All Episodes
Previous Next
March 13, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
25:15
680 The Golden Gun
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
It's Steph. It is the castle of my master, Louis Deluapere!
No, wait, sorry. That's not quite right.
It is 12.15 on March the 13th.
So I hope you're having a wonderful day.
I just came back from my dental checkup.
Everything is fine, except I'm missing a tooth.
The hunt is on. Other than that, we're good to go.
So I now get to wear a mouth guard because apparently I grind my teeth at night, though there is no evidence it's the only thing that could explain the mystery crack in my tooth.
So really, now that I have a mouth guard, I think it just goes to reaffirm the proposition that you just can't get any sexier when you hit 40.
Anyway, I'd like to talk this afternoon about the golden gun, the myth of the golden gun.
And I'm not about to break into any James Bond intro songs.
But I think it is an important myth to try and understand.
Because it's very, very common.
And it is in many, many ways the root of all institutionalized evil.
The myth of the golden gun.
And let me tell you about the myth of the golden gun.
The myth of the golden gun is the belief that somewhere out there is a good gun.
That the gun can be golden.
You've just got to point it at the right people, or the right people have to be pointing it, under the right circumstances, in the right way, with the right incentives, for the right reasons, with the right weather, or whatever nonsense people come up with.
There is a golden gun out there.
It's a mythological beast that we have every right to pursue, because, by God, my friends, it's out there.
Now, the interesting thing about the Golden Gun is that it really, in general, only ever shows up in history.
You never really see the Golden Gun in the present.
But you see it. In history all the time, and it is this fantasy that this mythological beast, this mythological instrument, this magical sword of virtue, it's the myth that this exists that is just so incredibly destructive.
And really when you think about the practice and the storytelling of history, and most history is of course mere rank storytelling, I think it's relatively clear that the golden gun And the invention of the golden gun and the propagation of the myth of the golden gun is pretty much the main central and sometimes it would seem the only reason that the discipline of history even exists to begin with.
So I'll give you an example of it and then we'll work metaphorically and then logically if we have time.
Here's an example. The Marshall Plan.
Ah, the Marshall Plan.
How many times have you heard it?
That without significant U.S. spending after the Second World War, The European economy would never ever have been able to jumpstart itself and turn into the economic powerhouse that it was.
The Marshall Plan. The pouring of millions upon millions of dollars to the governments of the European West and Germany in particular, of course, not East Germany, and Japan.
And this, by golly, turned everything around.
And it was this kind of government spending, this Keynesian approach to priming the pump of economic growth that saved the world from a slide back into continual fascism and problems and this and that and the other.
There, my friends, is a perfect example of the golden gun.
It's not really any big mystery about where the Marshall Plan money came from.
It was extorted from the civilians at gunpoint.
Civilians of the U.S. The myth of the golden gun.
Now, the myth of the golden gun, in terms of the Marshall Plan, begetteth the myth of the golden gun in terms of foreign aid.
So, the Marshall Plan worked beautifully.
We gave all this money.
To the Europeans and Japanese, to the Axis powers, and by God, their economies flourished, and all was happy, and luck sang, and maidens did beareth their bosoms, and all was beautiful.
Now, from that myth...
Of the golden gun, that rare sighting of the golden gun, of the gun that produces flowers in virtue, of the violence that produces, not blood, of the sword which shears open a limb and out sprouteth primrose and paonies and poppies and all good and wondrous fairies and leprechauns dancing, not merely arterial blood and bone fragments that use slice a human being open and out comes perfume and not blood.
This myth of the golden gun The myth of the Marshall Plan begets the myth of foreign aid and the myth of the welfare state.
Keynesianism, which is of course a fundamental prop, or at least was for most of the 20th century, a fundamental prop with regards to the myth of the golden gun, says that money that is taken from citizens through force can be redistributed and produce a paradise on earth.
That the effects of violence can be virtuous, but you've got to calibrate it really carefully.
