Nelson Hultberg on Libertarian-Conservatism and His New Conservative American Political Party

The Daily Bell is pleased to present an exclusive interview with Nelson Hultberg.

Introduction: Mr. Hultberg is a freelance writer in Dallas, Texas and the Executive Director of Americans for a Free Republic. His articles have appeared in such publications as The Dallas Morning News, the San Antonio Express-News, The American Conservative, Insight, The Freeman, and Liberty, as well as numerous Internet sites. He is the author of Why We Must Abolish The Income Tax And The IRS (1997) and has just written a new book titled, The Conservative Revolution: Why We Must Form a Third Political Party to Win It. In addition, he has a major work on political philosophy, The Golden Mean: The Case for Libertarian Politics and Conservative Values, that is to be released in this coming year.

Daily Bell: There's a lot we want to discuss, so thanks for another interview. Your insights are always welcome. We spoke about an Anglo-America power elite last time. What's your sense of how this elite is positioned in the early 21st century? Are they disturbed by the amount of analysis and attention their activities are receiving?

Nelson Hultberg: I think they are very disturbed by the amount of attention their activities are getting from the freedom movement. But it is a disturbance spawned by scorn for those they conceive to be conservative rubes woefully ignorant of the "great beneficence" that they the elites wish to impose upon us.

They should be having recurring nightmares over the potential cataclysm that is descending upon the world because of their criminal policies. But they're not because, as incredible as it sounds, they don't really grasp the full implications of what they and their predecessors have wrought. Powerful and intellectual humans are quite capable of blinding themselves to the big truths of existence. In fact, I would say that such blinding is the norm throughout history, rather than the exception. This is why man's history is such a tumultuous travesty of tyranny and evil, with but interludes of sanity and freedom.

The Greek and Roman republics, the flowering of the late Middle Ages, the Elizabethan Age, Jefferson's Republic of States were but brief interludes. Tyrannical collectivism has dominated the societies of the world throughout history via the Pharaohs, the Caesars, the Byzantine Empire, the Inquisition, Rousseau and the Jacobins of the Enlightenment, Comte and Marx of the 19th century, the communists and fascists of the 20th century, up to the velvet glove totalitarians of the Nanny State today working so relentlessly to spread coercive egalitarianism to all mankind.

Thus we have to ask ourselves, are these corporate, bureaucratic, and intellectual elites throughout the West just greedy power lusters fully aware of the value of freedom, but too evil and Machiavellian to work for it? Or are they the ugly norm of "old world collectivism" manifesting once again through the evolution of a warped zeitgeist? Do they understand that freedom and prosperity require the absence of intrusive government? That Mises and Hayek were right? That the Great Depression was caused by excessive government inflation of the money supply after the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913?

Daily Bell: And the answer is?

Nelson Hultberg: Hardly. They think that free enterprise is the culprit, that it is immoral and dangerous, racked with contradictions and basically unworkable as Adam Smith portrayed it. They think this way because of the modern zeitgeist laid down in their brains by the ideologies of Rousseau, Comte, Marx and Keynes that have resurrected the "old world collectivism" that has plagued mankind since ancient times. The elites believe devoutly that they must intervene aggressively and perpetually so as to guide the economy (and its hapless individuals) through the "treacherous storms of reality," when, of course, it is they and their Marxist-Keynesian fallacies that have created the treacherous storms. But they can't see this monumental truth because they are blinded by hubris and false ideology.

Daily Bell: So are these elites just ideologically misguided moguls, bureaucrats and intellectuals striving to collectivize the West?

Nelson Hultberg: Certainly not. They are greed driven, amoral power seekers that have been poisoned by the ideologies of Marx and Keynes in their formative years. It is this ideological poisoning combined with their power lust that drives them to establish a One World Government. Marxism / Keynesianism allows them to think they are fashioning an ideal political-economic system for the nations of the world. It gives them their moral zealotry. And naturally they envision themselves as the ones who are to run this "ideal" One World Government. Thus it is greed, power lust and ideology that form the roots of our problem here.

Daily Bell: We deal extensively with the promotional themes of the elite. Are fear-based promotions having a more difficult time of it? Global warming for instance seems to be leaking credibility.

