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April 30, 2021 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
21:44
'(bleep) The Mask Order' With Guest 'The Pholosopher'

Libertarian artist and educator "The Pholosopher" joins today's Liberty Report to explain how the statists can best be challenged with music and humor. How to connect with a younger generation now seemingly attracted to socialism and authoritarianism? Chan has a few ideas...

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Keeping Optimistic 00:01:33
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
Dr. Paul is still taking a couple of days off.
I'm sure he'll be with us as soon as he's able to do so.
But today, we're going to have kind of a fun day because, as you all know, Dr. Paul always advises keeping humorous, keeping on the bright side, keeping optimistic, enjoying what you're doing, spreading the message of liberty with a smile on your face, and being happy doing it.
And I think recently I've discovered someone who I think really embodies that and brings a lot of energy and a lot of humor into a serious subject that can, frankly, be a bit didactic at times.
And this is Pho Chan.
She is an artist, an educator, I would say, and a philosopher.
And in fact, she goes by the moniker the philosopher on YouTube and elsewhere.
And she's a self-described anarcho-capitalist, voluntarist, anarchist, and libertarian who says that the non-aggression principle is the highest value for her.
Pho, thank you for joining us and welcome to the Liberty Report.
Thanks so much for having me on, Daniel.
It's a pleasure to be here.
I also just got the live alert.
All right.
Well, that's surprising because no one gets the live alert.
It's like winning the lotto, I think.
Yeah.
Uh-oh.
I have you guys not alerts.
Well, you know, I first came to see your work, I guess, about a month or so ago, when our good friend Robert Wenzel, who has Target Liberty in the Economic Policy Journal, put up a post and he said justifiable, crude words of anger.
Different Ways of Thinking 00:14:10
And so I turned the speakers down a little bit, or maybe I put my headphones on and I wanted to listen to what you had to say.
And I thought it was great.
I didn't play it loud because I've got kids at home.
I do sometimes play it in the car, I'll confess, but it's a song about the mask order.
And I've been waiting for popular culture.
And there have been a few, a few actually big stars.
You think about someone like Van Morrison who's done some good work, very brave work because you can be canceled.
But I've been waiting for the younger generation to come out with some very hard-hitting things against what's happening.
This one fit the bill.
Mask Order, I will warn our audience, it does contain a lot of bad words.
That's okay.
But if that's not your cup of tea, please don't click on it.
But please, tell us a little bit about it.
Tell us how you came to write it and what it's all about.
Thank you.
Well, so it's called Mask Order.
And basically, it's all about, okay, I'll change the word screw.
But I said the, you know, the expletive because I feel like it embodies the anger, just the anger that I feel and so many of my fellow libertarians feel, whether you identify as libertarian or not.
Just people who love liberty all around the world, who are just tired of being told what to do.
I mean, that's how I opened the song.
Being told what to do, where to go, how to think, being treated like you should be a subservient slave and just pay your taxes, keep your head down, don't speak out, don't say anything that challenges the narrative.
So a lot of it was just so much anger that I felt in 2020, seeing all the lockdowns around the whole world.
It's like an orchestrated government partnership of all the world governments.
So that was my main motivation.
And if you look at the lyrics, a lot of it, the first verse is just kind of walking people through how there were so many lies from the get-go.
First, they shut down and said, hey, it's just two weeks to slow the spread.
No, it's just, you know, you're going to lose your livelihood.
You can't go to work.
I know that sucks.
You don't have money.
But hey, it's just two weeks.
It's just to slow the spread.
It's just to keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed.
And I think that was like the first thing that was the mistake here is that's a very socialist planning move.
That implies that these hospitals don't have the incentive to grow and expand and keep up with demand.
So it, you know, that was the first thing.
And then after that, just so many central planning lies after lies.
You know, we heard things like, hey, you know, it's wrong for people to hoard supplies.
So let's socially, you know, let's just limit that you can only have one chicken per household or one toilet paper roll per household.
So 2020 was a year of many major advances in socialism.
And just tired of it.
And so, and also with all the censorship of last year, like I had my Instagram account of over 10,000 followers, almost 11, just deleted the weekend before the presidential election with Trump versus Biden.
