U.S. Senate Candidate Forum, Texas Libertarian Party - 2012/06/08, Phase 1
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Jun 5, 2025
Forum among candidates for the Texas Libertarian Party nomination for the U.S. Senate: John Jay Myers, Scott Jameson, Wayne Huffman, Gopal Ragu, Robert Butler, and Jon Roland. DFW Marriott South, Fort Worth, Texas, Friday, June 8, 2012, 7:00 PM.
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okay if I can have everyone's attention can I have everyone's attention on behalf of the tarant county libertarian
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party welcome to Cow
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Town without any further Ado here's our moderator Mr Ed
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Cass it is better to debate without settling
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it than to settle a question without debating it
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amen that's from a French essayist and moralist Joseph
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ju who we invoke tonight welcome to the libertarian party of Texas State
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Convention Senate debate we have six candidates tonight we
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have a uniquely I think libertarian for format which I will briefly describe for
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you each candidate of the six will be given two minutes for an
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introduction followed by each candidate asking a 30 second question of the other
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five candidates and that will Pro proceed on down the line starting in the first
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position here with Mr Roland on down then each candidate will be given
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two minutes by way of up and that will endend our first round during the wrapup procedure I will
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be handing handing out these temporary debate ballots passing them
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along if you are a delegate we're on the honor System here tonight folks okay if
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you're a delegate please mark two marks on the
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page for people that you want to see continue into the next round now you can vote for none of the above twice if you
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like right and none of the above is on here or you can vote for one candidate
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one twice as well okay the top two vote Getters regardless of percentages the
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top two vote Getters will continue on into the next round whereby we will finish up with questions from the
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floor so please uh we we we will get questions from you at that point and I'll remind you the rules at that
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point uh at the end there will be a three minute closing from the final two
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candidates who remain on stage candidates any questions before we
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begin yes Scott I'm asking one question to all five of the others your
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question will be answered by the other five candidates or do I get to take a specific question to each one of them no
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just one question that would be the extended debate later that's correct one question that each of the other five
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will answer that's correct all right thank you does that make sense yes candidates everybodyy good with that
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okay terrific well let us begin we will
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proceed starting in the first position we drew lots for position Mr Roland will
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begin speaking in his open his opening first his two-minute opening and then
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we'll proceed on Down the Line we'll then come back and Mr Butler who is in the second position will ask the first
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question and then we'll move continue to move on down the line that way okay all right Mr Rolan two
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minutes good evening thank you everyone for organizing this event and for
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attending I hope you have some good questions ready for us for more than 75
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years the American people have allowed themselves to be led by people who promised
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much who pretended to know know what they were doing and now as we are
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confronting the possibility the likelihood indeed of the entire global
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economy falling into an abyss they're beginning to realize that
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our leaders really don't know what they're
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doing the almost every evening you can see a talking head on uh the subject of
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the economic crisis or the various other crisis that were're facing and if you
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read between the lines you soon come to realize they don't have any
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solutions the people are calling out for solutions
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they don't understand they don't know who to trust they're freaked as well
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they should be the Republicans and the Democrats are
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not providing Solutions they're talking about values they're talking about the old
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Chevettes uh things that might sound good in a sound bite but just don't get
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the job done what I tried to do at my website
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John roland. net is to compile a
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very large it would seem although not as large as it will be before this year is
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over uh of specific proposals specific bills that are ready to drop in the
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hopper and I invite everyone to feel free to borrow those as they
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wish Mr Butler thank you so much for having me here uh in wonderful Fort
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Worth uh first I would like to say that I'm running for the US Senate to restore
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the American dream an opportunity for every American to take care of their family with dignity and peace at home
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and abroad I see three steps uh to restore
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the American dream the first is to reform our economy we have a Federal Reserve System
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currently in place that meets in secret that prints as much money as it wants
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and gives that money to its friends on Wall Street this is a silent tax because
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most people don't know why their gas and food prices go up and we must get rid of it
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immediately second on the reforming the economy is our problem with taxes and
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spending for 113 years the United States existed without an income tax during
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this time our country was funded primarily through tariffs on foreign Goods entering the United States now
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while all taxation has negative effects tariffs cause the least distortion are
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the least expensive to collect and are the least personally invasive uh to our uh to you to our
