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May 27, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:41:13

773 Call In Show Sunday May 27 2007

Nit-picking at moral theories, a circular friend from the Netherlands, and a potential framework for the Ron Paul debate!

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	All right. Well, thanks everyone so much for coming by.
	It's Sunday, May the 27th.
	Remember, tomorrow we have our very exciting Ron Paul debate, which makes the mere presidential debates fade into tertiary, nay, near-atomic insubstantiality.
	So, thank you so much for dropping by this afternoon.
	I had a number of questions because a listener...
	I was listening to the video that I recently did on the Muslims are not your enemy, wherein I made the assertion that Iraq is experiencing the U.S. population equivalent of a 9-11 every single day,
	and the U.S. for the past, I think, 300 years, I said, has not been subject to these kinds of attacks, and so the anger that the average American felt on 9-11 is felt on an escalating, probably asymptotic scale by the people in Iraq.
	Now, I had a couple of people both email me and mention something, more than mention, openly state on the board that they were most disappointed with my use of statistics.
	And that they felt that saying that the U.S. was 300 years old was not quite correct because it's actually 221.
	And that the population equivalent is not really the equivalent of 3,000 deaths.
	a day, but probably more like 2,903 or something like that.
	And it's funny, you know, I mean, I'm sort of waiting for in general, and this is something I'm going to wait for forever.
	So this is no reason anyone has to provide it.
	But I'm sort of waiting at one point for people to go, you know, he seems to kind of have a reason for the stuff he does or the stuff he says.
	I wonder what that is. Instead of...
	Well, just sort of jumping all over what they see as an error or a carelessness and so on.
	So I promised them that I would mention why I don't calculate everything out to the last decimal place and then you can let me know what you think about this or naturally any other topic.
	So here's the scoop for me anyway.
	This is just my perspective. Let me know what you think.
	Accuracy doesn't win.
	Accuracy doesn't win.
	If we look at the three central power structures that we have spent, lo, these many months analyzing, the state, the family, and religion, they are wildly not accurate.
	I mean, they are wildly, completely, and totally not accurate.
	And not even, like, inaccurate in terms of facts and logic, but completely immoral in terms of ethics and values.
	So, I think that libertarians, to some degree, and philosophers are prey to this as well, like to get things to be perfectly accurate.
	And I think that's a mistake.
	I mean, in terms of statistics and looking up things in history and so on.
	Because it's a simple fact that accuracy doesn't win.
	I mean, you've got the state...
	Going and invading countries and causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands and hundreds of millions of people in the 20th century, and everybody's got all the allegiance in the world to the state, to the government, to the army, to the military, to the cops, and so on.
	You have the Catholic Church, just to pick on any institution, could be any number of them.
	The Catholic Church opposes the distribution of condoms in Africa, thus dooming Hundreds of thousands of people to lingering miserable deaths and destroying an entire continent's possibility for economic growth and civilization and so on.
	Not to mention shielding thousands of priests from their pedophilic activities throughout the world.
	It is estimated that in many religious schools run by the Catholics, the boys who were not molested were in the minority.
	We're in the minority. And the family, we don't have to talk about the family, we see enough evidence of this on the board, exactly how corrupt and destructive most families are throughout the world.
	So, accuracy and virtue doesn't win.
	Doesn't win. Doesn't win.
	I'm just working empirically, just working from the ground up.
	Accuracy and virtue don't win.
	And what does win, in my opinion, what does win is passion, conviction, relentlessness in a kind of way, not backing down, firmness, joy, and assertion and occasionally aggression.
	Consistency, certainty, passion does win.
	Three decimal places Do not win.
	Do not win. People have loyalty to the church, but despite the Inquisition, 100,000 witches burned at the stake, pedophilia, religious warfare decimated up to a quarter of the European population as it rolled past.
	People have loyalty to the state, Despite millions of people unjustly in prisons, despite millions of people in the prison of welfare, despite millions of people in the prison of the public school system, they have loyalty and think that the state is virtuous.
	And we worry about three decimal places.
	The reason that I don't care about the statistics is because I'm not interested in the argument from effect.
	And the reason that I don't work out the statistics before I do these video casts It's because, and I'm sorry if this sounds offensive, but if you listen to me talk about Iraqis experiencing a 9-11 every single day, and the issue that you have is my numbers are slightly off, I can't have you on board.
	I can't. I mean, for me, you can do whatever you want, but just from my perspective, if that's what hangs you up, If you see a video cast by me and you understand that Iraqis are experiencing a 9-11 every day,
	have been for the past couple of years, and your first impulse is not to email that message to as many people as you can or to sit and mull it over or to go and research based on what it is that I'm saying.
	If the first thing that you want to do with that perspective, with that information, is to email me about three decimal places, I don't want you on board.
	Because you're not ready to talk about philosophy with people.
	Because you don't get it.
	And I'm sorry to put it that bluntly, but you don't.
	And people say, well, you know, but we have to have credibility.
	No, we don't have to have credibility.
	We don't have to have credibility.
	We do not have to dot our I's.
	We do not have to cross all our T's.
	Do the priests do that? Do the statists do that?
	Do politicians do that? Do parents do that?
	And people say, well, yes, our standards have to be higher than theirs.
	Exactly! But our standards are about being right in principle.
	Not right down to three decimal places.
	If what bars you from communicating passionately about what is right and true and virtuous is the possibility that somebody might get you wrong on the third decimal place, then don't do it.
	Because if you think that that's the biggest barrier that you're going to have to overcome in communicating about the truth, you're not ready.
	I want to steer people away from talking about these issues if they're into the problem of the third decimal place.
	I don't want them talking about these issues.
	because they're just going to make our job, my job, that much harder.
	When somebody criticizes you for some little fact in the middle of a big picture scenario that you're putting forward, if your reaction is, oh, I guess I'm wrong because I'm off by 5% if your reaction is, oh, I guess I'm wrong because I'm off by 5%
	then you don't have the strength as yet, and this is nothing wrong with that, I didn't have the strength for many years either, but you don't have the strength as yet to be passionate to talk about what is right and what is wrong, and to not trip over little twigs in your path, but to leap tall buildings with a single band.
	Errors, I'm fine with errors of that magnitude, but it tells me an enormous amount about someone if the impulse that they have upon hearing something as horrifying as Iraq is experiencing a 9/11 every day, it tells me everything I need to know about where that person is if it tells me everything I need to know about where that person is if they email me
	If that's their impulse, if that's what the problem is in what's being talked about, Don't be stopped by fear of error.
	We can plan and plan and plan and plan, but at some point we have to speak and we have to build and we have to show and we have to tell.
	And we have to come on like a stampede of horses.
	And that doesn't mean running people down, it just means being insistent and having convictions and not being tripped up by every little thing.
	So when people say to me, well, you know, that was a good argument, interesting argument, Steph, but here's the problem.
	You're off by three decimal places.
	All I hear is, I'm not ready to speak about these things.
	I'd rather fuss with the details.
	I'm not ready. And that's fine.
	fine, there's no reason, right?
	But just recognize that that's what it is.
	So, anyway, that's sort of my perspective on that.
	So you can let me know what you think, and you can certainly ask me about anything else that you want to with regards to the free-domain radio shows that we have had, oh, guest carpet-bombing the internet bandwidth for this last 14 months or so.
	Sure, absolutely.
	I'm certainly willing to hear.
	If you'd like to put Claude on, that would be excellent.
	Yes, I think he's on.
	Hello? Hello?
	What's up, Steph? Oh, not too much?
	My temper, how are you? I'm doing quite well, thanks.
	I was talking to B. Heller on a chat last night about this very subject that you introed with, and I've known him for quite a while, actually, since before getting to FDR, so...
	I've never actually met him, but I've known him over internet communities and stuff before.
	I've always known him to be a very level-headed guy.
	And his fiery response to that discussion that you were having did kind of surprise me.
	But at the same time, your response here is surprising me as well.
	The way that I see this numbers game thing is that it's It's a losing strategy because people are going to latch onto this thing, onto these errors, and use them to distract us or try to distract us from what we're trying to say.
	And I've actually noticed in listening to some of the podcasts where you use these numbers that I'm completely with you on every single point that you're making.
	And all of a sudden you come up with this number stuff and I'm like...
	Maybe it's just the logical math part of my brain that says this, but it's like, oh wait, that was wrong.
	And then I find myself having to pause the podcast and rewind it to get my mind back on the track that it was on before, because for some reason this number thing just derailed me.
	And so... It's almost like I'm getting the impression that, like, yes, yes, I agree, I agree, I agree.
	Wait a minute, why are you saying that?
	Oh, crap, I've got to go back.
	Okay, yes, now I agree again.
	It is a very big distraction to me for some reason.
	I'm not sure why. Well, is it when I'm driving and I'm trying to calculate stuff in my head?
	Is it that sort of stuff?
	Or is it just if I say 300 years instead of 220?
	No, it's not the exact, like you're talking about the decimal places and stuff like that.
	And I think that, if I may be so bold, I think this might be where you're misunderstanding us.
	In that, at least for me personally, I'm not at all bothered by, you know, oops, you're off by...
	15 corpses there.
