Interview with Congressman Ron Paul
Ron Paul is a physician and former congressman who represented Texas in the United States House of Representatives. He ran for president as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and 2012.
The Free Man
Max Raskin: What newspapers, blogs, or websites do you read every day?
Ron Paul: I try to read and look at as many different ones as possible. When I'm looking for more precise information, I use ZeroHedge. Lew Rockwell, I use a lot, and anything that's libertarian-leaning I will be looking at.
But also, I like to get up slowly and get ready for my own program. I want to know what's going on in the financial markets, so I spend a lot of time there. I also want to know what the major networks are doing – that’s just to keep me informed on how they're spinning things because I'm trying to stay up to date for my Liberty Report.
MR: Do you still read physical newspapers?
RP: Well, I miss them. I can remember times going back and forth from Washington when things were a little bit more normal. The lounges would stack a lot of papers and they were usually courtesy – they might have six or eight newspapers there, including foreign papers. I usually took one of each – whether it was Barron's, the Wall Street Journal, or Washington Post. I had a subconscious thought, “I have to find at least one bit of information in each paper so that I come back with a little more knowledge.” Usually that would take care of my two-and-a-half-hour trip. I was raised looking at newspapers. If there's a newspaper and I happen to see one, I take it just for old time's sake.
And if I was impressed with something, I might take notes and write a little bit. I wouldn't write a major article, but I'd write a lot of notes to myself under those circumstances, which I do now if I'm looking at my various sites on my computer. I still like to read hard copies. I do a lot of printing – probably more than the average person that uses the computer.
MR: You've known all the big names in the libertarian and Austrian schools. Is there a libertarian periodical that you miss or loved the most?
RP: I probably don't have one that stands out because I always figured I'd get some good out of all of them, but The Freeman was certainly helpful. And anything Leonard Read did, I was interested in because he had a lot of influence on me. Not only on the philosophy, but his gentleness, his approach, and his demeanor on how to spread the message. I would never miss reading any of his articles and his pamphlets that he put out.
But other than that, there isn't one that I would say was so much better than the next 10. I always looked for some good out of every one of them. Sometimes, even back when we were reading newspapers, you still couldn't get enough. In a way, the Internet has helped a lot.
At the same time though, we have to be very, very cautious about how the Internet is used because it's not always our friend. I’m concerned about that, but I still find the Internet tremendously helpful for us to get encyclopedic-type information, because I imagine most of that turns out pretty accurate. But when it gets into politics and social orders and all this stuff, boy, you better be careful.
The Father, Son, and Murray Rothbard
MR: You mentioned Leonard Read – was there anyone you just loved talking to the most? Murray Rothbard? Mises?
RP: Well, obviously Murray because I knew him so well and he worked with the Mises Institute, and I helped get that started. The conferences with Murray there always were very entertaining and very educational. But there was somebody else who got his PhD under Mises who was not as well-known because he doesn't have a gigantic textbook – that's Hans Sennholz who was a teacher at Grove City College. I got to know him real well. Matter of fact, he attended the very first conference that was held, the Gold Conference in New Orleans, [Jim] Blanchard's conference, when Blanchard was promoting legalization of gold. That's where I met Sennholz and got to enjoy visiting with him whenever I could.
MR: Peter Boettke and Joe Salerno were both influenced by him, right?
RP: Salerno, I know for sure. I don't know Boettke.
Sennholz had a lot of students because he taught at Grove City. Many of them ended up in Washington as interns for me or worked in my congressional office. Matter of fact, I think there's some still down there working with Thomas Massie.
Ayn Rand Paul
MR: Would you ever share papers or articles with Rand? What would you say your influence on your son was?
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