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person the income tax should be repealed immediately and replaced with
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nothing our national debt is currently over $14 trillion with government spending nearly 2 trillion per year more
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than it collects the American people should not have to pay for Washington's Reckless and out of control appetite for
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debt secondly uh in step two restoring dignity and peace at home I would say
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that it is a laudable and praiseworthy goal to protect others it is in fact the only just use of
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Taxation and I will speak more on that issue as my time is running out uh thank you so much for having
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me Dr Raju my name is dral Raju not rahu
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it's a good rahu is a Mexican word I don't it but it's
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okay I like my I cut down my name to silver gold and ruby so you get all
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three if I become the senator from this Texas uh LP on November 6 not only today
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but so I thank you all what this problem is in our country facing death 16
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trillion not 15 trillion that was 2 months ago today 16 trillion so we can
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clear that one by so many ways it's all listed in the and also some of the in my
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literature there on the black and white so it's already listed there and I am a
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reborn or return from Heaven 10 years ago I was in coma for 60 days with open
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surgery I revived that I came back to Earth on July 4th can you imagine that I
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am still want to do the best for America everywhere everybody should have better
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health insurance no matter what his status is just like visitors getting
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health insurance at their cost so anybody can buy the insurance different levels that's my my first priority is
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once again insurance for all irrespec of their status in this country ask not
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what Dr Sr can do for you for your healthare what you can do for me tonight to become the next Senator
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candidate from Texas and next senator from you know Texas Senator on November
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six thank you very much thank you Mr hman yes my name is Wayne Huffman and
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the first thing you should know about me is that I hold no truths to be
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self-evident which means that everything is open for discussion and for uh
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critical consideration that doesn't mean that we necessarily have to to uh grow for a
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solution but what we do is we we look and see what works and then we uh
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develop solutions by the process of thesis antithesis synthesis that is
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basically sort of how things have developed uh Darwinism with is a uh it
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comes from that and what we get in the current thing is gamesmanship which is
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basically Darwinism on steroids so my my
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Approach is to try to deal with the whole problem including the problems are
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to take positions that also uh address the the problems that are raised by the
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opposition so that uh uh to come out with practical Solutions so I'm
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basically a person who looks for consensus but would like to press an
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agenda for freedom in the process of doing so the uh the items that I feel
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are most important at the current time are the uh invasion of privacy that is
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posed by the Patriot Act the uh an idea an area that is most of concern to me is
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is uh the simplification of government and the simplification of contracts so
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many contracts that we see today are are too complex to deal with uh so
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basically uh uh I my Approach is to be a uh to see consensus thank you Mr Jameson
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hello thank you for the opportunity to come before you this evening and speak I I come with here with a mixture of
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humility and and uh Rage which maybe has sound a little strange I'm humbled to be here to to help the party and to be your
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candidate if you if you choose me tomorrow and and I have a inherent Rage Against the Machine uh I'm the kind of
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person that writes letters to government and tells them why they're not doing it right um I called them on the phone and
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tell them why they're not doing it right um and when I hear back that Texas doesn't adhere to the Health America Bud
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act because they have applied for a waiver and been given a waiver through 2012 and this is years ago and now it's
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2012 and Texas still has a waiver so but that's that's that's the kind of person
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I am at the Grassroots level I like to to protest the man with with paperwork and you know with my feet of course um I
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I when I heard Harry Brown speak on TV in 2000 uh that's when I discovered the
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libertarian party and I joined uh as soon as I could before that I was completely politically disenfranchised I
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had never voted for the year 2000 I just didn't have a home uh and when I heard
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him speak I thought it was absolutely brilliant and his vision of America is this beautiful Free State uh he writes
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that up in his book The it's the the great libertarian offer and it's a brilliant work it's genius and he talks
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about how we can have a society um where we're free of the federal income tax we don't have social security tax but we
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yet we don't forsake the elderly seems like an oxymoron uh we end the war on drugs we end our Foreign Wars we end our
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foreign handouts do we need Ben beri wiring a trillion dollars overnight to Europe while we're debating tarp in the
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US Senate saying oh my gosh should we give these Banks a hundred billion dollar oh no when's over there just
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terminal saying transaction authorized it seems a little creepy uh and and so
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um that's not the kind of government I support that's just wrong um and I I so I I'd like to think
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of myself as a Harry Brown libertarian that carries forward his values and his principles I may never be as good as him
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but I'd like to Aspire to be that kind of that kind of person that kind of politician and if you let me I would
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like to run an active campign I have raised about $4,000 of far for today Mr Myers hi guys I'm John J Myers