	But what bothers me is that I feel that sometimes you're starting to use this kind of calculation as the basis for an argument.
	And it feels like we're losing the universality of our argument, the universal morality.
	It feels like we're starting to pick up the I feel that if we start picking up those weapons,
	we're going to lose because those are the weapons that have been used by the 150 years of completely Ineffective libertarianism, I think.
	Those are the ones where, you know, Walter Block can talk all he wants about, you know, it's more effective to do this than this, but he's always going to lose because he doesn't have the argument for morality behind it.
	Right. So, I mean, that's what's really starting to throw me about this stuff, is that the strength of your message for me has always been the universality of it.
	And whenever we kind of Take detours into this land of, well, if it's bad to kill...
	I know that a lot of times you use these things as illustrations for if someone's coming at you with, well, atheism kills and blah, blah, blah, well, then you can say, well, so does religion, and that can probably trip them up a little bit on that argument, but I almost feel like sometimes you're starting to use that argument yourself, as in the numbers are important.
	I mean, yes, the numbers are, of course, important, but it's It's more like Greg has been saying for a few weeks now.
	Once the line between good and evil is crossed, it's crossed.
	And I think to get sidetracked into the how far have we crossed it starts to lose the point.
	I think we need to focus on that line that we're crossing and keep everyone focused on that line because once we're passing and we start arguing numbers, we lose.
	Okay, I mean, I think I understand where you're coming from.
	With the debate or the podcast, the videocast that I did in question, this was a particular response to the argument on a libertarian news group that I'm part of, that, you know, the Muslims are crazy and are enemies and want to kill us.
	And I really was attempting to appeal to the universality of it by equating the trauma that 9-11 had, you know, the trauma that 9-11 inflicted on the American consciousness.
	And people's desire to strike back.
	And I was trying to universalize that by saying, well, what you felt was horrifying that occurred once in 220 years occurs for Iraqis every day.
	So that to me is a UPB argument, in that you feel shocked and appalled and it's happening for the Iraqis every day.
	And whether it's every 0.9 days or 1.1 days, it doesn't matter.
	For me, if people get hung up on that stuff, then they're really missing the point of what it is that I'm saying.
	I don't mind if they then bail.
	I don't think we have to get everyone.
	For me, the time and energy that I'm going to spend on things is important, as it is for everyone.
	For me, a weeding out process is not the end of the world.
	And also, if somebody does come to me and say, well, it's not 1.911 a day, it's.96911s a day.
	And I say, well, do you think that that's the most important thing about what I was saying?
	And then they get angry.
	That's also important, right?
	I mean, that can be helpful to them as well.
	Yeah, I agree with what you just said there.
	I think that I'm...
	I think I might be focusing on something a little bit differently, though.
	I think there's something to do with the...
	I mean, I'm very aware of how ineffective I was, like, over the last, let's say, three or four years.
	Not so much in the last year, but previous to that, when I had first discovered libertarianism, and I was just going completely nuts, diving into LewRockwell.com and Mises.org and all that, things like that.
	I remember engaging in countless debates with people on other message boards and things like that.
	And I was almost always reaching for arguments from effect because that's, of course, all I ever knew.
	And I always felt like, or not always felt, but I'm feeling now like looking back at that time, I wonder how much damage I did to my cause by staging all these debates and arguing, I guess, for the right result,
	but arguing with tools that ended up turning so many people off that I almost feel like I may have solidified but arguing with tools that ended up turning so many people off that I almost feel like I may have solidified the resistance
	And this is what's concerning me about this is that there are a lot of people that are going to be joining the FDR conversation, probably midstream, increasingly as we add a lot more people through advertising and YouTube and such.
	And it concerns me that quite a few people might be encountering these arguments first before getting to the universally preferable behavior and the argument for morality and things like that.
	I think it's just concerning to me that Yes, we had a very nice, tight focus at the beginning, and it was magnificent, and now we're kind of spreading out to handle more arguments.
	We're starting to talk to people on different fronts.
	For example, this, um, who's your enemy, the evil towelheads, or us, you know, the guy down the street who wants you shot for not paying taxes.
	Um, And it's important to have these discussions, but I think it's also important to have these discussions focused primarily on the UPB and focused...
	I know what you're saying about the numbers thing, I'm rambling like crazy here, but it is so distracting sometimes to get these arguments from effect, or what I perceive to be arguments from effect, thrown in amongst the really good solid bedrock stuff that we've been working on.
	Does this make any sense or am I completely lost?
	I don't know. I think I do understand where you're coming from.
	If you were to respond to this, if you were to do a sort of response to this argument that the Muslims are the enemy, how would you approach it?
	I mean, if you had eight minutes.
	Go! I'm perfectly happy.
	I mean, if there's a better way to do it, I think that would be great.
	I really do. But if...
	I can't do all of UPB on a video in eight minutes.
	And certainly, the videos that are shorter seem to get a more positive response, though not always.
	But for me, in trying to say, these people are kind of like you.
	Like, if you want to understand the Muslims, then just look at how you felt on 9-11.
	This doesn't mean that either one is right.
	It doesn't mean that retaliation is right, because I point out very clearly that if this just continues to bounce back and forth, we all get to drown in blood.
	But for me, I was just trying to plug them into the common humanity that they share with the other people who are groaning under a kind of dictatorship and in a much worse way than we are.
	But there may be better ways of taking that argument, for sure.
	And I'm certainly happy to look at those.
	Well, I'm trying to visualize myself right now as a person living in the Middle East in a bombed-out neighborhood.
	And I'm thinking about the horrific images that I saw on 9-11 of these passenger airliners flying into towers and just smoke and chaos and screaming and stuff like that and how terrified I was and how angry I was.
	And I mean, I was really angry.
	But what I want to think of or what I'm imagining myself on the streets of, say, Fallujah or something like that I'm thinking about how when the planes at the towers, those were passenger planes that were built for carrying people around and stuff like that.
	They were commandeered by some truly evil people and used as a weapon.
	But now, I'm standing there in a bombed out street in Fallujah with smoking wreckage around me and white phosphorus burning out the eyeballs of people standing next to me.
	And I'm thinking, I look up in the sky and I'm seeing multi-million dollar weapons of war that were specifically built to kill me.
	They were specifically built for the purpose of destroying human life and property.
	And the difference between those two things, because there is so much premeditated evil behind Those multi-million dollar weapons of war that is so much more powerful to me than the image of an airliner flying into a tower.
	You know what I mean? It's so much easier for me to hate the culture behind that weapon of war than it is for me to hate the culture behind the doorknobs who hijack these planes.
	Well, and I'd go you one further, and I think this is a very interesting way of looking at it.
	I'd go one further and say that the Al-Qaeda operatives, who, you know, theoretically and supposedly, and I believe they did, hijacked these planes and fly them in the buildings, were operating outside of a political system.
	There's not state-sponsored terrorism.
	I mean, you could talk about the Taliban who were just a bunch of thugs, but it's not exactly that these are the official arm of a government that was voluntarily voted in.
	So how is it as an Iraqi that you're going to feel about the Americans who voted this guy in and re-voted him in?
	Absolutely. I mean, that's way beyond.
	9-11 was like out of nowhere, a bunch of loose cannons and so on.
	This is, I mean, how are you going to feel about the American people who voted this guy in and voted him back in after it was clear there was no al-Qaeda connection, no weapons of mass destruction, and who were totally behind this?
	I mean, what kind of teeth-grinding rage are you going to be in, and for how many generations are we going to have to fear this?
	Right, and then you have the added just, you know, salt into the wound The insults of having to be subjected to the...
	I don't know.
	There's something that really just grinds my gears more than anything in the world, I think, is the arrogance, ignorance of people who probably stand up and thump up their chest about something that I know to be completely and truly wrong.
	When people get all jingoistic and patriotic about the beauty of America and things like that and they conveniently forget all this stuff about our culture that has been more aggressive than most other countries on the planet.
	Like I said, it's the culture that has literally created hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of Devices and technologies for the express purpose of harming people.
	I mean, that is something that is, it just, you know, turns my stomach.
	And then when I try to think of myself as someone who is living in a pretty miserable place with the destruction of religion and things so pervasive and having lived under a brutal dictator for years, and again, the brutal dictator being placed there by the The guys who are now bombing the crap out of my family.
	I think that to me just says the level of evil behind this stuff.
	Maybe now I'm playing a numbers game too.
	It's interesting how I'm trying to imagine myself in the shoes of an Iraqi.
	It's hard not to play that magnitude game.
	I mean, I think it is a real challenge, and also it's all the other countries, right?
	I mean, the U.S. is the biggest arms seller in the world.
	How do you feel as a woman who is grinding under the dictatorship of the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia, knowing that $200 billion of military funding was handed over by the American government to the Saudi princes?
	You know this. I mean, Americans don't know this because, you know, left-wingers do to some degree, but Americans don't know this.
	Because they're not taught it, right?
	But I mean, if you're out there knowing that every single gun in every single thug's hand was given to that thug by the United States, and that thug is pointing that gun at you and your family, you know what the real source of the problem is, is the United States and its arms sales.
