Transcript for my conversation with Dr. Michael Rectenwald 12/18/2023

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Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Knocked Conscious. Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Michael Rectenwald. He's a 2024 presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party.

We had a great conversation. Here it is. I hope you enjoy it.

Libertarian presidential candidate for 2024, is that correct, sir? I believe so, yes. All right, tell us a little bit about yourself. How are you? I'm doing okay.

I'm the ex-NYU professor who took on the woke mob. I'm the former Marxist who turned radical libertarian, and I've been a writer and podcaster for the Mises Institute for some time. I've spoken at many of their events.

I was the Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecturer in 2018 or 19, I believe it was, and I've since spoken at many other things. I was Hillsdale College Distinguished Fellow up until, well, till the end of the year, at which time they have to revoke it because of the campaign, so they say. I've written 12 books and talked to many, many audiences delivering the liberty message in connection with many topics, like the Great Reset, like Big Tech.

That's one of your books, correct? Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty, yes. Yes, excellent. Interesting you mentioned Hillsdale.

I was watching a podcast with Jordan Peterson and Chris Williams, in a modern wisdom, and they had mentioned Hillsdale as a pretty stand-up school. Is that what you're finding? They had to pull it because of the campaign portion? Yeah, I think it's because of the campaign. Hillsdale is a great institution.

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I wouldn't batch them at all. They are one of the only colleges in the country that takes absolutely no federal funds at all. They thrive strictly on donors and student tuition, so as such, they're not beholden to the federal government, don't have to implement its dictates, and so on and so forth.

Yeah, so it's a good place. I'm a little upset that I lost the fellowship over this, but we'll see what happens in the future. Well, I mean, after this journey, there's always that coming back around, right? Hopefully, yeah.

Hopefully, that'll come back around. Okay, so obviously, we just saw a new thing blow up about X regarding EU. We've got a million topics to discuss.

Like I said, I want to be the co-pilot. I'm here for you to share your message. I'll ask the questions that I hope enlighten, and I try not to be combative, but I do want to challenge or at least ask for clarification, so I'll follow your ride.

Let's start with topic one. I'm along for the ride. Okay, so the X suit? Yeah, we can start with that.

Yeah, there's been proceedings that have been initiated by the EC, the European Commission, which is like the executive branch of the European Union, to investigate and perhaps punish X for what it's calling a suspected breach of obligations to counter illegal content, disinformation, suspected breach of transparency, and suspected deceptive design of their user interface. So, this is the first. This is all falling under the digital information, the Digital Service Act of the EU, and X is the first company to be attacked by this body after this law was implemented.

So, this could have significant impact on X, because for one, if they don't come into compliance with the EU, the EU could actually banish all users in Europe from using X. That's one thing, and they could also fine X up to six percent of their global receipts. So, we're talking a lot of money. And what I heard was a six percent piece as well.

It's just a staggering number, and I believe they even included, I heard hate speech was included in that, but I may not. Yes, it is. Okay.

There's questions about anti-Semitism, hate speech, things like this, which they're calling on X to, well, they're calling for an investigation of X on these matters. In fact, they already investigated them, and so they opened up these formal infringement proceedings today, and this guy, I think his name is Breton, or Breton, yeah, he's the EC's commissioner on this, who is in charge of enforcing the Digital Service Act on the social media platforms and search engines. So, this will be significant because not only could they lose their EU users, they could also, most likely what they're going to do is actually X will be forced to abide by the EU's content moderation policies.

So, this will apply to all users of X, most likely, so that you cannot say things that the EU does not allow, which means that you are going to be censored by the European Union. This reminds me of those state laws where they have a labor law. Say you have a company that works in five states, and basically, just to make it easy, they just do the standard operating procedure for the most stringent state.

That way, their training covers all of them, right? So, by doing that, they're going to apply this to the EU to speech, so that we are going to have to abide by the lowest or the most stringent country that is desired to be on X. That's correct. It'll probably be Germany. That sounds like fun.

Yeah, Germany will be- Sign me up. Sign me up, doctor. What that means is, what they're going to do is, X will be more stringent and more censorious than was before Musk bought it.

This is unbelievable. Well, this definitely is a hot topic right on the forefront. I mean, it speaks to why we are here.

The reason you're running is for free speech. I'm pretty sure that's a darn big tenet of it, right? Right. That's a huge tenet of it.