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um I was the Dallas County Vice chair I was on the Texas executive committee and I was recently elected to the
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libertarian National party I am a businessman in north Texas here I own two uh different businesses one is a
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screen printing shop called clar Sky 24 the other is a restaurant called the free man and the free man is in deep Elm
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I employ about 34 people and opening both these businesses has led to me to honestly see how government on the local
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state and federal level can interfere with businesses in many ways including $800 you want people to be able to dance
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on your dance floor I have a lovely wife named chenine and I have two daughters one is Ella and
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one is dagy and I like to think that I'm going to teach Ellen and dagney how to live a personal responsibility in their
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life and also how to be generous but of themselves it's not government's job to
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be generous it's my job to be generous a lot of people think that Libertarians are extreme I don't think that's true I
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came here I come here to say that I am not an extreme person I do not believe it's extreme to believe that we shouldn't be around the world policing
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everybody I don't believe it's extreme to think that we shouldn't have the ndaa I don't think it's extreme to think that
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our President should not be able to kill people I don't think it's extreme to think that we should not have indefinite
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detention even though our Constitution forbids it I don't think it's ex strange to think that even though the first 2
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fourth fifth 6th 7th 8th n9th and 10th Amendment only the one about not housing soldiers has been trampled by our
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current government I don't think that's extreme at all I don't think it's extreme to think we shouldn't have given 23 trillion dollars to the banks prior
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to a recession I don't think it's extreme to think the bailouts of stimulus and even the Federal Reserve
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should have ever existed at all and I don't believe it's extreme that I believe it's extreme when the government
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tells you what you can eat what you can drink who you can marry and what you can
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smoke ladies and gentlemen that sounds like common that sounds like common
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sense that sounds like common sense to me does that sound like common sense to you all right well I'm not extreme our
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government is all right thank you gentlemen returning back up here Mr Butler you
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have the privilege of asking the first question of your other candidates you have 30 seconds to ask your question
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they will have one minute to respond starting with Dr R sure uh what what do
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you see as the biggest challenge in your campaign and do you hope to overcome
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it the biggest challenge once again the lack of health health insurance for all
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that's most important being a surgeon I work almost free for most of the insured
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in throughout my 35 years of surgical practice I became a victim of surgery
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myself so this is the reason we can do everybody in this country irrespective
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of their status they can have the health insurance of their charge without
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eliminating anybody I can do that one in three steps I can four steps everybody
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should have the ins the next one is De free 16 trillion is not a small amount
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we have to be make responsible for all the congressman and the Senators who borrowed let them pay back the money to
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the de free community de free us thank thank
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you yes I guess the biggest uh challenge I see to my campaign is getting the word
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out to the people and I view the libertarian party really as a party of
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ideas more than as a party of uh governments and so my my feeling is we
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have to get libertarian principles out to as many people as possible and I
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think the most effective way of doing that is through media contacts uh
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perhaps uh working with uh with people who have websites and that sort of thing
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that uh obviously uh I or any of the other candidates are not going to have nearly
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the resources that the major candidates do and so therefore we need to talk to
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the people who are in a position to influence other
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people Mr James well of course relevancy is is critical um and I don't direct
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this comment just at one particular of of my opposition but I looked at A's
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websites last night and it's kind of a mess I mean I I couldn't find one from Mr Huffman uh Mr a doctor the doctors
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was just very random to me I didn't understand it um Robert Butler didn't
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mention that he's running for usate at all it was a very informative website um John Rollins came up not
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displ and I'm not saying I win on the internet but it it seems as though if you're fighting for relevancy to people
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outside this room we have the internet as a resource for example and that should be something that if not today
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soon should be in place um I would pledge to you with I mentioned the last sentence at the bell I have money at for
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my campaign now today that I would send every delegate a US Jameson for Senate
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uh Jameson percate starter kit within two weeks of the convention so get you all yard signs and stickers without
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whether or not you give my campaign or not I think the main problem that any
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libertarian candidate faces is going to be funds and the only way to raise funds is get people to believe in you and
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believe in your message the good news is we have a great message the bad news is we haven't always been able to get out
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there and put it out in the way that we should the good news on the other hand though is we just saw Ron Paul who's
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able to get his message out and when he was I mean four years ago Ron Paul was kind of like who I mean 2% of the population even knew
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who he was and then by getting his message out and standing by his principles he was able to then generate
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publicity and popularity among a Grassroots Coalition and that Grassroots