	But I think the way that's changed more recently It's that the average American, I think, given the nonsensical propaganda, well, not nonsensical, the entirely sensible propaganda from the ruling elite standpoint of the public school education, you can't expect the average American to know the horrendous tortures and genocides that occurred during the invasion of the Philippines or the violence that was used to overthrow the Queen of Hawaii and take that on as a protectorate.
	I mean, you can't expect these people to know all of this stuff.
	But it's really clear now.
	I mean, nobody can claim that it's not a brutal foreign policy.
	I mean, nobody can claim that anymore, right?
	I mean, there's no possibility of not knowing that now.
	And that's pretty destabilizing for the culture, which is good, right?
	The infection, right? You sow a...
	What's that line from the song?
	You sow a demon seed, you raise a flower of fire.
	And the same thing happened in England, right?
	I mean, when you have a brutal foreign policy...
	You send people out who get trained in killing and dominating and brutalizing, like Okinawa.
	There'll be guys who come back from that place.
	And then they come back to your culture.
	And they move through your culture and they spread that poison.
	Whether they're your co-worker, whether they're somebody who's a security guard, whether they become a cop.
	You send people out and they come back like these hellish echoes.
	And the infection that you think is merely overseas is constantly being re-imported back into your own culture.
	All the guys in England who went over to rule in India and the Raj in the 19th century all came back totally brutalized.
	Totally brutalized.
	And the same thing happened in my family.
	We were sent to rule over the peasants in Ireland, and we ended up, my dad's brutal people, right?
	It hollows people out, and they come back.
	All the guys, you've got a quarter million people coming back from Iraq at some point, having been trained to kill, having lived in hell, and that is going to come in like a bacillus into the American culture.
	I mean, the effects of these decisions last for generations sometimes.
	Right. Yeah, I don't know if that's a sidetrack here, but I just wanted to kind of mention that also, what you said about the soldiers coming back.
	I mean, we're subtly losing pretty much every civil right that we have in this country, and we're cruising toward that 15 years out, we're going to be hitting the fattest part of the baby boomer generation,
	and it's going to be draining the National Treasury dry at an alarming rate and at the same time these people who have been run through the meat grinder of hell over in the Middle East are going to be starting families and things like that.
	It doesn't look like a bright future for my country is what I'm thinking.
	It's just a sidetrack but you're right.
	It certainly is a challenge, and one of the great problems, of course, is that, you know, because of Paso Comitatis, you can't deploy the army in your home Stay.
	You can't deploy the army in the home country.
	Of course, they want to put border guards up, but all of the people who are being trained to be obedient, they're going to be on reserve duty for the next 20 years.
	If the government needs a domestic army, they've got one well trained, which has come back from Iraq.
	I mean, none of this stuff is particularly accidental.
	You have all of these people who are willing to kill when you point at someone living in your community.
	That's going to mess things up, for sure.
	And we've already seen how that's been used with, you know, we've got the National Guard who have been taken out of The National Guard are supposed to be state militias, and they've been turned into offensive forces on the other side of the planet.
	Well, they come back, and then they very easily and readily do things like sweeping through New Orleans, disarming people.
	They recently did that in some Midwestern state, maybe Kansas or something, where a tornado came through town and demolished the town, and the first thing that the authorities did was came through and took everyone's guns.
	Right. They're already showing that they have absolutely no moral problem with doing this.
	Some of the soldiers that they would interview would say, yeah, gosh, this feels really weird, and then they'd watch me go take another gun from another person.
	Right, and this is not even to mention the extraordinary infrastructure of mercenary armies that are being set up in Iraq, right?
	I mean, there's estimated 25 to 40 percent of the combat, and sometimes even more, are sheer mercenaries, right?
	People who just pay for the dollar, they don't show up in the budget, and so on.
	And what's going to happen when the US stops paying them?
	Well, you've now created an entire class of people who want to kill for money.
	Well, someone's going to want to pick them up and who are they going to point them at, right?
	I mean, these things are just so incredibly disastrous that, I mean, it literally does take generations to figure out the true impact of it, right?
	I mean, as Admiral Foch said about The peace treaty at Versailles, he said, this is not peace, this is detente for 20 years, right?
	And he was absolutely right that the war was simply going to flare up again.
	Anyway, listen, we have a couple other people who want to talk about this.
	I'm probably wasting time here, but the one thing that I wanted to say is that I'm completely with you on all these arguments, but for some reason, I'm still not sure why, if it's a problem with me, or maybe it's a problem with the tool itself, but I think the tool of the numbers game is...
	Or the weapon of the numbers game is going to blow up in our own hands if we play it too often, you know?
	Or maybe at all.
	Well, I think you're right. I think you're right.
	If you have a chance, mull it over about another way to approach this understanding, the Muslim perspective, and we can talk about it another time, maybe even privately.
	Absolutely. Because I really want to get that across, because I need people to sort of reorient the problem of their enemies more domestically than from a foreign standpoint.
	If there's a better way of doing it, I'm totally all ears.
	Right, and something just popped into my head before I go here.
	I think what's really bugging me about this is that when we use these numbers, we have to respect the artificial lines that have been drawn for us by other people when we say, Americans have done this versus Iraqis have done this.
	And there's no such thing as an American.
	There's no such thing as an Iraqi.
	And so when we play this game of, well, only this many Americans died and All these Iraqis have died.
	We're using their language.
	We're using their classifications and their concepts that they've created for us.
	And that's, I think, what's really bugging me about this, because these are human beings everywhere.
	There's no such thing as an American.
	There's no such thing as an Iraqi.
	There's no such thing as Al-Qaeda.
	They're all human beings.
	And I think this is one of the things that's really bugging me about this argument.
	Okay, well look, I mean, I'm totally open.
	Let's put our heads together and see if we can't find a better way to talk about it without having to step people through the explanation that the United States doesn't exist despite the fact that they see it on a map.
	So I'm totally keen to do that.
	Let's see if we can't figure that out sometime this week.
	Cool. Thanks a lot. Thank you, man.
	All right. Ricky's on air.
	He's coming. Oh, I can feel it.
	He's going to speak now.
	I can feel it. Do you feel it?
	I do. Nice.
	Okay. Hey, Stefan.
	Wait, wait. I wanted to bring up a fact that I remember in your will-kill argument, something that was key to that argument about everyone being able to kill each other with the mere thought was that It would eliminate the number of deaths.
	When you have somebody that goes on a rampage, they're going to be brought down much more quickly before they can go in an area where people are helpless and just kill them off like sheep.
	I don't know why everyone calls it a numbers game, because I don't see it as a game in a certain context.
	When it's put in the will-kill argument, I don't see it as a numbers game.
	Even though there's going to be less deaths, I think that's important.
	I mean, if you agree with the will-kill argument, then you agree that less deaths are preferable than more deaths.
	I don't know why it's harder for people to grasp that in the context of wars and what you're talking about with the Muslims and 9-11.
	Am I on track with that?
	I think I understand what you're saying.
	I mean, the really challenging truths, at least the really challenging truths for me, in just about every field that I've ever worked in, and because I suck at things, I've worked in a lot of fields, just about every truth that I've ever come across is mind-bendingly counterintuitive.
	I even remember when I was like five years old, my brother was sitting with me on an either-down, we were staying at a cousin's place or something, and And he had, like, some fruit, right?
	And an apple, an orange, some grapes.
	And he laid out the solar system for me, right?
	And it just, it made no sense at all.
	It just, it blew my mind.
	And I still remember that very clearly.
	It's like, well, what do you mean? It's round.
	It's flat. Look! You know, it's like, and it just took me a while to sort of I've had that a number of different times, particularly when I started to study economics, where things just don't make any sense.
	Everything's backwards. You've got to reverse everything.
	And the same thing's true when you go into Einsteinian physics and so on, where things just...
	What do you mean? You go faster and you gain mass.
	I mean, I sprint and I'm less weight when I... So I think it's kind of true that the greatest truths, or the most important truths, particularly in the realm of ethics, are kind of counterintuitive.
	And... The argument that comes back with the will-kill argument is, well, everyone would just kill everyone, which kind of makes sense, right?
	I mean, you know, if you're taught that everyone's just crazy and bad and you need a government to protect everyone from everyone else because we're all just a bunch of rabid animals, then if you say, well, if I give everyone the power to kill everyone, then everyone will just kill everyone, right?
	I mean, it sort of follows in a weird kind of evil domino way.
	And then they say, well, one guy will just threaten to kill everyone else, and they'll all have to bow down, and so on.
	So the response to the sort of crazed killer on a bus thing is that, yeah, he might will kill one guy, but then everyone else will kill him, versus if he's the only guy with a machine gun, or if he's a guy with an Al-Qaeda-type bomb in London, he's going to kill dozens and dozens or hundreds of people before he's brought down.
	I mean, the Virginia Tech thing could have been a lot worse.
	I think the guy just ended up shooting himself, right?
	So I do agree with you that we do have to have some response in terms of numbers.
	That sort of makes sense.
	And that, again, is sort of you can put people in that situation, right?
	So if you're on a bus and someone comes on and Will kills the guy right in front of you, what do you do?
	Well, you will kill him in self-defense, right?
	So there, one guy dies as opposed to dozens or hundreds.
	And that's better because what people often do is they compare the world that we talk about to a perfect world, right?
