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Dec. 30, 2005 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:08:42
32 Liberty Under The Lash

How can we be free when the state is so powerful?

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Well, good morning, everybody.
It is December the 30th, 2005, and we're going to have a little chat this morning about a very interesting topic that I have received over my email over the last day or two, which is a good friend of mine, who I think I'm going to be on his radio show in January, has written to me to inquire about conflict, conflict resolution, freedom, and so on.
So I'm going to read you from his email.
I won't identify him, although he does have a podcast as well, of course.
So his question is, what I'd like to know from you, and an issue that is becoming more and more relevant to me, as my efforts in trying to get listeners and readers are stagnating, is how to deal with people who can't deal with some things you say.
People get very aggressive, in my experience, when they think you agree with them, and then you, quote, disappoint them by saying something they strongly disagree with.
This leads to a great deal of problems for me.
Well, amen, brother.
I think we've all been there.
I know that the friendships that survived my break with my past, which happened about five or six years ago when I stopped seeing my family and relatives, based on things that I've talked about in these podcasts and on my blog,
I had some friends who survived that transition, and then about six months ago I had another drop-off, as people simply couldn't handle the fact that not only was I a free-market capitalist, but I also, over the last year, year and a half, developed into an anarchist, you know, as I was sort of logically working through these issues.
So, you know, way back in the dawn of time I started off as a socialist when I had no clue what any of these things were.
And then what happened was a friend of mine who was a big Rush fan.
Rush is a Canadian rock band for those who may not be as hip as I am.
And trust me, that's not a long journey because I'm not very hip at all.
He was a big Rush fan, and their drummer Neil Peart was a big Ayn Rand fan, and threw a couple of references into, I think, Atlas Shrugged, into one of their songs.
So he gave me the Fountainhead after he'd read it, and I just thought it was the most magnificent work in the world, and I plowed through Atlas Shrugged.
Enjoying the novel less, but the philosophy more in Eilerschrught.
And, you know, went through the usual progression of read the Ayn Rand novels.
Sorry, read the Ayn Rand's non-fiction works.
You know, went to some conferences, but I never really got turned on by the whole conference scene.
And also read Nathaniel Brandon, and, you know, began branching out, and quite a bit later on, you know, discovered von Mises and Hayek, who I didn't really... I thought he was an okay writer, but his prose is just a little bit murky to me, and he doesn't really work from principles.
He just has a sort of insistent and nicely written thesis that sort of washes against you like little waves rather than, you know, for me, something which you have to build from sort of first principles up from there.
And then I got into Rothbard, who I've heard a lot more on Mises podcast than I've read, found him very enjoyable.
And so, you know, I guess it's pretty similar to a lot of people's development through that.
But basically, what I did was, I had sort of accepted this sort of Ayn Rand premise that what the government is, you know, the proper role for government was, you know, the police, the law courts and the jail system or something like that.
So that, you know, you had a legal structure for a society.
But, you know, once I turned, I think as everyone has to at some point in their intellectual development, once I turned from accepting other people's premises to working From first premises on my own, I found that the first premises and the logical consistencies that I was building from did not lead in that direction.
The basic premise of the argument for morality is that what is proper for one man is proper for all men.
You know, you really can't have a state in that situation, because then you immediately have moral rules which are different for different people.
So one person is a policeman, say, or a politician, and he has a different set of moral rules than somebody who's not.
Now, once I crossed that threshold, I really passed into the land of the unknown for most of my friends.
My wife, of course, has been a thrilling supporter of this journey and, you know, is an excellent person to ask and answer questions of.
In fact, we did a podcast together last night, which we're going to sort of snip up and post a little bit later today.
But in that journey, as I've sort of gotten progressively more and more down to root principles and so on, I have found that people have been unable to follow me in that journey, and there has been a certain amount of hostility and skepticism, contempt almost, and scorn for this process of mine.
So I certainly do understand where my friend is coming from.
And, you know, I've experienced it myself.
Somebody who is religious and interested in the free market finds out that I'm an atheist and turns on me about that.
Or, you know, somebody who's a free marketer who believes in the government turns on me about that.
Or somebody who's a free marketer who believes, you know, at least in the police force or the rule of law, turns on me on my arguments about that.
And, you know, it's an emotionally volatile area.
I mean, as I've always argued, at least in these podcasts, when you're talking about universal moral principles, you are handling the most explosive substance that mankind has within, you know, its consciousness.
Absolutely radioactive, high toxicity, high value, high health stuff.
I mean this is the real essence of life.
When you start talking about universal moral absolutes, you are handling a very dangerous substance.
And so of course people are going to be passionate about it and they're going to be aggressive about it if they feel that you are not fitting into what it is that they think.
And I don't mean that to be derogatory in any way.
It's just that in my experience, and this is certainly true for myself, so I'm not speaking from any sort of elevated moral plane here, You basically, most people swallow pretty much wholesale a conceptual framework that works for them, right?
So for me, it was, you know, the sort of Randian tripartite state of the police, the law courts and the military.
And that was the sort of the conceptual framework that I swallowed and worked within that, which was, you know, which is great.
And there's nothing wrong with that as a sort of first step.
Actually, it's sort of a second step, because the first step is having no conceptual framework, because most of us are educated in state schools.
But as a second step, it's perfectly valid to start thinking in terms of structure.
But I think that it's important for one's intellectual development to move beyond somebody else's structure and to work with your own from first premises to make sure that you are not inheriting other people's mistakes as well as their virtues in terms of their intellectual framework.
So, you know, I certainly understand that people get very aggressive when sort of universal moral principles are discussed.
And when somebody feels that somebody else is turning on those moral principles or betraying them in some manner, I found that people take it with even more volatility than a romantic betrayal.
I mean, it's like I've gone and slept.
I'm dating them, but I've gone and slept with the other principles.
I mean, they do get pretty excited about it.
And I understand that.
You know, emotionally, I remember when, you know, many years later, I was visiting with my friend who had first introduced me to the Fountainhead.
And I was very nervous to ask him what he still thought of objectivism and so on.
And the reason that I was nervous was if he'd said, Oh, I outgrew that years ago.
I found that to be sort of, it was kind of fun at the time, but ridiculous in the long run.
It would be difficult emotionally for me to experience that feeling that I was stuck back in some immature intellectual plane of intellectual development and he'd move past it because he learned so much more and so on.
And so when you're not working with first principles but you're working rather with an inherited system of thought, somebody else's system of thought, then things like conformity and betrayal and, you know, staying with the structure become very important.
Whereas when you're working from first principles, you can be a lot more flexible.
And I will sort of get into what I mean by that towards the end of this podcast.
But, you know, the real question around conflict resolution, the real question around, you know, what does it mean to be a libertarian?
And, you know, in a sense, the more essential question, which is, what does it mean to be free, is the topic of this podcast.
I'm going to be I also got another email from someone who was saying, Well, you know, this is all well and good.
And of course, I get a lot of emails that start off with, this is all well and good.
