Democratic presidential candidate Senator Mike Gravel is literally none of the above. He stopped being a senator in 1981. He stopped being a Democrat last week when he switched to the Libertarian Party to seek its nomination. And he stopped being a traditional, power-hungry presidential candidate as of this interview when he declared that even if he won, he would resign as president if his National Initiative legislation was not passed.

But one thing he has never stopped being is outspoken. In 1971, his five-month-long, one-man filibuster helped end the draft. He brought the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret 7,000-page report detailing how our government misled us into the Vietnam War, into the public record by reading them from the floor of the senate. This election cycle, his animated participation in the Democratic debates and his anti-war, anti-tax stance (he'd get out of Iraq within 120 days and replace all federal taxes with the Fair Tax, a national retail sales tax) got him more web traffic than those of the Democratic front-runners, at least for one month, and his iconoclastic and mildly hypnotic YouTube commercial of him silently staring into the camera for two minutes has been viewed more than half a million times.

Sen. Gravel is an interesting and colorful man and our conversation was twice as long as you see here. Each cut word was painful and unfortunately makes the interview appear more abrupt than it really was. What's missing? Sen. Gravel's thoughts on the FDA (should be essentially abolished), Dr. Kevorkian (his jailing was terrible and he'd endorse his recent run for Congress if he also ran as a Libertarian), DNC chairman Howard Dean (who once called him an "asshole" over the mic), war (over the past century, only WWII and Afghanistan have been justified), lots more about the National Initiative (including how it has worked in practice in Switzerland), Barack Obama (who doesn't tell the truth about taking money from lobbyists), and more.

Is Sen. Gravel a Libertarian? That's for you to decide.

Phil Maymin: A lot of libertarians feel that the U.S. should not really be involved with the UN that much, that it takes away American sovereignty to give up certain rights to the UN. How do you feel about that?

Mike Gravel: There's two levels of sovereignty. There's the level of sovereignty of the group and the level of sovereignty of the individual. You have given up your sovereignty to your local government, your state government, and your federal government. Now your federal government is acting in your behalf to go start wars and kill people and to use the United Nations for whatever it wants to do, screwing around in the world. Okay?

Now, if you really wanted to recognize that we do need some kind of global governance, because we don't control the corporations that are controlling our lives right now. They're out there in no-man's-land, doing what they want to do. So what we need to do is have some level of global governance. Now, is that going to rely upon the nation-state? Or is it going to rely upon you with your sovereignty?

Now, if we had the National Initiative in place where you can exercise your sovereignty at the local level, the state level, and the federal level, and maybe the global level, where it's dependent upon you directly, and not dependent upon the federal government. You see the difference I'm drawing?

Maymin: I understand what you're saying. You're adding an extra layer on top of the federal layer of government.

Gravel: But I'm having it dependent upon you, not the Congress or the government.

Maymin: But the history over the past 50 years has been ethnic groups trying to create their own countries so they can govern themselves. If we go into "everybody votes across the world on what to do with America's money," that's not really fair.

Gravel: Wait a second. They're not voting on what to do with America's money. They're doing that right now with the UN.

Maymin: Well, that's what I mean.

Gravel: We pay our dues. But wait a second. Explain to me how we're ever going to have peace in the world when everybody can have armies and go to war.

Maymin: I think that's the only way we will have peace is if everybody has armies.

Gravel: Oh! Wait a second, wait a second. That's what we've been having since the beginning of civilization.

Maymin: No, we've had people trying to take away other people's armies. We've had America interfering with other people's business. An army is for defense, it's not an offensive army, where you go marching to create an empire. That's where the trouble comes. It's like with a gun.

Gravel: Well, how do you stop that? How do you stop that?

Maymin: How do you stop evil?

Gravel: No, how do you stop people from going around creating empires?

Maymin: Well, if it's my country on my tax dollars trying to go around, then I have a right to stop it and a duty to stop it.

Gravel: Tell me how you're doing it because you're not doing a good job at it right now.

Maymin: Right, but the problem is that the federal government is too powerful. Adding an extra layer of government...

Gravel: How do you stop that?

Maymin: ...is the wrong solution. You take away power from the federal government.

Gravel: Here, I know the problem, you know the problem. What's the solution?

Maymin: What's the solution? You know, elect a Libertarian President. Elect a Libertarian Congress.

Gravel: Oh really? Hey, a Libertarian President can't do shit.

Maymin: Well, no, first of all, the wars and foreign policy...