	And Harry Brown used to talk about this as well, right?
	There's no world where no one's going to get killed, murdered, right?
	There's no world where no one's going to get raped.
	There's no world where no one's going to get their stuff stolen.
	There's no world where people aren't going to get multiple sclerosis or spina bifida or cancer or whatever you want.
	That world doesn't exist, right?
	So when people say, well, people would still die in your world, it's like, well, yeah, because that's the fate of mortal man.
	But the question, I mean, you do have to, I think, work with degrees.
	And as soon as you recognize that there's no perfect world, there are some things that are, you know, in terms of degrees and compared to what and that kind of stuff, which I think is where some kind of numbers do come in, if that makes sense.
	No, it does. That's...
	When... When they talk about the Wilco argument and people's first reaction is, even when they understand that it will mean less deaths, they still say, well, killing is wrong and it shouldn't happen at all.
	You're right. Deaths are going to happen.
	People are going to act out that way.
	But isn't this a good example of how about the numbers I don't want to call it a game until you start using it to skew arguments, or it's your only way to argue something is to use numbers, where the argument from a fact really has no real foundation unless you can apply it empirically through concepts.
	But doesn't the will-kill argument show that numbers are important in ethical situations or moral problems?
	Well, I think it does show that you have to have answers for the most common objections.
	And it's not so much a numbers game.
	Maybe, I don't know, some guy could come on a bus full of blind and deaf people and will kill them one by one side.
	I mean, who knows, right? You can come up with as many absurd situations as you want.
	I think that we do need to have responses, you know, because we try to follow the scientific method.
	Now, the scientific method is about consistent theory prior to everything, but then you search for empirical evidence, right?
	So the people who argue against the will-kill argument, you can then say, okay, so according to your argument, the more people that have the ability to kill each other Right.
	Right. Right. Because there's one town in Texas, I think another one in Georgia, where you have to have a gun.
	You have to have a gun. I don't agree with the rule, but according to the theory of those who oppose the will-kill argument, The more people have guns around, the more murders there should be.
	And it's not true.
	In Switzerland, you have to have a rifle in the house.
	You have to be trained. Everyone's part of the militia.
	And one of the lowest murder rates around.
	The same thing with these towns.
	The murder rates plummet whenever one is forced to have a gun.
	I don't agree with being forced to have a gun.
	That's just a way of slowing people down and getting them to see that they're working in a world of imaginary theory.
	And so you can't prove your argument for the will kill by saying, well, when people have more...
	But you can at least slow other people down and get them to sort of doubt.
	Like, you've just got to get people to understand that they're thinking outside of reality.
	They're just making up things as they go along.
	Like, it seems weird, so it can't be true, and here's my argument.
	So I think the numbers thing is just designed to slow people down and get them to question their assumptions.
	So the Muslim argument that I put out recently, the Muslims are not your enemy, followed by who is your enemy, it's not designed to turn people into anarcho-capitalists.
	It's just designed to slow down the bigotry and the hatred to get people to say, Okay, well, if you hate them because of 9-11, then they're going to hate you a thousand times more for the same reasons.
	It's not designed to change anybody's mind about the role of the state and this and that.
	It's just designed to trip people up a little when they're a headlong charge into collective madness.
	Right, right. I had mentioned that in the chat window that I actually really appreciated when you went into the statistics of those things.
	It gives me a perspective into And how it's really happening or playing out in reality.
	And I think that you're right.
	I think it helps a lot of newcomers who aren't quite able to grasp those kinds of concepts like anarchy and to have a little inch in to see where you're coming from.
	So I'm not opposed to it at all.
	I'm wondering what it is that makes...
	When I hear him talk about how it makes him upset and it confuses him or it doesn't feel right to him, I'm wondering where that's coming from.
	He's just not very good with numbers.
	That's the problem, right? He's an engineer, but he doesn't have the kind of training in intellectual history that I do to really be able to handle numbers.
	So I think what happens is for him, as for a lot of engineers, The numbers are just overwhelming and confusing.
	And I think that they turn into a bunch of, like, really hyper little doves in their brain.
	And it's really tough for them.
	So maybe what we can do is ship them like a brightly colored abacus to help step them through the numbers so that they can achieve the confidence with numbers that your average arts major has.
	I agree. I agree.
	We'll chip in and get him on.
	I'm waiting for Godzilla's head to come through my screen like the guy in that Visa commercial to bite my arm.
	Because he's about a bazillion times better with numbers than I am.
	But yeah, that is interesting.
	But yeah, I think it's helpful.
	And I hope you don't back away from using those kind of arguments in addition or to help people grasp You know, the little aspects of the 9-11 thing compared to their perspective of it every day.
	Well, I appreciate that, and I think one of the things that helps with those kinds of things is it's not going to change people's minds in a heartbeat, but what it does do, I think, is it helps make their world make sense a little more.
	Because when people are throwing Molotov cocktails over a wall and you don't know why, I mean, it's really scary.
	Now if you know why they're doing it, You at least have some sense of, okay, well, the world is not incomprehensible.
	It's dangerous, but it's not incomprehensible because if I had suffered through what they suffered through, I'd want to throw Molotov cocktails over the wall as well.
	But when people make up answers as to why the Molotov cocktails are coming over the wall, like, oh, they hate our freedoms and this and that, that's really dangerous, right?
	Because then you're just going to escalate the situation.
	And because, of course, they listen to us, right?
	We don't watch Al Jazeera.
	They watch CNN. They listen to us and they know a lot more about us than we know about them.
	And that's the really dangerous thing from my perspective.
	If you just make up an answer, whether that answer is they hate us for our freedoms or love your parents or God is great and this sort of stuff.
	God created the universe.
	Whatever answers you make up, it's a total roadblock.
	Then you stop looking for answers.
	They hear the answers that we make up, and that's kind of insulting.
	Not only are we bombing the living shit out of them for years and decades, but then we tell them that they hate us because we're so virtuous.
	I mean, oh my gosh, you know, talk about picking up the graves of their children and pissing on the corpses.
	It's unbelievable. It's like we're just trying to provoke them to do something absolutely savage.
	I mean, beyond 9-11.
	But if you understand that they're kind of like us, then the world is a little less incomprehensible, and I think people really need that.
	I agree. That's interesting the way you put that.
	Yeah, that finishes up my thoughts on it.
	I just wanted to bring that up, and I was kind of curious about whether because Rod just I mentioned in the chat thing that it was kind of a gateway for him into libertarianism, the numbers game. It kind of was for me in a way because it just made things seem more tangible.
	It put me on the ground a little bit.
	It didn't feel like I was floating in abstract concepts that you weren't sure how they played out.
	So, yeah, I see it as a good thing.
	But that sums up my thoughts on it.
	I think you want to see the crater when something like universally preferable behavior hits the real world, right?
	You want to see that smoking crater so you can see the impact of the principles.
	Now, you've been listening to the podcast for quite a while, right?
	Yeah, I've been listening since last August.
	Oh, fantastic. So, here's an interesting challenge for you.
	You say that you're done.
	Now, I'd like you just to put in 10 minutes of random tangential filler.
	You must have learned how to do this from all the podcasts, right?
	Who knows we have enough examples?
	I can sing.
	Will that work? Something about a hamster, something about a mole on your hand, something about the other drivers, you know, anything.
	History of the Volvo, whatever you like.
	I'll practice in my car and I'll get back to you.
	Well, thanks very much. I appreciate that.
	That's good. We'll set you and Radzil up on a cage match.
	That works. Thanks, Stefan.
	Yes, apparently, I mentioned, and I believe this is going to go down in flaming free domain radio history.
	I mentioned in a recent podcast, hey, remember when I used to be concise?
	Right. And this has turned into some people's brains, much to my detriment.
	So, let's go back to picking on Rad.
	Alright, the queue is open.
	If you have questions, comments, issues, criticisms, more corrections of my numerology, I am more than happy to hear them.
	Have we had any questions come in from the chat window?
	Window? Window? Alright, I'm about three seconds away from Barry White.
	Oh, here we have. We had a bouncy, bouncy listener.
	He's in, he's out, he's back, he's forward, he's up, he's down.
	Ray? Everybody loves you.
	You want to talk? Yeah, don't let Rod back on.
	No, he's going to give me math questions.
	No, don't. Okay.
	Alright, so we could have a short show.
	It's only been an hour.
	We could have a short show. No problem.
	Do you have anything that you'd like to share with the rest of the class people?
	I got your abacus right here, buddy.
	Yeah, see, this is what happens when you confront people about their math and literacy.
	You just get this aggression.
	It's tough.
	LAP, less aggression principle.
	Thank you.
	DB, you all, you lie, baby.
	Oh, I think you have to click on...
	Oh, is he on? Yeah. Hello, can you hear me?
	I sure can. How are you doing?
	Can you hear me? I can hear you.
	Uh, I'm doing okay.
	I'm doing okay. How are you?
	I'm fine. Oh?
	Hello? Um...
	Hello? Ah, good.
	We have some droppy packets, Ethan.
	Just speak slowly.
	Okay. Well, um...
	On your podcast, I think it was...
	You started off with something, and as a little passive, tell me what you think.