And the basic question then becomes, so what, you know, so you have all these ideas about freedom, and you're putting them out on the internet, and they're interesting, and you know, they're clever, and You know, you use the term, you know, too much.
But what does it mean?
How are we going to use these tools to begin to break down the state?
And, you know, are we ever going to achieve political freedom?
What does it mean?
You know, what does it mean to have these ideas if they're never going to have any effect and all this sort of stuff?
And, I mean, I understand all of that.
You know, when I was younger, I would write letters to the editor, and, you know, I argued in class with everyone, and I argued with the professors, and I took a course on the rise of communism, sorry, the rise of capitalism, the socialist response.
Where I must have spent probably 10% of the class time arguing with the professor.
I mean, even then I was fairly decent at arguing.
I was a debater for the Canadian team and I came in like the top 10 in Canada one year.
So I was fairly good at Being a debater and talking about ideas without sort of being that abrasive, offensive person.
But even still, I mean, where did it get me?
I mean, it got me a C plus or a B minus or whatever it was.
And even though I was by far the most passionate person in the class about ideas and enjoyed the debates, but it didn't change anybody's mind.
I mean, he's not going to sort of turn around and say, well, I guess I have been corrupting students for the past 20 years if I'm wrong.
So I certainly do understand the desire to change society and the feeling that our ideas are somehow less or impotent or useless if they can't be used to carve out at least a reduction in state power in our lifetime, let's say.
You know, for those of you who know my position on the argument from effect, I don't care.
I really don't care that our ideas are not having that much effect.
And it really doesn't matter, because our ideas, or ideas in general, you could say, are judged in relation to reality.
They're judged in relation to the truth.
They're judged in relation to empirical rationality.
Reproducibility.
They're not judged in relation to their effect.
Einstein's theory of relativity is true, because it was verified, even if it had absolutely no effect on, you know, it wasn't used to create atomic bombs or anything like that.
The truth of a proposition is immaterial of its effect on society.
And the exploration of the truth is something that gives me, at least, enormous pleasure.
I mean, it really is the purpose of my existence.
It's why I get up in the morning.
It's why I go to work.
It's why I breathe.
And the pursuit of truth is not Dependent upon its acceptance by other people and I know that libertarians get a little bit sort of desperate at times at least I know I have where you feel like the clock is running down and Society is getting worse.
And if you don't get people to change their minds you're Failing and and society is gonna go to hell and you know, you're the last vanguard that's gonna get gunned down and you know times running out but It's not the case at all.
I mean, it's absolutely not the case at all.
The exploration of intellectual truth is in its very early stages.
In my view, again, you know, this could be arguable, and I'm certainly not saying that all thinkers who went before us are irrelevant, but we can certainly say that in general, certainly over the last hundred years or so, they've been enormously ineffective.
And, you know, that's fairly important to understand, right?
I mean, doing more of the same is not going to change the outcome, right?
I'm not going to write a better novel than Ayn Rand.
I'm not going to write a better book than Human Action.
I'm not going to write better articles or teach better than Rothbard.
I'm not going to create a better website than Lou Rockwell.
So, you know, the recognition is that what's been done has been amazing in terms of communicating the ideas to the next generation, but it hasn't worked in the larger realm of society.
You know, and there's one of two reasons for that.
Either it's not possible to make it work in the larger realm of society, which is an interesting question.
I mean, I'm certainly willing to debate that.
It's an interesting but academic question.
And the other is that we just need to try something different.
And, you know, my approach has been to argue for using the argument for morality.
And I'll sort of give a little bit more about how that can work in conversation over the next couple of weeks.
Because I think this kind of... My wife and I do this sort of role-playing where... It's not what you think!
We do this kind of role-playing where, you know, one of us will take one position, the other will take the other position, and we work out how it can be communicated conversationally.
So, for me, the purpose of these intellectual pursuits, the purpose of being a libertarian, or an anarchist, or an objectivist, or somebody who's sort of outside the pale of mainstream thinking, is... The purpose is not freedom.
The purpose is not to change society.
The purpose is not to alter the thinking of anyone around me.
The purpose of philosophy, much like the purpose of life in general, is pleasure.
I know that that sounds entirely hedonistic, but I mean intelligent pleasure.
I'm sure it would be great fun for the next twenty minutes to be a heroin addict, but I've kind of got still a long ways to go before I kick off, I hope.
And so I need to plan a little bit more rationally.
But the purpose of life is happiness.
The purpose of life is joy.
And we know that because You know, as Aristotle says, everything has a purpose which has an end to it except for happiness.
So we exercise so we can be healthy, because when we're healthy we can be happy.
I mean, you can maybe be happy when you're terminally ill, but I mean, I wouldn't put my money on it.
We eat so that we won't feel hungry, because hunger interferes with happiness.
So everything that we do is in pursuit of happiness, and happiness is the one thing that does not have, you know, we're not happy in order for something to achieve some other state.
Happiness is the end of the goal of life.
Now, happiness is related to freedom, because if you are enslaved, you can't be happy, for a variety of reasons.
I mean, I'm sure people won't, at least who are listening to this podcast, argue with that proposition.
You know, there are sort of complicated reasons, psychological and biological reasons as to why that is the case.
But I think we can take it for granted that when you are free, you are more likely to be happy than when you are not free.
And freedom is, you know, for me, first and foremost, freedom is a recognition of reality.
Because if you're not able to recognize reality, you can't make any effective choices.
So people who are psychotic and having delusions are not free because they don't know what's real and what's not, and they can't make effective decisions about their life or their purpose or anything like that.
And since we do need to be effective to some degree or another in order to be happy, because otherwise it's just a completely made-up state with no reference to reality, then freedom is a prerequisite for happiness.
And I know that this is not a sort of from principles argument, but the relationship between freedom and happiness would take, you know, more lung power than I have today.
So again, take it for granted, if you don't mind, and we can work on this another time.
So in order to be happy, we need to be free.
And for freedom to be effective, we need to recognize the facts of reality.
So I'm just going to sort of go over a few of the facts of reality that I think are true and relevant to this discussion of what it means to be a libertarian.
And how do we, you know, as Harry Brown puts it, And we do love the Brown.
As Harry Brown puts it, how do you find freedom in an unfree world?
Which is a book that I have not read yet, although I mean to get to it.
So here are some of the facts that I think are important to recognize in order to be free, in order to be happy.
Well, you know, the government is not going anywhere.
And that's sort of a basic fact that we need to accept.
I mean, the government has grown enormously Since I first became aware of the problem, probably at the age of 15 or so, and I'm now 39, so, you know, for the last, whatever, 20 years, 24 years, I have had, you know, the pleasant experience of watching the government grow and grow and grow.
And although I have been arguing and spreading the word for the last 20 years or so, 24 years, I have not had any success in changing the growth of government power.
So that's just something I recognize.
And it's not because I haven't tried, and it's not because there's some magic formula that is going to change people's minds.
It's simply because, as I discussed in a podcast or two ago, the economic incentives are far too imbalanced.
For mere words to have an effect.
So that's sort of a truth that you need to recognize.
The government is going to continue to grow.