It's free speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement, all of the things that have been infringed over the last several years to a great extent. We've seen the social media censorship through the Twitter files and the Missouri versus Biden case. We know that all these agencies had backdoor access to Twitter and probably Facebook and other social media platforms to squelch so-called disinformation and conspiracy theories and to make sure that the official narrative goes unchallenged by any counter-narratives or differing perspectives at all.

All of this is very significant. I'm in the race to fight against all of this. For liberty, I don't believe the state should be dictating to a company what they can and cannot do with their own property.

Here we have a foreign entity, a foreign state conglomerate that is dictating the policies to an American company. It's just unbelievable. It's not even a foreign company.

It's a foreign state dictating to an American company. It's a federation of states, in fact, dictating to an American company what they can and cannot allow on their own property platform. It's unbelievable.

These are the kinds of things I've been writing about. I have a book called Google Archipelago, the digital gulag, the simulation of freedom in which I treat all of these issues. I was way ahead of the curve, I must say.

I knew that these were state apparatuses back in 2018 and was saying so in that book. You're going to see a lot of issues because like Germany, for example, you can't even question certain things. We know what they are.

For example, you can't say a word about the Holocaust other than what the official narrative is or you're in jail. They're certainly not going to allow that. They're not going to allow a lot of things.

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Basically, anything questioning any official narratives like the COVID narrative we had, like upcoming pandemics, like possibly climate change, you may not be allowed to refute or dispute or deny climate change. That could be climate change denial and that could be something that's not permitted. This is a very serious situation and I'm looking to see how Musk handles it but it could be very painful for him.

It's an uphill battle for sure. In this case, recently you've come under some heat. You're an international author.

You're not just in the United States. Obviously, you'd be highly affected by some kind of ruling like this for what you speak out against or for, just for the liberty that you use your speech. Recently, you've come under fire for a couple comments.

Do you mind sharing a little bit about what's the ramification, what happened there? I don't know what comments you're referring to. Was it the one about calling for a genocide or something? Was it the Palestinian genocide where you're being dropped by a couple? Because I was criticizing Israel's execution of the war in and on Gaza, I was dropped by my publisher. That's what I recall.

Yeah, they said that I was peddling anti-Semitic ideas for that and it was just ridiculous. I had published five books with this publisher, basically kept this publisher afloat. They had no real other authors that were making money for them.

I was basically funding the whole publishing company. Because I made these criticisms, which by the way I never mentioned, I never talk about quote-unquote Jews per se. I completely understand.

I read the two posts for sure. There's nothing anti-Semitic. It's about a policy and a practice and a war execution by a state, by the state of Israel on these people, which I have really been very troubled by, which I find to be extremely egregious and unbelievably horrible.

Yeah, it's like literally the execution of their execution is in question. I'm not going to lie, I literally just got off the phone with a very, very, very close family member of mine. It breaks my heart because I grew up in a Jewish community with a lot of people in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

I actually worked in a catering company that did a lot of synagogues. I actually met, I walked by Bibi many times at a place called KI in Philadelphia. I think it's the one he grew up with or whatever.

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It's really hard looking back because that line is so thin on we have to separate who we're talking about and what we're saying exactly. In order to get that right, we have to be able to express it because without the ability to express it, we won't get the nuance to understand exactly where everyone stands. Yeah, actually, that's correct.

We won't even be able to think properly if we can't express it. We won't even know what we think because it really comes down to being able to express it in language. Likewise, people really come to their full thoughts through the expression of them.

I think it's a very troubling situation where this kind of conflation takes place between the criticism of the state of Israel and some sort of anti-Semitism. The House of Representatives passed a resolution, I think two weeks ago, that said that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. That's a very, very chilling resolution.

Thomas Massie opposed it and a few people on the left, I think, but mostly... Thomas Massie comes up a lot in our conversations, I'm sure he does. He's great and he's very principled. I think these leftists basically land on the right spot by accident, almost.

It isn't really a principled stand, but it's political for them, whereas he's very principled in his views. Yes, I mean, he even spoke to not remove Santos, from my understanding, correct? Right. The thing is, regardless of belief system, ideology, whatever you want to call it, if you're an honest actor, if you come to me and you are the honest person that you are, that seems like what a Rhett Massie type person is.

