paul about an Independent run once SPOiLER gets some
traction and if Paul is denied the GOP nomination. Paul is surely keeping his
options open for the possibility of an Independent run in the manner of Ross
Perot in 1992. That, I think, is one of the reasons why he is not running
again for his Congressional seat. This allows him to pursue bigger ambitions
if he gets enough monetary support and feels he can gain 15% in the polls to
qualify for the National TV Presidential Debates. So the potential is there.
Daily Bell: Is the US becoming more oppressive to freedom
recently or less so?
Nelson Hultberg: Far and away more oppressive to freedom.
Look at the monstrosity of ObamaCare, the renewal of the Patriot Act, the
increase of Fed monetary manipulation, the refusal to face reality in foreign
policy, the hubris of Washington regarding taxes and regulations, the
inability to reduce spending and borrowing in face of trillions of dollars in
debt. The sheer lunacy of our legislators smacks of a power lust that rivals
many despotisms of history. Only the twisted shams of the statist mythology
taught in our schools props up the lunacy and passes it off to the people as
a rational approach to political economy. Our self-delusion is so
pathological that there can be no salvation until we have experienced the
horrors of a full blown economic crash. Only then will there be a chance that
the people might wake up and grasp that pervasive evil has overcome us, and
that we are going to have to take some radical steps to bring freedom and
sanity back to our lives.
Daily Bell: Are US wars more successful or less so?
Nelson Hultberg: Less successful. What have we gained in
our Mideast ventures? Over 4,000 deaths and 31,000 wounded in Iraq alone.
Over 1,700 dead in Afghanistan and 11,000 wounded. Over a trillion dollars in
debt. And there are several hundred thousand Iraqi casualties added to our own.
Has it been worth it? I think the answer to that will come when we finally
pull out our troops and allow the Iraqis to govern themselves. I believe at
that time a vicious civil war will commence among the tribes that populate
the area. Like any shrewd guerrillas, the Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, and
Wahabbis are merely biding their time at present for the ravages of war to
erode Washington's lust for war. But with our pullout they will mercilessly
undo the political forms our military's sacrifice and blood have built. These
groups have been fighting among themselves for centuries, and American
political philosophy is not going to eliminate the hostilities they hold for
each other. Any democratic structure that we manage to erect will eventually
be junked by the tribal mentalities that dominate the region once American
troops are withdrawn.
The Founding Fathers are surely turning over in their graves in face of
this mess. Our economy slouches toward bankruptcy (and our culture toward
Gomorrah) because of our government's reckless reaching beyond its financial
and spiritual supply lines. Great nations fall precisely because of this kind
of blindness, this kind of senseless waste and inhumanity that the Bushes and
Obamas of history so callously heap upon their fellowman.
Daily Bell: Why is the US involved in so many wars?
Nelson Hultberg: Because neoconservatives dominate the
foreign policy circles of Washington and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Their vision is that of Pax Americana. This vision was given a big boost in
the controversial 1992 Pentagon report by former Under Secretary of Defense
Paul Wolfowitz titled, "Defense Planning Guidance." In it, he
called on America in the post-Cold War era to alter its foreign policy aims
from merely defense of our nation to actively pursue a reshaping of the world
- in short, get involved in nation building whenever and wherever it would
appear to benefit us. We must seize the opportunity to bend as many nations
as possible to our will, to our values, and to our form of democracy. Only in
this way can we truly promote "peace and stability" for ourselves
and our allies. Only in this way can America heed the call to national
greatness that falls on the shoulders of singular superpowers. This view now
dominates both the Democrats and Republicans.
This sort of hubris really began back in 1913 with Woodrow Wilson and the
Progressives. American power, they felt, must be used to "save the world
for Democracy." The international socialists at this time were taking
over the academic circles of America. The sane foreign policy prescriptions
of Jefferson and Washington (avoid entangling alliances), which served our
nation very well for 125 years, got discarded as anachronistic and inadequate
for a modern world. America was becoming a superpower, and she needed to act
like one. National sovereignty was suddenly viewed as an evil. Globalism was
the wave of the future.
Consequently democracy has become our new god, the raison d'etre of our
lives. It is now the curative for all the world's ills from war to poverty to
cultural primitiveness. Spread its healing principles to mankind, and we can
build a heaven on earth. The fact that the British felt the same call to duty
in their imperialistic dreams of the nineteenth century goes ominously
unnoticed by our punditry. What is the difference between the
Kristol-Wolfowitz vision and the expansionist policies of Benjamin Disraeli
and Queen Victoria in England of the 1870s that promoted war against the
Afghans and the Zulus? British-style colonization may not be the goal of the
neocon vision, but the curse of global hegemony is, just as it was for
Germany's seeking of "lebensraum," Rome's seeking of Pax Romana,
and Alexander the Great's seeking to conquer the neighboring nations of his
time.
Daily Bell: Does Ron Paul have a chance to win the
presidency?
Nelson Hultberg: Certainly not as a Republican. The GOP
will never nominate him. If he actually wants to be President, he will have
to do it as an Independent. But he would also have to temper his strong
libertarian stands to actually be President. I don't think he wants to play
that role, however. I think he wants to bring dramatic attention to the
fallacies of the DemoPublican political paradigm and its worship of statism.
This he can do best by running for President and pointing out on the campaign
trail the lunacy of our present tax and monetary policies. He has been
tremendously galvanizing in this respect since he began his crusade in 2007.
Daily Bell: Why isn't the Libertarian party doing better?
Nelson Hultberg: Because it marginalizes itself. It does
this because it attempts to instantly implement an ideal vision of how
society should be constructed through the political process. Libertarians
ignore the fact that politics is a game of incrementalism, that it is not an
arena in which an "ideal society" can suddenly be voted into place.
