Welcome to this extremely important Coffee with Lynette interview with a man I have enormous respect for Judge Andrew Napolitano. I was honored to be on the same venue with him at Gerald Celente’s freedom rally in Kingston, New York last 4th of July, but no one understands the constitution better. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Notre Dame Law School. He is the youngest life tenured Superior Court Judge in the history of the State of New Jersey. He’s taught Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence at Delaware Law School and Seton Hall Law School and now hosts the podcast Judging Freedom, which you can find on his Judge Napolitano YouTube channel, which of course the link is below and also on our blog. He has been published in the New York times, the wall street journal, the Los Angeles times and numerous other publications and has authored nine books on the U.S. Constitution. He is nationally known for watching and reporting on the government as it takes Liberty and property.

Are we losing our Democracy? And if so, what are the things we need to be paying attention to — to ensure that we’re storing our wealth in the right places, as well as having things in line for being self sustained.

TRANSCRIPT FROM VIDEO:

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Why do I need an AR-15? Turn on the television. Yeah, watch Fox News or CNN. That’s why you need an AR-15, because you don’t know when what’s happening there in Ukraine is happening here.

Lynette Zang:

Welcome to this extremely important Coffee with Lynette interview with a man I have enormous respect for Judge Andrew Napolitano. I was honored to be on the same venue with him at Gerald Celente’s freedom rally in Kingston, New York last 4th of July, but no one understands the constitution better. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Notre Dame Law School. He is the youngest life tenured Superior Court Judge in the history of the State of New Jersey. He’s taught Constitutional Law and Jurisprudence at Delaware Law School and Seton Hall Law School and now hosts the podcast Judging Freedom, which you can find on his Judge Napolitano YouTube channel, which of course the link is below and also on our blog. He has been published in the New York times, the wall street journal, the Los Angeles times and numerous other publications and has authored nine books on the U.S. Constitution. He is nationally known for watching and reporting on the government as it takes Liberty and property. And I’m very happy to see you again Judge, thank you so much for giving us some of your valuable time in joining us today.

Lynette Zang:

The constitution establishes the U.S. as a Federal Democratic Republic form of Government, but recently Barbara F. Walter, a CIA panel member told us that the us is no longer a democracy, but has become an in further both she and Ray Dalio has warned of a potential civil war. So can you explain what an Anocracy is? And do you think that we really are headed for a Civil War?

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Well, I don’t know. I don’t know the word Anocracy. But I can tell you that the government of the United States of America is not run by the Democrats who control the Congress or the White House, or even if the Republicans control the Congress or the White House, but by what we desirably call the deep state, which truly does exist. It’s those parts of the government that never change with elections that themselves aren’t popularly elected that have no visibility or transparency, but wield tremendous power. So it’s the intelligence community, the federal law enforcement community, which is not just the FBI. There are many, many, many federal law enforcement entities. I’ll give you an example. It’s only 8,000 FBI agents. TSA has 60,000 cops. I don’t think Americans even know that. They don’t dress like cops, but they’re cops.

Lynette Zang:

They’re yep.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

The Federal Reserve, the administrative state and the people in the private sector that benefit from this and cooperate with them like bankers and former federal agents that are now earning 10 and 20 times their salaries when they worked for the government. So that’s the first part of the question. The second part of the question is, I don’t know. And of course I hope not, but we are, you’re younger than I am, but you, you might remember you remember the late sixties, the Vietnam war era. I mean, that’s the last time the country was as divided. And I think we are more divided now than we were then that was generational. This is ideological. It doesn’t have anything to do with age or generation or a fear of the draft, right? It’s just people who’ve had enough of government and people who want the government to give them something. Those are basically the two sides. There’s a lot of nuance in there. You know, there’s the Hawks that always want war. There’s the isolationists of which I am one that think the only just war is a defensive war. We are profoundly bitterly divided more so than before Trump was President more so than when he left the White House.

Lynette Zang:

Well you talk about the deep state, do you think this division is intentional? And you know, perhaps even like a misdirection?