You've got to get the right people holding the gun, pointing it at the right people, with the right motives, with the right bureaucracies in place, with the right checks and balances, and lo and behold, the gun is turned into gold, and all showers of wonders produce from shooting people, or threatening to, at least.
So, you'll hear this kind of stuff, and it's very embedded.
And state education is really about, in its most fundamental way, the myth of the golden gun.
The myth of the golden gun.
See, when capitalists have the gun, as it's sort of talked about with the robber-bearers in the 19th century, as it's talked about with DiLorenzo's book a couple of months ago, or about two months ago, when private citizens get the gun, all is evil.
All this exploitation and bullying and Carnegie and Rockefeller and all of these vile capitalists, when they had control of the gun, all was evil.
But when the government has control of the gun, all is good.
Of course, the fundamental lie is that the capitalists never had control of the gun, and the only people who had control of the gun when they were capitalists were those who used the guns of the state.
You can't actually afford guns of your own unless you can get the people you're victimizing to pay for them.
So it's a double myth, right?
So this myth of the golden gun that people talk about...
Which is social security, old age pensions, Medicare, Medicaid, the myth of the golden gun.
That you can turn blood into wine in a miraculous New Testament miracle!
My God, it's a bloody miracle!
That you can turn blood into wine.
That you can turn sinew into scrumptious snacks.
That you can turn violence into virtue.
This shatters and completely destroys any concept of virtue and integrity in human life.
We'll get to that in a little bit. Let's talk about the Marshall Plan, just for a minute or two.
The Marshall Plan started a year, I think, about two or three years after the end of World War II, when it was showering of money into Western Europe, the Axis powers, and Japan and Western Europe.
And it was considered to be that which got the Western economy up and running.
And Germany was the greatest, West Germany was the greatest recoverer in this sense.
So this, of course, is considered to be a closed case, right?
This is like a no-brainer. Well, they gave all this money to these economies, these economies did well, and therefore everything was hunky-dory.
But it's not true. It is true that for some countries this money was received and then the economy did well.
It is true. But there are several logical problems with it.
First of all, after this, therefore, because of this, is a very fundamental logical error.
When people listen to the radio in the morning and it says it's going to rain, they take their umbrellas.
So after people take their umbrellas out to work or leave them in their car or whatever, then it starts to rain.
Are we going to say that the rain is caused by people taking out their umbrellas?
No. Although the rain generally occurs after people take out their umbrellas.
So this kind of causality requires a very, very strict methodology.
That's why there's the placebo effect, the double-blind studies in medicine and other areas.
That's why there's the reproducibility of scientific experiments.
Something that happens after something else is not necessarily, in fact, is rarely caused directly and solely by that thing.
So what happened with the Marshall Plan?
Well, the Marshall Plan was net neutral in terms of the overall economy.
Why? Because every dollar that was given to the state recipients of the Marshall Plan required that they spend an extra dollar in social services.
So money was stolen from the American people at gunpoint and then handed over to the political leaders of these other countries who were then told that they must use that money or a condition of getting that money was to further extort money from their own citizens.
So there was no net positive.
There was a net negative to the US. There was a net positive to the recipients or the people who were running those governments.
But there was no net positive to the citizens of the Axis powers because they just got taxed more or there was an increased amount of borrowing to pay for the money that was spent because every time you got a dollar of Marshall Plan age, you had to spend an extra dollar on social services or education or whatever.
So it was net neutral.
There was no direct proportionality between the recipients of the Marshall Plan and the speed to which their economies grew.
That's important. That's a basic effect of causality.
That's a basic criteria.
It's not the final, but it's a pretty elemental.
If you say, after this, therefore because of this, that economies within the West after the Second World War grew because of the Marshall Plan, then clearly those countries that received the most in terms of the Marshall Plan should be the ones that grew the most.
So, in terms of the Marshall Plan, there's no correlation between the amount of money given and the speed of the economic recovery.
Furthermore, it should always be, and again, this is not a final criteria, but it is definitely inappropriate.
