Latest / Monero Talk / Libertarian Vice Presidential Candidate Mike Ter Maat is Pro Monero | EPI 319
Transcript
- Doug Alright, Mike, how's it goin', man? Mike ter Maat Yeah, good. It's good to be with you. Thanks for making time. Doug Yeah, thanks for doing an early morning. I don't know. Are you an early morning guy? Is this normal for you or... Mike ter Maat Oh, this isn't bad. But this is about the leading edge. Any earlier than 730 in the morning would have caused serious disruption. So I think this is perfect timing. Doug Yeah, yeah, me too. I'm not really a morning guy. This is this is this is my early morning, you know, doing something active by 730 other than that. Yeah. Mike ter Maat That's good. Any, any later means I've overslept. Like I say, any, any earlier, I would have had to have started planning like 10 days in advance. So this is good. Doug So does that make you a night owl? Are you up late at night doing libertarian things? Mike ter Maat Uh, it depends on what you mean by late at night. Uh, you know, I'll go until midnight once in a while But you know not not typically being on the road, you know campaigning like we are means You don't have a lot of control over your schedule. Mike ter Maat I haven't been on the road for a few days now so life has been fairly leisurely but the past uh several weeks as you might imagine Has been a little bit erratic Doug ciela let's get into that if you can a quickly introduce yourself a lot of our viewers may not even know who you are on the road on the road for what what are you up to Mike ter Maat I am the vice presidential candidate, the nominee of the libertarian party. I don't know if everyone in your audience is familiar with the libertarian party, but we are the third party in the United States. Mike ter Maat As you might imagine, we bristle when people talk about, oh, you know, we need a third party. We're not just all third party, we're the third party, right? We're the ones that were on the ballot in all 50 states last cycle. Mike ter Maat We're the ones that come in third place. And we are the ones that believe that if we do a good job, we can get enough attention to force Republican and Democratic candidates, not only at the presidential level, but at other levels as well, to take into consideration our views. Doug How's that going? I mean, being a third party candidate has never been easy. No, describe that a little bit. Well, what does it like? I mean, you guys, obviously, I guess you're trying to get on the ballot in all 50 states, right? Doug Yeah. Mike ter Maat you got to work hard to get on the ballot because Republicans and Democrats work hard to keeping you off the ballot, which seems a little bit weird to a lot of people. Frankly, it seems a little bit weird to me. Mike ter Maat But I suppose from, you know, a rational duopolist, you can imagine why someone would try to keep you off the ballot. So there is quite a bit of work to that. In some states, you have to collect a lot of signatures. Mike ter Maat In some states, it's a lot of money and a lot of signatures. So it is not clear at all that we'll be on every state ballot this year like we were last time. Doug the snafus you're running into. Mike ter Maat New York State requires 60 ,000 signatures in six weeks. Doug Wow, within a six -week window. Mike ter Maat Yeah, that's exactly right. And if you're paying for it, we try not to pay for it, right? We try to muster enough volunteers to take care of this, but that's a lot of volunteers to get 60 ,000 signatures. Mike ter Maat If you're paying for it, professional services will charge upwards of $10, some more than $10 per valid signature, a valid signature. We need 45 ,000, we say 60 ,000. Because as you might imagine, there's a lot of signatures you collect that don't turn out to be valid for whatever reason. Mike ter Maat But $10 is, you know, you're talking about a half a million dollars. That's a tremendous amount of money to a third party like we are because we just, you know, we don't raise money like Republicans and Democrats because people don't believe that we have a chance to win. Mike ter Maat So there's a chicken and egg that goes on there with regard to raising money. Doug Are you guys raising a decent amount compared to years past for the libertarian party? No! Mike ter Maat I'm quite grumpy about that. It's been a very difficult time. Look, I'm not suggesting we're not raising any money at all. But you pulled a string out of my back as someone who's on the ballot. And of course, I'm going to tell you we're not raising enough money, right? Mike ter Maat I would never tell you that we're awash in funds, and we never are as the third party. So it is something that we constantly have to work at. I think this year is probably particularly challenging because there is so much revolving around the Republican Party, revolving around the Democratic Party. Mike ter Maat We have another competitor in Robert Kennedy Jr. and the usual panoply of others, right? So it's a challenging period as it always is. Doug why should anybody donate to your party give it give it give us the pitch what do you guys stand for what is it what is the platform Mike ter Maat I think the Libertarian Party aligns with American's typical political principles and values better than the Republican Party, the Democratic Party does. And I say that fairly objectively. And just to give you some examples, I used to be a Republican, you know, several hundred thousand years ago, right? Mike ter Maat When I believed that party stood up for fiscal conservatism, free markets, free trade, right? A relatively deregulated environment, pro -growth economics, right? Robust, efficient growth, economically speaking. Mike ter Maat And I think you would have to objectively admit that the Republican Party and those ideas have sort of gone in two different directions. That's not really the Republican Party of today. So if you believe in lower spending, less taxes, stronger currency that you and I are going to discuss, less inflation. Mike ter Maat We're proponents of getting rid of the Federal Reserve System lock stock and barrel and replacing it with a set of rules to control monetary policy, not the discretionary policy we have today. So if you believe in all those things, you know, you are a libertarian. Mike ter Maat And I would argue that you should not be voting for the Republican Party unless you really mean it. When you vote for a party, you send the signal that that party is on the right track, right? And I would say the same thing about the Democratic Party. Mike ter Maat Most of the people in my family are Democrats. Having joined that party, believing it would be a party that would stand up for your First Amendment rights, right? That you'd be able to speak your mind, say anything you want, that it would be a party of social liberalism, that it would stand up for any views that you wanted to have, that it would be a peace party, that that would be a party that will lean against interventionism and wars and our foreign policy. Mike ter Maat Again, I think you would have to admit that that party is left behind most of those ideas. And those are ideas that the Libertarian Party continues to stand up for. So I would argue that if you like a fairly traditional set of American policies, we are, after all, the party that is the philosophical descendants of the people that wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Mike ter Maat You belong with the Libertarian Party. Stop wasting your vote and vote for your principles is my message. Doug Now, even within the libertarian party, right, there's some disagreement on what, you know, the platform should be. I was at the libertarian national convention. And to be honest, I didn't pay too much attention to what was happening on the stage in terms of the debate between the different presidential candidates. Doug I was there to kind of talk to people about Monero in particular, and privacy coins and get their take on that. But I did