And it was just deleted outright, no reason, just permanent deletion and no ability to appeal.
And music became something that I focus more and more of my energy on because I saw, I mean, as you see, all the things I say in Mask Order, I mean, if I said that in a video, it'd be taken, I think it'd be taken down or censored, or you'd have a little, like, you know, little info sticker, right?
For more info about COVID, just go to the CDC website or something.
Trust them.
Call Foucault.
Trust them.
Right.
Call Fauci.
You know, that's a great thing.
That's a great thing that you say about being able to use music because many, many centuries ago when I was doing my master's thesis, the thesis, which I thankfully never finished because I kept my sanity, but it really was about how pop music was key to ending communist control.
You know, the rise of pop music in Eastern Europe in the 70s and especially the 80s really led to the decline and downfall of the regimes because they could no longer hold up amidst the contradictions that were pointed out by just simple pop and rock music.
So it's really interesting that you say that.
One line that I really loved in the early part of the song was they bribed us with our own money.
Very clever.
I'm sure a lot of our audience knows about it, but tell us what you meant about that.
Yeah, basically they're like, hey, you know, okay, Trump's in power, so everyone's making memes about Trump checks or STEM e checks.
But in any case, it's all money printed from the Federal Reserve, and the government has no money.
It's just money that they take from us or borrow in our name.
So printing of money at the Federal Reserve is just borrowing in our name.
And it is us as the enslaved tax cattle that have to pay that back.
So, yeah, that's what I meant.
So I'm glad you liked that.
Yeah, no, that was great.
And I think Thomas Massey actually did the math, Representative Thomas Massey of Kentucky, the best person in the House, and said for that, I think the first check was maybe $1,400.
You know, you're actually, your family's going to owe $35,000 for that.
So thanks a lot, government.
But you know, the thing about Mask Order that I really liked, and I'm dating myself here, is that it reminded me of the punk rock ethos that I grew up with in the 1980s.
At the time, the punk rockers were saying, you know, the government's corrupt.
The authorities are idiotic and stupid.
We're not going to listen to them.
They're all a bunch of old dummies, et cetera, et cetera, with a few expletives that you've used in the process.
And that was the idea: the government is garbage.
And now, all of a sudden, you're seeing the younger generation, and I've seen it over the past year, and it's been so dismaying.
I see people dutifully young people walking around like drones.
I see when the junior highs get out, when the high schools get out.
I see young people with their masks on doing what they're told, this and that.
And it seems like that ethos is completely dead: hey, don't trust the authorities.
They're a bunch of idiots.
They can't do anything right.
And I think you've captured that again, this kind of punk rock ethos that I remember.
Yeah.
Well, I just want to say I do want to read your thesis, even though you didn't finish it.
Thank God.
But that's interesting.
That history of music.
I think it is so influential because a lot of it is appealing to your emotions.
And so, if you can wrap in a song your feelings of anger, right, and then the music, the instruments themselves can help convey that feeling and that sentiment.
I think that's really powerful.
And as for like the rise of socialism that we see, at least in America, I think it's totally related to all the propaganda that we've seen from the control of corporate media in television and still now bleeding into YouTube and now the corporate social media companies.
And they've made socialism seem hip.
You know, they got into music too.
And it is just really a battle.
And mediums like music and comedy, you know, you have people of all kinds of ideologies in that space.
So as libertarians, you know, if you have the skills or you just have passion in it, why not try and try to change minds this way?
So yeah.
Yeah, I think that that definitely works, you know, and it's been now, it doesn't seem like it, but it's been, you know, 10 years since Dr. Paul's last presidential run, and give or take some.
And then I guess that would be 14 years since the previous one.
So we think about, I remember all the young people, college-age people and younger, who were attracted to that and came to libertarianism, came to the philosophy of peace and prosperity between 07 and 11 and 12.
Those people are now into mid to late 20s or older.
They have jobs.
They have to get on with their lives.
They can't go around being activists necessarily.
They've got children, etc.
And so I think the challenge is to try to capture that age where people have a lot more energy.
They have some more time.
Their brains are growing.
Their philosophies are developing.
I know certainly mine did at that time.
You change your worldview.