Words alone will not stop it.
There's no magic words that are going to change people's minds and if you think otherwise you're going to be frustrated.
You're not going to be free because you're going to be railing against things that you can't change and therefore you will have a deficiency of pleasure and happiness in your life.
I don't mind giving up happiness if it's going to achieve some greater good in the short run.
So I go to the gym even when I don't want to because I want to be sort of happy and healthy.
But I'm certainly not going to give up any of my happiness for something which is not going to change based on me giving up that happiness.
So the government's not going anywhere and it's going to continue to grow and that's a fact that we need to accept.
Now, the second is that the government is going to collapse.
This is another fact that we need to accept.
It takes the pressure off us, right?
I mean, it's sort of like if the Leaning Tower of Pisa was on its last legs and about to crumble, there would be no point us all sitting there straining at the base.
I mean, let's just sit back, kick up our feet, and watch it go.
Now, the government is going to collapse for a number of reasons, which I'm sure everyone's aware of.
I mean, the debts are astronomical and you simply cannot escape the law of mathematics.
The government is no different from an individual in its economic realities.
And so, you know, if you continue to pile up debts that are many more times what you can pay off, you will eventually go bankrupt.
And in my particular view, it's certainly going to be in my lifetime.
I mean, barring some, you know, invention like The motor in Atlas Shrugged, which converts, I think it was, static electricity to electrical energy, barring some magical invention, the state is going to collapse in 10 to 20 years, if that.
Now, of course, it would have already happened if it hadn't been for the invention of computers and so on, which have put an enormous amount of efficiency in the hands of private sector and also in the government.
But if there's not another invention like that, then the government is going to go bankrupt in 10 to 20 years.
And I mean, the reasons for that are fairly clear.
We've got this huge debt.
We are already enormously in debt, despite the fact that the baby boomers are still in the workforce for the most part, and so still producing revenue for the government in terms of taxation.
And also that because they are still in the workforce, because they're not too old yet, they're still not consuming the vast amount of health care resources that people as they age begin to consume.
You know, we're already heavily in debt and our income is about to go down considerably as the boomers start retiring.
And the costs of the government are about to go up enormously, both in terms of social security and health care and so on.
And so, you know, the government can't even remotely afford its expenses at the moment.
And, you know, income is about to go down enormously.
And expenses are about to go up enormously.
So, you know, 10 to 20 years.
And I can also tell you that it's, when it does happen, it's going to be enormously rapid.
You know, my boss has a great saying about business failures where he says, you know, the sun rises very slowly and then very quickly.
You know, what he means by that is, you know, if you've ever sort of watched a sunrise from, from darkness, you know, that the sky gets slightly lighter on the horizon.
Um, in the east, and then it, uh, slowly gets lighter, and a little more pink, and then you see some outlines of clouds, and all this takes place over an hour or two.
And then it gets bright, and then suddenly the sun is up.
You know, the sun peaks over the horizon, and then within like three or four or five minutes, it's up.
And so the sun rises very slowly, and then very quickly.
And that's very true of business failures.
I mean, the indications of a business failure occur, you know, years before the business failure.
I mean, for any decent sized organization, it occurs years before it actually happens.
And the problems then sort of asymptotically rise and then the business collapses all at once.
And this is very true of the state as well.
But there's one other aspect to something my boss has told me that's very important as well.
He's a Russian in origin.
And so, of course, he left Russia many, many years ago, but is still very interested in Russian politics, economics, and history.
And something that he told me about, which is a book that was published in Russian and has not been translated yet, though I've asked him to give me a copy if he ever finds out that it is, wherein it's a description of what happened economically to the Soviet Empire in its last five to ten years.
And basically what happened was The people in the Kremlin, like the politicians and the bureaucrats and those at the top of the party circles in Soviet Russia, you know, for five or ten years before the Empire collapsed, they realized that it was going to collapse.
They realized that it was unsustainable.
And, you know, by the by, it didn't have anything to do with Reagan's spending.
I know Ann Coulter has this theory, and a lot of people do have this theory, that That Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Empire because he forced them to spend money on arms because he spent so much money on arms and you know that's sort of silly as Harry Brown has pointed out and he's I mean perfectly right as he usually is which is that just because I choose to spend a lot of money on my A car doesn't mean that you have to, right?
So the idea that Reagan forced the Soviet Empire to collapse by making it spend money is ridiculous!
I mean, you know, he just happened to be around when it fell, and you know, like all politicians, they love to take credit for things that happen on their watch that they have no effect on, and also the things that they do affect, that produce negative results, they always blame on the free market.
The government is good at one thing, you know, one thing only, taking credit for what it doesn't do and blaming others for what it does.
And so what happened was, about ten years before the Soviet Empire was going to collapse, you know, they're not dumb people, who were the sort of dictators of Soviet Russia, and they saw that it was going to collapse, so of course what they did was they began pillaging very quickly.
So the entire bank account of the Russian state was bled white, you know, within five to ten years, and it was bled white at a much faster rate than beforehand.
And, I mean, this is something which is perfectly natural.
I mean, it's perfectly rational, from an amoral standpoint, to say, well, you know, this thing's going to go bankrupt, so let's start taking out everything that we can from it.
So, what happens is that when the state begins to finally sort of creak and tip over, then, you know, everybody pillages it for everything that they can get their hands on, which means that it accelerates so much faster, the collapse.
And it comes with enormous rapidity, because They do it secretly, right?
I mean, these people weren't sort of carting off the treasures from the Kremlin archives in wheelbarrows down the street where they could be seen.
You know, they were quietly transferring the money out of the state bank accounts into their own private ones.
You know, as my boss said something about Gorbachev, you know, Gorbachev on his salary of, you know, $50,000 a year has managed to afford sort of three houses around the world and, you know, jet-set lifestyle and so on.
And, you know, this is not something you get on a president's salary.
And so, sort of behind the scenes, everybody starts grabbing the resources and sort of slithering them out of the government bank accounts and into their own bank accounts.
And this is sort of under the radar, certainly under the radar of the media, and it's under the radar of all of the supposed watchdog agencies.
And so basically what happens is these people then sort of You wake up one morning, and there's just no money in the bank accounts, and nobody's willing to give you any credit.
So, I think it's important to recognize that when the state does collapse, it's going to happen very quickly.
It's going to have been eaten out from the inside, and it's just going to collapse with great rapidity.
And, you know, you can't predict when, because who knows what's going on behind the scenes, but, you know, barring some magical invention of economic productivity, it's certainly going to be within my lifetime, and I'm guessing within the next 10 to 20 years.
Now, of course, some people have written to me.
One gentleman wrote to me and sort of said something about what he called a cheeky article, which is on both my blog and as part of these podcasts, which is about how I support government programs.
It's a sort of tongue-in-cheek, jokey article about how I support government programs because it'll mean the state will fall down all the quicker.
And, you know, he said, as most people feel, that When the state collapses, it gets replaced by something worse, right?
And of course, when the Weimar Republic collapsed, the subsequent Nazi regime was, you know, pretty much worse.