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Coalition grew and gave him money to the point where he couldn't be ignored is my hope that with this campaign that we
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will get out there get our message out there enough people will recognize that I am the only choice for US senator
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against du Hur the Democrat and that I the only choice they really have just like Gary Johnson is the only
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choice we have between Obama and Rony Mr
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Ron the single challenge I'll be focusing on will be getting into candidate debates with the Republican
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the Democrat candidates uh if Ted Cruz is the
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Republican nominee then I would expect us to have a series of excellent
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candidate forum because no inted as I do I'm sure he would be quite willing to
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participate on the other hand if duur is a nominee the chances are he's going to
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refuse to participate trying to ride on his Republican
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uh support and uh it will be difficult to
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get many sponsors of such events to host an event if only the the libertarian and
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the Democrat show up but it can be done and I have ways
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that may be able to to work to do that great thank you Dr Raju you have
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now 30 seconds to ask your question my question is how do you prevent fraud in
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the medical Medicare and Medicaid and other insurance companies there's so much fraud $67 billion last year and
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then since 65 there are 1 trillion
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3,400 trillion loss of Medicare fraud please answer how do you PR prent
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that well I think the the best way to prevent fraud is to do a much better job
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of monitoring just amazes me when I see uh see some of the the scams that go on
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in the in uh uh the medical uh industry and I I just uh I can't believe that uh
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the word hasn't gotten to to The Regulators that these scams are going on
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and yet they go on for years and years so uh obviously monitoring is one of the
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best ways of doing it of course the other way is to have a good competitive
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industry where the where uh the company who are in the industry for their own uh
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for their own benefit will monitor what is going on as far as payments are concerned because it's going to affect
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their bottom line I suppose it's my turn we're going
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down the line um Lord rest my soul for having the time as I recover from my
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foot injury to read Obamacare law which I did I fell asleep dozens of times and
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of course most of the law 99% of completely absurd it sets up this massive government bureaucracy of Health
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Centers and counseling sessions and walking you through your policy options and state options to get out it's pure
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Insanity I mean it just and if you're American Native American Indian there's an exception if you're out of the
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country when you need to make a health insurance plan to get to to what is it Skynet I'm almost finished making my
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connection to Skynet oh I mean the giant massive computer in the sky that monitors every Health transaction every
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financial transaction everything you do all day long make sure that it complies with the rules it's like no no thank you
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I'm not interested in that I'm not interested in that scene at all the only saving Redemption of the the Obamacare
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Act is that it requires greater Financial disclosure from health insurance agencies the profits and loss
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and payouts ratios I do support that one paragraph of the 935 pages of insanity that I read and I
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think that will help prevent some problem I have a my turn I have a 100%
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way of preventing fraud and medic to get rid of
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medic the doctor is not is not up on this but we need to talk in
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1965 you paid out of your pocket the same amount of money that you pay now
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out of pocket when you have Medicare so before Medicare which was 1965 you'd
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walk into the doctor's office and you'd say what ails you and they'd say well that's going to cost you about 100 bucks well that's fine here's your 100 bucks
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and that was a transaction between the two of you just because certain people couldn't afford it all of a sudden the government's got to do something about
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it it must be the government you know and all the things that the government did the entire bureaucracy that they
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created every single step of the way all they did was all they ended up doing was
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make it cost the same hundred bucks that you pay as a deductible now and that's adjusted for cost of inflation that's
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from Harry Brown's book if you want to look that up Mr
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Medicare Medicaid are examples of one of the kinds of problems that I have tried
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to develop a solution for and propos to build to deal with is often gets a good Applause line
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to say well let's just end it abruptly the problem is with most
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established programs it's like putting your foot on the break of a car on
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traveling on Ice you can wind up going in the ditch and people perceive that a sudden
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abrupt change would be disastrous so any legislation that tries
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to do away with something like Medicare has to do it in a orderly processed even
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though Medicare is unconstitutional is not a good idea to just cancel it and what I've done is
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turn it into a research and development program and not a treatment
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program and Mr Butler well I as you probably would
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guess I agree with the last three that speaker said the best way to well there
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is no way to end fraud so the best way to end it would be to end the programs I also agree with Mr Roland that we need
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to do this gradually um you know it took a hundred years for all of these programs to build up and we need to have
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some time for people to make other arrangements and when we unra with these
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plans that's uh okay thanks um Mr hopin is your turn
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to ask a question so please 30 seconds and then Mr Jameson you're on answering next all right my question is what do