Because they try to do this, they are perceived by the public as not living
in the real world.
For example, whenever they are asked what tax policy they advocate for the
country, Libertarian Party members reply that the income tax should be
totally abolished and government should be stripped down to a minimal state
funded solely by tariffs. Now this is a wonderful "ideal" that
could perhaps be achieved in 70-80 years. But it's not a credible political
platform to be gained through a political campaign today. Libertarian Party
members are blind to the damage this does to their image in the minds of the
voters. As a result, they are marginalized as utopian. They end up getting at
best 1% of the vote every year and remain obscure fringe voices.
Daily Bell: What's next for you?
Nelson Hultberg: Getting my book, The Golden Mean: The
Case for Libertarian Politics and Conservative Values, published. I spent ten
years writing it, and I believe it has the potential to dramatically shift
the freedom movement into a powerful force that can defeat statism. But both
libertarians and conservatives are going to have to make some important
ideological changes in their approaches. And they are going to have to come
together as they were in the early years.
When it first began in the early 1940s, the freedom movement in America
was not split between conservatives and libertarians. It was one coalition
unified in rebellion against FDR's welfare state. Its purpose was to restore
the Founders' vision of strict constitutional government and federalism. By
1960, however, the movement had become tragically bifurcated. Ayn Rand
departed totally from Burkean influence to form today's libertarian movement,
while Russell Kirk drove conservatives away from their Lockean roots of
individualism. This split has now created two incomplete visions
(contemporary libertarianism and conservatism) that are, in their
singularity, incapable of effectively challenging the authoritarian statism
that dominates the institutions of modern society.
What must be done is to reunite these two divisions. This will require a
rational theory of politics that can effectively bring together the two
philosophical streams of John Locke and Edmund Burke so as to restore the
original Republic of states that Jefferson and the Founders envisioned. The
Golden Mean, I believe, accomplishes this theoretical unification.
Daily Bell: Who will run for president under your banner?
Nelson Hultberg: Obviously we hope Ron Paul will in 2012.
Looking to 2016, that is best answered by reading my article, Who
Will Be Our Modern Day Jefferson?
Daily Bell: Are you focused on presidential campaigns or
on building the party up from grass roots?
Nelson Hultberg: We are focused on the presidential
campaigns. We believe that the primary necessity is to get a candidate into the
National TV Presidential Debates and do what Ross Perot did. But then repeat
the process every four years. Use this national attention then to build the
grassroots and compete every two years in the off year elections for
Congress. Once we have a presidential candidate into the National Debates
running on the "Two Pillars Strategy," we have a means to explain
to 70 million voters how the DemoPublicans are robbing us of our money, our
rights, and our freedom. The difference in our approach and that of Perot is
that we will be selling freedom based upon two revolutionary policies of tax
and monetary reform that will stop the growth of the leviathan cold. The two
pillars can be sold to 38% of the American electorate, which is where we
differ from the Libertarian and Constitution Parties. They are only able to
sell their platform to 1% of the electorate. We plan to be a REAL third-party
that can actually win with reform that will break the DemoPublican monopoly
and begin the restoration of the Republic.
Daily Bell: What do you say to those who believe the US
is beyond repair and that politics cannot solve anything?
Nelson Hultberg: I say, check the history of our
founding. We were born out of the cauldron of politics. Samuel Adams and John
Hancock orchestrated the Boston Tea Party as a political protest. Jefferson
wrote the Declaration of Independence with politics permeating his reasoning.
The Federalist Papers were some of the most salient political writings ever
penned by man. Our Constitution is the greatest political document ever
created. The men who met at Independence Hall in 1787 knew well the power of
politics and were some of the most brilliant sages of history. Politics can
indeed save us; but it has to be a rational and radical politics -- radical meaning
fundamental. It has to go to the root cause of our problems, which are the
two evils of 1913, the Federal Reserve and the Income Tax.
Our country will never be beyond repair. With truth and courage, we can
overcome the most tyrannical of evils and the most disastrous of economic
crashes. I fully realize the strength of the ruling establishment and the
odds that a challenge like this is up against. But I see overwhelming
challenge as rampant throughout history. I see that all progress in forming
better, freer societies only comes about because there are certain people in
this world (the Thomas Jeffersons and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyns) who just don't
allow immense power structures to bother them or dissuade them. They know
that with the power of moral truth on their side they can sweep into
existence a free and just political order. And that is what we have on our
side -- moral truth. America was the first morally proper form of government
in history because it enshrined the individual as possessed of inalienable
rights and made government the servant of the people rather than the other
way around. It idealized the concept of "objective law." This ideal
that the Founders gave to us can be restored and strengthened. The vision of
Jefferson, Madison, Henry, and Paine was not meant to prevail just for the
19th century. It was meant to prevail for all of time. I discuss this way of
thinking at great length in The Golden Mean.
Daily Bell: Any other statements you want to make?
Nelson Hultberg: If you, the reader, value freedom and
honor, then you must not allow the DemoPublicans to win by default. Because
of their greed and arrogance they are destroying the greatest country that
ever existed. You must join the fight in whatever way you can. Ayn Rand spoke
to this very profoundly with one of the themes of Atlas Shrugged, the
"sanction of the victim." By this she meant that dictatorships come
about because the people, in their apathy and fear, sanction them. They vote
for their own enslavement. Or they stand by and do nothing while the PC
police and the money corrupters and the corporate statists openly violate the
basic rights of mankind in their lunatic pursuits of self-aggrandizement.
These despicable humans and their warped ideologies must be challenged. If we
do not rise to this challenge, a new high-tech Dark Ages could well descend
upon us for the next thousand years.
Daily Bell: Thanks for your time, and congratulations.
Nelson Hultberg: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.