You know, when the Tsarist regime was attacked by the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, you know, the resulting Soviet dictatorship was many, many times worse, as anyone who's read Solzhenitsyn is aware.
The Soviet dictatorship was, you know, incalculably more brutal and destructive than the Tsarist regime.
And the same thing could be said when the Bourbons fell in France, the reign of terror started, you know, with the French Revolution and so on.
But, you know, it's not always the case.
I mean, there are counterexamples as well.
So when the British government or the British colonial government was pushed out of America, you had a more free system.
And, of course, Russia, right?
I mean, People in Russia are better off now than they were when Stalin was running it.
You know that the state can shrink or be destroyed without an inevitable brutal dictatorship going on.
If you look at China, the liberalization that's occurring in China now is the state giving up its power, and they're doing that because they recognize, like good farmers, that if they give their taxpayers more freedom, they'll end up with more money, right?
I mean, it's much better to be... you'll get much richer by being the political leader of a capitalistic, controlled economy, rather than, you know, a purely communistic economy where, you know, nobody's producing anything and everybody's eating their shoes for lunch.
So, you know, the government is going to collapse.
The government is not going anywhere.
The government is going to collapse.
And we can't predict for sure that what is going to come afterwards is worse than what is going to come now.
So I simply say that to take the time pressure off us.
I mean, if you feel that, unless you can convince everybody that the free market is the ideal solution within the next, you know, twelve minutes, then a Nazi dictatorship is going to descend upon North America, then I can understand that You're probably going to be a little bit stressed, and you're probably going to be a little bit aggressive, and you're probably not going to be enjoying your life too much, right?
Living in the sort of dictatorship last days of freedom, I mean, is not a particularly relaxing state.
But I would say, you know, relax.
It's not under your control.
I mean, the government is going to increase, the government is going to collapse, and we can't predict what's going to come afterwards.
Now that's not to say that we're entirely helpless, of course, because We really want to put as many ideas about freedom out there, if we want, if it gives us pleasure to do so.
But we really want to put as many ideas about freedom out there, so that when the state does collapse, people have a mental construct that explains it, not as a result of the failures of freedom.
Because what those with a dictatorial nature will try and communicate is, Well, you know, freedom was tried and freedom failed, so let's, you know, let's have ourselves a happy little dictatorship, which is sort of the Nazi approach, right?
I mean, they said that democracy doesn't work, that democracy weakens the unity of the nation and so on.
And so, you know, we have to get rid of democracy and we have to put a dictatorship in and we have to be iron and strong and all this kind of blonde and all this kind of stuff.
But, you know, when a disaster occurs, like the collapse of the state, which is, you know, not exactly a disaster, but also an opportunity, Then what we want is for people to understand that the state is collapsing because it was violent and coercive, not because, you know, freedom failed and the taxpayers just couldn't cough up the money they owed.
So, you know, put as many ideas about freedom as you can out there so that when the sort of cataclysm occurs, people will be able to judge it rightly rather than judge it wrongly.
And I for one don't believe that a Nazi dictatorship is about to descend upon North America when the state collapses simply because we still have pretty strong traditions of freedom.
We're not like Germany.
We're certainly not like Germany in the 1920s or early 1930s.
We don't believe in that kind of organic unity of oneness and we still have a strong individualistic history.
You know, we've also seen the successes of capitalism and, you know, last but not least, there are nuclear weapons, which means that, you know, the chances for people to grab control of the state have sort of gone down because other governments, especially the American government, would certainly never let that happen up here.
And if it happened to the U.S.
government, other countries would be pretty insistent that they not go crazy dictatorship route because, you know, they have nukes.
So it sort of has a strong effect on other countries.
So, you know, the world, I mean, the other political leaders won't let that happen to any It's funny how libertarians who believe so much in free will have this need or desire to control the thoughts of others, or to want to directly change the thoughts of others, which is impossible, of course.
I mean, we recognize the reality of free will, which is why we prefer the free market to government coercion.
And free will means that you can't have any control over what other people think.
All you can do is, you know, pleasantly and kindly make the case, as often as gives you pleasure, and enjoy the conversations.
Yes, of course people are going to disagree with you.
Yes, of course people are going to get angry with you and call you a jerk and think that you're this or that, but so what?
You know, I mean, sticks and stones, right?
I mean, the fact of the matter is that it's an enormous privilege to be able to make the case at this time.
If it were easy, it really wouldn't be much fun.
If we were 100 years in the future when these ideas had become well ingrained in society, then it wouldn't be so glorious, right?
The glory goes to the people who take on the most difficult challenges.
The glory goes to those who fight against all odds.
The glory goes to those who take a stand for what is right despite the condemnation of everyone around them.
You know, these are the people who get the real thrill of victory, and we are the people who will be honored and venerated by future generations for keeping the flame alive.
So for me, the more people dislike what I'm saying, the more I consider it honorable to be out there and fighting.
And now that's what gives me pleasure.
You know, I mean, if you find that conflict is a horrible thing and you hate being called a jerk or whatever, Then I would suggest that you do a podcast.
Reach out to people who already believe what you say.
Or just write for yourself.
Or don't pick up the sword.
There's no absolute reason.
Nobody is put on here to get rid of the state.
Nobody is put on earth to dismantle organized religion.
That would be sort of silly.
That would be an abrogation of free will.
Do what gives you pleasure.
Life is short.
Do what makes you happy.
And it makes me happy.
To do these podcasts, and to talk to people, and have email conversations, and to do what I can to move the cause forward.
That gives me pleasure.
If it doesn't give you pleasure, then for heaven's sake, don't do it, because life is very short, and you're not put here to dismantle the political structures that have been around since the dawn of time.
I mean, that would sort of be a miserable existence, if in order to be you know, have a valid life or to be happy, you had to get rid of the state or organized religion.
I mean, you're just doomed to misery then.
I mean, I would certainly, if that was my goal, I would just stop and, and, you know, go and have some cookies.
So, you know, that's sort of my invitation to, to be free, you know, and to, to sort of shrug off the responsibility of having to change the state or having to change people's minds.
And, And, you know, from a sort of... Well, I'll talk about that in a sec, because really what I'm talking about is the difference between political and personal freedom.
Political freedom we have no control over.
I mean, we can have conversations and we can try and get the ideas out, but fundamentally we have no control over political freedom.
And, you know, the odds are enormously against us having any kind of control over political freedom.
In fact, it's so close to impossible that we might as well just call it impossible.
So, you know, we can't focus on political freedom as the source of our happiness in life because that's putting your... your happiness is now in the control of other people whose interests are diametrically opposed to you being happy.
Right?
So politicians get in power by selling your money to the highest bidder and You know, so their interests are directly opposed to your interests and you have no control over them because they have the police and the military.
So if you stake your happiness upon, you know, minimizing the state or making people become not religious or whatever, you're going to be miserable because your happiness is now in the control of other people who are, by definition, irrational and hostile to your interests.
So that's definitely not a recipe for happiness.
So, I would say what you can focus on is personal freedoms.