Gravel: Wait a sec, here, I'm a Libertarian. Make me president, I can't do a goddamn thing more than what anybody else can do. Now if the American people can make laws then I can do something.

Maymin: If you're the president, why can't you just pull all the troops back from all bases overseas and bring them all home?

Gravel: Hey, don't you know how the Congress works?

Maymin: But you're in charge of the army.

Gravel: Who's in the Congress? What's the Congress gonna do? It's gonna be made up of Democrats and Republicans?

Maymin: They can do whatever. They can pass whatever laws they want, at the end of the day it's your decision where to send the troops. You can always bring them home.

Gravel: You can only do what they appropriate money for. Please. Regardless of whether it's McCain or Hillary or Obama, they're all going to be war-making and drawing us into wars.

So if I were president, sure I could withdraw the troops, but then it won't be any significant change until the people can make laws.

It's only with the people—see, what I would do, how I could end the military-industrial complex, is I would ask the people as lawmakers to give me the line-item veto and I would sit in the Oval Office with the military appropriations legislation and I would go through it like a dose of salts. That's how I'd do it. That's simple. But it's the people who have given me the power to do it. Without that, I can't do a thing.

Maymin: Okay.

Gravel: The military-industrial complex owns the country. They own us, right now. Lock, stock, and barrel, and they've militarized our culture, and they own the media. They own everything. You think you can elect somebody president on that score?

Here, I'm trying by becoming a Libertarian to get across the message and it's a Libertarian message. Now I don't know if the Libertarians, if you as a Libertarian will understand that you got all these views on Libertarianism but the most important thing about Libertarianism is to empower the people to have liberty. And you can only have liberty and freedom if you can make laws.

Maymin: Let me try to challenge that, if I may. The point of liberty and libertarianism is so you can live your life the way you want to so long as you don't harm other people, right? That's the basic idea. So to the extent you have more of an ability to pass laws, that's really giving you power not over yourself but over your fellow Americans. And that's not liberty. That's in some at least theoretical sense taking away liberty overall.

Gravel: No! No. Because you see you're not alone on the planet. You're part of a society. And so you as an individual are alone, you want your liberty, so fine, you can go be Jeremiah Johnson, go live in the forest and eat twigs. But when you come into society you have to have rules for the functioning of society. And those rules are determined, they're called laws. And Solon in 595 BC brought out this concept of laws. And so now the key is laws. And so if you really want to enjoy your liberty as part of a collective society, you have to become a lawmaker. Cicero, more than two thousand years, defined freedom. Now freedom is the exercise of liberty. Do you understand that concept?

So, now, to have freedom you must participate in power. In a democracy, power is the central part of government, which is lawmaking. So if you want to have freedom, you must become a lawmaker. If you're not part of making laws, you're not part of power. And so therefore you're stuck as an individual, wanting to be free and have liberty, but all you can do is obey the goddamn laws some other people pass for you. Are you beginning to understand that?

Maymin: No, I understand what you're saying.

Gravel: No, you're not understanding what I'm saying because you think you can have your libertarian liberty without being part of the power structure of making laws.

Maymin: Well, I think this definition of the word "power" is being used in two different senses. I should have power over myself. So for example, my money, I earned it from somebody, who should decide...

Gravel: Of course, you have the power over that. That's a given. It's your money.

Maymin: So I should be able to decide what to do with my money, right?

Gravel: Of course. But now you live in a society that has roads and so you must contribute some portion of your money to pay for the roads you're going to drive on.

Maymin: Right, so that's where we disagree. I don't think everybody on earth should be deciding what to do with my money.

Gravel: Well then don't drive on the roads! Go back into the wilderness.

Maymin: Yeah, that's fine, maybe roads should not be publicly funded or maybe they should be locally funded.

Gravel: Well, wait a second, who's local? If I go into your town and drive on your roads and enjoy the benefit of that, then why should you pay for my benefit?

Maymin: Oh, I may well install a toll.

Gravel: Well, that's fine. We do that. I got an EZ Pass.

Maymin: Right. The problem is things like welfare, or Social Security, or education.

Gravel: But you recognize that in a complex society, whether it's local or global, we need laws. And what I'm trying to point out to you is that at the global level we have anarchy. And you know who gets screwed when you got anarchy, is the individual loses liberty. That's what happens. And the people who have military might, profit. And that's what's going on in the world today.

Maymin: What about things like education and health care? There doesn't seem to be any Constitutional authority for the federal government to provide those services.

Gravel: Well, how are you going to get people educated then?