Nelson Hultberg: I would say that the fear-based promotions are definitely beginning to leak credibility. But we have to be careful here not to become overconfident and let our guard down. Collectivism has incredible resiliency. After all, it has been the norm for thousands of years because it is ingrained in the natures of the weaker and less ambitious of humans who far outnumber those who are strong and industrious.

Global warming is a very sophisticated fraud that has been successful because the masses wish to believe it. They welcome the statist / liberal view of things because it allows them to justify the government's takeover and control of entrepreneurial capitalism, which they think will reward them with an easier life through more and more transfer entitlements. This is basic human nature -- to take the path of least resistance toward sustaining one's life. The statists are very clever sophists who subconsciously understand this facet of human nature and are always ready to take advantage of it to stampede the masses into more and more subservience to the state.

In addition by 1970, most statists began to suspect that Marx's economic theories were false. Capitalism did not grind the workers down to starvation wages; in fact, it liberated them and gave them ever-increasing "real wages" wherever it was allowed to prevail in its laissez-faire form. Thus the statists had to find another "horrific evil" with which to attack capitalism in the eyes of the people. Environmental destruction became that horrific evil. The sophistry of global warming is but the latest manifestation of this fear tactic.

Daily Bell: We've noticed that the legislative mechanism continues to grind forward even when elite promotional propaganda ceases to be effective. Is this dangerous to the larger civil society?

Nelson Hultberg: Very dangerous. Legislative machinery is the result of a certain political paradigm accepted by society. To lessen or stop the machinery requires a new paradigm to be ushered in, which is not done easily. It is kind of like turning a giant aircraft carrier at sea. There is a big delay from the time the captain starts rotating the wheel and when the rear of the ship is able to swing around and complete the turn. Likewise with society. There's a big delay from the time radical intelligentsia begin selling a new paradigm, and when it kicks in as acceptable. We are not there yet ideologically in America.

This is why we so desperately need a third political party to make it into the National TV Presidential Debates. It is the only way to turn society back toward freedom. Our other avenues of informing the people have been closed to us because the collectivists took over the schools and media and other institutions of truth procurement throughout the 20th century. This was the goal of the "Cultural Marxists," which I discussed in my recent TDB review of James Jaeger's film on the subject.

The people are now denied a vision of freedom every election year because the Democrats and Republicans monopolize the ideas of the debates by excluding the "small government view." They do this with the mandate stipulating that one must get 15% in the polls in order to participate. Thus only candidates of the two major parties qualify, and they both espouse the "big government view." Until this monopoly is broken by a viable third-party getting the necessary 15%, America will continue to slide further into tyranny and decadence. An ignorant electorate -- cut off from the truth in the schools, through the media, and on the campaign trail -- cannot rise up to challenge its enslavers.

Daily Bell: Do you believe that mass civil protest is one way to begin to address the gap between what society as a whole seems to support and the contrary direction in which various laws are taking society in both America and Britain?

Nelson Hultberg: Absolutely. It is pretty much our last chance to turn the tide. If we fail to galvanize a sizeable grass roots movement for "genuine freedom" in the West, which means eliminating the two evils of 1913 (the progressive income tax and government banking), the coming cataclysm is going to sweep America and Britain into a Second New Deal, only far more regimented. This will act as the final nails in the coffin of liberty -- a liberty that sprang from the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. No other nations in the world grasp the "individualism" necessary for freedom to work. Only Britain and America have long standing, rational traditions of "individual rights." So if we are to avert the threat of a new "high-tech" Dark Ages consuming us in the upcoming centuries, we must take our final stand in these two nations now.

Daily Bell: Is the Tea Party making progress in your estimation? Is it having an impact on the American political discussion?

Nelson Hultberg: In its beginning, the Tea Party movement was full of righteous wrath and radical desires. It had enormous potential if it could avert the tendency of revolutionary political movements to gravitate toward what will buy them immediate (but superficial) success as measured by the media and the establishment of their time. I had hopes that the Tea Party patriots would be able to avert this tendency. But now I have grown pessimistic.