You can work with people who come with their honest face, because then you can at least figure out the happy medium, right? You can't figure it out if the person's lying to you with what they want, if they come to you with a lie off the bat, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's right. It takes some straightforwardness, some candor, and direct honesty to reach any kind of consensus with anybody, because otherwise, you don't know what positions they actually hold.

I like the consistency at least as well, that helps, the lack of hypocrisy. It takes principles, and it also takes principles to understand where he's coming from. You have to grasp the principles that he's working from in order to understand why he makes the certain choices that he does.

And they are complex. I mean, everything's nuanced. The philosophy of it, it does sound simple, but it is, some of the Mises writings, and obviously when Ron Paul talks, it's simple, but it's so profound in depth.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so, well, let's talk a few wars since we're on it. I had Scott Horton on in October from Anti-War and Libertarian Institute, and we talked Ukraine, we talked obviously Israel, Palestine, just started when that was going on, so we didn't even hear anything really yet.

But Ukraine, it looks like it's winding down and we're going to end up right where we could have started without a half a million people dying. Right, exactly. These negotiations were possible way back two years ago at least, and they were nixed by the UK and the US, and unfortunately this led to feeding 500,000 people into the maw of death and displacing millions of others from Ukraine, vast destruction of property, total uprooting of people's lives, just a disaster, and it all could have been averted.

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And it was misrepresented from the outset in terms of who started this. There were serious provocations, red lines that were crossed, and they weren't going to stop at it. I mean, there's the coup in 2014, of course the US... And that should have been the indicator of this, but actually that's what they used to bolster the defenses.

They used that treaty to feed weapons into Ukraine while they were waiting. They were stalling. I mean, Merkel even said it.

Right, exactly. It's unbelievable. They're just telling us that they're just screwing us in every way.

I don't understand how they're able to even do that anymore. They just completely say it now. They're just very creative liars, and they're very good at basically totally inverting reality and the truth.

That's what they do. And they know the principles. The bigger the lie, the more likely it'll be believed.

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So let's go wind the clock. You're president at the same time. That treaty that I hear, the one that Putin held up and said that was signed, right? Was it in Turkey, I believe it was? You mean the Minsk agreement? No, the one after.

Allegedly, Putin held up the one that was before they invaded in February of 2022. I want to say, is that correct? 2021. So when they invaded.

So he held up the one where they had pretty much, it just was waiting for the ink to dry, right? And I think it was done in Turkey or whatever. So you're president. You hear about this.

What do you do? You tell us your solution to that problem, because I think your solution, I'd love to hear how you'd solve it and where it would go from there. Well, I would have allowed the negotiations to go on and to allow Russia and the Ukraine to solve the issue. Basically, I think the offer on the table was simply that Ukraine would agree not to join NATO.

That was the sum total. It almost seemed as simple as that, didn't it? It literally was, that was the red line. Yeah.

So wait, so you're telling me that you might actually not interfere and let two separate states with interest in their own things actually hash it out between the two of them? Yes, absolutely. That wouldn't be my, that is not the role of another state to be the complete orchestrator of all events across the planet. How did the Monroe Doctrine become the anti-Monroe Doctrine for our actions? Yeah, exactly.

How did that happen? I mean, do we have a timeframe of when you would say that? Was it with Mexico or was it with? Yeah, you could say Mexico was probably the start of it, but in more recent times, I would say you're looking at, I guess the Korean War and the Vietnam War really big contributors to that, right? Yeah, they're watermarks of this new interventionism and this idea that we had to stop communism from spreading around the world. Meanwhile, this was all fake too. It was all fake because the United States was actually feeding technology to the Soviet Union that was being used to develop weapons to be used against our own forces in Vietnam.

The US propped up the Soviet Union from the start, not necessarily the government, but different players within the United States, banking industry interests and manufacturers. And there was a lot of technology transfer to the Soviet Union to build them up, which allowed them to create the arms that then were shipped to the Vietnam that were used against the US troops. So the whole Cold War, I think, was a fraud.

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To build up both states? I mean, it was almost like a semi-agreement between both? It was a fraud of statism, just to build up the power of these various states. And then what was the result? That power became oppressive over their own domestic populations. Right.

Well, remember, somebody had to get to the moon first, Michael. Right. Yeah.

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I mean, look, don't get me wrong. That's a beautiful accomplishment and a beautiful achievement to go for. I'm not against that.

It's just the reasoning we did it was more to beat the other, right? It wasn't really just for the accomplishment of humankind. Right. Right.