notice there was quite a bit of contention. And I think even with the outcome, it was a there wasn't a mass consensus that everybody was like, Yeehaw, we you know, we're behind this ticket. Doug I saw there was kind of like kind of a split in the party. Can you get into that a little bit for the viewers that haven't really been following the libertarian party? And Mike ter Maat Sure, for the sake of your viewers, it's an open convention. It's not like in the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, where it is settled before you get to convention. Doug Which is a beautiful thing. I love the Libertarian National Convention. It shows you what a convention is supposed to be like. It's quite contentious in all the right ways. Mike ter Maat Well, conventions for the Republicans and Democrats used to be alike, right? But now they have primaries that settle this largely, if not, but for dotting the I's and crossing the T's. It is largely settled before you get to the conventions and typically months in advance of their conventions. Mike ter Maat And so their conventions are merely coronations. To be fair, the Democratic convention will be an open convention this time, but it certainly looks as though everyone is coalescing around the vice president Kamala Harris. Mike ter Maat So I don't expect that to be contentious. But in our party, at our convention, everything that you would normally see in a Republican set of primaries or a Democratic party set of primaries, all of that contentiousness that might play out over months is concentrated into one 10 hour period. Mike ter Maat So imagine all of the hopes and aspirations of individual candidates and all of the teams behind those individual candidates plays out quite dramatically in one day. And so naturally there's gonna be a highs and lows and oh, you know, my favorite guy didn't win and all of that. Mike ter Maat As far as policy goes, there's- Doug What were some of the big issues that were most contentious? Mike ter Maat I was about to say, honestly, there really aren't much that's different. A couple of the candidates had slightly different positions on immigration, for example, or in my case, I had a policy that was a little bit different on medical freedom, but there really wasn't much that's very different. Mike ter Maat There are stylistic differences. I don't wanna suggest that those don't matter, right? But as far as, if everyone wrote down in a piece of paper, yeses and nos and even descriptions of their policies, I think that you would say, gee, there really doesn't seem to be all that big a difference unless you were really inside baseball and a hardcore libertarian, you might not notice all that much difference at all. Mike ter Maat That's not to say that we didn't argue. Here's an example is in a financial space. We would argue about how to sunset social security. In other words, we all agree we wanna get rid of social security. Mike ter Maat It's a matter of how to do it. Now to a Republican and a Democrat that does, wow, get rid of social security is a big deal. After that, arguing about how seems like a relatively subtle thing, but to libertarians, it matters. Mike ter Maat So the big argument inside of our party is if you shut it down right away, do you honor your obligations or what some would call obligations to people who are already in the system? I, for example, would argue that, yeah, you can't screw people twice. Mike ter Maat It's bad enough that you forced them into the system. You can't then force them out of the system and not give them something, right? I would argue that if you're already receiving payments, you should be allowed to stay in. Mike ter Maat If that's your preference, I would give people an option if they wanna get out, maybe for a lump sum. But if you're already in the system, you can continue to ride that train as much as I don't like the train, but I would shut down immediately the idea of the government forcing young people into the system. Mike ter Maat I have an ethical problem, not just a math problem, not just an economics, not just a financial problem. I've got an ethical problem with the government forcing young people into a system that promises them a crummy rate of return, at best a crummy rate of return, right? Mike ter Maat I just think that having designed the system badly, having designed it as a Ponzi scheme and therefore having this huge overhang of elderly retirees that you have to service, that's not really a good excuse to force more young people into it. Mike ter Maat I get as a mathematics problem that is how the pyramid scheme is maintained. I'm not suggesting I don't get it. I just don't think it's the right thing to do. Doug Mmm, mmm, mmm. Mike ter Maat Whereas others who say just end the whole thing and, you know, screw it. Doug driver so yeah i i i know uh... yeah i like you said i think uh... medical freedom was it was a big thing that you guys were contentious over uh... i think the masking backs mandates was it was a thing that came up right that was that there's a big issue Mike ter Maat There's, there's no contentiousness there. We all, there was no disagreement. I think everyone is fairly absolutist on the idea that the government should not have the right to force you to take a vaccine. Mike ter Maat And to illustrate that point, I would go so far as to say this is one of my favorites. You know, a thought experiment. Imagine that there were a perfect vaccine. Imagine that there were a vaccine that was so good that would guarantee you that you would survive. Mike ter Maat But if you didn't take it 100% chance you're going to die. Right? Perfectly shuts down transmissibility. It's been tested. There are no side effects. It's perfectly free. Should the government have the right to coerce you or even to pay you to take the vaccine? Mike ter Maat And for a libertarian, the answer has got to be no. That this isn't a matter of science that a vaccine can never be good enough to give the government the authority to force you to take it. If you want to take it, knock yourself out. Mike ter Maat Right? I'm not trying to suggest that I'm against the vaccine. I'm not anti -vax. If, you know, if you want to take 15 of them, you know, you do you. But the government should not be in the business of, of coercing us to do so. Mike ter Maat And behind. Okay. Doug that obviously sounds very reasonable and I would agree with all of that. I guess I had heard the opposite with regards to Chase Oliver that he, you know, was publicly supporting mask and Vax mandates at some point. Mike ter Maat No, not as okay. Okay. No, that's clear. Yeah, I don't believe that. That's true. Someone was mad at Chase once because he had done a video where he was saying, Oh my God, you know, we're all being required to wear masks. Mike ter Maat And people say that, you know, we shouldn't even be getting together for Thanksgiving. And he was making the point I'm getting together with my family for Thanksgiving. I think the government technically the government even would have been mad at him for that because he had more than 10 people in the room. Mike ter Maat This is going back a few years. Yeah, we all remember that. And he was saying, you know, I got people in my family who are nervous about that sort of thing, but we're in mass to do it. And he wore a mask to make the video kind of Doug Oh, okay, okay, okay. Mike ter Maat little bit tongue in it was a little funny. But then people accused him of being like, Oh, you're pro mask. And it's like, you know, you can't win. That wasn't his point at all. Doug So how about the other candidates, right? We have, we have RFK jr. We have Trump and they've kind of been, you know, uh, pandering, I'd say to, to the libertarians. Um, what is your, what is your take on, on those candidates? Mike ter Maat Look, each, let me try to be as optimistic and kind as possible, at least at the onset here. Doug no be yeah i don't know it is we want to tame it because you know cruel and uh yeah over the