And, you know, I know there's a debate in libertarian circles about, you know, do you live off the grid?
What about giving money to the state and so on?
Is that good or is that bad?
Well, I mean, of course you can live off the grid.
Nothing wrong with that.
You want to work for cash?
Work for cash, you know.
But the problem is you can't have a credit card, you can't buy a house, you can't accumulate assets.
It's going to make your old age much more unstable and risky.
So, you know, if that works for you and you're willing to take on those risks, I think that's great.
But certainly don't do it because you think it's immoral to give money to the state or anything like that.
I mean, you know, they've got the guns.
You know, there's no value in taking the only life you're ever going to have and throwing it away by living on the run from the police or going to jail.
I mean, that's certainly not going to overturn the state.
And it's certainly not going to give you happiness.
I mean, unless you're a masochist, I guess.
So, you know, don't do it because you feel there's something immoral in handing money over to the state.
I mean, you and I did not create this system.
We're trying to do the best that we can to live under it.
And, you know, I pay... I mean, I live in Canada, which is one of the most socialist of Western countries.
And there's lots that I can do to be free.
I mean, I'm free right now.
I was free last night when I was chatting with my wife.
I was... I'm free when I go to a movie.
I can think what I want to think.
I'm not in jail.
I don't have people pointing guns at me.
Yes, I have to turn over half my income to the state, but what does... I mean, as far as personal freedom goes, what does that matter?
The state doesn't choose my wife.
It doesn't choose my occupation.
It doesn't choose my friends.
So, yes, for half the day I'm enslaved, so the most important thing is to pick a job that you like so that, you know, when you pay your taxes through half your day, at least you're not doing something that makes you miserable.
So the state's power over me doesn't have much effect in my day-to-day life.
Now, of course, that's going to change when I need medical care and so on, but in a sort of minute-by-minute version of my day, the state doesn't have any control over me.
I mean, it doesn't tell me when I can go to the bathroom and it doesn't tell me, you know, which job I have to pick and so on.
So, you know, just enjoy the freedoms that you have and, you know, pay your taxes or, you know, or don't, depending on what you feel like.
But just don't do it because of some abstract principle, like you're supposed to fight against the accumulated weight of the entire state apparatus and provoke it into sort of smashing you down on some principle because it's not going to change anything.
And it's certainly not going to make you happy.
And as I said before, the purpose of life is not to overthrow the state or to, you know, destroy organized religion, but to be happy.
And I can't imagine that we're going to achieve that by being thrown in jail.
So, as far as personal freedoms go, I mean there's a couple of things that That you really do have control over, which I would suggest are much more important to focus on than, you know, do I pay my taxes or not?
Now, assuming that you enjoy the company of a lover of some kind, then the most important thing that I would say to focus on in terms of personal freedom is your marriage.
Now, for those who aren't married yet, You know, ask the questions of your partner about what it means to be married, right?
I mean, I'm not going to turn this into a Dr. Phil podcast, but it's very important that you both have the same ideas of what it means to be married.
You know, when you go for a job interview, they say, well, where do you see yourself in five years?
And what do you, you know, what do you, what do you want to learn?
And what is your pleasure?
And what is it you don't like?
What are you good at?
What are you not good at?
We have these conversations over a high school summer job and so we absolutely should, much more importantly, have these conversations with people we're going to marry.
You don't want to get married with mismatched expectations.
You're going to have constant conflict and your life really is not going to be free or happy if you are married to somebody that is difficult or you're difficult to them.
So mismatched expectations in regards to marriage.
And I say this only because I was engaged to a woman and broke off the engagement because we could not agree about what it meant to be married and what responsibilities we wanted to take on.
And she actually, the problem was that she wouldn't actually define any responsibilities she was going to take on and I would.
And that's definitely a mismatch of expectations.
So, you know, regretfully I had to break off the engagement.
And, uh, you know, another woman, uh, who I was very interested in before I met my current wife, We dated for probably about a year and, you know, had a great time.
She was a wonderful woman, but had just very badly mismatched expectations of what it meant financially to be married, right?
She was kind of old fashioned and she said, you know, the man should pay for everything and the woman will run the household.
But she also wasn't sure that she wanted children.
And so what I was concerned about was getting into a situation where I've sort of agreed tacitly to support a woman to run a household, but the household is sort of her and I.
And that didn't really make much sense to me.
I mean, we're going to have three kids.
That's a different matter.
The other thing, too, is, you know, around household chores.
You know, as a dude and as a guy who was a longtime bachelor, I mean, I've never been married before.
I got married in my 30s.
You know, I had sort of standards, for want of a better word, of sort of cleanliness and so on.
And my wife is much more around, you know, regular home maintenance.
And so we had to have conversations about that.
You know, what is it that I would be willing to commit to as part of the marriage?
And, you know, so that we don't get into the marriage and I say, what, you want me to clean anything?
Well, that's not part of the deal, man.
You know, so she had to sort of recognize that we came from very different perspectives and we had to sort of negotiate.
And it was, it was actually quite a lot of fun.
And we had a great deal of pleasure in doing it because You know, I can make fun of myself.
She's got a very good sense of humor about herself, so we can, you know, make fun of my lack of desire and ability to clean the house, and we can make fun of her perhaps a little bit too much on the other side, you know, to the point where, you know, obsessive-compulsive disorder might be the correct diagnosis.
So, but I certainly have learned a lot about what it means to keep a good house and recognize the value of that.
And I think she's learned a little bit more about not so much caring what other people think and not having standards that are just imposed upon you by your mother or a community or whatever or, you know, cleaning the house for fear that some woman's gonna leave the house and go, oh my god, can you believe that woman and her house and blah blah blah.
So.
We've both grown as a result, but you really want to have those conversations.
We had conversations about money.
I'm not a spender.
I hate to spend money.
I grew up very poor and faced terrible financial calamities in my early teens.
We had eviction notices.
My mother basically became mentally ill and was institutionalized.
My brother was living in England at the time, so for a number of years, things were just terrible.
I was like 12 or 13 years old.
There was no money, and I had to work a number of jobs, and it was just... I still don't know exactly how I made it through, but I did.
And, I mean, that left me with sort of lifelong aversion to getting into debt and to, you know, spending a lot of money.
I mean, I'll spend it when I have to.
I have a nice car and a nice house, but I sort of consider those to be investments.
But you have to have that kind of conversations with people, with your lovers, before you get engaged.
You know, if my wife is somewhat like, oh, I love to spend money, live for the day, you know, who knows if we're going to be here tomorrow, let's, you know, run up the debts, then, you know, that would be far too stressful for me and be the source of endless conflict.
Or if I was that way to her, I think the only conflict that we had over money was, you know, being a guy, I don't like to buy clothing.
Unfortunately, because I'm a guy, styles don't really change, so it's not too bad.
But the only time that my wife became exasperated with me, I think, in the first year of marriage, was she kept suggesting that I get clothes for my new job.
And I kept resisting it, and she finally just said, oh, for heaven's sake, let's go shopping.
And she was quite right.