Neo-cons like Newt Gingrich and pseudo-conservatives like Dick Armey have moved their organizations to co-opt the Tea Party revolutionaries into the Republican Party. This is the kiss of death. Gingrich, Armey and their cohorts are the epitome of what is wrong with the conservative movement in America. They pay only lip service to freedom's ideals. When it comes time to match the rhetoric with action and adherence to principle, they cave in like a homeless alcoholic in face of saloon music and the smell of whiskey. It's pitiful how Republican Party stalwarts delude themselves into believing they are fighting "a great fight for freedom" while throwing trillions to the banking oligarchs and steadfastly refusing to address the immigration invasion. The lures of "celebrity" and "social approval" have consumed their integrity of thought. They want too much to be revered by the ghouls of Wall Street, as if riding in black limousines with thieves is somehow honor. They want too much to be invited to palace dinners at the White House. Thus usurpation and shameful profligacy become tolerable tools of trade.

Daily Bell: You told us that what is desperately needed in America today is the restoration of the Jeffersonian/Burkean blend of libertarian-conservatism that built our nation during the first 125 years up through World War I. Give us an update on your efforts to implement this sort of movement.

Nelson Hultberg: Naturally neo-conservatives hate what the "libertarian-conservative" movement is all about. They go out of their way to smear conservatives who believe in individual rights, limited government, federalism, and a mind-our-own-business foreign policy. But this is to be expected; they are collectivists. They hate the whole idea of individualism, and the self-reliance that sustains it.

Numerous "conventional conservatives" are not comfortable with the libertarian-conservative blend -- politicians such as Sarah Palin, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Orin Hatch, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, Sam Brownback, etc. Washington's powerful think tanks also squirm uneasily when the libertarian principles of the Founders are expressed vigorously and consistently. And most of the conservative talk show hosts steer clear of fully endorsing the libertarianism of the Founders.

But the battle to light "brushfires of freedom in the minds of men" that Samuel Adams spoke of has been launched. The Ron Paul Revolution ignited it, and hopefully there will be no stopping it. We are politically libertarian because freedom requires a strictly limited government, but we are culturally conservative because freedom requires the inculcation of objective moral values into the young. Freedom does not mean the anarchical fetish of "doing your own thing" as the pure libertarian seems to think. Freedom is meant for "doing the right thing" as Albert Jay Nock espoused. We believe, with Jefferson, in the rights of man, but we believe with Burke that "men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites."

If the Founders were alive today, they would term themselves libertarian-conservatives. They would be horrified with Bill Kristol's neo-cons, and they would be thoroughly disgusted with the "mealymouth conservatives" of Congress. But they would also be contemptuous of those libertarians who espouse open borders, unilateral free trade, atheism, egoism, and anarchism. The Founders were passionate patriots who understood that rights do not come from government and the Supreme Court, but from Nature's God, that principle transcends popularity, that freedom is not license, that it requires an objective morality being taught in the schools and churches, that fair weather friends of freedom can never sustain a great nation, and that the idea of the nation is a legitimate entity with its defense a higher priority than always acquiring the cheapest foreign trade goods.

Daily Bell: Generally update us on the progress of the Conservative American Party, which you've founded.

Nelson Hultberg: AFR is presently getting the party legally registered. This is a lengthy and expensive process, but we hope to consummate it over the next year. We have joined forces with James Jaeger's Matrixx Entertainment Corp. to produce a 90-minute documentary about why only a third-party can stop the runaway freight train of debt and delusion that our Demopublican elites are riding. It is titled Spoiler: How the Tea Party Revolution Could Succeed.

Our goal is to convince the Tea Party patriots that hanging their hat with the Republicans will never stop the dictatorial drift of America, as the past 40 years clearly demonstrate. Republicans have expanded government every bit as fast as the Democrats ever since the Eisenhower administration.

Patrick Buchanan and Edwin Vieira are committed to participation in the film. We are also seeking Ron Paul and Ross Perot, along with G. Edward Griffin, and several other scholars and pundits sympathetic to the freedom movement.

Daily Bell: Any plans to merge with the Constitution Party?

Nelson Hultberg: We would love to bring off a merger with the Constitution Party. We feel comfortable with them rather than the Libertarian Party. This is because the Constitution Party is culturally conservative as are the American people. This gets back to the Jeffersonian / Burkean blend that is necessary in order to build a valid political movement to restore what America is all about. The Libertarian Party doesn't quite get this crucial insight. Thus, in our opinion, they take destructive stands on issues like immigration, trade policy, and gay marriage.