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Well, I don’t know what the deep state wants other than to aggrandize its own power. I happen to believe from anecdotal evidence, but also from a consistent pattern that the deep state has dirt on many, many people in the government, decent people in the government. And it uses the threats of that dirt. Where did it get the dirt? Well, it spies on everybody all the time. To get Congress, to vote, to continue its powers and to and to increase its budgets. What does the deep state want? It wants to stay in power. There are a lot of people who believe that the federal government is so burdened with debt that a time will come when it can’t pay its debts. No one will lend its monies by buying bonds. Its cash will be worthless and what will happen? It’ll collapse. Right? And we will break off into a half dozen or a dozen smaller countries. If you are in Texas or Arizona, you might have a lot of freedom. If you’re in the Northeast where I am forget about it’ll be the people’s Republic of the Northeast. But the almighty federal government will probably be gone. Now, I don’t think that’ll happen in my lifetime, but we are on the road to that happening. That would be a peaceful Civil War, sort of like the way the Soviet union fell apart.

Lynette Zang:

Right, right. Relatively peaceful. Yes. But you know, I mean, I, I pay a lot of attention to money. Right?

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Right, that’s your field.

Lynette Zang:

and not Fiat money, but real money. And as a constitutionalist, can you address, you know, money, the Fiat money and then the upcoming CBDCs, Central Bank Digital Currencies.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Well, I hope that the bank that the Federal Reserve fails in its efforts to regulate digital currencies because digital currencies represent freedom. Cash used to represent freedom. But now of course, the government requires so many people that deal with cash, not the least of which are banks to report cash transactions. By the way, the federal statutes, I’ll get to fiat money in a second. Okay. Federal statutes report, or require that all banks chartered by the federal government, which is most of them to report cash transactions of $10,000 or more the National Security Agency, the NSA, the domestic spies in conjunction with the CIA. We just learned this the other day from Senator Ron Wyden a liberal Democrat, but a champion of privacy and personal Liberty, the NSA and the CIA have been tracking cash transactions of $500 or more without authority. And without a search warrant, Fiat money of course is the root of nearly all of our evils because it consistent of the federal reserve used to be printing cash when they had a printing press. Now they’ll just add zeros on the accounts of their favorite bankers. So Jamie Dimon and Chase will benefit tremendously from this, but more cash chasing the same amount of goods produces what we now have last month, 7.9% inflation worse in America since Jerry Ford was the President

Lynette Zang:

And that’s official, which means, you know, it’s worse,

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Correct. Those are the government’s numbers, right? So, you know, the reality reality is worse. I am a devotee and fan of, I think you may be also of the late great Murray Rothbard.

Lynette Zang:

Yes.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

A brilliant academician economist and political philosopher. Who by the way, was thrown out of NYU because he was too libertarian for them and ended up not far where you are in the great Western state of Nevada. And he made his bones at UNLV, University of Nevada at Las Vegas, but Murray Rothbard demonstrated co-conclusively how Fiat money is at the root of so much of our evils and the only entities that benefit from it are the people that first get it.

Lynette Zang:

Exactly.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Everybody else. Everybody else ends up with a, with a, a dollar worth far less than it was before they started this thing. That’s why, when I mentioned the deep state, I said bankers and private entities that are their collaborators. I’m not blaming Jamie Dimon, personally inherited this system, but he’s the chair of Chase. JP Morgan Chase, all those people chairs of the big banks that get the zeros added onto their accounts, no gold backing it, no silver backing it, nothing backing it. Fiat in that the government just created out of thin air. All those people become fabulously rich because of it. The rest of us suffer terribly.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Haha. Same thing! Oh, I have to have one of those!

Lynette Zang:

I know we’ll send you one, we’ll send you one.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Okay hahahaha!

Lynette Zang:

Definitely. You know, I have a whole slew of them so that we could all play central bankers,

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Right!

Lynette Zang:

Because actually it’s even easier than just pushing that button. But yes.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

The constitutionality of the Federal Reserve has never reached the Supreme court. They have always managed to get challenges to the constitutionality of the federal reserve dismissed at the trial level. I think I know what the court would do the other day. The court allowed the federal government to shield torture on the theory that it’s a state secret. I am sure the court would uphold the federal reserve, but it’d be interesting to see what their argument is because it is so profoundly unconstitutional. Okay. Yeah. So profoundly against all of Madison’s free market clauses in the document itself.