So, but, you know, aside from those minor things, we have the same philosophy about money, which is, you know, it's something to be really taken care of.
You know, you take care of your money, and it's going to take care of you.
And so, you know, you want to make sure that you have those kinds of fundamental agreements with your partner before you get married, so that you're not going to have that kind of conflict-ridden, stressful marriage that is the exact opposite of both freedom and happiness.
And of course, that has nothing to do with politics.
I mean, except that perhaps if you are very keen on rationality, that you have conversations with your partner about, you know, how are we going to resolve disputes, right?
That's something I could never get a clear answer from, from the woman that I was engaged to.
I think it was in my late twenties.
So that didn't work out.
But you know, my wife is a very rational woman and a very empirical woman.
You know, she's a cognitive psychologist, so she's very into, you know, your thoughts produce your emotions and you have to look at contradictions in your thinking in order to live a mentally healthy life and so on.
So we're very similar in that regard, and we have a way of resolving disputes, which is, you know, appeals to reason, appeals to empiricism, and so on.
I mean, it's not exactly how we catch it, but that is, you know, a way of approaching it.
I mean, I'll give you sort of an example, if it helps, that, you know, if she did something that hurt me, then early on in our marriage, she would do occasionally, very occasionally, she'd do something that hurt me, and I would say, you know, wow, that hurt me.
And I wouldn't say, you know, you're a bad person.
I'd just say, you know, my experience was that that hurt me.
And she would say, well, I didn't mean to hurt you.
And, you know, that's the kind of conversation that people get into with married couples where you end up arguing about intention, which doesn't matter at all, right?
Because the fact was she said something that was hurtful to me, and therefore we had to deal with the fact that what she said was hurtful to me.
Whether she meant to hurt me or not is irrelevant.
Because the fact is that I was hurt and we needed to explore sort of why, and then we found out, you know, it's based on this her mother did or whatever.
I mean, you can find out these things, but basically you have to deal with the empirical facts rather than things like intention or whatever.
Now, it was an empirical fact that I was hurt.
It didn't mean that my hurt was justified or that she did anything wrong, right?
Because that would be going from what happened to, you know, intention.
You know, she could have hurt me accidentally, right?
it's a different thing to punch your partner in your sleep accidentally than to punch them when you're awake.
So intention matters.
But you know, the fact is that I was hurt.
And we had to deal with that as a fact.
And we also had to deal with the fact that I felt hurt based on something she said.
And that was also a fact and whether she intended to hurt me or not didn't matter.
Because you can't erase hurt based on intent, right?
I mean, if she was able to prove to me that she didn't intend it.
But what she said was still hurtful to me, we still have to deal with that.
So I mean, that's sort of a basic example of dealing with with facts and what is empirically verifiable, rather than, you know, it wasn't more My intention was this, or I thought you said that, or whatever.
You just deal with the facts of what happened, and that's how you resolve your next step.
So I'm certainly not going to lecture everyone on what it means to have a good marriage, although I am very fortunate and have worked very hard to have a fantastic marriage.
But that is, you know, probably the most important aspect of freedom and happiness, regardless of political freedom.
I would rather be married to my wife and living in a dictatorship.
I mean, assuming it wasn't some Cambodian nightmare dictatorship, I would rather be married to my wife and live in a less free society than to be married to the woman that I was going to get married to my 20s and live in a more free society because my personal freedom and happiness would be much more limited by marriage, a bad marriage than by A bad political situation.
I mean, there are other things that are important around freedom as well.
I mean, finances, right?
I mean, you have to be financially responsible, you have to save your money, you have to put money aside for a rainy day, because otherwise, you know, you're then not free, because you kind of have to take whatever nonsense is handed out to you at work, and you can't stand up for things that you think are right, because you're too frightened of getting fired.
You know, fear is certainly not the foundation of freedom or of happiness.
And so you need to make sure that you are smart with your money, right?
So, you know, try and minimize your taxes.
And, you know, if you can work out of your home, if you can be an entrepreneur, do it.
Take the risk because it's well worth it.
And you want to make sure that you have enough money in the bank, that you have enough savings for your retirement, that you have Insurance, you know, I mean, whatever your level of risk is, but make sure that you are not then enslaved by freedom, so to speak.
So, you know, you live this life where you just sort of go out and you're free to spend things and you're free to, you know, take a job and quit a job, and then you end up with financial insecurity, which is, you know, really not so good for being free.
So I would certainly suggest, and something we have real control over, look at your finances.
Um, and make sure that you're responsible about those so that you can be free to, you know, quit your job if something happens that's, you know, maybe morally compromising or, you know, you get a real jerk for a boss or whatever.
So, make sure that you're free in that sense.
Of course, your kids, you want to make sure that you raise your kids right, that you do everything that you can to make sure that they turn into great human beings, because, you know, I worked with a guy once whose son got into drugs, and man, oh man, I mean, he was not free.
His life was a complete nightmare.
I mean, this is also the case with people who get divorced, that for a number of years their lives are just very difficult.
And, of course, if you get divorced and if you're a guy and you divorce your wife and she has two kids, then you're basically not free for the next 15 to 20 years because you're feeding this family that you're only a peripheral part of.
So, you know, that's the kind of stuff which you don't want to get into and you have much more control over that than you do over legislation, of course.
You know, another issue around freedom is friends and family, right?
I mean, we all have friends that who were friends before we became libertarians.
I would assume, unless you were born one, which I wasn't.
We also have relatives who are not rational or who are hostile to our beliefs.
And, you know, my strong suggestion is ditch them.
Get the people out of your life who you're constantly fighting with.
You know, you're not going to change them.
They're not going to change you.
What conceivable reason could there be for having people in your life whose values you despise and who despise your values?
I mean, after a certain degree of opposition there's simply no possibility of rapprochement.
I mean, you're simply not going to be able to To get along with these people, and there's going to be constant conflict.
People are constantly going to be needling each other.
They're going to, you know, make fun of your beliefs, especially if you're a libertarian, right?
They'll turn everything into a joke about, oh, well, I guess we can't have any rules because that wouldn't be good libertarianism or whatever, right?
I guess we shouldn't brush your teeth because we're a free marketer.
I mean, I don't know if you've had those experiences, but I certainly have, where people just sort of make fun of your beliefs.
And, you know, that's a really cowardly act of aggression on their part, right?
Because they're just mocking your beliefs without taking the time to actually come up with a logical argument about them.
And what they're trying to do is just undermine your self-confidence and your self-esteem and your belief in what is true by applying sort of stupid, dumb, social scorn against you.
And that's just not a situation that I care to be in.
Because what happens is these people, they give you this cowardly, passive-aggressive stuff, and when you call them on it, right, so my brother used to do this, right, sort of make fun of my beliefs, and then when I would get angry at him for doing that, he would then say, oh, well, I guess we're getting pretty defensive now, I mean, I guess you can't take any criticism of your beliefs, can you?
And so you're in a complete no-win situation, right?
And in a no-win situation, the only way you can win is not to play, right?
Like that old war games movie, Funny Game, the only way to win is not to play.