But the Constitution Party doesn't share our strategy of incrementalism. They espouse across-the-board, radical positions that threaten the people with the dissolution of the welfare state. Consequently they get less than 1% of the vote every election year, which marginalizes them and renders them ineffective. The Conservative American Party prefers to take a radical stand on only a few key issues such as taxation and monetary policy and a conventional stand on all others. In this way, we don't threaten the voters with dissolution of the welfare state. We can then appeal to a much larger number of voters and become a REAL challenger to the Demopublican monopoly.

Thus prospects of merging with the Constitution Party are not good. We have not given up on the idea, but it is basically on the back burner for the time being.

Daily Bell: At AFR, you believe it is best to just concentrate on the "Two Pillars Strategy" of tax and monetary reform. What kind of approach are you adopting to make this a reality?

Nelson Hultberg: To make this a reality, we plan to launch a vast array of Meetup Groups that are geared toward explaining the vital necessity of this strategy. Only with implementation of the "Two Pillars" of radical tax and monetary reform (a 10% equal-rate tax for all citizens and a 4% auto-expansion plan for the money supply) can government growth be brought under control. And only if government growth is brought under control, can freedom be saved.

Thus these two pillars of reform transcend all other political issues. The government's growth is dependent on the massive confiscatory taxes and currency debasement in which it partakes. To stop such tyrannical growth, these root causes of the problem must be addressed rather than evaded. This, the Republicans don't understand, which is why they can never be our answer. The Conservative American Party does understand it, though, which is why we are America's only hope. Teaching this to the grass roots of America is thus a major goal of the CAP.

Daily Bell: You told us that you are focused on positioning the Conservative American Party so that it receives the necessary 15% in the polls to qualify for the crucial national TV election debates. How is this going?

Nelson Hultberg: This is our most unique and innovative tactic. However, it requires one to think outside the box in regards to political parties and political campaigns. The Conservative American Party is not a conventional third-party. We realize that we can't challenge the tyrannization of America without telling the truth to the voters. But we can't tell the truth to the voters if immediate election victory is our goal. It will take time to convince the voters; it can't be done overnight.

Thus in order to effectively tell the truth about what is happening to the country, we have to do two things:

One. We have to first make it into the National TV Presidential Debates, which requires that we garner 15% in the polls. This will give us a podium in front of 70 million voters, which the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party cannot achieve because their platforms are structured to get only 1% in the polls. In other words, entrance into the debates will make us an effective source for truth to the voters.

Two. Once in the debates, however, we have to possess a strategy that will stop the disastrous growth of government and be salable to Americans in large enough numbers to eventually get 35% in an election, which will win in a three man race. This, the Two Pillars Strategy does for us.

Thus getting 15% in the polls is of paramount importance. It is the first step to "telling the truth" to 70 million American voters, which is the only way to restore the American Republic. This, the Republicans cannot do because they are obsessed with winning office immediately and must evade the truth at all cost. Not everyone grasps this at first, but once they read my book, The Conservative Revolution, they can see it and appreciate the revolutionary power of the strategy.

Daily Bell: What's your position on Internet attacks and invisible back-end censoring such as is going on currently in Britain? Is it effective? We think a new technology like the Internet is very hard to control.

Nelson Hultberg: I'm not so sure. China controls its Internet, and a future American mega-state could also. It seems to me that all the government has to do is regulate the ISPs and license them as they presently do with radio broadcasters and TV stations, imposing stiff fines and prison sentences for those who don't toe the government line, which is what takes place in China. This gives the government sufficient control over all recalcitrant ISPs. A future American dictatorship would emulate such policy. When the time comes to exert an authoritarian takeover, all ISPs could then be nationalized and made into state operated entities.

Thus I don't think it is wise to get too confident in the fact that we have a free Internet that is "difficult to control." Collectivists are incredibly resilient, obsessed, and ruthless. They believe they are the "benevolent good guys," and that we are the "selfish bad guys" in a profound morality play unfolding historically. This gives them their zeal and makes them doggedly persistent in their goals. So I believe that they will move to control the Internet in the upcoming years, and the present policies in China indicate that it can be done -- maybe not done easily, but done sufficiently to stifle the free exchange of ideas that are mandatory to sustain a free society.

The ultimate dream of the statists is to eventually control all of us by eliminating the use of cash and establishing a total credit card based economy run through the central bank. In this way, they can deny the power to purchase food and basic necessities to all who rebel. And this would include ISPs who defy government mandates.