It's a necessary but not sufficient criteria.
It should be that economies did not grow until the Marshall Plan dollars arrived.
And that's completely false.
The Marshall Plan dollars arrived and some economies were growing beforehand, particularly Germany's, and other economies were not growing until long after the Marshall Plan money arrived.
So there was no direct causation.
Either quantitatively or qualitatively between the Marshall Plan dollar arrival and the growth of the economy.
So there must be other factors.
Now, of course, those of us who have taken more than a morsel of Austrian economics know exactly what this factor is.
And it's not that hard to figure out.
The countries that grew grew proportional to their willingness, to their government's willingness, to let the free market work.
So in Germany, they got rid of all of the controls that were imposed in the Weimar, even back to the Weimar Republic years of the 20s.
All of the controls, not all, most of the controls, they got rid of, and so the economy grew like crazy.
And the Marshall Plan did nothing to help that.
In England, the economy did not grow like crazy because the crazy nutbars spent, what, half of five million lives or so, Actually, I know it's 40 million for the war as a whole.
I don't know how many British people were killed in the war.
But they spent lots and lots of lives fighting National Socialism.
Then the crazy bastards went around and instituted socialism within their own country.
And of course, that's something that they were no longer able because the foreign armies had been smashed and there was no will for warfare.
They had to give up their empire, and that meant that those who came home needed to bully the domestic citizens who were disarmed.
They couldn't go and continue to oppress India, so they had to come home and invent socialism so that they could oppress their own people.
It's a little easier, right?
That's been the general pattern.
Unless you have overwhelming military force like the U.S., in which case you only think you have overwhelming military force, but you can't beat a bunch of ragtag insurgents with no army.
By the way, I just love the way that I've heard some commentators say, well, these insurgents don't fight fair.
They're not in uniform. They're not this.
They're not that. It's like, really?
Fighting fair? Fighting fear?
Is that what you call it when B-52s skybomb the shit out of half-armed Iraqi draftees from 20,000 feet?
When you've got nuclear weapons and scud missiles and you attack somebody who's got a defense budget of one-third of 1%, that of your country?
That's called fighting fear?
Right. Anyway, that's a by-the-by.
But it's just something to keep in mind.
So the Marshall Plan did nothing, of course, other than fatten some bureaucrats.
But because the Marshall Plan was perceived to be a success, and of course it's not perceived to be a success because people study it objectively.
It's not perceived to be a success because people study it objectively.
It's perceived to be a success because it gives people the excuse to steal and rob and pillage more people for their money.
The golden gun is invented so that the real guns can be proliferated.
This fairy tale of virtue that cometh from violence is invented so that virtue can expand.
It's not because anybody does an objective analysis.
Because, of course, you don't really need to do an objective analysis.
And we'll get to that in a few minutes.
I mean, it's worth looking at, but you don't really need to.
Out of the Marshall Plan comes the idea of foreign aid.
And we've talked about foreign aid before, how it's really just a...
A fiscal transfer from American taxpayers, just to take America, other countries do it, from American taxpayers to the American government to foreign governments and then back through legislated or conditional contracts, contracts conditional upon the granting of the money, it then comes back to American contractors.
It's just another kind of corporate subsidy.
And, of course, it comes back to the U.S. government in terms of the U.S. government steals the money from the American taxpayer Uses some of the stolen money to buy arms, then ships those arms, along with money, to people overseas, to governments overseas, and dictatorial governments, of the 20 most dictatorial governments throughout the last half of the 20th century.
All but one of them was heavily armed and subsidized in terms of the military by the U.S. And other countries.
I don't want to pick on the U.S. It's all governments do this if they can.
But the money is then sent overseas.
The money then comes back from overseas to domestic contractors.
Who then use it for political donations, a part of it.
And other parts of it come back to the U.S. government through arms sales.
It's an extraordinarily, I mean, evil, completely evil racket.
And then, of course, what happens is those countries don't do any better.
In fact, a lot of them, like Zambia, do worse over time.