top is you left our way there okay Mike ter Maat our way there. I think each one has certain libertarian instincts, certain anti -establishment instincts that are admirable and worth fostering as far as Trump and Kennedy go. There is something there that I think you could work with. Mike ter Maat It would be hard to say the same thing about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And look, I need to hasten to add, I am not suggesting that just because these people are not libertarian, that they are in some sense evil or unpatriotic or idiots. Mike ter Maat I don't mean it like that at all. I think their policies stink and I don't mind saying that. And I think their policies are bad for the United States. But with regard to President Trump, there are obviously aspects of his attitude that are quite anti -establishment. Mike ter Maat And that's, I think, to be fostered. I think that that's a good thing. My disappointment with President Trump is that he doesn't follow through on pro -market ideas, on deregulatory reform. He's not a free trader internationally. Mike ter Maat Obviously, he's a protectionist. I don't like that at all. He has not taken steps to rein in the Federal Reserve System. In fairness, that's a difficult thing to do. And I think it requires a libertarian -minded White House, lowercase L, libertarian -minded White House, that's really committed and understands the importance of the system of monetary policy that we have. Mike ter Maat And that's a tough thing to come by. But you get why I'm disappointed with President Trump so often. And regarding Mr. Kennedy, whom I've met a couple of times, obviously a very smart guy, good guy, I think, I get the impression that he is at his core, not so much libertarian as anti -certain things about the state he doesn't like that he wants to fix. Mike ter Maat In other words, he's anti -vaccine mandate because he doesn't like the vaccines and the way they're developed, and the government's role in that development, with which I agree wholeheartedly. The government's role in the development of the vaccines was absolutely a crap show, right? Mike ter Maat Just a mess with all kinds of bad incentives and bad results, bad communication, in some cases, dishonest communication with horrible incentives for bad individual behavior. He's right about all of that. Mike ter Maat And I recommend everyone read his book. Doug Fauci book. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have. Mike ter Maat I haven't finished reading it. Doug I haven't read it either. I skimmed through it a little bit. It's a big book. Mike ter Maat It's a big book and a tough read. And good for him for writing it. It was amazing. Yeah. And a real public service, in my view, to write that book, everything. Yeah, everything about that is is terrific. Mike ter Maat But that doesn't make you a libertarian, because it gives me the impression, it opens the following question. Were it not for all of that bad government behavior with the vaccine mandate be okay? In other words, go back to my earlier thought experiment. Doug Mm -hmm. Mike ter Maat If the vaccine were perfect, would you still hate the vaccine mandates? That's what it comes down to. Doug So he's not against it for the principle of liberty to make your own choices with regards to your right. That's the impression I get. And I would say this is a good question. Mike ter Maat same thing about his his regulatory attitude, which is he does want to disentangle government regulation from corporate environment, you know, he wants to pull that apart. Beautiful, excellent. That's exactly what we want. Mike ter Maat But I get the impression that the reason he wants that is so that the government can do a better job of knuckling under the corporation. Right. Doug At the end of the day, he's a big government guy, right? I feel like... Mike ter Maat That's exactly what I believe that is core. And I don't, you know, like I say, I don't mean to suggest that he's an income poop or that he doesn't understand how the world works because he does. But I believe that he is prone to turning to solutions that include better government behavior. Mike ter Maat He's a good government guy is what I would say. He wants government to work better. Whereas a libertarian has thrown in the towel and the government no longer has patience for it and just wants it to work less, not better. Doug Two things that kind of like threw me off with regards to, oh, this is what, you know, I thought he was more libertarian. He's pro reparations and Mike ter Maat problem. That's a problem. Doug Yeah. Where do you stand on that? I imagine you're not pro reparations. Mike ter Maat No, no, no, I'm not for a variety of, not the least of which is the practical matter. Let's get to the ethics in a moment, but as a practical matter, you know, how do you decide? I didn't even ask you reparations for whom, but you would have to figure that out, which means figuring out what the motivation is, what it is that you're repairing, what is it you're correcting for, right? Mike ter Maat And then how that plays out, if you're correcting for something that happened in the past, in the distant past, and the individuals who are affected are no longer with us, for example, then what are you talking about, you know, somehow passing on funds to the descendants of individual, you know, that's just, it's an ethical problem, but it's also a practical problem. Mike ter Maat And on the ethical side, you've got to say, well, you know, who is it that's funding this? Who is paying for, you know, with all due respect, unless you and I actually engaged in this bad behavior that requires correcting, I think that we ought to probably have a problem with being the ones that are being asked to fund it. Doug yeah yeah i mean using tax dollars to essentially buy out votes that is is not a not a very libertarian ideal in my mind it's not a lot Mike ter Maat It's a libertarian idea. Doug And how about nuclear? I'm surprised that he's anti anti nuclear. Where do you guys stand on nuclear energy? Mike ter Maat That's a weird thing. I haven't delved too deeply into how he feels about that, but I can, you know, speaking for myself, I do believe that the future is nuclear energy in no small part, possibly a huge part, right? Mike ter Maat Mostly for all we know, particularly because nuclear energy fission and fusion, right, is evolving quite rapidly. I'm very optimistic about nuclear. And we all know that a major reason why it has not taken off the United States already is the regulatory environment, and not necessarily how bad it is at the moment, but how bad it has been over the last 50 years. Mike ter Maat And I understand no one should be putting their head in the sand with regard to the fact that there have been risks, there are risks to any technology, right? There are risks to nuclear, but those are risks that can be mitigated. Mike ter Maat The technology that's available to mitigate those risks is much more robust than it ever has been before. That's clear. Most of the technology that's really excellent in this area is in Europe, not in the United States. Mike ter Maat Of course, that's because, you know, we haven't been starting nuclear reactors in the United States, again, because the regulatory environment has in the past been so bad. I believe that this is an... Mike ter Maat Obviously, as a libertarian, I want the government out of regulating anything I can get it out of. But in energy in particular, this idea of an all of the above energy strategy shouldn't mean we're funding all of the above, right? Mike ter Maat Or we're working hard to include all the... No, no, no. What it means is we're allowing all of the above. We're getting out of the way so that the market can decide what's the most efficient, what's the most cost effective means by which we should be pursuing energy fulfillment in the United States. Mike ter Maat And I believe that this is an area in which, if there were a libertarian -minded