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It was to do it first. Yeah. They beat us with Sputnik and we beat them to the moon.

I'm not going to go there. All right. So we covered speech a little bit.

We covered non-intervention or at least your idea of how you would handle some international policies. What's another tenet or another piece that you'd like to discuss, something you'd like to share that you need to get out to the people? Well, I think that my campaign is more than a campaign. It's a movement for decentralization and localization.

The basic premise is to wrest the power from the central government vested in the people at the local level, nullify unconstitutional laws and mandates and to basically live liberty at the local level and as individuals, because they have to drive their imperatives down into the fabric of society at the local level. Otherwise, they don't achieve what they're looking to do. And so that's really decentralization is one of the main themes of my campaign, if not the main theme.

And then, of course, the other part of it is just educating people as to liberty and libertarian principles, trying to create more libertarians. The party needs to grow more libertarians. It's not going to win elections at the national level or even the state level for the most part until there are more libertarians there.

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Right. And it's almost like it becomes this weird cycle of you have to receive some percentage of the vote to stay alive, to stay valid, to stay awake inside each of the states, to stay valid on the ballots, correct? On the ballot and then also... So there's a lot of pressure there to keep the momentum going once you have it. It's not just getting it, it's keeping it as well.

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Right. And getting matching funds and so forth. So you need five percent for that.

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And I think that for the most part, in fact, all the way, all the other candidates from all the other parties and inclusive of most, if not all the independents, with Jill Stein as an exception in the Green Party, is a neocon at base. No matter what kind of equivocations they make, to the contrary. I was going to run for Congress in 24 in Arizona.

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I'm actually in Phoenix right now with AmFest going on. And I was going to run in District 3 where Gallego just left. And I started doing it.

I actually signed up as a libertarian, but it was kind of weak, to be honest. There wasn't much support. So I stepped back.

Someone reached out to me from a no labels, no labels party, right? You think no labels. Oh my gosh, it's people who stepped away from the neocons. No, they are so ultra neocon.

It is unbelievable. And they call themselves no labels. And it's like, there's your fun.

There's your deceit right there. There's your marketing right there, right? You're first of all talking about yourself as if you have no labels would apply to you, but that's just because you're hiding behind a no label label. And it's funny because I was talking to them about how I just wanted to be the libertarian mindset.

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We need to, we need to start unraveling some of these things. We need to decouple. We need to start being more local, more state, more local, all those types of things, community, community out those types of ideas.

And then that's when I got, oh, well, we're not really looking at candidates right now. And then they hang up and then I find out how non, no label they truly are. Cause I'm, I'm excited thinking, oh, no labels wants to call with me.

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You know, libertarianism, the party libertarianism is, um, it faces a lot of discrimination, uh, because, uh, both parties are status and they don't want anything to buck that at all because that's their, you know, look, the state is a parasite that lives on a party. What's that? Corporate uniparty is what I kind of call it, right? It's a corporate uniparty. There are parasites who live off of the, of the productive elements of society and produce nothing.

And they want it that way. And they want to continue growing the state. I think they're going to kill the host eventually because you can only have so much blood sucking going on before the host actually perishes.

And that's pretty close to where we are. It seems like that's gone exponentially, obviously with COVID, right? And all those types of things. Yeah.

COVID added to, added to it. Um, of course the welfare state added to it. Um, the endless printing of money during COVID really did, uh, really exacerbated the- I just saw that last seven, the last 7 trillion that we did was in the timeframe of the previous right.

You know, first 50 years was the seven, first 7 trillion, for example. Incredible. We did it in months or something.

It was some ridiculous thing. Absolutely. All right.

So we've got three letter, we've got three letter, uh, organizations. Let's just go through them all. This is, I spoke with Natalie demolition about this yesterday.

Now I'm in absolute agreement and the fed, right? It's a very easy thing. And, you know, uh, reduce the size of the FBI, reduce the size of the CIA, reduce the steep state NSA, you know, Homeland, all of them. Okay.

Here we go. What do we do with the like 80% administrative jobs that are in those administered, those, uh, departments for the UNI workers who are government workers who, what do we do? What do we do with them? You know, do we take off? How do we unravel that? Well, what has to happen is that when you start cutting the state down, the free market will start to thrive. And so there'll be more jobs.