Maymin: There may be lots of problems in the world, one of which may be education, but if it's not authorized, it's not authorized.

Gravel: Let's pose the question. We're both Libertarians. How are we going to get the people educated so that they can be good Libertarians?

Maymin: How are you going to educate him? Are you going to take my money to educate him?

Gravel: I don't know who, I don't know.

Maymin: Well, if you want to take my money, then you have to have some authority to do so.

Gravel: Well, fine. Then you want everybody dumb? Uneducated?

Maymin: I want everybody free.

Gravel: Freedom involves having knowledge, doesn't it?

Maymin: No. No. Freedom involves being free from oppression, not having other people take your money or your time or your abilities. Not being forced to sit in a school that looks just like a jail for 12-13 years of your life, right? That's not freedom.

Gravel: No, that's stupid education.

Maymin: Yes.

Gravel: So if you're not smart enough to get in there and help design a decent education system, then you're going to get this dumb education system that you refuse to get involved with in designing.

Maymin: But I can design a private education system.

Gravel: Well, fine. Then do that.

Maymin: Fine, but then everybody is involved voluntarily. There's no use of force.

Gravel: Well, fine. Then we'll all do things voluntarily.

Maymin: Okay.

Gravel: Well, good. Then fine. We won't build any roads unless you want to pave it. We'll have anarchy. Everything's going to be voluntary.

Maymin: Wait, why is it anarchy? If it's voluntary...

Gravel: It is anarchy. It is anarchy. Because why should I turn around and pay for it when I can live off of you?

Maymin: Right, I'm not going to force you to pay for it if you don't want to...

Gravel: That's fine, I'll just suck off of you. Why the hell should I lift a finger?

Maymin: No, you don't have to. I mean, people give to charities...

Gravel: You're right I don't have to, and I won't! I'll just suck off of you. I'll stand on a corner and beg off of you when you walk by.

Maymin: You're welcome to do that but I am under no obligation to give money on the corner.

Gravel: Of course you don't have to give. Of course you don't have to give. So what will happen is if you don't give and I get hungry enough I'll take a goddamn knife and I'll take it from you.

Maymin: Well, that's the purpose of government. That's where the difference between anarchy and libertarian government comes into play, because then we have a justice system...

Gravel: Tell me about libertarian government. You got any in the world?

Maymin: Well, I mean, it's an ideal, though America used to be fairly libertarian...

Gravel: Well, wait a sec. One of the things of life is, you know, you can design all these kinds of perfect theories that's really down to practicalities don't make any sense.

Maymin: What doesn't make sense about going back to basically the way things were before we had a Department of Education or a Department of Energy?

Gravel: Oh, you want to roll the clock back?

Maymin: I want to roll freedom forward.

Gravel: Is that really what you're advocating? Before, we had no education in this country?

Maymin: Wait, are you talking about public or private education?

Gravel: I'm talking about, there was no education. I don't give a shit whether it's public or private. When we had no education, is that what you want?

Maymin: I don't remember a time when we had no education. I know a time when we had no public education. Things were certainly better in terms of people being better educated.

Gravel: Oh, come on. Please... Here, you can take your libertarianism to extreme and it's not libertarianism. It truly isn't. It truly isn't. It becomes marginally unfunctional.

Maymin: How would you define libertarianism?

Gravel: I'd define libertarianism having liberty and freedom in a complex society that recognizes the freedom of others...

And that means you gotta have laws. And since you gotta have laws, then I want to be party to making the laws. That's the only protection I have is to be party to making the laws. And that means that I want the people to make the laws to protect themselves. That's why I say that the National Initiative is more libertarian than anything anybody in the Libertarian Party has ever thought of.

Maymin: To the extent that the National Initiative does not pass, and you are the president, then what do you do?

Gravel: What would I do? I would bully the people to vote to put it in place and if they don't put it in place, I wouldn't stay as president.

What the hell am I gonna do? Just enjoy the perks of the White House and sit with the Congress and fight over nothing? Oh sure, I'd end the war. But they would win. They've won in the past. It's a silly game. It's an ego trip at that point, and I don't want it. At my age, what do I need that for?

Maymin: You don't think you could do a lot of good as president even without the National Initiative?

Gravel: What's a lot of good? My God.

Maymin: You know, you could end the war on drugs...

Gravel: Listen, I was in elective office for 16 years. I ended the draft. I stopped the nuclear testing in the north Pacific. I released the Pentagon Papers. Tell me about all the good I did when we now went back into Iraq and we're still killing people.

Maymin: Well, you did good.