And I think that is important.
So, what would you say to this generation that may have not grown up thinking of Ron Paul?
Well, what would I say to them?
Or how do you connect with them?
Yeah, well, I would say memes, skits, and music is those mediums, one, you know, just trying to tactically get through the censorship and the algorithms because it's harder to like algorithmically listen to music because there's other stuff in it.
But the other thing I would say is, or I mean, otherwise, I just find those mediums very entertaining.
Like, comedy can lower your defenses.
And a lot of the people that were trying to change their minds have been indoctrinated to just feel this way and just believe it without reason.
They're not even taught philosophy and how to think critically.
What even constitutes truth versus falsehood, and how do you discern?
So a lot of the ways that you can reach these people is not through reason and evidence, because they don't even know how to think that way in a lot of cases.
Maybe just in a minor detail, but if you start challenging their major worldviews, like the nature of government or taxation, for example, that's when they can go into a very defensive mode, feel fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and demonize you just as a subconscious reaction.
So how do you break through that sort of subconscious defensive reaction?
I think one of the ways is like comedy, trying to like make people laugh.
Or another way is connect with them emotionally.
Talk about things that are real.
One of the things I love to talk about is like self-knowledge and relationships.
How do you communicate and have good, healthy relationships with people that you love and share your values?
I think that's another way.
And that, you know, no matter what political ideology, a lot of people want to take care of themselves and feel happy.
And then the other way is music.
I think everyone just loves music.
There's all kinds of genres out there.
I can't do them all.
Can't do them all, but I've tried a lot of them.
But I think that's another way.
It's just like, how do you just connect with people on a true emotional human level and see that as a way to connect?
And I think that was one of the things Ron Paul was really good at in his speeches.
Here you have someone, he's not making rap music or anything like that.
He's on a political platform.
Yes, you know, he's running for president.
And leveraging the media attention and subconscious attention people just give that, you know, the presidency, the importance of that.
Most people just kind of, you know, have just believed that to be a thing.
So him being on that platform, being able to really articulate what does a certain law or regulation mean for you as an individual or your neighbor or your mom or your dad and trying to show people that empathy and that when it comes to government action, you can't forget the true individual people who are affected.
So yeah, I hope I answered your question.
Yeah, no, no, that's exactly right.
And, you know, when Dr. Paul was giving speeches on the trail, it wasn't this sort of heavy didacticism.
It wasn't a heavy philosophy.
He made people laugh.
He made people clap.
He made people enjoy it.
And they didn't feel like they were getting a lecture, A, and B, they didn't feel like they were getting a canned talk, you know, from some politician, another bunch of garbage.
And, you know, you've got to hand it also to the Ron Paul fans in those two campaigns because I think that was before the era of memes or maybe pre-memes, but they were so incredibly creative in the things they did.
And we had on the show once one of the fellows who were involved in the Ron Paul blimp of all things, you know.
So those kinds of creative things really, you didn't see a lot of that in the Biden campaign, right?
Was I sleeping through that?
I mean, Trump captured some of that.
Trump, for all of his faults, he captured the ability to make people laugh.
He made fun of people.
He could be very cruel with people.
But I think he did his success.
If you look at it analytically, his success was in being able to make people laugh, even if they probably shouldn't have laughed part of the time.
But very powerful.
You're absolutely right.
Yeah, and just the pure connection on that human level.
You know, that is truly a skill and a way to reach out to people.
You know, not everyone has a public online platform.
But I think that they can make just as strong, maybe even stronger of an impact just talking to their real-life in-person friends or family that they hang out with or places of businesses that they go to, service providers.
Being someone that you yourself would want to be friends with.
Like, are you nice to talk to you?
Are you empathetic?
The Power of Human Connection 00:03:31
Are you honest?
Do you value truth over falsehood?
Like, that's why I always promote philosophy and self-knowledge first and foremost when it comes to, you know, people asking me, like, how can I get involved with the liberty movement now that I'm a libertarian?
How do I change minds?
You know, my first thing that I always say is, you cannot really change minds or influence others if you yourself aren't taken care of.
You know, if you don't have your mental health together, if you don't have your physical health together, you know, people are just going to look at you and see, okay, well, do I want to necessarily mirror that lifestyle?