	When you started saying about how we've all the I'm sorry, I'm going to have to interrupt you.
	I'm getting like every third syllable.
	Do you have anything else running?
	Any other internet applications?
	Any downloads in the background? Are you currently wearing tinfoil over your entire body?
	Or is there anything else that might be occurring to interfere with your back?
	Damn, tinfoil. I know, I know.
	You know the tinfoil thongs?
	Anyway, we can talk about that another time.
	Okay, well, why don't we be back to learning, and I feel like I can just head to the chat window.
	I'm afraid you might have to, because I'm getting just enough to probably get it wrong.
	So if you could put it in the chat window, that would be great.
	I'm sorry, I'm just not getting enough to be able to piece together the question.
	I mean, I could piece it together, but it would be entirely to benefit.
	It would be something to do with rod and math.
	Anyway. Sure.
	Yeah, it is David F. He's in.
	I think he's in. What's his ID? Less than his ego.
	Oh, I get it. Id. Anyway, that's good.
	Very good. Very good indeed.
	Alright, so we have banished someone who had a difficult question.
	Thank you, Christina, for pushing the packet loss button.
	And if anybody else has a really easy question, I'm sure that we can optimize the bandwidth to listen to it with grace and applause.
	Packeterizer, that's exactly right.
	That's exactly right.
	So we have... We have Rome, grab your mics and speak to the PCM. No one has any questions.
	That means either we're explaining things absolutely beautifully or people have just faceplanted on their keyboards out of boredom.
	One of the two, I hope it's not QWERTY-itis, but it's in fact that we have explained everything absolutely perfect.
	RonPaul08Woot. I have no problem if we wanted to have a go at the Ron Paul debate.
	I am perfectly happy to do that.
	And if nobody has any particular comments, I can frame some of the Ron Paul debate stuff.
	A little prequel, if you like, to what it is that we will be talking about tomorrow.
	Ah, okay. So on the Ask a Therapist recently, you started off by saying...
	That you two have solved all the problems in the audience because you didn't get many Ask a Therapist questions.
	The RP, and that struck me as a bit passive-aggressive.
	Interesting. Interesting.
	Well, that was Christina, so here's the mic.
	I think if we replay, we'll hear that it was actually you, darling, that made that statement.
	I think you, though, actually did have your hand up my ass at the time, making my mouth work, so that's a little different.
	But passive aggressive. You know, that's interesting.
	You could be right. You could be right.
	Passive aggressive. Are you upset that people aren't sending me any questions?
	I don't know. I think...
	Yeah, I guess I was a bit confused because it's one of the most popular segments where basically the really popular segments are the ones where I'm not talking the whole way through.
	So that's why this is so good and that's why it's really important to have your questions ready.
	So I guess I was a bit confused because we put a lot of work into the Ask a Therapist questions.
	I think we provide some good answers.
	At least we certainly managed to enrage some listeners, which is progress.
	And yet we hadn't received any, but now we hadn't done any for a while, so maybe people had sort of given up or dried up or something.
	But yeah, that's interesting. You could well be right.
	It may have been sort of a little bit of frustration or confusion that came out of that, and I would certainly trust your instincts on that.
	So I think that's quite right.
	It's like, fine, you don't want to facilitate?
	Then fine, I quit.
	Yeah, absolutely. And then, of course, we had to manufacture sound problems just as our additional passive-aggressive stuff went on.
	Okay, well, you leave me no choice, people who don't want to talk to me.
	You leave me no choice but to start framing the Ron Paul debate.
	Sorry? So, yeah, so as far as the Ron Paul things go, I'll sort of put out a little bit of the framework that I'm going to use tomorrow night so that those of you who have your Ron Paul clause out can sharpen them nicely on the grindstone of self-contradictory philosophical premises.
	Oh! There's a metaphor that just kind of got away from me, isn't it?
	That's okay, baby. You don't need to listen.
	So, it's nice.
	I think people want to talk to Christina more than they want to talk to me.
	Oh, there's more passive aggression. Anyway.
	So, basically, there's two arguments that seem to me going on in the Ron Paul debate.
	The one argument is the argument from principles, right?
	The state is violent, and you don't oppose violence by saying, I'd like slightly less of it, please, if you'd be so very kind.
	And so there's an argument from principles wherein participation with the state in any but the stuff which you kind of have to do if you want to have a life.
	Like, I can't get water into my house if I don't participate in the state system.
	I can't drive anywhere or walk anywhere even, right?
	The state owns a sidewalk. So if you want to live, you have some participatory stuff to do in the state.
	If you can't find a job doing anything but working for the government, then work for the government because the government, of course, has killed a lot of private jobs.
	You don't have to become a martyr to anarcho-capitalism.
	You live in the world and get things done.
	And of course, if we all go to live in the woods and don't use the internet and don't talk to people, then for sure things aren't going to get any better.
	I mean, this plague rolls forward unless we do something about it.
	So there's an argument from principle.
	Voluntary, non-paid participation in the state process is participating in something which we label as evil.
	And nobody pays you to go and vote.
	You don't have to go and vote.
	And as we know, whenever we drop a ballot in, we are legitimizing the state.
	We are saying, yes, I am going to use this mechanism as a form of self-defense and blah, blah, blah.
	So from the principled standpoint, there's no question that the Ron Paul people don't have a leg to stand up.
	I mean, I'm certainly happy to hear other, but there is an argument from effect, right?
	So, if it could be proven that voting for Ron Paul was going to make things worse in terms of freedoms and state power and so on, then they would never argue that we do it.
	The only argument, as far as I can see, that the Ron Paul advocates have, or those who want to support Ron Paul and vote for Ron Paul, is that it's going to help in a practical effect.
	It's an argument from effect, basically, the Ron Paul thing.
	I guess I could say that sort of succinctly, but hey, why bother?
	So they can't win on the argument from principle.
	They can only win on the argument from effect.
	And I'm certainly willing to hear arguments about that argument from effect thing, but My basic approach is to say, well, if you're going to throw your principles under the bus because you want to achieve a particular kind of effect, well, that's fine, but then there's really not much point having principles to begin with.
	Alternately, a way of looking at it is to say, well, if you're going to make an argument from a fact, which is not always the end of the world, I think that voting for Ron Paul and participating is a bad idea.
	I don't think it's evil.
	You're not initiating the use of force yourself.
	I just think it's really counterproductive.
	I think it wastes a lot of people's time and energy.
	I think it helps them think that they're doing something when they're doing the opposite of something, which is worse than nothing.
	They're going in the wrong direction.
	I think that it helps people focus on a political solution rather than the focus on their own personal relationships and dealing with the tyrannies within their own lives either they're inflicting or have inflicted upon them through their family or their other relationships.
	I think that it really gives people the illusion that they're getting something done.
	You know, it's like the environmentalists who lobby the government.
	It just gives them the illusion. That they're getting something done.
	And that illusion is really dangerous, I think.
	It's better to know you're not getting something done so that you can...
	Like, it's better to know that you're lost so you can stop the car and get a map rather than just think you're going somewhere and go completely in the wrong direction.
	The reason that I say don't get involved and don't vote for Ron Paul is not because I think it's evil to do so.
	It's just counterproductive and it's a big waste of time and it's going to lead you down the wrong direction.
	You're going to get sucked into this fantasy that there's a political solution to a political problem, that there's a violent solution to a violent problem.
	So, you know, the solution to bullying is not bullying, right?
	It's not bullying in the opposite direction.
	So, from that standpoint, I think that what they could do and what I'm going to hope that the Ron Paul people will do is to give me proof about how it works, right?
	And I've been asking about this from the very beginning of this debate months ago and I've yet to receive an answer other than a very abstract one which is never backed up with anything.
	Which is okay, so if participation in the political process works really well in terms of shrinking the state and turning this around, fantastic.
	Show me some evidence.
	Don't give me words, don't give me maybes, don't give me, well, he says this, and if he achieves that, then the other thing could happen.
	I want to see some proof, and I don't think that's an unreasonable thing to ask for.
	If you're going to go on pure conjecture, if you're going to say, well, if we abandon our principles and participate in a state process, things will get better.
	If you're going to want me to abandon my principles and to work on a pragmatic, anti-principle standpoint, at least give me some evidence that we're going to achieve the pragmatic goal.
	Because wouldn't it be a total shit sandwich, caca on a stick-o-rama, If we ended up abandoning our principles to run after Ron Paul and ran straight off a cliff, then we don't get the principles or the effect.
	Of course, I don't think you can get the effect without the principles, but that's an argument for another time.
	So that's all I'm asking for, is let's see some proof.
	Because classical liberals and libertarians and Austrians and all other people are closer to our side of the fence than the far side of the fence.
	For the last 150 years, In fact, you could say 221 years since the founding of the Republic in 1776.
	You got that right. They have been trying to find a political solution to the problem of state power.
	They have been cooperating in the political process to try and find a solution to state power.
	And all I'm asking for is show me some proof.
	Because it sure as hell hasn't been working.
	I mean, with 150 years of people trying to find a political solution to the state, and the state getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and more and more quickly, bigger and bigger and bigger, scaling up more and more, bigger and bigger, deeper and deeper, more violence, more in debt, more inflationary, more control over education, more control over the economy, more control over the poor.