Gravel: I know I've done good but it didn't do enough. It's all forgotten. We're worse off today than when I was in office. We're worse off today...

I don't have any magic answers. I have the same conclusions that you have. But I'm not arrogant enough to think that, boy, this is what's got to be done. I've made too many laws in my life where I saw that they have unintended consequences.

Here, I'll give you an unintended consequence. I ended the draft. We've got over a hundred thousand mercenaries in Iraq today. That's an unintended consequence of my ending the draft.

So it's tough to really pat yourself on the back saying how great you are when you see this kind of crap happen as a result of what you've done. Yet I'm proud of what I've done there, but still...

Maymin: I understand. I think what you're saying is you're looking for one big thing you can do, right? That would do a lot of good for a long period of time, and the National Initiative is...

Gravel: That's right. I'll be long gone... I want to give the Libertarians a tool that then will help them bring about what Libertarian is really all about. And that is for the people to be free. And how do you become free, is as Cicero said, you participate in power. If you can't participate in power, you cannot be free...

And I hear what you're saying about education. I got the same views. Like I say, I can say it with a clear conscience: fire all the damn school boards!

We've fractured our educational system. I see the countries that are succeeding in education flies right in the face of your views on libertarianism: Finland, Sweden, Spain—they all have national standards and they all fund education for the student's entire life, all the way up to the Ph.D.

Maymin: They also have school choice, which we don't have.

Gravel: They do?

Maymin: I think a lot of them do. They have a voucher program and so there's some...

Gravel: Oh, well, no, the voucher program, that's it for me. That's for sure. That's a given. That's a given.

Maymin: Then you have at least some competition so you go back to at least a little bit of...

Gravel: That's a given. I wouldn't even argue that point. I assume that. When I talk about getting rid of the damn unions, I'm talking about that.

The voucher. And see, the voucher, you could pay your mother to teach you full time, if she's qualified. And as long as you could pass some tests.

Here, I would pay people—like if you got a sick mother, rather than have you go get on welfare or Medicare, Medicaid, whatever, if you're going to stay home and take care of your parents, you should be able to—if we're going to pay other people to do that, why not pay you to do it, rather than you go to work, and then pay your taxes, and then we have your taxes pay somebody else to do it. Here again, it's common sense, that if we had a lot of that, and people have this creativity.

If we would just get the government out of the way.

Maymin: Yeah.

Gravel: But people will do that. We talk of, you want less government? You will never, never get less government until you put the people in power. You see whenever something goes wrong what does a politician think of? First, "Oh, I got a solution."

Listen to Obama talk. Goddamn, every time he opens his mouth he's spending another hundred bucks on you. [Laughing] And Hillary the same. And if you can read the code, so is McCain. But you gotta be able to read the code. That's the way politicians think. You know why they think that way? They want you to love 'em. "Vote for me, I'm going to do things for you."

But that's not the way the people think. The people look at the problem and they say, "Hmm. Now maybe if I leave it alone, it'll go away." [Laughing.] You know something? It may go away! Nine times out of ten, it will. That's the reason the Hippocratic oath is very interesting. It says, "First, do no harm." And that's what politicians do not understand.

Maymin: If you had to vote for one of the other three guys, who would you vote for?

Gravel: I wouldn't. Because they're terrible...I'd vote for myself.

Obama is not good. Obama, there's a very really difficult situation. When you raise people's expectations, and you can't deliver, you really, really do a lot of damage. Hillary will do less damage, because she's not raising expectations.

Maymin: What an interesting way of looking at it. Wow.

Gravel: What's more damage? If I raise your expectations, and I don't deliver, I make a cynic out of you. And that's the worst thing you can do to a population is to make them a bunch of cynics. Then they have no hope. And that's what Obama's doing. He can't deliver on anything he's talking about. And plus he doesn't tell the truth either.

Maymin: I guess that's another nice thing about the National Initiative, right? There's no natural way for parties to form.

Gravel: That's right—you've just put your finger on something! You see, here, if the Libertarians became a full-fledged party like the Democratic Party, they will act just like the Democratic Party (laughing). Power corrupts.

Maymin: That's the danger.

Gravel: But if the Libertarian Party gets a President and enacts the National Initiative, you don't need the parties. The people will be the disciplinarians. It may cause the disappearance of the parties. I don't know.

What's going to be the unintended consequence of empowering the people? I don't know. But one of the things, possible, it could do away with the parties, which is what the founding fathers feared the most, which was the parties.

What we're just articulating is the first time I've ever articulated that. I never thought of it.