Of course, a black market would naturally evolve to circumvent such regimentation, but such a market would be bleak and primitive. As I see it, a new Dark Ages of global corporatism in the manner of the 1970s movie, Rollerball, would evolve combined with desolate outback sectors of the world like we saw in Mad Max. Scattered but vicious gangs of renegades would populate the outback, while vast throngs of herd mentalities would accumulate in the controlled sectors of the world based upon regional governments like we saw in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Cashless economies, government provided bread and circuses, a subservient media, academy, and film industry would prevail. Access to basic goods and services, along with status and security, would be the magnets that gather billions into the controlled sectors. Privation and perpetual violence and turmoil, would be the repellents that keep inhabitants of the uncontrolled sectors at minimal levels.

Daily Bell: Do you have a position on "Net neutrality." We think the Internet ought to be subject to market forces, of course, though we have doubts whether a company like Google constitutes a "market" force, given its extensive linkages to government.

Nelson Hultberg: I haven't studied the issue of "Net neutrality." But I certainly agree that the Internet ought to be subject to market forces. The problem, as I see it, is that government will almost surely try to do to the Internet what it has done to the rest of the economy. We have "government managed money and business" today. Will we have a "government managed Internet" also? If so, I can't see it remaining a free arena of entrepreneurs in the marketplace. It will become a national asset, and if regional government develops to wipe out America's sovereignty, it will become a supra-national government asset.

Unless Americans and Europeans muster the will to oppose the authoritarian zeitgeist presently controlling our cultures and indoctrinating our children, the 21st century promises to be a dreadful descent into regional government that, in the words of Tocqueville, "compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people" until they are "reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

The fact that there will be black markets and outback regions where rebels can go to be free will be of little consolation. It will be a hideous, primitive freedom ruled by gangs and anarchistic war lords. Unfortunately Murray Rothbard has bamboozled the libertarian movement into believing that such anarchy would be idyllic instead of Hobbsian.

Daily Bell: You made a good point during our last interview that America is probably the only place where there has been "extensive" free-market education that has taken place – all of it despite a system of governance and public schools that are increasingly hostile to such a perspective. Is this trend (a freedom focus) inexorable in your view? Some would argue that the logic of empire is inexorable. We have never thought so.

Nelson Hultberg: I try to think of nothing as "inexorable." Man is possessed of free will. He is also cursed with an alarming array of animalistic tendencies that drive him to blank out on the basic moral laws of civilization when he thinks it will benefit him. Witness our quislings in the Democratic and Republican parties, obsessed as they are with personal power, status and material wealth at the expense of America's founding principles. Thus it is not certain as to whether the freedom movement will continue to expand.

Human nature is the key here, and it is dual. Man has a marvelous capacity for heroism and high-minded achievement, but also an irremediable tendency to wallow in turpitude, deception, and ruin. No one knows how humans in general will react when the final stages of economic collapse are upon us. Will it be patriotically, or will it be slavishly? Will collectivism and the desire for personal entitlements shove aside the rights of man in the political arena? These are distinct possibilities because the past century's philosophical positivism in the schools has taught men and women a pernicious moral relativism, which has destroyed their belief in the fundamental morality that enshrined the values of self-reliance, charity, magnanimity, and equal rights. Do our citizens still possess the restraints and rectitude to function as high-minded humans who value freedom?

All these factors will be coalescing over the next 20 years as the world's economies continue to collapse. Will such a coalescence bring us the heroic side of man, or the ruinous side? The jury is obviously still out. Western civilization is not just breaking down monetarily and financially; it is undergoing a pervasive decay morally. This combine has the power to negate all the positives that we see around us today stemming from the Internet, the Ron Paul Revolution, the libertarian movement, etc.

I remain guardedly optimistic. I believe that there are, in every generation, heroic men and women who act as leaders. They are acutely intelligent and grasp the power of ideas in the unfolding of history. Consequently they act in ways that set an example for the masses to follow. Their natures drive them to fight for freedom, to place principle over popularity, and to strive for humility in face of the awesome perplexities of the human condition. It is to these men and women that I appeal, and for which the Conservative American Party has been formed. If America is to be saved, it will be because these natural patriots come to the barricades in large numbers to engage the enemy in Washington.