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you consider the proper mil milary policy of the United States and
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specifically uh address military intervention in uh places such as
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Vietnam Afghanistan and Iraq and also address what you consider the proper use
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of drones well of course drones are designed for uh taking pictures of crop
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circles as far as I understands they have no serious military application um 60% of our veterans come
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back from the current Wars and make claims with the Veterans Administration and wait two years to hear back and they
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each have a average of three conditions that they're complaining about on their application the government V veterans
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administration says that they operate without a budget yet they're yet they're two years behind they don't have the resources they need and when ask how
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they get their money they say well we ask the feder a reserve and they cut us a check and we come back when we were out
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of money like what the hell is that that's no budget at all and then you don't have to Res you have an unlimited
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check but not you don't have the resources to do your job veterans proc claim should be processed in 30 days
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that government needs to be lightning fast not years down the road 15 years to get immigration papers I know women that
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have gotten married divorced and remarried and had new families in 15 years you know it's like but they're
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still here and they don't know they haven't heard back from immigration about their status what what so we need
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a government that's fast and we need to get out of the wars and we need to bring people home and we need to process V PLS
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I wish I had three hours on this topic um let me me who declares
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war that's right all right and then who declared war on Pakistan our drones
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right now are launching missiles into Pakistan does anybody remember us declaring war on Pakistan I thought it
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was the UN no we our drones are launching missiles in Pakistan wait where the drones and the point of it is
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is we're doing this all around the world we're we're actually it would be my I would honestly believe I I cannot not
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believe we're not involved in Syria I know we got involved in Libya I know we're involved in Tunisia and all these
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things were basically setting people up around the world and when we sit here at home when Americans sit at home and they say oh well we must be doing the right
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thing but we don't investigate enough and then we wonder what happened to this country I didn't I don't understand why
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these people hate us because they obviously don't hate us because we're free these people hate us because we're in their countries we're steing their
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resources we're taking their stuff we're trying to force democracy to that to them through the barrel of a gun by
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people who don't even speak their language when you talk about what are we going to do in Africa about Cony are you
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kidding me there's people in Africa that want to deal with con why would it be us they don't trust
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us I have the distinction of having served as an officer in the United
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States aor so I gained some insight in to the
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military problems of our country this was during the Vietnam
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era the need for preparedness needs to be understood and
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not conflated with aggressive activities and there are a lot of things
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that people who criticize military spending don't understand such as the
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fact that it is often cheaper to keep our troops abroad than to keep them in the United
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States uh the the issues involved are quite complex and they need to be
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understood of their full complexity
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okay providing a strong National Defense is the single most important obligation
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the Constitution and Trust to the federal government we need a strong and effective military to protect life
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Liberty and property of our citizens today however we have hundreds of
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thousands of fighting men and women stretched thly thinly across the globe in over 135 countries often without a
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clear Mission without a definition of victory or even without the knowledge of when they'll be reunited with their
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families acting as the world's policeman and nation building weakens our country
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puts our troops In Harm's Way and spends precious resources in other nations in
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in the midst of a historic economic crisis taxpayers are forced to spend billions of dollars each year to protect
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the borders of other countries while Washington refuses to deal with our own border security needs we need to spend more time and
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energy focused here at home and uh promoting peace abroad rather than
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War okay as a doctor as a surgeon I worked in all
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Veterans Hospital State hospitals private prac solar Practice Group practice so there is a problem here in
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this country because we are going after other countries engaging in war helping
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the other countries that should not be all the wars right now going on should be stopped today not tomorrow it's
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costing it's costing billions of billions of dollars every day every month every trillions last one year
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itself costing the so I am against all when the veterans come home most of them
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are PTSD that is and homeless and hunger
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so these are all should be because of the they engage in the long distance war
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thousands of miles away from the home so that's the reason we have to stop the war right now not tomorrow thank you
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very much okay Mr Jameson your turn to ask a
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question thank you so much um I'm going to allow myself a multi-part question which you can answer in its entirety or
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answer one part if you like um how do you guys feel about a 40% federal budget cut I've done my uh Ros Pro pie charts
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at my house in my own time and it looks like that's about the minimum that's needed you know our governor is calling for 10% budget production for Texas I