	I'm just asking for some evidence that throwing our principals under the bus and joining the political bandwagon is going to work because it's been tried.
	For generation after generation, it's been tried.
	And unless I'm missing something, it doesn't seem to be working too well.
	And every 10 years or 12 years or 15 years, Some new joker comes along with a big claim about how he's going to make the state smaller.
	Barry Goldwater, even President Nixon, even Ronald Reagan twice, the Bushes.
	I mean, you can go further back.
	Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, even Teddy Roosevelt.
	Lots of people were talking about making the state smaller.
	And all I'm asking for is that we don't do what we've been doing for 150 years, which has got us exactly the opposite of what we want.
	We wanted the state to stay small.
	It didn't stay small. We wanted the state to stop growing.
	It kept growing. We wanted the state to grow slower.
	It grew faster. And this is with pretty intense involvement in the political process.
	So it's not working. That's all I'm saying.
	That's all I'm saying. If you're going to say to me that doing exactly the same thing that we've been doing for 150 years as a movement is going to produce the exact opposite results of what every single involvement has produced, I'm just asking for some proof.
	That's all. If you're going to ask me to throw away my principles, I'm willing to commit it.
	I'm willing to look into that.
	Because if political involvement had worked, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
	I'd get to go back to have a real job, so to speak.
	So that's really the approach that I'm going to take and I'm more than happy.
	As I say, throw facts in front of people to slow them down.
	This is my reading of the last 150 years and the approach that's been taken which is political involvement to slow down or shrink the growth of the size of the state.
	And the exact opposite has been achieved so if people have some radical new approach, which is not just words, And it's not about whether I like Ron Paul, think he's a good guy or bad guy, whatever.
	I'm just looking for some evidence.
	And I've been asking and asking and asking for months for this evidence.
	Patiently, repeatedly, give me the evidence in his home district that he's managed to shrink the state.
	Give me how this is different from everything that's come before.
	And you just get words.
	So that's the framework that I'm going to look into.
	And we have somebody who wishes to talk.
	Mr... This is what Rod and I are saying about focusing on that line.
	Oh, I think that's the numerical argument.
	But let's, we have Mr.
	Ron Paul from Texas who wishes to call in.
	Oh, sorry, I must have misread that.
	Gerwin, you are on, my brother or her sister.
	Yes, hello. Very warm welcome from the Netherlands.
	Hello. Do you know where the Netherlands is, first of all?
	I certainly do. I certainly do.
	I grew up in England, not too far from you.
	Which is okay.
	Closer than I am. It's Canada.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're in Canada, I know.
	Because I checked out your website.
	Well, that's great. How did you do this?
	Well... The thing is that you're preaching for energy, so you're preaching for an absolutely liberal society.
	Yes. In some way that's okay, but actually I think you should start on a smaller level, and I think the first thing you should do is ban religion out of politics.
	Because what you see in especially your part of the world, in North and also in South America is that religion is becoming more and more an issue in the political thinking of your leaders and I think that that is something that the policies that they are making I think another important thing is that in my country the state is taking care of the people who have nothing.
	And as long as you do that, it means that those people stay satisfied.
	And that you don't get a large group of people in the society who have nothing to lose.
	I went to America last year, to Texas, and I had a great time there by the way, but what I saw was a group of people who has nothing to lose anymore.
	It cannot get worse than their current situation.
	And I think that, above all means, you always have to try to keep that group as small as possible.
	I don't know what your view is on that.
	Well, you brought up two.
	Let me start with the religion, if that's alright with you.
	So you feel that religion should be banned from the political process, that that would be a good step?
	Yes. And what would that look like?
	What laws would you pass?
	Well, the first law that I would pass is that there comes a ban on political parties who have their views based on religion.
	In my country those parties are happily really small.
	We only have one party and I think they have two out of 150 seats in the parliament.
	So they are very small.
	For example, if you listen very well to George Bush, you hear him often saying like, God is with us and if we go to war, God will be helping us and that kind of stuff.
	I think that's very dangerous because God has nothing to do with war.
	As Napoleon said once, he said, do without God.
	He said someone is on the side of the person who has the greatest artillery.
	Yeah, true. Sorry to interrupt.
	I just want to understand what you mean when you say ban.
	So let's say that you pass a law that says you can't use the word God in a political speech.
	Would that be sort of fair to say?
	Yeah. Okay, so what happens if I'm a politician and I do say the word God in a political speech?
	What happens? Well, then you should be out of your function.
	They should fire you. And what if I refuse to leave my function?
	Then you should be...
	You have to imagine that I'm from a country where a political process is very different from, for example, the United States.
	The absolute power in my country is at the Parliament.
	No, no, I'm sorry. I just want to track this and we'll go back to how your political system works in a second.
	I just want to understand what happens to me.
	If I continue to talk about God in my political speeches and I refuse to leave my office or whatever, what happens?
	Then you should be removed from the office.
	And what if I have a gun and I don't want to leave?
	Then you should be shot. Okay, I mean, that's where you're getting to, right?
	So when you talk about, and I appreciate your candor, and I think that's great that you're very clear about what it is that you're saying.
	So you're saying people who use the word God in a speech should be threatened with being shot.
	Yeah. And you think that that is an improvement to threaten people with being shot for using a particular word like God.
	Well, I put it a bit hard, but that is because if you look, for example, at the situation in America, what you see there is that George Bush has almost, the Parliament and the Senate basically have nothing to say.
	You know, in our part of the world, especially in my country, the Parliament has the absolute power.
	If the Parliament says you have to go, then you have to go.
	And if you say, still, I want to be the president, and you don't want to leave, then the army will come and take you out.
	Right, so in your society, the Parliament decides who gets shot.
	They don't decide who gets shot.
	Let's say it like that. If the president starts taking decisions out of motive with religion, then he will be removed.
	Sorry, I want to make sure I understand your political system.
	Does your parliament pass the laws?
	Yes, we have in Holland Ready for years means we have three powers.
	You have the judges, you have the parliament, and you have the queen, but the queen has nothing to say anymore.
	But also there is a strict distinction between church and government.
	So let's state it by that.
	If, for example, the church thinks that gays are not allowed to marry, And the Parliament thinks different, then that's pity for the Church.
	Then this law will be passed.
	I've got it. I've got it. I think I understand.
	Now, I'm assuming that in your country, if you disobey the law and resist being arrested, then you can be shot, right?
	You cannot be shot. We don't have a death penalty.
	No, no. I mean, if they come to arrest you and you try and defend yourself with a gun, then they'll shoot you, right?
	Then they'll shoot you, yeah.
	Right. And that's why I said that your parliament decides who gets shot, because they pass the laws that if you disobey...
	I'm just trying to be really clear, right?
	I mean, this is the way that politics works.
	That if you have the right to pass laws, then you're deciding who gets shot if they disobey you and try and defend them.
	Yeah. I can't come to your house and say, you owe me 10% of your income, and if you don't pay me, I'm going to shoot you, because that would be theft, right?
	That's theft, yeah. Sorry?
	Well, the Parliament can say, we're going to raise your taxes by 10%, and they can come to your house, so to speak, and take it from you, and if you resist them, you will get shot, right?
	So the Parliament has a right, just as individuals as human beings like you and I, the people in the Parliament, they have a right to shoot people who disobey them, and you and I don't have that right.
	And I don't think you and I should have that right, but I also don't think that the people in Parliament should have that right either.
	I think that We should all have the same rights and we should all exercise those in a state of freedom and equality.
	I don't like the idea of giving a small group of people the power to shoot whoever they want who disagrees with them.
	Which is the nature of politics.
	This is what the government does, right?
	It's a small group of people who claim the right to shoot whoever disagrees with them, if they can muster enough votes or go through whatever procedure.
	But the end result is that if you disagree with them and you try and defend yourself against them, then they will shoot you.
	Yeah, that's a correct statement.
	But what I'm wondering is Holland is a democracy.
	We have a parliament consisting of 150 members and this parliament is elected per individual person and also the political parties also have their own democratic process.
	I'm not really...
	I feel that I'm represented in the Parliament.
	I'm sorry, can you say that last part again?
	I just missed it. I feel that I'm represented by the people that are in our Parliament.
	Right, so you agree with what they do, right?
	Yes. Okay, so that's fine.
	I mean, then you should obey them.
	But what about if I live in your country and I disagree with what the government is doing?
	Then? If you felt that there were 150 people Who lived in your city, who were so wise that you would just do whatever they told you to, I think that's great.
	That's fine. I think that's kind of culty, but everyone has their own choices to make.
	If you find a group of people who are so wise that you want to give them half your income and obey the laws or the rules that they put out, they can put their rule books on the internet and you can obey all those rules, that's totally fine.
	I would never prevent you from doing that.
	But the fact that you agree with this group doesn't give you the right to use force against other people who disagree with this group of people.
	Okay, let me explain you another thing, okay?
	Suppose I disagree with them, eh?
	Suppose that I disagree with my parliament.
	Yes. Then I have, as an inhabitant of the Netherlands, I have the possibility to organize a voting Where people can say yes or no to a law that I want to get passed.
	Suppose I want to get rid of my government, okay?