Daily Bell: America has been the focus of vast power-elite depredations in our view. The War Between the States was only the beginning of a concerted attack against what seems like every single important free-market verity. Yet today, the country is active as never before, seething with anti-government outrage, some of it rooted in the kind of literate free-market thinking that you espouse. Gun control has made little progress and monetary theories proposing alternative societal and economic viewpoints are more popular than ever. How is this possible?

Nelson Hultberg: It is possible because of several factors, one being the heroic independence of America's natural patriots. They have not succumbed to the brainwash of the public schools. Being contrarian by nature, they have sought answers outside the system, which they found in the works of Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, Rose Wilder Lane, Henry Hazlitt, Richard Weaver, Paul Gottfried, G. Edward Griffin, John Hospers, Paul Johnson, Thomas Sowell, and others. The freedom of a civilization is dependent upon numerous factors, but most importantly upon the ideological stream that is produced through its ablest thinkers. And America and Europe produced a powerful array of thinkers starting back in the 1940s in rebellion to FDR's New Deal and its Keynesian monetary fraud. Will such a vibrant stream of ideas, however, lead to the passionate political activism necessary to bring down the elites in Washington and fashion a government based on rights rather than privileges? And will it do so in time? These questions are still in doubt.

Daily Bell: The collapse in confidence in the Obama administration is startling. Did they expect it?

Nelson Hultberg: Of course not. Remember these collectivist elites suffer the disease of immense hubris. They are so arrogant in the belief that they are indispensable to running the lives of working day Americans that they expected multitudes of voters to rise up in overwhelming gratitude for "blessing" the country with Obamacare. They genuinely think that we "hapless individuals" cannot take care of ourselves, that freedom is a primitive aberration sought only by troglodytes, and that without their sage and guiding hand, all of society would disintegrate into rapacious entrepreneurial criminality. This is a psycho-political pathology unrivaled in human history. It is a curse handed down to modernity by many warped thinkers over the past 200 years, but the four most important are Jean Jacques Rousseau, Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes.

Daily Bell: Those involved in the conspiracy movement for lack of a better word anticipate some sort of military crackdown in America if the population begins seriously questioning the system. Do you agree with this? If not, why not? We think in part the widely publicized executive orders about emergency powers and "prison camps" built by Halliburton are a PR exercise. A way of trying to keep control via threat. We're not sure how realistic it all is. Do you believe a military takeover of the country is viable or realistic at this point?

Nelson Hultberg: I don't think any kind of military takeover is imminent, but I certainly do believe that it could come to that down the road if the unraveling of society proceeds in the manner that past nations with severe monetary crises have unraveled. Those media Pollyannas who believe Congress would heroically resist the Military-Bureaucracy-Banking complex in defense of Constitutional procedure are embarrassingly naïve regarding history and human nature. If the time comes when the elites believe their backs are sufficiently up against the wall, that we the people are not sufficiently obedient to maintain order, they will come down on us and our savings accounts like all brutal dictatorships of the past. They will attempt to squash us with currency controls, windfall profits taxes, devaluations, martial law, tanks in the streets, FEMA camps, whatever they, in their hubris, deem necessary to retain control of and shore up the banking / bureaucratic debt system.

To them, we are the enemy. We and our desire for profits, our disrespect for government, our desire to be left alone, our concern with our children over mankind, our individualism, our self-reliance are all thorns in the socks of social welfarism. It is we who must be bridled in order to save the system, not they and the theoretical insanities they have foisted upon our economy over the past 100 years.

Daily Bell: How is your latest book doing? Tell our readers about it once again and how they can find it.

Nelson Hultberg: It is doing quite nicely, thank you. We have a second printing coming up. And it has struck a real chord out in the heartland. For example, many buyers who buy one copy come back in two to three weeks to buy 5-10 copies so they can pass it out to their children, friends and neighbors. It's title is The Conservative Revolution: Why We Must Form a Third Political Party to Win It. Your readers can read a review and buy a copy of it if they CLICK HERE.

Daily Bell: Let's take a quick look at the larger political and economic scene. Your thoughts on the EU – is it unraveling?

Nelson Hultberg: I certainly hope so. It is the precursor to Orwell's regional governments, Oceania, Eurasia, and East Asia. If it turns out to be a success, then it's supporters here in the U.S. will be further emboldened to push its odious centralizing upon Canada, America, and Mexico.