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think 40% is appropriate for the federal government based on my calculations and then also do you feel that true
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Libertarians should vote for non- libertarian candidates a lot of we get very excited about Ron
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Paul um and then lastly what about the there's two bills in the Senate there's one that's H Fus act and there's also
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the love bombs by the president act if you had an opinion on either one of those I
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appreciate uh well yeah obviously I I would see a 40% budget cut being at least a nice start I mean and
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it would certainly I I don't I wouldn't be sitting at this table if I didn't believe that we need much more than a
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40% budget cut I mean we American people really need to wake up to where we're going this Z is shink and if we don't do
34:35
something about it a lot you know as severe as at least that I don't know what else we're going to do
34:43
um true libertarian candidates I have actually have a problem with this I
34:49
uh I am a Libertarian I fully support the party I only donate to libertarian
34:54
candidates I don't vot Republican primaries but I support any person that's working
35:00
towards Liberty for real are
35:08
people there are people and there are people that do that one of the things when I went elected to Senate I would
35:15
now we go into this a little bit later thank you
35:25
Mr the uh budget issue is a little more
35:31
complicated than just cutting but if you go to my website
35:37
you'll find my proposed budget is a zero-based budget which also
35:45
introduces a procedure that members of Congress have to vote on each additional amendment
35:53
that adds more than a certain amount of money to the budget as a separate
35:59
recorded vote the idea is to introduce a procedure that confronts congress with a
36:06
need to not just give the job to a committee but to be responsible for
36:14
billing the budget item by item and of course it takes 40% just to
36:21
balance the budget much less pay down our debt
36:28
thank you Mr Butner yes um I I I touched on this earlier so I'll touch on it
36:34
again I I believe that peaceful change happens slowly and gradually and so what
36:40
I would like to see is a 10% reduction in the size of the federal government um
36:45
at each Congressional cycle every two years um and I would like to see that happen first with unconstitutional
36:52
Departments of government such as the TSA uh the IRS and among
37:02
others now I'd like to spend the rest of my time on that second question because I think it's really important that that you guys understand what I my my
37:08
thoughts on this um the Progressive Movement uh in the in the 19 the early
37:14
1900s um their Progressive Party did not win very many elections I think the most
37:19
ever won was 10% of Congress uh but the progressive movement's goals were
37:24
adopted almost 90% of goals have been adopted uh the libertarian party needs to pursue this too um progressives were
37:31
both in the Republican and the Democratic party infiltrated the highest levels of government libertarian party needs to do the same
37:43
thing okay my name um my answer to this um is stop borrowing as of tomorrow from
37:49
many other countries like China India England Australia you name it all the
37:55
other countries are lending the money for us it's too much to carry on your on
38:02
my shoulder and your shoulder the only thing is we have to make responsible the
38:08
the congressman and Senators who borrowed the money let them pay the money let them stop taking their
38:14
salaries then let's clear the debt first as much as possible then cut 10% every
38:20
year till the dep is gone forever maybe it can be done in 5 years or can be 6
38:27
years so why should we not stop borrowing tomorrow from other countries that's
38:37
it my answer is obviously a 40% reduction in the government would cause
38:42
chaos of the country now that's not to say that we can't aim for a goal to
38:49
reduce the the cost of governments very significant cost of government but I
38:54
think basically any anyone who looks at the the the reality of politics and the
39:00
and the current needs of the country is going to say that that that is a totally
39:07
unworkable solution in the short term we can set it we can set major uh goals for
39:13
the future now as far as U uh backing uh other candidates I I
39:21
think that's a a good idea basically I think that the that if uh candidates and
39:27
other parties uh espouse libertarian principles that it would make sense for
39:32
the Libertarians to endorse those candidates so that uh the libertarian
39:37
vote would not detract from those candidates and okay thank you uh Mr Myers your
39:46
question and then we will proceed on to Mr did I get a chance to conclude the question I thought that was for no I
39:53
didn't U I have closing remark you have closing remk we will do closing right now it's Mr Mr
40:00
Myers turn to ask a question okay you say so we all agree or maybe most of us
40:07
agree that federal government is the largest poller the United States is actually the largest plan our federal
40:15
government however aside from that how can the libertarian policy protect
40:20
Health where air and water are necessarily mixed
40:29
Mr well first of all it's not quite true that the federal government is the
40:34
biggest polluter uh it depends on how you count
40:40
polluters uh the greatest sources of pollution are agriculture uh Auto you know the use of
40:48
automobiles and power plants so uh uh the federal government
40:55
contributes to that in certain ways uh important ways but we have to
41:02
face the fact that there is no constitutional Authority for environmental regulation
41:10
of the kind that we've seen um there may need to be a
41:16
constitutional amendment to provide that Authority I have not propose such an
41:21
amendment but uh I would not be able to support any legislation that did it in
41:27
the absence of such an amendment thank you Mr Butler the first
41:33
thing that we need to understand about state and federal regulations is that they are written for the most part by
41:41
the industries that they're they're seeking to be regulated so when you ask
41:47
an oil company to write the rules on how oil companies ought to work um just doesn't make a whole lot of sense um so
41:54
what and and the another thing to remember about regulations is that they they they put a
42:00
buffer between the responsibility of the polluters and the people that get
42:07
polluted so for example when uh there's an oil spill BP is to blame in the Gulf
42:13
of Mexico BP says well we followed Federal Regulations we didn't do anything wrong and this is a defense
42:19
that they use to try to mitigate uh their responsibility now that case may not be the best example but it does
42:25
happen quite often can I
42:33
have supposed to answer yes Mr R can I have the question please again for well
42:41
basically um I mean the real actual question is is how would you enact a Libertarian policy or what would your
42:48
libertarian policy be to protect Health when air and water are necessarily mixed
42:53
meaning when transport I should should I repase it right
42:59
there for rep all right well when when say for instance that theant are going
43:04
into the air and those pollutants actually come down at a whole different place where you're not able to say
43:10
specifically who caused the pollution in what area
43:17
okay well there is no way I can answer all the questions but there is a
43:22
pollution there is a need for famine there is a need for water there's a need for some dry lands
43:29
will be there so it's hard to Define what exactly one can do for all the
43:34
things you ask for us thank you very much thank you Mr H oh yes well my
43:42
approach to uh to pollution is similar to my approach to just about any problem
43:49
and that is that what is necessary is to get all the parties to the table
43:56
and everybody gain each other because basically that's what's going to happen
44:02
after the legislation is passed everybody's going to go out and try to game it from one side or the other and
44:09
my feeling is what you want is the people from the industry and people who uh who uh are uh the recipients of a
44:17
problem should all sit down at the table and come up with a practical
44:23
solution which has been gained by sophisticated
44:29
people okay well they may or may not be sophisticated people I just remember
44:35
after the tragedy in the Gulf with the oil RG exploding uh but when the third
44:40