As you would expect, right?
You arm psychotic political leaders, of course, you're going to end up with less political freedom, less domestic freedom, and as a result, the economy is going to completely self-destruct.
In Peru, it's estimated that it takes about 278 working days to fill out the paperwork that is eight and a half meters long to open up a small clothing factory, and it also takes eight proactive and above-the-board bribes to get this done.
And then people say, gee, I wonder why the Peruvian economy isn't doing that well.
Bye! I wonder why!
So what happens, it's beautiful that then you take money from the American taxpayers to arm foreign governments, thus getting contracts back, thus getting the rotating door of sponsorship between the Pentagon and lobbying, between the Pentagon and the private sector.
And then you also have the wonderful thing of arming these foreign governments, which causes heart-rending images of starving, bloated-bellied children being flashed across the television screens, which arouses Bono'sire about foreign aid, which then allows you to tax more.
And so you sell more weapons to foreign governments, which causes even more poverty, which causes you to raise taxes for more spending on foreign aid, which gets more of your political friends the money they want and the money you want through their donations.
And last but not least, of course, since the foreign populations are completely aware that the reason that they're oppressed is the U.S. keeps pressing immense amounts of weaponry into the hands of their political overlords.
They get rather angry at the United States, which raises a specter of terrorism, which, guess what, allows you to tax and control and, oh, anyway, your own population that much more.
We don't have to get into this bloody awful cycle.
But all of it is founded on the myth of the golden gun.
All of it is founded on the myth of the golden gun.
And this is what libertarians get stuck on, I think, in my humble opinion, and maybe you have in this area as well.
Maybe you haven't. You can let me know if you got free of it.
There's a myth out there to analogize.
There's a myth out there that women like to be raped.
And again, I'm sorry to use the rape metaphor, I know, but it's just easy and it clarifies a lot of moral issues.
Stolen from is too confusing, and murder, you can't get any feedback afterwards from the person who's murdered, so I'm sorry, it's not any pathology I have, it's just very convenient.
I know that I've had some criticism on that, but bear with it if you can live with it.
I think it'll be helpful. So there's a rumor out there, or there's a belief in society that women like to be raped.
Women like to be raped.
And you believe this, of course, is drummed into you over and over again, that happiness can result from violence.
Women's happiness can result from violence.
And you believe this, but then of course at some point you start to go, well, I don't really quite see how that works.
I have my doubts.
So I'm going to start talking to some women who've been raped.
And you go and talk to women and you say, well, I really know.
It was horrible. It was like a mind-bendingly terrible situation.
I've got post-traumatic stress disorder.
I can't sleep. I feel violated in my core.
I've been brutalized. My body is no longer my own.
I've been in therapy. I have to take antidepressants.
It's traumatic and destructive and vile.
For the woman, or the man, if you want to expand it to prisons and boarding schools.
Then you say, okay, well, this is bad, right?
And then you go and talk to the people who say that women like to be raped, and they say, well, sure!
Well, of course. I mean, yeah, absolutely.
When good-looking guys are not the rapists, then women don't like it.
Like, women want to choose their rapists.
This is the analogy to the violence in the hands of the private citizens is bad, but violence in the hands of the political overlords is good, noble, virtuous, true, kind, wise, and benevolent, and helpful, and creates all the happiness and joys and dancing in the world.
So then you say, okay, well maybe that's an answer.
Obviously we want less rape to occur because a lot of women don't seem to like it, but there's women out there who do like it.
And so we just need to reduce it or refine it or find a way to make rape more pleasurable for women or whatever, right?
And, of course, it's all the purest nonsense in the world.
It's all the purest nonsense in the world.
This hunt for the fabulous mythological weapon of the golden gun consumes many libertarians and many republicans and even some democrats.
Public school is good.
That's the golden gun.
Corporate subsidies are bad.
That's a black gun of the devil.
Golden gun, black gun.
Good gun, bad gun.
Virtuous gun, vicey gun.
Excellent gun, evil gun.