administration, you could make these federal regulations subject to the approval of individual state governors and allow individual states effectively to nullify federal regulation, giving individual states the opportunity to chart their own political future, their own regulatory future in this regard. Mike ter Maat And remember, you don't really need 50 states to turn on a dime. What you're looking for is at least one state to decide, wow, this is a real opportunity for us. And maybe that state figures out a way to say, we can get you a permit. Mike ter Maat We can get you from zero to groundbreaking in less than a couple of years, not this 15 year crap, right? Which is what people are looking at today and sometimes longer. And sometimes you go years and you don't get your permit. Mike ter Maat That was the experience in the past. But imagine if a state were to say, look, we figured out, if you show up with financing and you show up with enough insurance backing to mitigate anything that might go wrong, which is all a libertarian would be asking you for, if you were to show up with all of that, we can get you a permit, we can get you to groundbreaking in 18 months. Mike ter Maat Can you imagine how rapidly you would see technological development in this area in the United States and the demonstration that that would make to other states about how you could advance energy policy in your particular area? Doug I like that you guys have given a lot of thought, and yeah, definitely pro -nuclear as well, and let the free market work with as little regulation as possible. Obviously, you need some regulation there, but with as little as feasibly possible. Doug Let's get to the juicy stuff. One of the things that really, I feel like an issue that really kind of edged into the libertarian sphere was this idea of freeing some of the freedom fighters that have been perhaps wrongfully imprisoned or given a sentence that far outweighed the crime. Doug One of those people is... Mike ter Maat for selling drugs. Doug Yeah, Ross Albright. So that was obviously a big issue at the libertarian national convention. Both candidates came there. RFK Jr. and Trump. RFK Jr. had the opportunity to be on stage and announced that he would free Ross if elected. Doug And he didn't do it. He didn't say it. He didn't say it. Trump a day later came on stage and was like the third sentence out of his mouth that he's, you know, free Ross on day one. And then RFK Jr. then, you know, obviously capitulated and said it as well. Doug But that was kind of a real turning point for me where I was like, all right, now, now, you know, I'm actually gonna advocate for Trump. You know, I'm not just just voting for Trump, because I feel like he's the best, you know, option to move us maybe perhaps a little bit more towards the libertarian way, ignoring Operation Warp Speed and things like that, which I think were a huge folly on his part. Doug But but in my mind, I was like, if this guy is really going to do that free Ross Albright on day one, I'll be a one issue voter. He's also said some positive things about crypto. He's got my vote. Where do you stand on on the Ross Albright thing? Doug I imagine you're also a free Ross on day one. And what do you think of the issue overall and how these other candidates dealt with it? Mike ter Maat Yeah, well, a lot to unpack there. Yes, obviously, Ross should no longer be in prison. And for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he's been there too long already. Talk about government overreach. Mike ter Maat And just parenthetically, let's not forget that I personally don't think that it should be a crime for you to do anything you want with your body. It should not be a crime for someone to sell a substance. Mike ter Maat This makes no sense as you made no reason why you would, but I was a police officer for 11 years until about three years ago was a second career for me after I was done being a professional economist. Mike ter Maat And I think most cops will tell I don't have data to back this up. I don't know if I can say most cops, a lot of cops would tell you the war on drugs doesn't work. Now, as a libertarian, I can tell you not only that I believe that the war on drugs doesn't work. Mike ter Maat But I can also tell you that as an ethical matter, I just think it's wrong for the government to be telling you what you can or cannot do with your body. So having having said all that, in other words, you know, these are not crimes for which you should have been put into jail in the first place. Mike ter Maat Nevermind the insane sentencing that came after that, you know, running a website and selling things is not something for which you should get a life sentence. The other cases, you know, the Julian Assange case, for example, is, I think, in some ways, just as important, but brings up a whole other set of issues. Mike ter Maat We're talking about prosecuting someone, we're talking about holding someone criminally liable for having published information that he got because someone else took it from the federal government. That's a very weird thing. Mike ter Maat You're basically jailing someone for having performed the function that we call journalism. Doug Mm -hmm. Mike ter Maat I understand that the statute wants to include those who would publish it. I've got a problem with that. Once it's no longer with the federal government, it is now in the realm of journalism and that's a whole other ball of wax. Mike ter Maat When you jail someone for journalism, you send a bad signal. And I know where by which I speak, we are living in an age in which the government is far too comfortable telling corporations what they can and cannot publish. Mike ter Maat It's not just jailing people for publishing things that are classified and have been leaked. That's a problem. But in my view, this is part and parcel of a larger problem of the government thinking it has a role to play in affecting the information that goes into social media, right, that comes out of health organizations that are part of the federal government. Mike ter Maat This is really problematic. This is, and I choose my words carefully, not American. This is not the American way. Now, it is my personal view that we should also not be classifying so much stuff. That's a whole other separate issue, right? Mike ter Maat But that goes to the issue of the material that was released illegally, criminally, allegedly, a couple of years ago, regarding a year and a half ago, I guess it is, regarding the Ukraine war. And I think Americans should ask, gee, this information basically said that the war was not going well from the United States point of view, right? Mike ter Maat This is Defense Department information. The Defense Department is spending a lot of money, our money, and wanted a better outcome, a better bang for its buck, frustration. We understand this, right? Consider the following. Mike ter Maat The Russians know how that war is going. They don't need the Defense Department of the Federal Government of the United States to tell them. The Ukrainians know darn well how that war is going. They also do not need information from the U .S. Mike ter Maat Federal Government's Defense Department. So consider from whom is this information being kept? Why is it being classified? Why is it illegal to make this information public? It is being kept from the American people. Mike ter Maat I think we ought to have a problem with that. If your government is keeping something from you because they're unhappy with the way policy is going, I think that the rhetorical and literal question needs to be, with whose money? Mike ter Maat It seems to me that we're the ones that ought to have the information and decide whether or not to give it to you, not the other way around. So I've got a problem with classification. I've got a problem with dissemination. Mike ter Maat I've got a problem with prosecuting journalism, and I recognize those are three different issues. Doug Fantastic. Julian