Lynette Zang:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you made a perfect point in that those that are closest to whoever creates the money benefits the most, cause it has the most, most value officially we have 3 cents left out of that dollar and with interest rates anchored at zero, you know, they can talk all they want about raising interest rates and stopping QE. But do you think they can really do that? And you know, and I definitely, we want your opinion on the central bank, digital currencies too.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Well when the Federal government collapses. And again, I don’t know if it’ll be in my lifetime then obviously the federal reserve will collapse. I don’t know what the means of exchange will be. I hope it is a gold and silver or some valuable commodity. You don’t have to carry around a brick of gold in your pocket, but you can carry something that can be redeemed for gold. Right. As, as was the case before FDR seized gold. And then 40 years later when Richard Nixon officially took us off the gold standard to horrific horrific decisions made by men that didn’t understand economics 101, but in whose hands we reposed to this power. As for crypto currency, the beauty of it is it’s anonymity. And the government can’t reach it. But if the government starts regulating cryptocurrency, something else will pop up privacy and freedom come from our human nature. The government can build all the walls it wants around us and create all the obstacles it wants the minds of men and women who love freedom and privacy will continue to outsmart the government until the government collapses or until people who think like Thomas Massey and Ron Paul are a majority in the government

Lynette Zang:

From your mouth, the gods ears. I mean, honestly, because it’s almost like you knew what was coming when, you know, just recently with these recent mandates, when you wrote this book in 2014, where you talked about the radical expansion of presidential powers and the lethal threat to American Liberty.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

The radical expansion was something I never even and imagine I can’t claim to have predicted COVID, but I am not surprised all these COVID regulations from lockdowns, a phrase I hate because that refers to closing down a jail but everybody used it. From lockdowns to social distancing, to masks, to vaccines none of which prevents the spread of this. Some of which may temper the intensity of the COVID. All of which here’s my point came from mayors or governors or from Presidents Trump and Biden. What’s the point? Under the constitution, the executive branch can’t write laws, only the legislative branch can. This is not a city council. This is not a state legislature. And we all know this is not the Congress. These were edicts issued by executive powers where under our system. The executive enforces laws, the executive doesn’t make laws, but the presidential power has expanded so radical and derivatively, gubernatorial power governors has expanded so radically that barely a peep, other than from those of us like you and me and our colleagues in the media and in academia that watched this stuff for a living, barely a peep over, well, where does this come from? This isn’t a mandate. This executive order is toothless. It means nothing. I was talking to some state troopers in New Jersey shortly after another team of state troopers visited the home of a retired Roman Catholic Bishop in his late seventies, because he had dared to keep Catholic churches open after the governor, Phil Murphy, elapsed Catholic ordered that they be closed. And I said to these troopers, do you remember day one in the academy? Rule one, it is unlawful to obey an unlawful order. And they all looked at me and said, yes, but who’s gonna be the first one to stand up and say that? I said, well, whoever it is may not be a state trooper any longer, but they’ll be a genuine American hero and they’ll sleep well at night.

Lynette Zang:

Yeah. You just gave me chills because we all have to ask ourselves if not me who, and if not now, when that is really, really hard, because along with everything that’s happening and the marriage between big tech and government where we are definitely in and have been in, but it’s getting worse, a surveillance economy or a complete surveillance state. I mean, I may be, and, and viewers know this, cause I’ve said, you know, I’m really grappling with this. So maybe you can help me cause I have so much admiration for you. You know, it isn’t just that entities like a Google and Facebook are monitoring what you say. And if they don’t like it, then they take you off the air or can destroy you. It’s gotten to the point where we are. Self-Policing aren’t we?

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Well, if, if Google and Facebook are doing the government’s bidding.

Lynette Zang:

Well…

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

That imposes on Google and Facebook, the same restrictions that the constitution imposes on the government that’s called state action. When a private actor either openly or secretly does the government’s bidding for them. Then the private actor has the same restrictions as the government. Well the government since 1947, when the national security act was signed by Harry Truman, the government has been on a security state mode utterly disregarding the fourth amendment and arguing that it can spy as it wishes without search warrants because the governments are argument is the fourth amendment only restrains law enforcement. It doesn’t restrain intelligence. Well that’s hog wash. The fourth amendment was written by James Madison with memories of British agents and soldiers banging on the doors of colonists demanding to see if they had the King’s image on all their pieces of paper called the stamp act that really tipped the scales in favor of the succession. And I used that word intentionally Lynn, the succession of the 13 colonies from Great Britain. And it also impelled the fourth amendment, which is intended to protect us from all government, not just law enforcement.