And so that's exactly what you need to do, right?
So, I mean, I just stopped seeing my brother, right?
I mean, I wasn't going to change his mind.
He sure as hell wasn't going to change my mind.
And I was tired, sort of emotionally tired, of just being put in these situations where, you know, my beliefs would get... I would get needled and provoked about what it is that I considered to be good and just and honorable and right.
And then I would either shut up and take it, which felt humiliating, or I would fight back, in which case I was blamed for being aggressive.
So, you know, guess what?
I'm out of here!
You know, finances, kids, friends, marriage, this is all the things where you can get an enormous amount of freedom in your life and an enormous amount of pleasure in your life.
And I'd certainly suggest that you focus on those before you focus on bringing down the leviathan with your bare hands.
And as far as going back to the very beginning of the email, the last thing to talk about in terms of freedom, in my view, is this question of conflict with others.
How are you going to deal with the fact that other people are going to get mad at you and fight you about what it is that you believe?
Even people who believe with nine-tenths of what you say are going to get angry at you for the remaining one-tenth.
And, you know, how are you going to deal with that in a way that gives you pleasure?
Because if you can't deal with it in a way that gives you pleasure, then being in the public arena in any way, shape, or form is going to be very stressful to you.
And, you know, stress is not exactly freedom and pleasure.
So, the way that I approach this, I mean, you know, Socrates is my Christ, so to speak.
I mean, so, you know, I don't agree with all of his philosophical arguments, but the methodology to me is unassailable.
So, you know, for those who don't know the story, I'll give it to you briefly about how Socrates became a philosopher.
He went to the oracle at Delphi when he was a young man and already very interested in the pursuit of truth.
And he said to the oracle, Who is the wisest and most knowledgeable man in the world?
And the oracle came back to him and said, well, Socrates, you are.
And he said, well, that's ridiculous.
I don't know anything.
So how can I be the most knowledgeable and wisest man in the world?
So he was very disturbed by this.
And so he sort of sat down and said, OK, well, how am I going to deal with this?
Because I can't just believe it.
Because I mean, I know that I don't know anything about truth and justice and honor and all that.
So the oracle has to be incorrect, but the oracle is never incorrect.
So what am I going to do about this?
So the course of action that he decided upon was he said, okay, I'm going to go to the people who say that they are the wisest people and I'm going to question them, right?
To find out what they know in order to find out whether the oracle is right or not, because I can't figure out that the oracle would be right because I said before, I don't know anything.
So he takes this on as a quest and he goes traveling around, I guess, around the Mediterranean.
And he finds every town he comes to, he says, who's the wisest man?
And they'll say, you know, Bob, Bobopolis over there is the wisest man if he's in Greece.
So he goes over to Bobopolis and, you know, he says, so Bob, for short, you are the wisest man.
And Bob says, yes, I am.
And he says, well, how do you know you're the wisest man?
He says, oh, I know all about truth and honor and integrity and beauty and all this.
So Socrates says, great, okay, well, tell me about them.
So he then tells Socrates his beliefs, and then Socrates starts, you know, water wearing away stone, begins to ask questions of this person, and, you know, quickly finds out that they haven't thought things through, that they haven't thought about this, that, or the other, or this statement they make contradicts another statement that they make.
And although they claim to know something about truth and honor and beauty and logic and all that, they really don't.
What they are is somebody who has a nice speaking voice and a passionate demeanor and is able to convince others that he knows something rather than actually knowing something.
So after Socrates does this for a number of years it finally hits him what the oracle was talking about which is that Socrates is the wisest man in the world Because he knows that he doesn't know.
Everybody else thinks that they know, which means that they are basically infecting others with false beliefs, and they are blind to their own blindness, which is the most dangerous situation of all.
So Socrates knows that he doesn't know, and that is the beginning of wisdom.
And I take that story very personally, and I think that that is true in a very fundamental way.
I don't believe that I know nothing.
We have, since Socrates, the advantage of both capitalism and the scientific method as methodologies for determining value for, you know, the scientific method for determining truth from falsehood and in the free market determining as objectively as possible what is meant by value.
I mean the value of material goods and labor and money and services and so on.
So we have two additional constructs which Socrates did not have access to, which are very helpful in terms of determining value, truth, and falsehood.
So it's not true, I think, that we know nothing, but I think that that approach is very important.
So what I suggest to you, when people come at you, You know, so somebody is, you know, they like my arguments for the free market and limiting the state, or eliminating the state, and then they start listening to my podcast, and then they get, you know, very angry with me because I don't believe in God.
And it's not just that I don't believe in God.
There is no God.
You know, I state that as an empirical fact, because it is an empirical fact, whether people like it or not.
God is neither empirically proven nor logically possible, therefore there is no God.
It's not a matter of maybe, maybe, you know, there is no God.
And so people get very upset with me about that.
And I understand why.
I mean, they've based their whole moral beliefs in the existence of a God, and so to find out that there isn't one is very disturbing for people.
I mean, as I said before, and as I'll say again, Universal moral beliefs are the most powerful mental instrument that human beings can ever experience, and therefore when people find out that they've been incorrect about the most important aspect of life, then they get very testy, and they get very aggressive.
Some do.
Some will get depressed, but you know, they're gonna get angry with you, and I think that's perfectly fine.
I mean, I'm not gonna, you know, I believe in freedom.
I believe in free will, so I'm not gonna get angry at someone for being angry at me, unless they become abusive.
But what I do say to them is, you know, if somebody says to me, you know, you're absolutely wrong.
There is a God, right?
Then I'm like, wow.
I, you know, this is what I'll say to them.
I certainly appreciate, I really appreciate your passion about these issues because they are the most important issues.
Right?
So I'm already aligning with the guy.
He thinks it's important.
I think it's important.
We definitely agree that the question of whether there's a God or not is one of the most important questions in the world.
Because it is.
Because it has so much effect on how we look at the world and the state and others and morals and so on.
So, you know, I fully agree with him that these are very important issues and that passion is perfectly justified when you're dealing about things that are very, very important.
So, you know, we're already aligned in that.
Perfectly in agreement.
I also say to him, the last thing I want to be is incorrect about whether there's a God, right?
So I am respecting the fact that he is very passionate about these ideas because it's very important, and I'm also saying that I'm completely open to being corrected.
I don't want to be wrong about whether there's a God or not.
You know, if the dude comes spiraling down from the sky tomorrow and becomes empirically verifiable, then I'm certainly going to become a God worshipper or whatever.
I mean, I'm certainly going to believe in God.
So, you know, the fact is that I'm perfectly open to being corrected about whether there's a God.
I'm certainly open to being corrected about whether the state is morally viable or not.
If somebody can make an argument to me or prove, you know, an error in my argument, then I'm going to re-evaluate.
Of course I am, right?
Because I don't have an adherence to atheism.
I don't have an adherence to the free market.
I am not anti-government.
I am not anti-religious.
I am not Anti-violence.
I am pro-truth.
I am pro-truth.
And I am pro-truth through logic and empirical verification.