Assange, I think is a good segue into crypto, actually, he's one of the guys that really opened my eyes to what the real value proposition of crypto is this idea that it's a tool that governments can't control that essentially allow people to practice free speech, through the process of transacting freely and how that might be the greatest form of speech we have, right? Doug Kind of put your money where your mouth is, this ability to transact freely without being censored or surveilled. What is your crypto stance and do you see things similar to how I just described them in terms of the value proposition of crypto? Mike ter Maat Absolutely. And a step further, it's not just a matter of speech, we can all decide what we means as far as the semantics of the word speech, but everything about your life. What happens when you're engaged in transactions that support an activity that the government is not happy with? Mike ter Maat Maybe it's Doug Yeah Mike ter Maat Yeah, maybe it's political, but maybe it's not explicitly political, right? Maybe you're engaged with certain transactions internationally and you have a protectionist federal government, and so they don't like that. Mike ter Maat What if you're engaged in bringing certain materials, substances into the United States and the government is not sure whether it's safe? Whose obligation is it to make that decision? There are any number of gray, obviously there's big, bold, clear issues, right? Mike ter Maat If you want to bring drugs into the United States, if you want to run arms deals and things like this that we all know the federal government wants to criminalize today, we get where the federal government is going to come down on those. Mike ter Maat But my point is that there are many more gray areas that a quite large proportion of the populace might find themselves engaged in that the federal government might be unhappy about and use the financial system to discourage you from continuing those sorts of operations. Mike ter Maat And if the government had the ability to control currency at a transactional level, this would be a huge problem. This is why it's very, very important that we keep the government out of issuing its own blockchain based, its own cryptocurrency of any sort. Mike ter Maat The privacy concerns, the ability to control the economy at a very, very granular level, and in areas in which it has not been able to exert control in the past. These are huge issues. Not to mention the fact that we can't have the Federal Reserve participating in these markets because the Fed is a regulatory authority. Mike ter Maat The Fed would bias the development of currency markets in its favor as it does now with the US dollar, right? If you're a foreign government trying to compete with the US dollar, if you're a foreign government trying to compete with the Defense Department of the United States, if you're a foreign government trying to engage in almost anything that the American government doesn't like, they can shut down your ability to transact currency all over the world. Mike ter Maat This is a problem, if you believe in the development of competitive currencies, as we must. Doug What is your, so then ultimately what is your crypto stance? Do you believe all, all, all money should fairly compete out in the free market and let the best money or money protocols win? Mike ter Maat Absolutely. There is no other position. There is literally no other position that makes sense. We should be competing not just among cryptocurrencies, but among any currency. I don't care what your technology is, the government of the United States or any other government should not be in the business of trying to disadvantage or trying to advantage its own currency, disadvantaging others or trying to pick winners. Mike ter Maat We do not yet know, and I know a lot of people argue with me about this, we do not yet know all of the characteristics that are going to be important in relative terms. All of the characteristics of cryptocurrency that we're going to want to see develop and how we want to see those characteristics develop to foster the smart economy in the future. Mike ter Maat This cannot be perfectly known at this point. We need these currencies and the protocols surrounding them, which of course the protocols are what define the currencies for all practical purposes. We want these protocols to develop in a robust competitive market to meet the interests of the news, what we call the smart economy. Mike ter Maat When it is about to take off, I don't know exactly when, but soon in very profound ways, we don't want the Federal Reserve screwing this up for us. Doug Fantastic, fantastic. So I guess, you know, the big question, right? So Monero. Monero is the, you know, the number one crypto in terms of being a, quote unquote, privacy coin. I don't like calling it privacy coin, because I think it's just doing what crypto is meant to do, which is allowing people to transact peer to peer without censorship or surveillance, basically digital cash. Doug What is your stance on that, particularly, we've heard, we've heard a lot of elected officials talk about the concern that they have for technologies like that, because it could be used for financing terrorism, it could be used for money laundering. Doug What is your response to that? For those, to those who say we need to perhaps regulate things because it could, this tool can be used for those nefarious purposes. Mike ter Maat government's going to have to get over itself. The government is going to have to learn to let go because if it doesn't, it is going to shove transactions even further into the hands of actors that you don't want controlling these markets. Mike ter Maat Consider the alternative. Consider the possibility that the government does disadvantage Monero. Do you really think there's not going to be something else that pops up somewhere and is run and possibly controlled by people who would love nothing more than to subvert the government of the United States of America? Mike ter Maat In other words, yes, it can be worse even from, you know, a big American government statist. It can be even worse than Monero. You know, as much as American politicians think that Monero is your worst nightmare, it could be worse. Mike ter Maat And worse would not only mean the possibility of another currency with the same characteristics that is controlled by nefarious actors, but worse also includes undermining the development of these markets by undermining, you know, how these currency characteristics develop. Mike ter Maat But it needs to be said that the reason government officials don't like this is deeply entangled with the reasons why we do believe it is important. We don't want the federal government to have control or any other government to have control to shut down certain types of transactions. Doug Well, Mike, you pass my litmus test. That's a question I think that, obviously, I'm a big Monero advocate. But I think it's a question that really gets to the core values of where somebody stands in terms of liberty. Doug I have a feeling, if I were to ask Trump or RFK Junior, and especially Kamala Harris, that same question of where they stand on Monero, it would be a very nuanced answer. And it wouldn't be let all protocols fairly compete. Doug And there would be potentially some concerns on how these things could be used in nefarious ways and how there might need to be some self- Mike ter Maat I get that. And look, again, I don't think anyone should should suggest that people who are worry warts about the future are idiots or unpatriotic. That's not what we're saying. What we're saying is that these technologies help advance economic development. Mike ter Maat That includes people doing some weird things that you don't like. I'm sorry. But the advantage in terms of economic efficiency, and the advantage in terms of taking away the government's ability to shut down our liberty so far outswap, right, any possible advantage that you could