So when you cut workers from the federal government, you, you, you will actually create opportunities for them in the business world or in the wider marketplace, to put it more precisely. And then I think what will happen is you probably need to, uh, do something for their dependence in the immediate, uh, ramp down. I think it's impossible to completely end things without ramping down, uh, these programs and these, uh, positions because otherwise you're putting people on the street.

Uh, and in the case of like Medicare and Medicaid and social security, That's where I'm actually going to be right in this timeframe, you know, in about 10, 15 years. So I'm very curious about that for sure. Well, what I would do is end social security immediately, but that under the following conditions, everybody fathered in you're locked in where you're at, or no, you get all your money, all the money contributed plus interest plus accounting for inflation.

Yeah. And, and then everybody else has the complete option to opt out. Now they can also opt in if they like, but you know, you don't have to have your money taken from you by the state.

You can keep it. And, uh, so everybody opts out, uh, anybody who wants to opt out does. And if you do, you get reimbursed for all the money that was taken.

Otherwise it's double theft. Yeah, no. So, so on the ramp down with that, that that's where it makes sense, right? We could either do a department per whatever per period of time, or we could do all at a slow 10%, another 10%, whatever the question that always is this in American politics, we either run out of room time-wise or money-wise, right? You're in it.

Say you're in it for eight years. Well, say the program's ramping up for 20, you're out at eight. They could write that out of the legislation, right? At eight years.

And then the whole thing gets re now, once again, obviously we're talking about this machine that is just so massive that we're fighting. And that seems like the size of machine that would do such a thing. So how, how can, like, it almost seems like we have to do wrecking ball complete and deal with the shambles, which I don't want Americans.

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That's the symbol of my campaign wreck the regime, right? So it's a wrecking ball to these, to these agencies, just knock them the hell out. Then see what you need. You know? Yeah.

I mean, I don't mind a transitional something for these people while we find something, but, but I would rather have the institutions as they are not be as they are. Exactly. Sure.

I would, I would eliminate them. And then, uh, you know, even the FBI, I would eliminate it. And then we'd see what we actually need, eliminate the CIA and then see what in fact intelligence services we actually need right now.

These are not serving the United States or I should say the United States citizen. They're serving the state and they're oppressive. Uh, and they're still, and I think today they're serving a global agenda as well.

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They are with the NDAA and the 702 re-up, right? With the new, I mean, do you mind expounding a little bit about the 702 and the NDAA second, uh, legislation? Obviously rep Massey was like the lone voice that tried to get around it and he voted no, but they usurped them. So do you mind sharing a little bit about that legislation, what that is and what that's going to do for us or to us? Uh, when you say NDA, what are you referring to? Uh, the NDAA, then isn't it the national defense authority act, the 702? Oh yes. Okay.

Of course. Yes. I'm sorry.

I thought you said NDA. Okay. I speak quickly and probably mumble more.

So yeah, yeah, yeah. The NDA. Yeah.

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Well, what this does is, uh, it actually is going to enhance their ability to surveil on us. And even more than nine 11, correct? Right. Even more than the Patriot act.

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So, uh, this is, uh, just astounding. And, uh, so it gives them, you know, complete surveillance technology possibilities to intervene and to, to, uh, uh, surveil on us to an extent unforeseen before. And, um, and this was passed.

I mean, it got passed through. So this is just, and of course that's a huge apparatus that needs to be, that, uh, that, that entails another huge layer of the state. Uh, and so this is, this is just an outrage, total outrage that we are paying.

What happened to privacy? What happened to privacy? To be surveilled. We're paying the, our government to oppress and surveil upon us. Well, we know that the state is oppressive altogether, but now we're paying to be effectively controlled, surveilled, spied on, watched, have our phone calls recorded, uh, have all of our internet, internet activities known, et cetera, et cetera.

Uh, so, and then, um, you know, with, um, then they're going to meld this stuff with, I should say things like digital identity and CBDC. There we go. Okay.

So let's, let's, let's go into that. So digital identity would be your phone is your identity, be biometrically with your fingerprint or eye scan, something like that. And then CBDC stand for central bank digital currency.

Is that correct? That's right. Okay. So that would be basically your dog, your physical dollar bills in ones and zeros on your phone.

Effectively and held by the Fed in effect. Right. And held by another, a third party.

Well, held by the state. Yeah. By the federal reserve, uh, probably through commercial conduits, like commercial banks through J diamond.