US senator came on my TV and said we've known that those guys regulating that industry have been smoking marijuana and
44:46
womanized and drinking ja caners for 30 years now and I'm like well Senator
44:52
you've known for 30 years that I'm like okay so my pledge to you if I'm elected
44:57
your US senator is I won't be caught doing any of those three things you know but it's a tragedy and
45:04
the piece the blowout preventer that was used on that oil well it's supposed to be the deepest one in world history was
45:10
built in 1968 by a Texas company the Dutch came over here and laughed at us and said you still use blowout
45:16
preventers to rely on batteries so let's see I the problem is we have corrupt
45:22
Regulatory Agencies G what what you know let's think what we might be able to do to fix that and for public interest you
45:29
know I'm not a big government bureaucrat I don't want a Skynet computer monitoring might help in my every other
45:35
aspect of my life but you know perhaps the EPA could attempt to not be corrupt
45:40
along with the petroleum industry
45:47
Regulators Mr Rand you are the final questioner and then we'll proceed on to Mr
45:54
Butler briefly explain the
46:01
relation between fractional Reserve banking legal tender and fiat currency
46:09
the problem they present and what you would do about
46:18
it Mr I I do only have one I do only have one minute to cover the history of
46:24
finances um for for you know for those who don't
46:30
know uh I think you know fractional Reserve banking is the process uh
46:36
whereby Banks make loans based on a small percentage of security that they
46:41
keep in the bank um so they basically Lo they're creating money so to speak um C
46:48
you know I want to say first of all that I'm not an expert on this issue but one thing I would like to say about it is
46:54
that I I believe believe that we need to put the choice of what legal tender is back in the hands of the citizens if
47:03
people we have regulations in place now that you know we cannot use gold and silver as currency if we choose to um so
47:12
let's let uh people decide for themselves what is valuable as a as a way to trade goods and uh if that's a
47:19
green back if that's a handwritten note from Mr Roland if that's whatever it is they see fit um I believe that that's
47:25
the best way to move us to a sound
47:31
economy let's put Choice back in
47:38
currency I do not have much experience on currency or for economy or something like that you
47:46
got any more questions on my my education that only surgery and
47:52
medicine I'll be glad to answer any of your questions T thank
48:02
you my feeling towards banking is that the important thing is that the the
48:08
banks are handling their customers money then they need to be careful in the use
48:15
of that the banks have gotten in trouble in recent years because they have
48:20
expanded into areas that are basically for their own account and uh
48:26
and have uh felt the consequences of that and the whole economy has felt the consequences of that so my feeling is
48:33
that the important thing is that the bankers uh keep to uh the their basic
48:40
business of banking as long as they are dealing with
48:45
public yes uh I'll claim to be a planetary expert sure I'll take the opposite approach doctor um fools like
48:52
Paul Krugman is still champion in the Keynesian theories that uh government spending ever increasing government
48:58
spending and printing an unlimited amount of new money quantitative easing is how we grow the economy I I disagree
49:05
with that completely if if John morer pays were still alive today I put a hit out on that guy that's so completely
49:12
wrong um weat money money by decree that means Ben beri sits there and makes it on his computer and sends it to whomever
49:19
he lives that's wrong um we have a bill pending the US Congress I believe pass
49:25
the house it's a HR 207 and it's going to the US Senate that
49:31
would allow states to create their own currencies and take other forms of payment for taxes to the cing um so I
49:39
would support that it may make a d this time for more glorious Arrival all of you are invited to Washington at my
49:45
expense for my victory party it'll be the best one ever on me including your airfare don't
49:52
ask me how I get the money
49:58
all right well let me try to do this in one minute and this is going to be tough there's actually three things wrong with the Federal Reserve and that's fractional Reserve banking open market
50:05
operations and the the the fact that they artificially control interest rates and I'll go through each of those for
50:10
the doctor's sake so he'll have some of this the next time he's interviewed the idea being with fractional Reserve baking that is the idea that the banks
50:16
don't have to back all the assets that they loan out and right now it's set to nine I believe nine times they can nine
50:23
times the amount of money that they put in that's creating amount of money out of f a and that's thinning the amount of money that's in your pocket or in your
50:28
savings artificially controlling interest rates means that people are not going if you artificially keep interest rates low people are not going to save
50:35
their money you want people to save money because saving money is good for an economy and it's good for people when people don't save money they take out
50:41
loans that's good for banks and it's good for corporations but it's not good for you open market operations is the
50:46
idea that the Federal Reserve can buy any asset that it wants and since it's a secret organization you don't get to know what assets they are so they can
50:52
buy really CRA crappy toxic assets and keep them on their balance sheet and they you won't know what they purchased
50:59
but they'll just put it down as a trillion dollars that's what's wrong with the Federal
51:11
Reserve it all thank you thank you we we will now proceed to closing statements
51:17
each of the candidates will now be given two minutes to close we will start with Mr Butler go on down the line and
51:24
conclude with Mr Roland so Mr Butler please sure uh first I'd like to say
51:29
again that we need to uh restore the American dream and that dream is an
51:35
opportunity for Americans to take care of their own families with dignity and peace at home and abroad wanted to
51:42
mention briefly a particular issue that we worked on last year in the Texas legislature I say we uh it was uh myself
51:49
and a few of the students at the University of Texas if some of them are here tonight I'll Point them out to you
51:55
uh but we worked on an A bill against the TSA the Transportation Security Administrations uh their goal is to
52:03
ensure the freedom of movement for people and commerce that's in quotes uh
52:08
they accomplished that goal by stopping people at airports to eradiate them and physically probe their bodies with
52:14
illegal and unconstitutional searches um we we we fought hard um to
52:20
try to um uh get rid of that ability in the state of Texas to give law
52:26
enforcement in Texas the ability to arrest people for molesting others uh including uh federal
52:32
agents uh now what I would like to say is that I believe that the best person
52:38
to bring these issues to bear um in this debate against Dost duur by the way was
52:44
the guy who killed our bill to end the TSA in Texas um I believe that John J
52:51
Meers would be the best person on this table to do that so I'd like to endorse
53:03
him I uh I entered this race uh before he did I did not know that he'd be
53:09
running now that I know that he is I support him
53:19
100% And I would like to invite you tonight if you support John J Meyers if you support p di for chair at 10 p.m.
53:27
we're having a party in Rim site
53:34
8:15 hello once again my name is Dr s kapal Raju I'm the first naturalized
53:41
citizen from India or from the around the world to contest for un SE to help
53:48
the needy people of America their need is very important the
53:53
health insurance the most fundamental right of every person on this Earth and
53:59
also in USA I will support for that I'm ready to take up any other Senator
54:05
senatorial candidate tonight or November 6 about healthare need so many things we
54:12
can do 40 Millions have no insurance 40 million homelessness is there we had to
54:19
clear all these things to cut down the crime the crime is very hard noway
54:25
because of the hunger homelessness lack of health insurance he provide all these
54:31
things the country will turn around if you elect me today I'll be the
54:37
first once again naal citizen the history of United States Senate on
54:42
November 6th I'll make Taxas half red
54:48
half gold that is gold is a part of our symbol of libert party now the the total
54:56
redness should be cut into half gold half right that's