conjure up regarding law enforcement is just a hundred to one. Mike ter Maat And we're not even getting into the fact that you and I would feel very differently about what it is that that we should be employing law enforcement to shut down, right? Even if we agreed on that, and we don't agree with the people who are running our government today and what should be criminalized. Mike ter Maat But even if we did, as a practical matter, it makes no sense to give the government so much authority. By the way, I would say the same thing about artificial intelligence generally, right? I do not believe that the government should be in the business of regulating AI of all the people that make me worry. Mike ter Maat And look, I'm not suggesting there isn't something to worry about in the future, right? We all need to understand that with any new technology, there's going to be things to worry about. No one should suggest that the automobile didn't bring certain risks to peel back a hundred years. Mike ter Maat I get that. I'm not suggesting that there aren't risks out there, but of all the people that make me scared regarding their ability to get their hands on AI, the government's at the top of that list. Mike ter Maat If there's anyone that I want to protect myself from in terms of precluding them from developing AI, it's the government itself. Doug Agreed, agreed, agreed. We need to be open source. We need open source alternatives, at least, that everybody has access to. I want to stick on the Monero thing a little bit and just the privacy coin thing. Doug So where do you think RFK Jr. and the likes of Trump would stand? They've never gotten to that point. Everybody at this point is willing to talk about Bitcoin. I think RFK Jr. and Trump basically have the same stance. Doug They're pro Bitcoin. They're anti -central bank digital currency. But I'm not quite sure what they'd say with regards to something like Monero. Where do you think they stand? Do you think they would ultimately agree with us if pushed, or are they secretly a pro -surveillance state and they wouldn't let that one go? Mike ter Maat I suspect it's the latter. But I think this is why you haven't heard anything explicit. It's because they're not sure yet. And, and this is the difference between someone who, like you and I aren't sure, right, you and I aren't certain about how the world is going to play out. Mike ter Maat Right. No one can be sure. No one can be source. No one can perfectly predict and guarantee how certain markets are going to develop in the future. That's not the point. The point is that as individuals of libertarian principle, what really matters is that you will allow that to play out, that it's a matter of liberty. Mike ter Maat It's not a matter of trying to forecast and then, you know, weighing the costs and the benefits, then trying to decide where to invite the government in. That's not what it's about. And I think that that's why you haven't heard from certain politicians, very specific attitudes about Monero. Mike ter Maat By the way, I'm not sure that you've heard, you know, a lot of perfection out of Donald Trump's mouth on Bitcoin, but good for you if you've heard what you need to hear. He's been positive. He's been positive. Doug been positive. No, I haven't heard what I need to hear. I need to hear them talking about these things in terms of being tools for censorship resistant peer to peer digital cash speech. They never talk about that in those terms. Doug They talk about it. Bitcoin is this tool. At least they talk about in terms of being a money that's not controlled by the government in terms of you can't print more of it. It's not fiat. But often when pushed on the subject of these tools can be used for nefarious things. Doug The response is, well, actually, these tools are perfectly traceable. If anything, we could use them for surveilling more effectively. We can more effectively fight crime with these tools. And that's what's always been started. Doug That's exactly what you don't want. Mike ter Maat That's exactly what you don't want. Doug And that really is where most of these politicians stand. There's maybe one or two Congresspeople who have talked about it in other ways. And even them haven't gone so far as to say that they're pro untraceable digital cash. Doug So, you know, I really do think it's an issue that really separates the true liberty believers, principal liberty believers from those that just want to dabble into it for pandering for votes. Mike ter Maat I think that that's probably true. And I suspect that there will be other examples, other policy examples in the future, new technology. I think AI is going to be one of those issues, how to manage, how to regulate. Mike ter Maat I think that that will split politicians. Doug So to kind of go a little further down this road, I mean, so what do you think about the fact that Bitcoin is perfectly traceable? Obviously, if people want to use it, they can use it. But we know that effectively, it has in many ways already been co -opted, right? Doug Most people acquire their Bitcoin through centralized exchanges where they're KYC'd, we know who they are, the government knows who they are, they know how much Bitcoin they own. And then given the nature of Bitcoin and the fact these chain analysis companies exist, they can track and trace all transactions thereafter, effectively turning Bitcoin into something like a CBDC, where perhaps the government can't easily pull back a Bitcoin transaction, Doug but they could very easily surveil and see how everybody's using their money. Mike ter Maat will node is subject to KY's know your customer regulation in the United States. That means that the Fed can burrow its way in and no one should believe that the Fed would not turn information over to the Treasury Department, the Justice Department or any other department inside the United States government. Mike ter Maat So I do believe, I know my Bitcoin friends don't want to hear this, but I do believe that Bitcoin will not be the last currency standing. There will and maybe it'll be among the last currencies standing, but there is room for something, maybe Monero, but there is room for something else with more robust privacy characteristics. Mike ter Maat That's just that's just the truth of the matter. Doug Mike, that's great to hear. I think that really does separate you from your competition there. I don't think any of these other candidates would be saying that. I think the liberal. Mike ter Maat candidates would. Doug Oh, yes. Yeah, I would hope so. I would, I would certainly hope so. Um, and let's, let's be clear too. So you've, you've thought about these ideas for a long time. I mean, you've had, what was, what was the, the, the journal that you wrote? Doug It was called cash, uh, ecash or something. You, you were talking about cash in the, in the 90s. Mike ter Maat in the electrical engineers journal, Spectrum, which is still in publication, I understand, in like 1996 or something. Yeah, when I was an economist in Washington, I worked in the banking industry. I had worked for the White House for a couple of years in 89, 90, 91, 92, and went to work in the banking industry as an advocate. Mike ter Maat In those days, the banking industry was all about free markets, less regulated environment, greater competition, crossing state lines, getting into new lines of business. And it was a wonderful environment in which to work for this reason. Mike ter Maat And we were already talking about what we called e -cash. We didn't know what we were talking about. We didn't know how this was gonna evolve, right? But yeah, we were already starting to think about it and think about the privacy issues. Mike ter Maat It was clear that the government was already worried about privacy issues and their ability to read transactions, even back in those days before we even knew how the technologies were gonna develop. But those instincts are deep inside your government. Doug Fantastic, man. Fantastic. What