	I have none of them and I have none of the parliament and I'm sick of it and I want that somebody else is going to sit there.
	Then I can start an action and I can start collecting autographs for the law I want to be passed.
	And if I have 10,000 of those autographs, I can send them to the parliament.
	And I can say, listen guys, this is what I get past.
	And if you don't do that, then you have a problem.
	We have a Dutch word for that.
	It's called burgerinitiative.
	It means civil initiative.
	So I'm not so worried about the things you're worried about because if I really want to reach something that my parliament doesn't want to reach, there are always ways to reach it by civil initiative.
	So if I, for example, want the taxes to be low, I'm paying 52% tax in my country, then I can organize civil initiative Send autographs to the parliament.
	The parliament has to take this into consideration.
	And if they disagree, then they have to come with a good reason and then I can hand it in again.
	And if they disagree again, then they have to go home.
	I see, I see. So if I understand this correctly, this is a good way of solving problems, right?
	This is a good way of having a problem solved within society.
	Do you agree? Yeah.
	Okay, well then why should we only do it in terms of the government?
	Because the way that I see it is if everybody voting for a particular situation, for decisions that are made that hugely affect people's lives, like property and education and so on, then it really should be the case that your community should vote who you get married to.
	And they should be able to impose their will on who you have to take as a bride.
	Now, if you disagree with that decision, then what you can do is you have to marry the woman.
	I mean, if you don't marry the woman, you're going to get shot, right?
	So you have to marry the woman, and then if you don't like her or you don't think that she should be your bride, Then you should start a petition, and you should get a whole bunch of people to try and get the community to change its mind about who you should get married.
	And the odds of you actually succeeding at that are tiny, tiny, tiny, and you have to stay married to this woman the whole time that you're trying to get this decision that is made by the group reversed.
	Would you say that that would be a good idea?
	No, but you are putting it into the personal life of people, into your personal life, At least here, you're free to do whatever you want.
	Sorry, you just told me you can't keep half of your income.
	So you're sort of like a slave at gunpoint for half of your life.
	You can't do whatever you want.
	You can't keep even the money that you make with your own hands and your own head.
	You can't keep that aside to give it to charity or do whatever you want if you disagree with half of the money being taken from you by force because if you don't pay your taxes and then you don't go to court and they come and try to arrest you, you try and protect yourself, they'll shoot you.
	I mean, you say that's a good way to solve it in terms of property, and I say, well, if that's a good way to solve problems, then we should put it in everywhere, like in terms of where your children should be raised.
	I have the choice to pay taxes, yes or no.
	If I don't want to pay taxes, then I go to another country, or I subscribe myself to some kind of small tiny island.
	But why should you be forced out of your home?
	If you have bought a home or you live in a place that you pay rent for, who has the right to force you to leave?
	I mean, this is what the Mafia does.
	This is what organized crime does.
	They say, you know, if you don't pay us $100 a week, then we're going to burn down your store.
	And you say, well, my solution to that is I can move overseas.
	But why should somebody have the right to force you to leave the country of your birth if you don't pay them money?
	Okay, let me explain it to you in another way.
	I'm paying taxes and I'm also getting benefit of it.
	If I lose my job and I paid taxes for the last year, then I have the right and the government will pay me 80%.
	So you're talking about the Mafia practices, but the Mafia is I take something from you and you don't get anything back.
	Or you get something back that actually has no value.
	So then if they take $100 a week from you, and then they give you back $50, then that becomes okay?
	Well, it depends on if the mafia offers you a service, then you also should pay for it.
	Well, but you see, the service is not being offered to you, right?
	The service is being inflicted upon you.
	You have to pay your taxes.
	If you don't pay your taxes, they'll come and take you to jail.
	And if you resist, they're going to shoot you.
	That's not a service. That's a shakedown.
	That's criminal. I mean, you and I can't do that, so why should the government have the right to do it?
	They're just people like you and I. Well, I partly agree with you, and I partly disagree with you, because I agree with you.
	You're forced to pay taxes?
	Okay. But I also have another choice.
	I can choose not to pay taxes.
	But then I lose my right for having, for example, Social Security.
	You know? Yeah, sure.
	And that's not what I want.
	So I choose to let my income come here in Holland.
	But that doesn't matter because the issue is not whether you like it or not.
	The issue is whether people are allowed to disagree with you or not.
	If you like everything the government does, that's not the issue.
	The issue is, like in the American South, there may have been some people, some blacks, who really liked being slaves.
	Maybe they would never make it in a free market.
	Maybe they liked the security.
	Maybe they had really great relationships with Thomas Jefferson.
	I don't know. But there could be some people who were slaves who really liked being slaves.
	And I'm not trying to compare you to a slave.
	I'm just saying on principle. But the fact that some people like being slaves doesn't give them the right to enforce that everybody else is a slave.
	So the fact that you like what the government does doesn't give you the right to force other people to obey the government.
	Well, let me ask you another question.
	You are just saying black people.
	The blacks. There is a thing about that what I like.
	I'm not a racist.
	But I like to call the things by the name, you know?
	I like, if I talk about Jews, then I like to talk about Jews.
	If I talk about niggers, then I talk about niggers, because it's the Negro race.
	Well, I mean, I just want to interrupt you for a second because that last phrase that you use is a little bit more volatile.
	Like, I don't mind if somebody calls me white because I'm pretty damn pale, right?
	I live in Canada. But the N-word you just use is a little bit more volatile and offensive.
	I mean, probably not where you are from, but certainly here in North America, it's a little bit more offensive.
	I mean, it's like calling somebody an asshole rather than a person, if that makes any sense.
	Yes, but the thing is that freedom of speech is one of the most important things that you can have.
	I'm sorry, can I just interrupt you for a second?
	Because didn't you start this argument by saying that people should be shot if they use the word God in a speech?
	Yes, but that has to do with freedom of speech as well.
	Because if you are talking about freedom of speech, then you're not talking about government.
	People who are in the government should be representing people, okay?
	the people in the country.
	And if you use the word God in your speech, that means that you're excluding the people who have a different religion.
	But what about the people who disagree with what you believe the government should be doing?
	What about the people who disagree with Social Security or with unemployment insurance or in the United States with the prosecution of this terrible war in Iraq, right?
	Everybody should be free to disagree.
	I think that everybody should be free to say their opinion.
	I mean, you are opposed to the war in Iraq.
	I'm opposed as well to the war in Iraq, but we will have that discussion at another time.
	But if people are against the war in Iraq, then they should be able to say that.
	Yes, whereas I would say that they should be able to not pay taxes to fund it.
	There's no point saying, I'm against the war in Iraq, and then being forced to fund it through your taxes, which is why I say that we have to agree to disagree with the government.
	But listen, I have a feeling that we're sort of going around a little bit in circles here, and probably that's because we're working with different definitions.
	If you'd like, I certainly would be happy to talk with you again.
	If you'd like, you could listen to a couple of the podcasts Well,
	it's definitely interesting. But what I think what's very important for you is that you travel a bit around in the world because I understand your reasoning, I understand why you don't like to pay taxes but your definition of freedom will adjust the more you travel around.
	Well, okay. Thanks very much.
	I do appreciate that. I have actually traveled in many, many dozens of countries and have lived in three continents, but perhaps I haven't been to the Netherlands.
	I'm not sure I will go.
	I haven't been there, so perhaps it's very different there.
	But anyway, thank you so much for dropping by.
	I really do appreciate that. And I'm sorry for those who've heard all that sort of stuff before, but I think sometimes it's worth going up against people who disagree with you and showing some different debating techniques and when you're getting somewhere and when you're not.
	So thank you so much for dropping by, and I do appreciate that.
	We do have time for one more person who wants to come in.
	And... We have room before the great Free Domain Radio gate closes down for the Sunday.
	Anybody? Anybody?
	Bueller? Ferris? Bueller?
	Anybody? Anybody?
	I'm sure he knows, Niels.
	Come on.
	I'm not the only one who was thinking it.
	All right.
	Anybody?
	Last chance to chat with the BCF.
	If you have a question for Christina, you can ask her that as much.
	She's here. Mr.
	Versace? Hello, am I on?
	You sure are. Oh, cool.
	Steph, this whole Ron Paul thing kind of gets a little trying at times.
	For me, at least.
	I tend to be kind of a comrade.
	I don't think it's just for you, so...
	Oh, okay. The thing for me is just the idea that I think that a person who was at one time perhaps principled and has made a compromise with his nemesis is probably more dangerous than the statists themselves.
	That's a very interesting perspective.
	Do tell us more. What I was thinking about is, and I can't remember the name of the characters or anything like that, but just going back to, let's say, Atlas Shrugged, there was a scientist who, I guess, was a principal guy at one point and then kind of went in with all the status and all of what they were doing and ended up blowing up half the world.
	That's the kind of guy I'm reminded of.
	Right, right. No, I mean, I think that...
	I mean, there are lots of people who seem to be born relatively free of principles or who don't really notice them except as self-justifications, and I don't know if they're born that way or have it very...
	Robert Stedman, I think his name was, but...
	But yeah, I think the people who fall from grace in a sense, I think you're right.
	I think they are kind of gelignity and they are kind of volatile because there's a lot...