But it's all the purest nonsense.
Because it's radical subjectivism, right, to say that The initiation of the use of force is good here but bad here.
You're just making up rules. And of course you're making up rules to justify power, fundamentally.
And you're taught those rules and the subjectivism so that power can continue to flourish with the gun in the velvet bag that we talked about on the Sunday show.
So then they say, okay, well, sure.
I mean, welfare has been bad in these sorts of situations.
So that's what we need to do is, you know, we need to change who the gun's pointed at, how much money the gun subsidizes, where the money of the gun goes to, how we distribute it, and blah, blah, blah, right?
We need to polish the gun, right?
If we polish the gun, we'll take off the black and, yay, we'll emerge with the gold.
We just have to find that woman who likes to be raped.
It makes her happy. I don't mean like twisted, masochistic, whatever, satisfaction of horrible urges that were inflicted on her as a child through abuse.
I mean, you know, genuinely happy.
But of course, it's all the purest fantasy.
I mean, rape by definition.
Sexual assault against someone's will.
If it's against someone's will, then clearly it's not virtuous.
Clearly it's not good. If the woman didn't want it, Then it's not good.
You don't have to go around asking every woman, well, how about you?
Did you enjoy it? Oh, God, no, it was horrible.
You? This is a pretty good-looking rapist.
Oh, no, it was just wretched. It took me a while to figure it out, but my God, it was terrible.
And this fantasy that there's somewhere out there is the golden gun is what gets libertarians so messed up.
And I'm talking about the monarchists and so on, right?
Just get the right people. Just give the gun to the right people, and lo and behold, it's turned into gold.
But try this. I mean, try this on a physical.
Do you pick up a gun? It's got a cold feel.
It's metal. It presses against your palm.
It's got a certain weight. And you hand it to someone else.
Does it change color? Does it change weight?
Does it turn into a flower? No.
It's the same damn gun.
It's the same damn gun.
It doesn't matter who's holding it.
It doesn't matter who it's pointed at.
It doesn't matter what the weather is.
It doesn't matter what song you're singing as you threaten to mow people down.
None of these things matter at all.
Even remotely. Even a tiny little bit.
None of these things matter at all.
Because you cannot have a golden gun.
The gun is the initiation of the use of force.
It is by definition evil.
And if we could just let go of this myth of the golden gun, then we don't have to go around and this is what I did for years, right?
I'm not saying it's smart or wise.
It's just what I wasted a lot of my time on.
And a minute or two of your time, but I think it's worth looking at.
So somebody says, well, the Marshall Plan worked.
The Marshall Plan was good. Well, certain aspects of the welfare state work and the retraining and rehabilitation and this and so on, right?
That's good. And then, of course, the great temptation, as I've talked about before, is then you sit there and go, oh God, well now I've got to go and look up the Marshall Plan.
Oh God, and now I've got to go and look up about this welfare program and find out that it's not true and it's not so and this and that and the other.
And it doesn't matter, right? You hear the myth that women like to be raped, you say, no, it's not possible.
Because if they like it, it's not rape.
Role-playing, it's weirdest, but not rape.
The definition is self-destructive.
The initiation of the use of force against someone is just not virtuous.
If somebody is submitting to something because it's forceful, because it's violent, because they have a gun pressed to their neck, then of course they don't want it.
So you can't get virtue from the gun.
There is no golden gun.
It is a completely mythological weapon.
And if we continue to return to that level of the debate, to me, that's the only chance we have to win.
That's the only chance that we have to win.
I mean, in terms of politics and so on, and we can talk about this another time in terms of family and emotional bullying and so on.
But if we can learn to let go of this myth of the golden gun, I think that, and learn to really recognize it when it comes up in a debate, That, well, this application of violence was beneficial.
When we pointed the guns this way at this time, in these circumstances, it was great.
It was great. And, of course, you know, a very fundamental myth of the golden gun is we fought fascism in World War II and we won.
Anyway, we can talk about that another time.
▲
Export Selection