do you think about? Let's just talk about surveillance state in general. Are you concerned as much as I am that we are sprinting in that direction if I haven't already arrived at being a mass surveillance state with all these tools that the government has access to? Doug Yeah, I do. What is your take? What do you think about all that? Mike ter Maat I'm afraid that we're about to turn a corner. I'm afraid that we're going to reach an inflection point. And by that, what I mean is a lot of technologies are coming online, are becoming available to the government at the same time, over the same, starting a couple of years ago leading a decade into the future from now. Mike ter Maat The government is going to have access to facial recognition, AI, blockchain, ubiquitous cameras. Already your local governments have license plate readers all over the place. And we all know that the Chinese government has become very adept at placing cameras all over the place and deploying facial recognition. Mike ter Maat There's no reason to believe that certain cities in the United States won't lead the way individually inside the United States. I don't think the federal government will be the first to do it. But I think local communities are very likely to follow suit. Mike ter Maat When you bring a confluence of these technologies, I think it's going to be very difficult for certain governments to resist. It will spread beyond China. The United States probably won't be the next stop. Mike ter Maat But it will be a relatively early stop because our government has access to the resources required to deploy these. Doug I think it's already there. This is not to interrupt you, but ultimately what I want to get at is Trump recently picked JD Vance as his VP. He's very closely connected with Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel is infamous for selling the latest surveillance tech to the federal government. Doug Their primary client is essentially the CIA, and they provide these magical tools that allow you to predict if somebody is going to commit a crime. That's what they're working on. I don't know if they're there yet, but essentially that's what they're working on. Doug Tracking, tracing people, completely surveilling them to the point where they can analyze and predict whether or not this person is a good person or a bad person in society, which obviously, as we know, can be used. Mike ter Maat Right. So now if you combine that with massive databases supported by facial recognition. Doug Mm hmm. You're there. You're done. So in social media, right? They've, they have access to all the social media data. Mike ter Maat And you already know the federal government believes it has the right to pressure social media companies into turning over data. We pass that, right? We've crossed that bridge already. And so I just see that over the next few years, all of these technologies, and then processed through a higher order AI than is probably available to the government at the moment, but over the next few years, that'll all be perfected. Mike ter Maat And they'll know exactly what the probability is of Mike Termont doing something that the federal government doesn't like. And based on that, they can decide whether to dedicate greater resources to following me or someone else. Mike ter Maat And eventually, when they have enough resources, they won't even have to do a very good job of, of, you know, deciding who to follow. They'll just follow all of us and they'll decide what kinds of things they don't want us to do and try to head us off at the pass. Mike ter Maat And this is what it is that that we're trying to avoid. Doug So is that part of your pla- have you guys thought about, you know, what, what would be done, you know, from, from the executive branch to prevent us inching ever closer towards this, you know, pan out the cup? Mike ter Maat believe that we need to stand down the entirety of the surveillance state of the federal government. I think that the CIA is an organization that behaves in ways that do not align with the underlying values of the American public. Mike ter Maat It's not merely a matter of it does a crappy job of keeping us safe, which I believe is also true. But ethically, the idea that it behaves with a different set of values, it makes decisions that you wouldn't make. Mike ter Maat Decisions about life and death, decisions about other governments, decisions about democracy. This is an organization that has no place using the resources of the American people to operate in our name. Mike ter Maat I believe that the FBI itself needs to be restructured and by restructured, I mean broken into pieces. I think that the vast majority of what the FBI does, it should not be doing. And what little piece it does that is of use probably ought to be done inside of a different agency, one that is less corruptible in a political sense. Mike ter Maat And I say that as lovingly as I can. I know that there are people in the FBI who are hardworking patriots, but there is no such thing as the FBI's historic golden age, right? It came right out of the box early on politically corruptible and therefore I think it needs to be broken up. Mike ter Maat And I would say the same thing about most of the rest of the information collection apparatus of the federal government. It can be turned on us, yes, but the fact that it already operates internationally in ways that don't align with decisions that you would make means that they shouldn't exist as they do today already. Doug This version of America that you're painting a picture of the way things should be in terms of embracing libertarian principles, I obviously agree with you very much, but there's not too many others of us, right? Doug Perhaps more than ever in recent history, but still very small percentage -wise. What do you think we need to do to make the libertarian agenda a real contender and to get it to the point where we actually are changing policy here in the U .S. Doug government and just, you know, ripping out the departments that we don't need and ridding the government of regulation, like we could talk about it all day, how do we actually get there? How do we get the people behind these ideas? Mike ter Maat question. It is the question. I believe that the answer has a couple of different facets. I think that number one, people like you and I and lots and lots and lots of others need to keep telling the truth in an unvarnished fashion. Mike ter Maat The truth is we see it as clearly, as cleanly, as crisply as possible. This is what not only allows people to spread the word because it's understandable, but it's what gives others the courage to follow suit. Mike ter Maat If you're going to bear the slings and arrows, if you're going to put up with the crap that people are going to heap upon you for what you say, you might as well say it. You might as well say the whole thing. Mike ter Maat Don't go halfway. There's no point in that. If your neighbors are going to think you're a jerk, at least give them something to hate you for. Tell the full truth. Don't tell the half truth. This is extremely important in terms of spreading the message and giving others permission to do so as well. Mike ter Maat But the other facet I believe is also very, very important. That is participating in the political process in a robust, credible fashion so that people see that there is a difference, that there is a choice. Mike ter Maat Eventually, I think that our ideas will gain enough traction that politicians, the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, will be forced to take us into consideration. And I believe that there will be a turning point. Mike ter Maat I can't guarantee that it's going to be sometime between now and November 5. But there will be a turning point. And the reason I believe that is because we see the United States moving toward authoritarianism. Mike ter Maat And we know where authoritarianism comes from because we see it happen in other