Sunday, January 20, 2013

Doug Wead on His Secret Taping of George W. Bush, Rand Paul, Compromise and Much More



This Week's Guest
Doug Wead

Wow, this is the longest edition of the Robert Wenzel Show that I have ever posted. It is one hour and 10 minutes long, and yet I feel the biggest weakness of the show is that I didn't ask enough follow up questions. There were many answers that Wead provided that truly shocked me. But rather than do follow ups to those answers, I chose to  move on because I had a lot of questions on many topics and wanted to get Doug on the record on as many of those topics as possible, rather than get bogged down on one topic. I'm sure for most it will be obvious where his views are not libertarian,  and how much he is willing to compromise (He brought Jesus into the discussion twice to justify compromise!). By moving the discussion along, I was able to get Doug to comment on many more topics, from why he believes George W. Bush had Saddam Hussein's sons killed, to why it was strategically important for Rand Paul to visit Israel at the present time, to how many libertarians he thinks will actually succeed at his multi-level marketing push. Doug also seems during the interview to be insulting toward Muslims and in my view, perhaps, condescending toward evangelicals, but judge for yourself.

Doug is a very polished communicator, but I believe many of his points are so far from the understandings that many libertarians have about philosophy, ethics, politics and history, that this interview will prove very controversial.

BTW, in the Wrap of with Rossini, Chris Rossini mentions a rebuttal to the view held by Doug that "even Jesus compromised," as evidenced by the "Give unto Caesar" bible story. That rebuttal is here: Give to Caesar; Give to God by Jason Hommel







Direct Link

2013 Interviews:
2012 Interviews:

10 comments:

  1. LewRockwell.com has a few better articles on the Caesar issue then Hommel's including:

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/bevis1.html

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/barr-j1.1.1.html

    http://lewrockwell.com/orig13/hathaway1.1.1.html

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  2. Great interview, thank you. I would love to hear you two delve into those topics discussed even more deeply.

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  3. Sorry to be such a downer on this one but the "Render unto Caesar..." passage is another joke from the Flavian Caesars.

    For the position of the Pharisees, see Josephus, _Antiquities of the Jews_, Book 13, Chapter 10, Section 5. The Pharisees are undermining Hyrcanus and the Purity of the Hasmoneans as legitimate High Priests. This fight continues through a Ruler of the Hasmonean Line named "Alexander Jannaeus" and beyond. The Romans use the Pharisees and others to the detriment of the Hasmoneans. Then the Romans just take over.

    The question then becomes, "How do we make the Jews worship Caesar without the Jews even knowing it?" One way would be to take the Heroic Literature already there (See above), dismember it and rewrite with a new meaning. The Flavians created a Roman friendly (When a Roman soldiers conscripts you to carry his pack 1 mile, carry it 2...), TAX PAYING Savior who sees into the future to a Caesar named Titus (Son of the Father Vespasian), who surrounds Jerusalem with siege works, lays waste to the Galilean villages and levels the Temple. "This generation shall not pass...", then, can only applies to one man - TITUS.

    Thus the joke. Caesar is Lord over All. He already owns the world. If you give to Caesar that which is Caesar's, you are merely giving him what he already owns. It was his to begin with.

    Lookit. It's already depressing enough seeing the Rise of New Caesarism today. I know how it ends and it's not pretty. At least know who it is you worship.

    CW

    PS: Joe Atwill, _Caesar's Messiah_, ISBN 1-56975-457-8 for a good start.

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  4. For someone who's spent such a long time in the political arena, Mr. Wead doesn't seem to have a well thought out set of philosophical principles or political positions.

    I'd like to hear jan helfeld give him the socratic treatment.

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  5. I believe also that Congress mandated the use of gold when selling arms to belligerents after WW1 as they viewed one of the principals reasons for entry the amount of money owed to US banks by belligerents in the war, specifically Great Britain.

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  6. This is really the first time that I've heard Wead speak candidly at any length on his political career. On issues important to his constituents, like the Bushes, like the evangelicals, Wead sounded sharp. But press him on topics that carry personal meaning for him, he grows wobbly and opaque. But he's made his bread and bones on being a PR man, who's all about massaging and spinning issues important to his clients. And what is hard-core Reagan anyway? Libertarian rhetoric with FDR spending? This is the first time that I have actually liked Wead. I thought that the segment on the MLM scheme tiresome.

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  7. Let me go ahead and state the obvious/elephant in the room.

    Amway is a controversial company, via its MLM stance...which Wead seems to distance himself from....but not the business model in that now he's doing the milkshake thing.

    It's a credibility issue for many people whether you think that's legitimate or not. You can make a case both ways.

    In the context though of his historical role with the GOP and his relationship with Benton and Rand it would be natural for more questions to arise as to his goals, aspirations, & philosophy.

    You don't get to the level he attained in Amway without communication and persuasion skills. So if he wants to mask some of his those things he obviously can do a good job of it.

    Overall, I think Wenzel did a great job on the interview. He kept it moving and allowed for a good amount of insight on Wead. I also appreciated the FDR/gold comments.

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  8. Regarding Mr. Wead bringing up Jesus' "give ceaser what is ceasers", I don't think his point had anything to do with the interpretation of that yet that Jesus was being "political".
    I agree with an anonymous, the mlm segment was definitely tiresome.

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  9. Good job, Wead. You have exposed evil.

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  10. It seems to me that Wead is the type of guy that doesn't want to be too libertarian to not fit in with the politician class.

    I found it interesting to hear him talk about gold payments to China. It's my impression that state owned Chinese companies are getting first crack at resource development in the newly opened middle eastern and African markets for bankrolling western governments.

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