Lynette Zang:

Well, because the individual, the state was supposed to support the individual, the federal government supposed to support the state, but everything has been flip flopped. And what, you know, honestly, I have to ask you, what can we do? How many, what percentage of the population needs to understand what you’re saying? What I’ve been trying to say and many others in our, in our area.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

I, I don’t know if the public will understand this until their dollars are worthless. So it’s, it’s really going to have to come to that worthless or nearly worthless, you know, and again, I go to Texas and I have some issues with the government of Texas, but in, in, when it comes to money, it’s a very free place in Texas. Of course you can use gold or silver to buy things and the state will issue it. Doesn’t give it away. You pay the state $10, you get $10 worth of gold, which isn’t very much gold today, but that’s just an example that I’m using. And, and that currency might actually replace the federal currency when the feds go away. But you and I and Rockwell and Murray Rothbar and Tom Woods and a lot of our and Gerald Celente and a lot of our friends have been preaching this for a couple of generations.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

More and more people are learning about it more and more people are as stewing the National Democratic Party because it’s being tugged so far to the left. The National Republican Party, because we don’t even know what it stands for anymore. In favor of a more “leave me alone” type government. These people don’t necessarily call themselves libertarians as you and I are, but they’re leaning toward libertarian thinking because it’s easy to observe the government’s failures. I mean, the federal reserve has become a joke interest rates are the rent you pay on money. Why can’t those interest rates float in accordance with supply and demand? Why does Jay Powell, by the way, live to cross the hall from me when we were undergraduates at Princeton, he probably never imagined I’d end up on television and he’d end up with the Federal Reserve. I’ll tell you a story, in the same years at Princeton, Jay Powell, Mark Milley, who’s the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Samuel Alito, my classmate on the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan on the Supreme court, Sonia Sotomayor on the Supreme court and yours truly who ended up on Fox and friends haha.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

We’re all there at the same time, but Jay Powell.

Lynette Zang:

Quite interesting.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Put aside his great education. You know, seems to believe that he can enhance a prosperity by restraining freedom that has never, ever, ever worked in the history of the world. And it’s not gonna work in the future.

Lynette Zang:

Do you really think he thinks that?

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Well, you know, I don’t know if he thinks that he acts like he thinks it. Yeah. I mean what our interest rates now?

Lynette Zang:

Oh my God. Well, you know.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

What’s the advantage of saving. You might as well put your dollars on a shoebox underneath the bed.

Lynette Zang:

Well, that’s kind of been true since the Federal Reserve took over, isn’t it? You know, and what tools do they have? I mean, I love how they keep saying that they’re gonna use all of their tools to fight this inflation when they’ve all of their tools created this and what are their tools? Interest rates and printing presses.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

That’s it, that’s it both, both signs of tyrants.

Lynette Zang:

Exactly. But, you know, I recently listened to a survivor of Auschwitz and he explained how Hitler came into power and how, you know, how they didn’t leave when they saw it, because he said it, it for, they start slowly, right? And they take away a little fir they target groups and then they take away a little bit of freedom and they create a little bit of inconvenience, not too bad. Okay. You can’t sit on these benches, but there are other benches you can sit on and then people get used to it before you know it, then it starts to speed up. I see parallels in what he’s talking about, especially with the polarization, like you were talking about.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

I see parallels because all, all monsters, all dictators have to have some person or group that they hate.

Lynette Zang:

Yep.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

You know, the government, the government, which prosecutes hate crimes is the biggest perpetrator of hate in, in all of history. The government hated blacks when it allowed them to be enslaved, they’d hated them again during Jim Crow. And then the government told us we should, we should hate the Soviet Union. And then we should hate Iran. And then we should hate Saddam Hussein. And then I know this sounds absurd because it’s a virus we should hate COVID and now we should hate Vladimir Putin. The government accomplishes wonders for itself when it can preach this hatred. Of course, in, in the case of the Holocaust, it was the Jewish people and it was horrible and horrific, God bless those who got out early, who saw it coming and those who, who survived, but we don’t even know the number probably 12 million were slaughtered horrifically because of a Nazi Germany’s need to have a group of people that had hated and average everyday Germans went along with it!

Lynette Zang:

That’s it? And that was his message. Do not be complacent! And we’ve got the polarization, but I, I mean, are you also seeing the complacency among people?

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Yes. Yes. The complacency was manifested by everybody that put on a mask. And then everybody that insisted you, you stay six feet away from everybody else. And I’ll go back to the state police again, they were brutal here in New Jersey, a famous case of two blue collar kids that successfully built a very popular gym. They had people working out in the gym at two in the morning with the doors locked. The state police used sledgehammers to break in and yank everybody out and lock up the owners. Now everybody was there voluntarily, by the way, nobody got sick from that gym, it shouldn’t be a footnote. That should be the headline.