Right. Yeah. But nevertheless, it's really ultimately held at the Fed.

And that means that we'll have complete, you'll have complete transparency. You're all of your transactions, your holdings, everything will completely transparent to the Fed. And that means to the federal government effectively, and that means they could also control spending and they could control, um, what you buy.

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Uh, they could control the possibility of you be, you could be shut out of certain transactions altogether or certain, um, purveyors of goods could be completely off limits. Uh, and then certain people could be banned from the digital economy. It's all right.

Well, we saw what the truckers, right? So in Canada, there were protests and they actually shut off bank accounts. They shut off bank accounts of people who donated as little as $10 to the cause. And now they'll know by virtue of what you do with your money, because they'll have direct evidence of, so let's say they pass, uh, some more climate, uh, executive orders.

And, uh, some of them contain, uh, the gas allotments, personal carbon footprint tracking footprint stuff. And, uh, therefore, you know, that's tied to your digital identity now, which is an ongoing record of everything about you. It's not just an ID.

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Uh, it's not identification. It is a database about you. So now, so how do we tie that? This is the thing about the cognitive dissonance.

I do not understand about ideology. We have a group of people who want to tie you to this thing, but, and they want to do it for vaccines. They want to do it for everything that they tell you to do for your behavior, but they don't want it to tell you whether you can vote or not.

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That's right. To whether you have the voice to say whether you want to be oppressed like this, right? You don't have that ability somehow. I, I helped me understand.

I mean, obviously we know it's ideological driven, which is why it's so completely counterintuitive, right? Well, I think the upshot of it is, is that, uh, this is a totalitarian digital, uh, a digital totalitarian, um, system that we're being, uh, we're being, it's being incrementally introduced, uh, a little at a time, like Biden said, he wanted a CBDC. He said this in a piece of an executive order. I forget the number right now.

Was it, was it one of the early day ones when he shut everything else off? That was a couple of years into his, maybe a year and a half into his, uh, presidency. I'll try it for sure. Yeah.

I think it was maybe 16,099. I don't know. That's, that's a number that's somewhere around there.

Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to confirm that you're correct. We'll make sure.

I'm not sure of the number of the, uh, in the, yeah, in the, uh, he says he wants to expedite the introduction of a central bank digital currency. And, uh, you know, the fed has been working on it and they've done some studies and, uh, well, from what I heard is they were kind of beta testing it with giving that money to Ukraine citizens through some kind of app. Is that correct? It's probably right.

Yeah. So my understanding was there was work, there was work. Look, I, I'm, I'm not a conspiracy theorist.

I make theories. They are conspiracies, but I'm not a conspiracy theorist. So just like all of us, we look at patterns and we make, we make educated guesses on the patterns.

Right. And a lot of times we're right and we are wrong a lot of times too. So totally.

Okay. But from what I heard, it sounded like the banks were working together with the Ukrainian government to get an app and use the money, you know, just digitally and go, Hey, let's see how we can test this. Categorize the dollars into food, clothing, fuel, you know, energy, whatever those different group categories are, you get a certain allotment and when you're done, you're done.

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Exactly. And there could also be negative interest rates. In other words, instead of going, and that's going on in Europe.

I don't think Americans know that negative interest rates in banks is what's happening. You're literally putting your bank in the, or money in the bank to lose money. Yeah.

They're taking it from you. If you don't spend it at the right rate, they take your money. You don't gain interest.

You lose interest. So that they're, you know, basically they're forcing you to pump the economy back up somehow. Yeah.

They're stealing from you. Um, and, uh, for, for depositing money in their accounts, in their banks. Yeah.

So it's just unbelievable. So yeah, all of that's coming down digital identity, digital, uh, CBDC, uh, carbon footprint tracking, uh, you know, all this is just around the corner, especially given the recent, uh, climate, uh, COP 28 meeting. Oh, right.

Where the, where the head of, uh, the UAE was, uh, put in charge of that was the head of the UAE oil company, oil company. So hilarious. It's like watching, uh, I couldn't write this.

I could not write this. It's unbelievable. The script.

Yeah. The head of it's not, it's, Oh, it's not my plane. It's my wife's plane.

You know, I know we're married. We've been smashing forever. You know, I know John Heinz is no longer with us, but you know, whatever, come on.

Yeah. And, uh, he, you know, but they did negotiate a basic, uh, phase out of fossil fuels by 2050, which means they're saying that by 2050, there'll be no more burning of fossil fuels. So-called fossil fuels.