55:02
my theory how I why I'm to become the next since I I'm married here got three
55:11
children all were born here and seven grandchildren Indo American Family Hindu
55:16
Christian family there's no difference between any religion I support all religions I preach already made contact
55:24
with many many other States including okah Illinois and
55:31
Indiana and I wear different dresses different hats to other people convince
55:38
them to elect the elect me as the United Senator thank
55:48
you again my name is Wayne Huffman uh I am uh running for this position as a
55:56
sort of as a retired attorney uh businessman uh I have uh to the extent
56:02
that uh I practice law as largely as a negotiator and in business transactions
56:09
and I guess it's sort of from that framework that uh that I approach problems my feeling is that one of the
56:17
most important things uh is and from a standpoint of Liberty is to make Society
56:24
simpler so that people actually understand what it is that is happening
56:30
I I look at uh have contracts thrown at me every day on the computer uh in the
56:37
mail and they are just undigestible I've uh had uhit just about every type of
56:45
financial license as well as a law license and I find the contracts to be
56:50
undigestible and certainly be undigestible by the average person so my my feeling is that we need to spend uh a
56:58
lot of effort in simplifying government and I I believe that the reason
57:03
government has gotten so complex is that it's basically one special interest that
57:10
is thrown against the other and each one is gaming the system so I what I would
57:15
like to see is uh a congressional procedure whereby the
57:22
parties are all brought in and basically uh everybody including uh
57:29
experts uh in gaming the system to tell how people are likely to do an in run
57:36
around regulations and to try to make the regulations is realistic and as
57:41
simple as possible thank
57:49
you well I may not be an expert in every category for the Constitution
57:55
to all the bills pending before this but I'm pretty close um you know I know what
58:00
I'm talking about I research the issues I had a lot of time to catch up on Games of Thrones both
58:06
seasons I did that in a 48 hour marathon so there's about 10 different plot lines and if youall need those explain I can
58:13
do that Happ um so we have critical issues facing us the country is bankrupt
58:20
operates without a budget for four years all these things need to be fixed these are massive issues we have veterans waiting for two years to hear back on
58:26
their benefits government doesn't work for veterans it doesn't work for us U I go there to vote as a classic Harry
58:34
Brown libertarian uh he's that's my inspiration that all of his values and
58:40
principles on government all his beautiful sound bites it's not a tribute
58:45
campaign I'm money but that I was just thinking about his books and his Works last night and that's really where I
58:50
came to the party and those values are core to me min government truly minimal
58:56
government that's not in your healthare that's not in your business running your small business that's not doing every
59:02
possible thing to micromanager life with Skynet because that's really what they're building um the the new uh
59:09
paycheck Fairness Act requires that all employers that if it passes would have to report all your wages your ethnicity
59:15
your national origin which is different from your ethnicity your social all to the to the government every year to be
59:21
analyzed to see if it's equal so we can all become this great androgynous Utopia that the
59:27
Democrats are wishing for it's Insanity we have to stop that there have no right to moralize to the rest of those when
59:34
they can't balance the books it's absurd to hear that I can run an active campaign I have money on the table today
59:40
I've already promly run my mouth and to this debate to promise each of eleg getes a yard sign in a sticker and so
59:48
I'll do that if I'm the nominee and I'll make them colorful and I'll make them
59:53
pledge to the party and
1:00:00
best um I know a lot of you guys I I know I mean I look around the room and I
1:00:06
see a lot of people that I know and it's it's great to see there are four people
1:00:11
though who I've been working with the last week to make up the team that we have it's going to be the going to start
1:00:16
out in Dallas and that's uh Marcus Kevin Jordan and Curry and they raise your
1:00:23
hands These Guys these guys are fantastic friends and we having a lot of
1:00:29
fun doing this and we're going to keep working what we' like to do is do what we're doing in Dallas and get a lot more
1:00:35
of you guys from around the state in touch with these guys so we can send everybody as many yard signes as we need
1:00:42
to to have those distributed so we want to start a snowballing effect we want to get videos made which we've already made
1:00:47
professional commercials that can be shown on cable TV which we had playing out in the lobby we've done a lot of
1:00:53
other things and and we plan on doing a lot of radio advertisements we plan on being on the radio plan on doing a lot
1:00:58
of interviews plan on taking this on head on and luckily I have such great friends that are so involved in this and
1:01:04
have dedicated themselves to this that we're really going to do something special this time I also hope to make
1:01:10
more friends with more of you guys so that we can do that around Texas and the only way that we're going to succeed is a campaign we have to understand this is
1:01:19
if we can get a message out there that's going to resonate with a lot of people who not really been in involved or are
1:01:25
really disenfranchised with Republicans and Democrats I think I can get that message out there well enough where
1:01:30
those people go wow this guy's great and if I can get that message to you you guys share that message with your
1:01:36
friends if we can get that to snowball and get people all around the state to help us set up yard signs Etc and get
1:01:42
people out involved I think we can do this I think we can make a heck of an impact and we'll definitely spread a
1:01:48
very libertarian message in the best light
1:01:53
possible
1:02:04
as many of you are probably aware I've been spending a great deal of the last few years Building Bridges across the
1:02:10
state with all kinds of Civic groups in particular with the Tea Party Movement
1:02:16
I'm well known to them well regarded frequently invited to speak to their rallies and
1:02:23
events and many of them although they're now supporting Ted Cruz have indicated
1:02:28
that if Cruz is not the nominee that they intend to vote for
1:02:34
me however yesterday at a meeting of the austan chapter of the Federalist Society
1:02:41
a society of conservative and libertarian lawyers where of course candidates
1:02:48
always have a chance to introduce themselves the vice chair of the Travis
1:02:54
County Republican party indicated that fact said that if Ted Cruz is not the nominee
1:03:01
he intends to vote for me and several other guys within earshot at that and neighboring tables uh noted
1:03:10
ascent and one of the speakers it was a debate was apparently a civil
1:03:15
libertarian Democrat also gave me a shout out indicating that uh uh he might vote for
1:03:25
me so these civil libertarian Democrats are in many ways dissatisfied with their
1:03:32
slate of candidates uh so we could have an opportunity this year to
1:03:39
exceed single digits perhaps by a significant amount and I can't say that the sum of
1:03:48
this support wouldn't rub off on another libertarian but I'm a well-known Factor
1:03:54
and they're they're I'm already known to
1:04:03
them okay thank you I'd like the audience to just take one more moment and thank all six candidates
1:04:22
for okay as from Terence we're going to try something a little different um myself and Michael coin are going to
1:04:28
pass out the these are the ballots for tonight only uh I'm going to start on this row and Michael's going to go down
1:04:33
this row I would ask that we're going to pass them out only take them if you are a delegate please again on the honor
1:04:39
System you need to make two marks on your ballot you can put both your marks
1:04:45
next to one candidate or you can put both your marks next to Nota we're going to do this as quickly as possible once
1:04:51
we have a final vote tally and then pass them into the Center Michael will come up the center I will come up the center
1:04:56
we'll collect them quick count them here and then we will proceed to have the final portion of the debate with just
1:05:02
the two candidates question of the candidates
1:05:19
no
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