Works for the scientific method, works for capitalism, works for me.
I'm not going to say that the scientific method doesn't work because I use it all the time.
You know, both conceptually in my arguments and practically in all the things that I use that are based on anything to do with science, like computers and cars and, you know, the heating in my home and so on.
So, you know, I'm not wed to any of the conclusions of rationality, but to rationality itself.
Now I've done the best that I can with my own abilities in terms of how I can establish truths based on rational premises and rational arguments and empirical verification.
I've done the absolute best that I can.
I mean, I've burnt my brain to a smoking crisp trying to come up with things that are true.
But if somebody can prove to me that I'm wrong, fantastic!
I mean, I'm not wed to any of my conclusions.
I am wed to the methodology and to the truth, because I believe that the truth sets you free and the truth makes you happy.
So I say to religious people, if you can prove to me that there is a God, or if you can prove to me where I have made an error in my conclusion that there is no God, I will fall on my knees and thank you.
I will name my firstborn after you.
I will be overjoyed because I really don't want to be in error about these things.
And so let's be companions on the search for truth.
Let us be brothers in the pursuit of what is accurate.
And so I fully invite anybody out there at any time to tell me where I'm wrong.
I mean, I'm absolutely flexible about that, because to be wed to a conclusion is erroneous, right?
You want to be wed to a methodology.
To be wed to a conclusion is just illogical, right?
I mean, and it doesn't allow you to be open to new information.
It doesn't allow you to be open to any errors that you have made in your logic.
And it puts you in the flat Earth society.
Before people were sort of figured out that you could measure the shadows of sticks at different locations and you could watch the massive ship disappearing over the horizon and you could do all these mathematical calculations that prove that the Earth was round, you It was perfectly logical to believe that it was flat.
It sure as heck looked flat.
I mean, you ever been to Montana?
So, to then say that I am wed to the conclusion that the Earth is flat is incorrect, right?
You want to be wed to a methodology for determining truth from falsehood, not to a result.
I mean, you don't want to be one of those old fuddy-duddy scientists who has to die off for any new scientific truth to come forward because you're wed to a conclusion and not a methodology.
So, you know, when it comes to people coming at you with, you know, anger and frustration and hostility.
For me, I mean, I completely agree with them.
These are very important issues.
I certainly understand your passion.
And I certainly appreciate your desire to correct me.
Because correcting a human being who's got erroneous thinking is what is about the kindest thing that you can do for them.
Basically, it's what my wife does for a living.
And she helps a lot more people than I do, I think.
So you, you absolutely, I take the anger and the hostility, first and foremost, I take it as somebody who's passionate about it.
I understand that if they're wrong, they have lived a life of terrible waste and potentially great corruption, right?
Because they've taught their children or they've taught others that something is true.
when it is the opposite of truth, and that is a terrible thing to look in the mirror and see.
So I fully understand the psychology of why they would be hostile, and I defuse that hostility simply by being honest.
You know, hey, if there is a God, tell me how I can believe.
Tell me how.
I don't want to be wrong about that.
That's pretty important.
Even if there's no such thing as heaven and hell, I don't want to be somebody who's corrupting others by telling them things that are false, because I value the truth above all else.
So tell me where I'm wrong.
Help me out.
Be a brother.
Be kind to me.
Lead me out of the darkness of error into the light of truth.
But I'm not going to do it just because you're angry at me.
I'm not going to change my mind just to placate you.
I'm not going to allow you to bully me into believing that something is true.
You have to tell me where I'm wrong.
You have to adhere to a scientific or rational methodology.
And then I will absolutely honor you and thank you and praise you if you can prove to me that I'm incorrect.
So that is the way to approach it, in my view, because you're certainly not going to change your mind because someone's hostile to you, right?
I mean, that would be submitting to intellectual bullying of the most craven kind.
So you don't want to do that.
You don't want to yell back.
I mean, you can if you want.
These aren't rules, right?
I mean, if somebody is abusive to me, then I will absolutely get angry at them back.
But then I'm not talking about philosophy.
I'm just talking about somebody being a jerk to me.
And, you know, I certainly don't lie down and turn the other cheek if somebody starts getting very aggressive with me.
I will absolutely take off the gloves and get aggressive with them back.
But then I'm no longer talking about philosophy.
I'm just talking about You're a jerk, you're overly aggressive, and I have no patience whatsoever with this kind of bullying, and you have personal issues that you need to work out before you step back into the arena of truth, because abusing other people is not where you want to get to in life.
That's not going to change anyone's mind except people who are cowards and who cares, right?
You know, if these people come charging at me, you know, they're charging me down, I don't fight, I don't run, I simply accept it.
Okay, you're going to come into the arena and you're going to tell me that I'm wrong.
Great!
Then tell me why I'm wrong, you know, tell me where I've made a mistake, tell me what piece of information I've overlooked, and correct me.
Now, what it will do is it will diffuse their hostility and make the interaction that much more pleasant because they simply will go away.
People who get angry at others for their beliefs are generally doing so.
I mean, especially if they're religious or socialistic, they're doing so because deep down they know that they've sort of surrendered their intellectual autonomy.
For the sake of social conformity, right?
And they surrendered their integrity and their minds for the sake of getting along with others and believing things that they know are not true.
I mean, no Christian believes deep down that there's such a thing as God, right?
Because you know how they live that they really don't believe, right?
I mean, they don't sort of take to the desert and praise God and starve to death, which is sort of what Christ commands them to do.
Give everything away to the poor and live in rags.
I mean, they don't do any of that stuff.
They know deep down that there's no such thing.
I mean, they're just They just believe those things because they say that they do in order to get along with everyone else.
It's the Emperor's new clothes, right?
The same thing with socialists, right?
They think it's kind of cool.
They think it's right.
Academics, they want to get jobs.
Everybody just says things to get along and to get ahead, which is fine.
Then just be honest and say, well, I really don't believe in God, but I got a good job through my church and I'm not going to give that up.
Well, I may not respect that, but at least I can respect the honesty.
But, you know, the moment that people claim that something's universally true or that you're wrong, then, you know, all they have to do is tell you why and, you know, you'll thank them.
But, you know, there's no point getting angry back at them unless, again, unless they're abusive, in which case I just get rid of them pretty curtly.
But, um...
You know, invite them in and tell them, tell me how I'm wrong.
And the wonderful thing about it is that they won't ever email you again because they can't, right?
And you know, so you get them out of your life without any difficult conflicts.
So again, adherence to the methodology, not to the conclusions is where you want to be.
That gives you all the Socratic flexibility that you need to deal with people who are charging at you and getting angry at you and telling you that you're wrong and so on.
Great, you know, just prove to me how I'm wrong and we'll be friends forever.
I hope this has been helpful.
I do find that this question of freedom is fascinating.
Obviously we do face a difficult situation because we are in a world where freedoms are declining, but all I can suggest is focus on the freedoms you have control over and you will live a wonderful life despite the expansion of state power.
Thank you so much for your time and I hope that you have a wonderful day before the end of the day of the year.
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