The problem with the EU is that its demise will not come quickly. Again we are confronted with the resiliency of collectivism. Countries such as Greece and others in the Balkans may dropout over the next decade, but the primary coalition will probably limp along. This is the grotesque nature of bureaucracy. Once begun, it spreads over our lives like a psoriasis blanketing one's skin and becomes impossible to get rid of.

Because of this, the statists are working assiduously for such a union here in North America. The North American Union, the Independent Task Force on North America, and the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America all promote this scheme along with a new currency, the Amero, for our three countries. Conservative journalists such as David Frum smear those of us who are alarmed with such a sacrifice of American sovereignty as "conspiracy nuts," but that is because writers of his ilk have assumed the role of courtiers to the elites. They are the "pseudo-conservatives" who are willing to sell out the principles of the Founders in pursuit of personal celebrity.

How they think such a compromise of the American nation will benefit freedom, justice and mankind is beyond me. Dumbing American citizens down to the educational and cultural level of a gauche hoi polloi is devastating us individually in this country, and dumbing our nation down to the level of Central America will further the process in sickening ways.

Daily Bell: How is the austerity meme being received in the EU?

Nelson Hultberg: Very badly it appears. But this is the nature of the modern social welfare citizen. He has been taught to believe that his entitlements are rights, and when he must give them up or accept a decrease in them, he is outraged at the lords of government who have the audacity to demand such a thing.

Daily Bell: What about China? We think its financial underpinnings are far less healthy than advertised. Agree? Disagree? Why?

Nelson Hultberg: I agree. China has built its economic power on the backs of cheap labor and massive inflation. These are not permanencies to be counted on over the long run. China's workers will eventually sour on their lowly wages and rise up in protest, which will bring a disruptive crackdown by the rulers in Beijing. Most important, however, is the blindness that their monetary authorities have regarding currency inflation. They are no more immune to the laws of economics than we in the West are. They will pay for their adoption of the Keynesian myth just as we have. How long they have before they must pay, I couldn't begin to know. But pay they will.

Daily Bell: Are gold and silver going to continue to head up pricewise?

Nelson Hultberg: I believe they will rise as sure as saplings grow toward the sky to become mighty oaks. We are enjoying a powerful bull market in precious metals that has many years to run. It must extend because there is no way out for the world's governments from the dilemma of currency debasement in order to service their debts. As the world's investors begin to perceive the damage that this debasement brings to conventional investment vehicles such as bonds, massive monies must pour out of these havens and into the only money left on the planet that has stability -- gold and silver. I believe that the Dow and the price of gold will eventually reach a 1 to 1 ratio as they did back in 1980 when the price of gold reached $880 per oz. Only this time the price will be somewhere around $4,000 to $5,000 per oz.

Daily Bell: What do you expect in the near future, inflation or deflation?

Nelson Hultberg: I expect both deflation and inflation over the next 10 years. I think Franklin Sanders first coined the term "hyper-inflationary depression." That is what will probably unfold. John Williams of ShadowStats.com recently gave us a very prescient peek into the future, and he thinks that there will be such a combination of inflation and deflation. Edwin Vieira thinks so also. As does James Sinclair. These are not minds to be taken lightly.

The reason why such a scenario is the most probable outcome is that the debt situation is totally unserviceable here in the U.S. by taxation and borrowing. There must take place large doses of "quantitative easing," to use the despicable euphemism of the elites and their lackeys on Wall Street. It's either print massively, or declare bankruptcy, i.e., default on the debt. Well, Washington will no more default on the debt than Hillary Clinton will heap hosannas upon Ron Paul and his laissez-faire philosophy. Default would ruin America's ability to continue selling its Treasuries to a gullible world, which is totally unacceptable to the elites. Thus printing becomes the only option. They will, of course, try to stretch it out and try to withdraw liquidity intermittently with their new money injections. They will bring all the contrivance and gimmickry they can to their efforts. But print they will; and it will bring a wildly fluctuating gold market, but a market that moves steadily higher over the next 10 years.

There are those like Bob Prechter who think we will incur a protracted case of the Japanese disease and succumb to massive deflation. But in my opinion, they are overlooking the fact that Japan's crisis was nothing like ours. The Japanese had a serviceable debt through taxation and borrowing, and their citizens had huge reserves of savings, so they did not need to print large amounts of new money. Consequently they delayed printing for many years as their crisis was unfolding, and when they finally got around to it, it was too late. They were mired in an irreparable deflation.