Lynette Zang:

That should. Right.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Right. But, but the fact that people accepted it, that my former colleagues in the New Jersey judiciary validated it is, is reprehensible. So to me, greatest and most dangerous lesson of COVID is not what the government did, but what the government got away with. Yes. And how, how pliant people were in accepting the government orders and in refusing to challenge them or in losing the challenges.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

You know, there comes a time, I’m not advocating violence. And I, I think what happened on January 6th was part political demonstration, but mainly criminal. But there comes a time when you have to stand your ground. You know Woodrow Wilson locked up young men for reciting the declaration of independence outside of draft offices. His theory was this will deter people from registering for the draft and cause us to lose World War I. World War I perhaps the most unjust and least useful war we ever fought! Of course you can add Afghanistan and Iraq and the Korean War there, but World War I was just absurd for us to get involved in. But if you, the declaration of independence, which is enacted as law by the Congress, it tells us when the government fails to protect our liberties, it is the right and the duty of the people to alter or abolish it. More people need. This is a long-winded answer to your great question. My dear friend, more people need to have that attitude. Not saying they have to walk around with guns on their hips and, attacking the Capitol building, but they need to have that attitude. Well, let me say something about guns. I have all these…You know, I live in a repressive, repressive state when it comes to guns the other day, some friends in a small gathering said to me, you know, why do you need an AR-15? Why do I need an AR-15? Turn on the television, watch Fox news or CNN. That’s why you need an AR-15, because you don’t know when what’s happening there in Ukraine is happening here.

Lynette Zang:

Exactly.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

If those good and decent Ukrainians didn’t have AR-15’s, Putin’s people would be dancing in the streets tonight.

Lynette Zang:

That is a really, really good and scary point. I’m frankly, glad I live in Arizona, where it has not been as intense as it’s been for you guys in the northeast.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

I think that’s going to change. There’s a major case before the Supreme court. I don’t wanna tell you who, there’s a Supreme court justice that carries. So I ahahaha I think, I think the law is gonna change very soon. The, the carry laws or anti-car laws in New York have been challenged. And from the oral argument looks like they’re gonna be invalidated. And that would force all the other states, which by the way, is a minority of states. You can carry in about 25 or 26 states. You only need a permit from one of them. You can carry in all the others. All the carry laws in the other states, including, and especially New Jersey are going to go by the wayside.

Lynette Zang:

Well, let’s hope because if we are not able to protect ourselves, then we have much bigger problems, much bigger problems, but you know, we’ve been going from crisis to crisis. And I know we’re gonna, I, I know we’re limited on times here, so I’m gonna do it really fast, but you know, there’s a long history of wars. Like you pointed World War I, which was right around the same time that the federal reserve was installed.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Woodrow Wilson was a monster, the Federal Reserve, World War I, the Administrative State and the Federal Income Tax, all under the Presidency of this professor from Princeton who thought he was smarter than anybody else.

Lynette Zang:

Yep. And I think that was well, I know that was the beginning. I believe we are now at the end. And so with short time, is there any words that you would like to leave our viewers with?

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Be vigilant and be courageous and understand what your rights are. And if the government comes knocking, ask them for a warrant. If they don’t have a warrant close the door.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

That’s what I would say. If they, if they came to my business, looking to see if my employees were vaccinated, Where’s your warrant? Well, we don’t have one. We’re from the health apartment. Goodbye. You know, the night Reagan once said the nine most dangerous words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” don’t believe it.

Lynette Zang:

Wow. With that. I, I hope you’ll come back on again because you…

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

I will come back at the drop of a hat. You let me speak, it’s a great interview. I love you. I love your work. Anybody that’s a friend of Gerald Celente is a friend of mine, even if you’re blonde haired and you live in Arizona,

Lynette Zang:

I’m gray haired, I’m gray haired. Don’t you remember?

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

I hope I see you again. The next time Gerald has one of those gatherings in beautiful Kingston, New York…Half of which he owns hahaha

Lynette Zang:

I know! And that was that’s where I was raised. So if Gerald asks me, oh, yep. If, if Gerald asks me at a drop of a hat, I will be there a hundred percent of the time.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Time for those watching us now, truly one of the most beautiful, full old towns in the United States of America, the original Capitol of the State of New York, the first chief justice, John Jay is buried there. And many, many structures, including some of Geralds are the original 17th Century that’s 1600’s. Era construction, magnificent buildings magnificent town.

Lynette Zang:

It’s probably why I’m an antique or honestly, because that’s what I grew up amongst. So this has been so great, Judge. Thank you so much for coming and to all of our viewers. I hope you got as much out of this as I did. This is just the first interview. The Judge will be back and until next we meet, please be safe out there. Bye bye.

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