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June 7, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
20:47
787 Family and Statism Part 2
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Alright, thank you for tuning in again to continue the topic.
There's something I'd like to put forward as a possible way that I would look at this in terms of empirical proofs.
So, if somebody says to me, we can tame the government through political processes, we can improve the government, we can perhaps even eventually eliminate the government through political processes...
Then, to me, that's a hypothesis, right?
It's a hypothesis. I mean, I say that life will flourish with voluntarism, right?
So, I put together relationships in my life that are voluntary.
And now that I'm doing this full-time, it's all voluntary.
I've got rid of the bad people who wouldn't respond to entreaties for better behavior.
And, uh...
So, yeah, I'm experimenting and finding if it works, and by God, does it work beautifully.
So... If somebody says to me, we can tame the government with Ron Paul as a political solution, well, why start so big?
You know, it's something you'd kind of want to build up to, isn't it?
You know, there's that thing that Harry Brown used to say, our dearly departed snow-top friend.
And he would say, well, you know, the politicians want to go over to Iraq, and they want to make it into a paradise.
But Washington, at least until recently, had the highest murder rate, murder capital of the United States.
So you'd say, well, why don't they start a little further at home?
If these politicians believe that they have the most amazing solutions for social problems, then why don't they turn...
Washington into a paradise.
And then whenever one sees that Washington is a paradise, then everybody will come over to Washington and say, my God, how did you do it?
How did you do it? And then the politicians will be able to lay out the whole plan and it'll spread that way.
They don't need to go pointing guns at people, right?
Lead by example.
And so when I hear people say there's a political solution, for me it's like, well, you can't test that, right?
You can't test it.
But if you know how to turn evil into good through counsel, let's say Ron Paul or whoever, right?
We'll just use Ron Paul.
Maybe he's a great guy. Maybe he would absolutely tame the state and work as hard as he could and blah, blah, blah.
Well, of course, a couple of things have to happen.
The guy has to get into power.
The guy has to exercise that power.
It's got to work out well.
And since he's 70, I'd assume it's got to happen this election.
Which is not going to happen.
It's not going to happen. So, there's no need to go with something as big and abstract and impressive and monumental as the state.
If you know how to turn evil into good, you can just do it yourself in your personal life.
You don't need to worry about the state itself.
Or, if you are interested in the state and you want to convince people that you know that you can use violence to turn evil into good, well, just do it in your personal life with those around you, and then with that success, you can have a lot of credibility with people, right?
With knowledgeable scientific people.
You can have a lot of credibility. So, you know, this gentleman...
Bob. He's having problems with his parents.
He can't make his parents into good people.
Can't turn his parents into good people.
But believes that Ron Paul can turn the state into something better.
Maybe not perfect. I'm sure he agrees that stateless society is the ideal.
But he believes that Ron Paul can make the state better.
But that's a hypothesis you can totally test in your personal life.
You can totally test that hypothesis in your personal life.
That a third party can turn evil into good.
Or evil into less evil, let's say.
And you can do this in a couple of months.
In fact, you can do it shorter than that, but let's just say a couple of months.
And you can probably do it, at least initially, with less effort than you're spending trying to advocate a political solution to social problems.
If you believe that a third party like Ron Paul, right, there's the voters, there's the state, and there's a third party, Ron Paul.
Ron Paul can turn this thing around or make it better or whatever, or turn the state into something better.
Well, that's fine. We have no problem with that as a hypothesis.
Like all hypotheses, you need to test it locally first, right?
You don't take the proposed cure for cancer and inject it directly into human beings, right?
You start with tissue, fruit flies, rats, whatever, right?
Ten-year process. You start small.
Start local. Start personalized.
So here's my suggestion.
And because I'm a kind and gentle and positive soul, and of course I'd love it in a way if it were true, I'll even give you the easiest possible case of all.
We will take from your life the least corrupt of corrupt people, and the ones that you have the greatest influence over, right?
Nobody's parents. I don't care who they are, nobody's parents are as evil as the state is as a whole.
Nobody's parents have killed hundreds of millions of people, racked up massive debts, enslaved underclasses in the soft nets, claustrophobic nets, cloying, suffocating nets of welfare.
Nobody's parents are as evil as the state.
And no voter has as much influence over the state as a child has over his parents or her parents.
So I'll give you...
believe that the titanic evil of the state can be solved or ameliorated through a third party, when you have virtually no control over that, I'll give you something much, much, much easier.
Which is this.
If you...
Can turn your parents around, if you can turn your parents into people you want to spend time with by getting them into therapy, then I think you will have at least proved that the easiest of cases is possible.
Doesn't prove that the hardest of cases is possible.
Single voter of the state, mammoth evil, right?