But what is not grasped by the Keynesians is that the printing will not do any genuine good. Once a bust cycle begins, it must play itself out through liquidation of the overhanging debt that is stultifying the economy. I devote an entire chapter in my book to discussing this, and it's in layman's language. Only by clearing out all the malinvestment and excessive debt can the economy regain its strength and begin anew the growth cycle. Keynesians, with their propping up schemes for the dinosaur banks and corporations, can only delay this process and extend the misery. This is what FDR did during the 1930s, and it is what Bernanke & Co. are repeating. This is the power of ideology. If it is false, as is the case with Marxist-Keynesian ideology, it warps the minds of even those who are highly intelligent to where they grossly misperceive reality.

Bernanke has already indicated many times that he will not follow the path of delay as the Japanese did. And he backed up such indications in February of 2009 when the Fed monetized over $300 billion in Treasury bonds. So despite the fact that they will not do any good, more monetizations are coming as sure as Mexicans are coming north.

Daily Bell: We hold that in a fiat-money economy real deflation (a shrinkage of the "true" money supply in Austrian terms) is a difficult thing. Agree? Disagree?

Nelson Hultberg: I agree, but money has several definitions, so it depends on how we define it. Is it M1, or M2, or M3, or MZM? Also when we are talking about deflation of the money supply, we are talking about a quantitative shrinkage. You can still get the devastating effects of a deflation without "quantitative shrinkage" if the velocity of money slows down enough. This is what is taking place to some degree now in America, and it is outside the control of the Fed. Velocity of money is slowing because fear now consumes the people, and they have undergone a dramatic change of mood in which they refuse to borrow and spend in any substantial amounts. They are ignoring the credit offerings of the Fed in order to bring back fiscal sanity to their lives. They are holding onto their money. This is bringing us the effects of deflation, i.e., a severe recession that might morph into a depression.

But I think it can be safely said that as long as the money masters have badges on their chests, guns on their hips, and a printing press in their basement, they will use such powers. They will inflate. Thus full scale quantitative deflation in a modern economy is very difficult.

Daily Bell: Any other thoughts you want to add? Important points you want to make?

Nelson Hultberg: I would like to urge your readers to join our efforts and help promote the Conservative American Party to the nation over the upcoming years. Our film on the potential for a third-party revolution in America is in the process of being made, but we need help in getting it completed. So all patriots out there, please come to the film's website, view the trailer, listen to the script narration, and make a contribution. Our country needs this film to show how the Demopublicans are robbing us of our rights, our money, and our freedom. Come to www.SpoilerUSA.org.

For a further look at what the Conservative American Party is all about, visit the AFR website at www.afr.org and read our Mission Statement.

Daily Bell: Thank you for your time and efforts to support freedom. Good luck!

We've presented several interviews with Nelson Hultberg who in our opinion has truly brilliant libertarian/conservative insights. We think the interview speaks for itself. It deals with many of the pressing issues of today's events – including deflation, velocity of money, polity and philosophy. A true Renaissance person from our point of view. One quote from the very beginning of the interview leaps out at us though.

The Greek and Roman republics, the flowering of the late Middle Ages, the Elizabethan Age, Jefferson's Republic of States were but brief interludes. Tyrannical collectivism has dominated the societies of the world throughout history via the Pharaohs, the Caesars, the Byzantine Empire, the Inquisition, Rousseau and the Jacobins of the Enlightenment, Comte and Marx of the 19th century, the communists and fascists of the 20th century, up to the velvet glove totalitarians of the Nanny State today working so relentlessly to spread coercive egalitarianism to all mankind.

This could perhaps use some clarification. The periods of modern human society are not black and white perhaps but shades of gray – differing in various regions at various times. In other words, freer epochs blend into more totalitarian ones, and then back again. We believe we are headed into an epoch perhaps of increasing freedom, though of course we are aware that many others would hold an opposite point of view.

Nonetheless, we would like to point out that humankind's history is probably one of struggle between elites and those who are not. Without a time machine it is difficult to say exactly what took place when. But we are not so sure that the history of freedom throughout human history is quite so gloomy as it is made out to be. Just a thought.