	I mean, they really have to change their natures to bend themselves to fit into this new shape.
	And, you know, if you've ever tried bending something to fit into something, there's quite a lot of tensile strength there waiting to be released if something changes.
	So I think that could be...
	I think you could be quite right.
	There is. I mean, I just...
	It's amazing to me. This guy is a Christian.
	As an atheist, I don't really like the idea of giving a Christian nuclear weapons.
	I just don't like it.
	I just fundamentally don't like it.
	It would take a pretty strong argument to change my mind about that.
	The fact that he is a Christian just says an enormous amount to me about how he makes decisions.
	That rationality is not his basic criteria.
	That conformity and mythology and storytelling and social pressure and cowardice and all of that is gelled at the base.
	And we know that about everybody who's a public Christian.
	I'm not picking on our good friend Ronnie.
	It's just everyone. I mean, when you're a philosopher, when you look at somebody who's a mystic, You know exactly what's going on down in the core of their soul.
	I mean, you can pretend that they're not and they say the right words and this and that, but the guy is wildly superstitious, and I don't think that's a good thing to give the key codes to the ICBMs to.
	Right. I was thinking kind of in terms of my mind goes crazy sometimes when I get off on weird tangents.
	I don't know why that is. But I was thinking in terms of let's just say that the person that is going to lead the entire planet, if we actually need somebody of that sort, let's say that they were a bunch of astrologers and all of a sudden somebody that I had a lot of faith in decided that he was going to run for office to be the head astrologer.
	Why would I vote for him if I don't believe in astrology?
	Right, right. And if we're against the state, why do we want to try and control it?
	I mean, don't these people ever watch Mickey Mouse with the brooms?
	I mean, The Sorcerer's Apprentice?
	We should know how this thing goes.
	I mean, this is a story...
	I mean, people should rent the film Mephisto with Klaus Maria Brandau.
	I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's about a theater guy during the rise of Nazism, and it's a fantastic film.
	We have to hear this story over and over again about Faust and Mephistopheles and so on.
	It really is something that people have a tough time getting the hang of.
	If you're going to have principles, for me, then have the damn principles.
	And if you're not going to have principles, don't torture yourself by having half principles or principles that you bend if the right person comes along or principles that you'll throw under the bus if there's a cute woman sitting up front or something.
	Either have the principles or don't have the principles.
	It's sort of half and half and we were against the state but I'm going to vote for Ron Paul.
	I mean that just seems like The worst of both worlds to me.
	Then just get rid of the principles and go live your life in the general collective soup of conformity.
	There's lots of great rewards to be handed.
	Well, hey, here's an idea.
	What if we just chuck the whole thing and decide we're going to elect Steph as the head anarchist?
	I think that there are some people on the board who are very much that that is what has already occurred.
	If you're going to have the principles, have the principles.
	Or don't.
	I'm going to have the principles, and I'm going to be a rebel, and then I'm going to go vote for a conservative Christian to be the president.
	God, what a soup.
	In a sense, it's kind of like really your worst enemy is the one that you think is closest to you and isn't.
	Well, I think that's true. And again, the problem that I have is that – and it's just – I think.
	This is just my opinion. I have no proof for this.
	But I think it's just a phase that people have to go through.
	You know, like, I mean, when you're in an abusive relationship and the guy's beating you up every day and it's like, hey, you know, he went to anchor management.
	Now I'm going to get beaten up once a week.
	You know, this is great. You know, and you have to sort of, you know, and I think he can change and he's promised that in the future he's only going to beat me up once a month.
	I'm just, I'm hanging on for that beautiful day when I only get, you know, once a quarter I get the crap beaten out of me.
	And, you know, once you get, you're getting beaten more and more, not less and less.
	Even if he promises in the future that this is the state, right?
	I think people just have to go through that process until they wake up one day and go, there is no political solution to a political problem.
	And this guy is never going to stop beating me up and I'm just going to have to stop hoping and stop praying and stop waiting and stop waiting for someone to come and save me and I'm just going to have to build freedom brick by damn brick in my own life.
	It reminds me, I believe that there's a state law somewhere in one of the 50 states in the U.S. that says that you're not allowed to beat your wife with a belt that's more than two inches thick.
	Yeah, no, that's called the rule of thumb.
	That comes from the old British common law thing.
	Oh, okay. But, I mean, it would have been important to America, I'm sure, that you can't beat your wife with anything thicker than your thumb.
	Oh, okay. Yeah, so, I mean, the guys with small thumbs had really difficult wives, obviously.
	Yeah. Okay, Steph.
	Well, I guess that's about all I had to say on this subject, I suppose.
	Well, thanks very much. I do appreciate it.
	You're quite welcome. People have been wondering when the FDR tour is going to start.
	Remember, you and I talked about perhaps going to some locations in the U.S. and doing sort of a retreat or a workshop.
	And so, I'm going to leave that to you.
	When can I go? I don't know.
	When can I leave? Well, I mean, I'd do it tomorrow.
	I mean, absolutely. I'd love to meet you, all you guys, and I think it would be great fun to sit down and chew all this stuff out face-to-face.
	I think it'd be a great deal of fun.
	And, again, I could bring some abacuses for the engineers and so on.
	And... You know, some beans, some marbles, you know, the candy stuff, and some twister for Greg.
	Anyway, we could...
	I'd love to do it. I'd love to do it.
	The real question is, it's just going to take some logistics, right?
	So right now, I'm still trying to generate the listenership, the readership.
	I'm just trying to grind those numbers up.
	My sort of basic feeling economically, just in case anybody's fascinated with the economics of Free Domain Radio...
	Is that it costs about 100 bucks to bring 2,000 people to the website.
	Of those 2,000 people, About 150 will stay.
	Of those, I'm guessing maybe 50 go through a bunch of podcasts and so on.
	So it's costing me kind of 50 cents to get someone to listen to some podcasts.
	And so I hope that they're going to pay me back some money.
	Because it only takes one of those people to donate 100 bucks for that investment to work its way.
	It's going to take some time. I want that to be more self-sustaining so that the The donations aren't sort of surging and collapsing, and so things are a little bit more...
	I have a groundswell of donations that are coming in.
	So once that's achieved, and that may be a little bit of time, I don't think it's going to be too long, then I'm a little bit more free to just spend money and rent places and go and do that kind of stuff.
	But there just has to be that.
	I think that has to be in place so that there's a sort of self-sustaining income, so I have to keep running back to generate more income through the site.
	But also, you know, we have to...
	There's a lot of logistics around...
	You know, finding the time, the place, the right number of people, getting the commitments, and all that kind of stuff.
	So, there's just some logistics.
	And, I mean, if anybody is really good at logistics, unlike me, or you've seen me with the XML feed, I think, we'll meet in Baltimore!
	And by that, I mean Guyana.
	So, yeah, I mean, if anybody wants to help out with that, that would be excellent.
	Toronto. Wait, why is that so familiar?
	Toronto. Toronto.
	That's an Indian name for a place by the water with a shiny pink dome.
	Right, right. Wait, sorry, that's a mirror.
	But yeah, look, I mean, Toronto would be easy peasy, nice and easy, but I don't know how many people would, you know, passports if you're in the States, you've got to get across the border and so on.
	And Christina doesn't like to spoon with strangers, so I don't know where you'd stay.
	So it's a trick.
	How do you answer that?
	I don't know. He was talking about, oddly enough, donations.
	Oh, come on!
	I haven't been talking too much about donations.
	Chicago, good karaoke bars.
	Okay, we're doing it in Chicago, and it's tonight.
	So, away we go.
	Feelings. Especially now we have the Diamond Donators.
	I think we know exactly which songs we're going to be picking for them.
	So, alright, do we have anybody else?
	Any other questions, comments, issues?
	What are the problems?
	Yeah, look, I mean, the other thing too, I mean, if you're coming through Toronto, coming by Toronto, coming near Toronto, I mean, I'm just sitting on my thumb all day, why not?
	So, yeah, we could definitely, maybe August in Toronto would be a fantastic time to do it.
	It would be really great to meet everyone.
	And certainly we can get the...
	There's a great place around here which has like a wave jello pool that we should really partake in.
	I think that that's really going to be kind of mind-opening, if that makes any sense.
	Jello pool, yes, I think you heard me correctly.
	It's actually in our backyard.
	But anyway, we can sort of come to that another time.
	Cannonball! All right.
	Listen, before we get silly, Toronto in August, I'm perfectly happy to put that down as a conditional.
	I think that would be great fun.
	And I think if we can keep it down to six weeks, that will be enough time to teach Rod the basics.
	No more jokes about Rod and his math ability.
	Okay, no more. Okay, one more.
	No, no, no more. I wouldn't want to milk something too long.
	All right. So, any no more?
	Okay. Well, thanks, everyone. I really do appreciate it.
	It's a nice, tasty, tidy, shorty show.
	And remember, tomorrow night on Skype, I'll put the link on the main page, we're going to have the official Ron Paul debate, and I'm sure this will decide the future of his campaign because we really are the heart and core of society.
	So, thanks so much for listening, everyone.
	I really do appreciate it. Have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week, and I guess I'll chat with some people tomorrow.

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