Now, I don't know. I, I, I call them fossil fuels because that's what they're called. I don't think they're actually fossil fuels, but we get it.

Petroleum products. How about that? Yeah. Let's put it that way.

Petroleum products, petroleum products. I think they come from the igneous heat of the earth. And, uh, this, you know, basically produces this melt melted substance that we use.

But, uh, yeah, there are, there are a certain thoughts about the iron core, right? The core spinning, creating the magma and all that. Yeah, absolutely. That's right.

And I'm not here to talk about that part because that's, that doesn't even matter. Does it, does it even matter? I mean, it's so like not even a point. It matters from, it's the idea of peak oil, which is long gone.

Right, right. But yeah, that, that idea is history anyway. We know there's plenty of oil.

So let's talk energy. So wait, what is the future of energy in your, in your estimation? Well, the future is, uh, I think technology will develop as of its own accord, but right now they're trying to force this development of renewables and stuff and EVs and all this down our throats. They're not, this is not mature technology and it's not organic.

It's not organic at all. And that's a problem. Yeah.

Especially with the free market capitalists that you're talking about. It has to be an organic driven movement from the, from the desires of the people and the consumer. Exactly.

People aren't asking for this. This isn't being produced because people want it. This is being force-fed.

And I think the future of energy is, uh, in jeopardy because of these, um, climate catastrophists and their, uh, globalist ambitions, frankly. I think that they use this catastrophe, this so-called crisis in order to usher in, uh, well, they call it a global crisis. So what is the only thing that could cause, that can, uh, that can, uh, solve a global crisis? Well, it has to be global governance.

(42:27 - 43:54)

So that's what, that's what this is all about. It's all about the governance and the impositions and the, uh, control systems that are putting in place, uh, supposedly to mitigate this. But I think the ends are the means that that's always the case.

The, the, I'm sorry, the means are the ends. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So the same thing.

Yeah. The ends of the means. So if I may, uh, is nuclear an option for you? Is it an open option? Nuclear power is definitely something that's been pooh-poohed by these environmentalists for no good reason.

It's, it's the only, only one of two other sources that have no... It's the only one that'll get to fusion. Yeah. Fusion will get to fusion, right? Yeah.

It's the only one that'll get us there. Yeah. Right.

Anyway, sorry. Go ahead, please. I'm sorry.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's two power sources that don't, uh, produce, you know, carbon emissions and yet the, uh, the carb, the climate lunatics don't want either of them.

And that is hydro... And think about all the lead that's in the solar panels and all the others. Oh man. That's, that's, yeah.

The environment... And let's share this with the world. I don't think everyone knows, but my understanding is I, I talk with my mom and we live in the East coast. She lives in Philadelphia and allegedly off the shore, off the Jersey shore, they had to shut down a wind farm because it's not, uh, economically viable.

(43:54 - 47:03)

Yes. Is that, is that my under, is that correct? They actually are shutting it down because it's not economically viable with all the money that the government's pumping into it. It's not economically viable.

Unbelievable. So they've tried, they've had subsidies and, uh, grants for development and, uh, you know, years of development and it's still nowhere near, not even close to near, to being able to sustain civilization. Uh, these renewables, they will not sustain civilization.

There will be a rapid decivilizational process and a complete decline of the industrial base of the Western and possibly the whole world, uh, as a result of these insane, uh, climate, uh, imperatives. So it's, it's just unbelievable. So I've been fighting this too.

I've been writing about this quite a bit. I wrote two articles for the Mises Institute on the three, three, four, now four about this. Okay.

Yeah. Excellent. Yeah.

Well, I'm, I'm looking forward to it and I'll, I'll link everything to the, to the episode as well. So, um, so we've got that. There's obviously ecological issues with, uh, with what's going on with the, it seems like mammalian water creatures like whales are not faring too well with what they're experiencing from the, whatever the, is going on with the, I guess, anchoring of the wind turbines or whatever.

The wind turbines, uh, sound of drilling or whatever the hammering, they're killing, uh, you know, you know, very large, complex mammals, whales with this. So, and here, meanwhile, we switched to plastic or to paper straws. So we're okay now.

Yeah. You know, once again, it's like, where, what are we doing? Yeah. Like, I, I just want to show it.