democracies around the world. We used to believe it couldn't possibly happen in America. But happened here, it does. And where that comes from, of course, is politicians convincing you that what you have to fear is not the loss of your civil liberties, right? Mike ter Maat But what you have to fear is that other idiot coming to power, right? I need more power, a politician will tell you, to protect you. I got to protect you from the other side. And this is why you see both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party leaving behind what used to be their political agenda. Mike ter Maat The number one priority of each of those parties has become simply keeping the other side out of power. That's what they're all about. They're all about hanging on to power. And you saw that, unfortunately, with Donald Trump in the last cycle, you see it with the difficulty of getting Joe Biden to stand down in this cycle. Mike ter Maat These are relatively minor and trivial examples. But the parties are left behind what used to be their agenda. This growing sense of authoritarianism will eventually trip a backlash. I believe that that is growing already to your point of Americans waking up. Mike ter Maat That is happening already. Already, people realize that we should not have been as trusting of the government as we have been the past couple of hundred years, especially the last 40 years. It's embarrassing the extent to which Americans have been trusting our government. Mike ter Maat And I say embarrassing, not from the standpoint of, you know, gee, we're all stupid income poops, but embarrassing that we have been supporting politicians who have done a fairly effective job of keeping us in the dark in so many examples and in so many ways and for so long. Mike ter Maat The embarrassment is that we have supported these jerks and fools for so long. And I think that it's a good thing that people are waking up to that. So we need the answer is you need to keep pushing and remain patient. Mike ter Maat That day will come. And my fear is that something will happen that prompts an opportunity for libertarianism, but that it is misinterpreted. And by that, I mean, most especially, it is my view that the federal government United States is headed for a financial collapse. Mike ter Maat And I believe that that will happen before the middle of the century. I can't pinpoint a date, right? And it depends on a lot of factors, including us doing something stupid militarily. But at some point, the federal government of the United States is going to collapse, is going to bring down the bond market. Mike ter Maat That'll undermine American dollar currency market. This will plunge the world into a deep depression. And without a competing currency to step in place, that's a real problem. That's a dark place. And for a long, long time, you know, not years, but decades, that's a real problem. Mike ter Maat This is why it needs to be stronger. authoritarian will step in and make the case as Vladimir Putin has been trying to make for a decade, that democracy can't work. You see where I'm going. In other words, we have to head off that calamity before it A occurs and B gets misinterpreted. Doug All right. Yeah, and you know, you paint a pretty accurate picture between the parties, obviously, carrying nothing more than just winning and staying in power. And it's not about the issues, it's about what do they need to say to who to win. Doug And it may be even more nefarious that I feel like it's the same people that always win no matter what, that are essentially playing both sides that are on both sides that are behind both sides. Do you do you think things go that deep? Mike ter Maat I do, I think that it, you know, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to recognize that there are a whole lot of people making a whole lot of money and bringing to themselves a whole lot of power because of the way that our government functions, not merely whether it's Republicans in power or Democrats in power, right? Mike ter Maat Obviously the military industrial complex, obviously the public school system, obviously the deep state in every way and everyone who gets money from the federal government. It is the way that our government is set up that is the problem. Mike ter Maat It attracts people naturally. It attracts people who are in it for power and the people who are most successful at it are the people who are best at manipulating other people for the sake of garnering power for themselves. Doug Mike, thank you so much, man. Is there any other thoughts you want to get out there? I know you're limited on time, too. We're over an hour at this point. Is there anything else you want to get out there to the Monero audience, the privacy coin -loving audience? Mike ter Maat Yeah, I appreciate that. Anyone who wants to get involved in the campaign, do so, you know, go visit us at miketrumott .com, which is tricky to spell because Trumott is two A's in it, but visit us there, goldnewdeal .org. Mike ter Maat We haven't talked much about my guy Chase Oliver, who is our presidential nominee and a great guy. Go visit votechaseoliver .com. If there's money that you want to get rid of, you can do that at those websites. Mike ter Maat We would be ever so grateful. $100 donations at miketrumott .com. Get a free signed book. I will mail to you that we call a gold new deal. It's a terrific collection of essays all about why we need a new relationship between us and government. Mike ter Maat So check it out. If you want to get involved, you know, volunteering, helping us get the message out. There's always a lot of very fun ways to do that. Doug Can people donate with crypto? Mike ter Maat Absolutely. Mitromod .com, you go there and test it out, you know, see if it'll, you know, I've never tested, you know, will it take a full $3 ,000 in there, you know, test it out, check it out, see if that works. Doug Can they donate with Monero? Have you managed to fix that up? You got to get on that, Mike. You got to get on that. Come on, man. All right, all right. Mike ter Maat that's a that's a tricky thing but you know you could do it Doug It's not that tricky. It's not that true. What's what's the tricky part with the Mike ter Maat The card is with the FEC. Doug Okay, I mean, it's like anything else, right? People would have to declare who they are, right, as they're donating. You just fill out the form. Yeah. Mike ter Maat you would just be able to fill out the form. Right. Doug So they could do that. It'd be the equivalent of somebody showing up and giving you cash, but then saying who they are and what their background is, right? Which is fine. Mike ter Maat That has happened. Doug Mmhmm. Mike ter Maat Yeah, absolutely. That happens. You know, not that if someone mentioned doing that, we would absolutely work. There's no question about that. I'm just scrunching my face up at the fact that I don't think our website can handle it at the moment. Doug All right, maybe we could talk offline a little bit. Maybe we could get somebody to help you out with that. Because I think it would just send a strong message too, you know? I think it would send a strong message. Mike ter Maat I would love that. I absolutely would love that. That's an excellent idea and you have embarrassed me. I should have been on top of that earlier. Doug no no worries that i know what it's like i ran for for congress in twenty twenty in new york uh... i know it's extremely overwhelming process and your your run a nationally running from state to state uh... Doug uh... so i i i totally get where you're coming from in terms of uh... handling a lot all at once mike thanks again mad greatly appreciate it and uh... hopefully will will be in touch good luck good luck in the race Mike ter Maat Great to be, great to be with you. Have a great rest of your day and hello to your audience. Doug Cheers. Thank you, Mike. All right. Hold on one sec. Are you still there? Yep. Did I lose it? Okay. Hold on one sec. Let me end the-