So it's a, for me, also something I'm always working on, like just every day, like, how can I get better?
How can I improve myself, my mindset, my relationships, and most importantly, the relationship with myself.
Yeah.
The bigger picture.
You talk a little bit on, I think it's your webpage about fear.
And I think that is so important.
You know, this is something that we've been fed a steady diet of for the past year: fear.
The mainstream media loves to peddle fear.
And you talk about it a little bit.
If you can talk a little bit about the use of fear.
Yeah, so fear is, you know, it's an emotion that, I mean, it's part of your fight or flight mechanism, your basic, you know, reptilian brain that is just trying to keep you to survive.
And you form your fight-or-flight response just based on different triggers and whatever that you've had over time.
So in the media, or if you look at the news, like they constantly have a headline that's like, whether it's deaths or new cases for COVID, or whether it's, oh, climate change is really happening and we're all going to die if governments don't take over and keep us from driving in our cars or whatever.
So fear is a really powerful tool because fear is that basic emotion that's trying to help you survive a situation.
That's why I bring up fight or flight.
When you feel fear, usually it's saying, hey, your body's trying to tell you there's something that you need to worry about and you better take care of it immediately or you will die.
I mean, that is obviously not always a conscious thought, but that is the underlying thing.
It's government thugs come along and say, oh, we can help you with that.
Just give us a little bit.
We're going to have to close down in a little bit, but I would like to take a few minutes to talk about you.
You've done a lot of videos.
Talk about some of the other ones that you're particularly proud of.
I know they're all probably your babies and you're proud of them all and they're all very good.
But highlight a few of them from our viewers and then also tell our viewers where they can find your work.
Sure.
Okay, sure thing.
Well, to find my work, you can just go to my website, thephilosopher.com, altogether.
And instead of philosopher with the I, it's the philosopher with the O. My favorite videos, you're right.
Yeah, there's a lot of them.
Maybe not all my babies because there are some at the beginning where I'm like, okay, I'm learning how to get comfortable in the camera here.
But I would say the highlights, definitely the Mask Order music video that we talked about.
Like just doing a music video has been fun.
I grew up with 90s hip-hop rap, and that was one of the things that helped mold me to be a libertarian.
Mask Order Music Video 00:02:16
So we talk about music influence again here.
So I really liked Mask Order.
I liked making the ANCAP Grind music video.
That was the first one I ever shot.
That was fun.
I really liked, although I wasn't in it, I liked helping to produce the short film that we did, Hoplophobe, as part of our project called Red Flag Reality.
We started that actually early on 2020.
But the goal was to expose how these so-called red flag laws are actually targeting innocent, you know, peaceful gun owners.
So, yeah, I really liked Hoplophobe.
It was a short film that we partnered with David Kirkwest.
I don't know if you've heard of him.
But he's a really talented director, and he produced this short film on the fear of guns.
And who could miss the famous Tom Woods house song?
I listened to that while I was with the gym yesterday.
So you've got to talk about that a little.
That was crazy.
I didn't know what I was listening to, but it was funny, and it was fun.
Like, I don't know what, did you like the calling of the juice?
Yeah, it was great.
It was great.
Well, thank you.
That one, I'm really excited.
We don't have a music video, but we're going to produce it this year.
We have two places that we're going to produce it.
The first is Tom Woods Supporting Listeners House Party coming up in May.
And then, yeah, and then the second one is Tom Woods' 2000th podcast.
So there's some of the people that we name-dropped are in there.
So we'll see if they'll be in the music video.
And you have name-dropped Ron Paul a couple times too, so that's great to know.
Yeah, definitely.
Well, it's been a lot of fun.
We'll name drop the annual someday.
Yeah, yeah, there you go.
Then that'll really skyrocket the sales.
Well, thanks so much for joining us today.
It's been a lot of fun.
I really admire what you do, and we want to encourage you to keep doing it.
We want to encourage you to keep in touch.
And if we can ever have conferences again, it might be nice to have you come join us at some time.
So we'll definitely keep in touch.
Thank you so much for what you do.
And to our audience, thank you once again for tuning into our program.
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