I don't, I don't like telling people that, that it's not me lecturing people. I just want to show people where the insanity is, but I can't tell them that it's insane. I can only show them where it is.

And then you have to connect it. They have to, they have to see it. Yeah.

Likewise. Similarly, like with these wars, I mean, they never talk about the so-called climate impacts of these wars. And if it's really, if it's really true that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and a greenhouse gas, which I deny, okay.

Then, um, then they would be concerned about the kinds of carbon emissions that come from these wars. Right. I'm going to share, I'm going to share one conspiracy theory, doctor.

Yeah. I'm going to do it. We saw Greta Thunberg on the field in Ukraine and I sit there, I'm like, what is environmental about war? And then I just saw an article two days ago, something about the war in Congo over the last six years.

The it's been cooler because of it. They're promoting the war. They want less carbon.

We've talked about it. We are the carbon that they don't want. So let's be honest, 500,000 male Ukrainians equals zero birth rate.

(47:03 - 47:16)

That nation is gone. That is, that's 30 million people in a nation that have dispersed and now, okay. So they're seeing war as an, as they're seeing war as a carbon zero policy.

(47:16 - 49:47)

I can't imagine. I mean, that's what I just put together this week because I just saw another article in Europe. Something about exhaling is creating a carbon emissions.

Now breathing is going to be, so they're telling us it's like they're conditioning us to believe that people are the problem. As long as we're the people telling us that we're the problem, the others can be the ones that can die for it. Like that's almost like how, why do I sound like the crazy person then? Like, I mean, they've been after us for, look, I've been looking at the UN's population control ethics and their panels.

Yeah, their white papers and everything. Everything. And they've been looking at, they've been talking about, basically they see the mass of humanity as a scourge on the planet.

And we are consumers. That's all we are. Consumers who consume too much, reproduce too much, and then threaten their biosphere or whatever they want, you know, however they want to look at it.

I think they think they would like to be in a kind of Eden and the masses of people are encroaching on that Eden and they must go away. And they think they can get rid of a lot of people, I think. Yeah.

And I was just trying to understand what, where are the eco wars, where the climate warriors talking about war. And then I see war has made the climate colder in the Congo or something. And then I see exhaling is creating all the, it's like now it's dings.

It's like the epiphany. Wow. Everybody's so busy working their jobs and raising their kids and trying to, and being told something completely different.

Right. Not alone, not let alone trying to figure out what's right. You have to undo what they've been told is wrong first.

And it's like, we feel like we're these lecturers and we're not, and it makes us, it feels frustrating because I'm not, I don't want it. I don't care if it's me sharing the message as long as the message is shared. Right.

Right. I just want to be a conduit, a medium for that. I has nothing to do with me.

The ideas have to be out there because the more ideas we have, the better solutions we end up. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

But yeah, I mean, that's amazing. Yeah. That's a good connection.

You draw there. They're looking at in the war as a net zero policy program. There you go.

Please run with it. I'm, I'm not, I don't think I own that, but I, it just, I'm going to look up the article that you were talking about. Yeah.

(49:47 - 50:29)

That the war has made it colder in the Congo. I'll, I'll look for that. Yeah.

I'll look for that. Has it's made climate cooler. It's the weirdest thing.

I saw it this week. I'll, I'll look for my reply on it. So, okay.

All right. So we've had an hour. You have been so gracious with your time.

I am extremely grateful. I'm here as long as you want to share anything, but I know your schedule is super busy. Yeah.

I'm going to go play tennis right now. I got to keep up. Oh, excellent.

Yeah. I got to keep up my physical, uh, you know, uh, what is it? My physical prowess. That's right.

There you go. Yeah. Sorry.

I'm a little bit tired. I've been writing all day and a little bit burned up, but yeah. I'm so grateful for your time.

(50:29 - 51:15)

Thank you again. Once again, Dr. Recktenwald, Libertarian president for 2024. Uh, I do offer free time or offer equal time to others, to other candidates regardless, but, but I am so grateful for your time and, and thankful.

Uh, do you have a closing message? Anything else you'd like to share? Yeah. Just go to my website, please. I'm getting bored.

The, the record regime movement, wreck the regime.com that's R E C the regime.com and, uh, get involved in this movement to undo this regime, to totally wreck it, to get this, dismantle this beast. That's what we're up to. Excellent.

Thank you so much. I'm so grateful. Have a great day, sir.

Take care. You too.