That's a lot to turn around, right?
but you have a personal and intimate relationship or at least a historical relationship with your parents.
You have authority and sway over your parents, particularly as they age and they become more dependent on you.
They're dependent on you in a way that the state is never dependent on you.
You're just like a bee in the beehive to the state.
They don't care. But your parents, supposedly, they care.
So you believe that a third party can reform the state.
Ron Paul can help reform or control or minimize or make the state better.
Then, surely, a third party, a therapist, a counselor, whatever you want to call it, psychologist, psychiatrist, can make your parents better, right?
Who do you have more influence over?
The state or your parents? Your parents, of course.
Who's more evil? The state or your parents?
The state, of course. And so, the easiest possible case, the easiest conceivable test case for whether a political solution Will work with the state is whether a therapeutic solution will work with your parents.
I'm all about the testability.
I'm all about the let's get our head out of our political asses and hit the ground with something we have control over rather than talking about abstract after abstract after abstract.
If you can get, with all the authority and the influence and the history, if you can get your parents to become great people or better people or significantly if you can get your parents to become great people or better people or significantly better people, by getting them into therapy with all the
all the personal influence, all the personal history you have with your parents and all their relative lack of evil, that proves that the easiest conceivable case of the third party amelioration of evil tendencies can occur.
Can occur. We don't need to vote about Ron Paul or we don't need to debate about Ron Paul.
Just get your parents to become better people by getting them into therapy.
That proves that there's a possible theory or perspective by which this can work.
But I'll tell you it won't happen.
I'll absolutely guarantee you that it won't happen.
I don't come at this stuff without having tried.
I don't come at this stuff without having tried.
I have tried to get third parties to ameliorate evil my whole life.
My mother, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, my dad, girlfriends, friends.
Never works. Never works.
Now, it doesn't mean it can't work.
I don't think it can work, and I've got some reasons why.
But has never worked for me.
Has never worked for anyone that I've ever known.
Has never worked about anyone that I've ever read about.
Has never worked to my limited knowledge of any of Christina's patients.
If with all our history and our personal influence and the growing authority of her parents' age, we can't even get our parents to reform themselves, How the fuck are we supposed to reform the state?
Thank you.
Thank you.
If we can't get the infinitesimally almost minor evil of bad parents to reform themselves with all our personal authority, how is one vote in millions going to reverse the greatest evil in the world?
But if you can find a way to do it, I would be fascinated.
I would love to hear it.
And I would love to talk to your parents after this process and say, how did it happen?
What did I miss? What did everyone else miss?
Because I'm perfectly willing that there's some way to do it.
Theoretically. I don't think it's possible, but I'm...
What the hell, right?
Could be.
But I'll tell you why I think it's impossible.
The greater the corruption, the greater the resistance to reform.
Thank you.
If you found a genuinely moral and good therapist who could really and truly and totally help your parents, your parents would never ever go to him.
That's the equivalent if Ron Paul was really a great guy, which he might be, I don't know.
If Ron Paul was really a great guy, never getting into power.
Never getting into power.
Now, if you found a really great therapist, your parents might lie to you and say that you're going, that they're going to this therapist and they're listening and it's very interesting and they're mulling it over and they'd draw it out.
But they wouldn't actually go and if they went, they wouldn't listen and if they listened, they'd fight back.
And this is a tiny, tiny little evil that you have great power over.
I don't mean tiny to you as a kid.
I mean tiny in the grand scheme of things.
think that our parents don't stop wars and murder millions of people.
The greater Ron Paul's morality, the more impossible becomes his access to power.
And of course, as I mentioned in the Klan Reformer article, they'd have to invent him, right?
Because they love to believe that there are good people in government, bad people in government.
They're all part of the same team then, right?
And maybe it's not parents, if you feel that's too high a barrier.
Well, no problem. Get your wife or girlfriend or husband or boyfriend into therapy.
Get your friends into therapy. Go to therapy yourself.
Find a great therapist and get bad people in your life, whoever's bad in your life, to turn around.
If you can do it, fabulously.
Teach us how. Teach us all how.
I don't think it's possible. But, you know, what the hell?
I could be wrong. If you can figure it out, tell us how.
But, but, if you can't figure it out, if with all your power and all the tiny little corruptions of your own parents and friends, families, husbands, if you can't get those people to change, Then you really need to get an understanding of why.
You need to accept that, and you need to stop pissing around with trying for a political solution.
Because if you can make corrupt individuals virtuous in your sphere, I mean, I'll be on my knees begging for the formula.
What are the magic words? How do we make evil good?
How do we make corruption virtuous?
How do we make abuse benevolence?
And you can't. You can't undo the history.
You can't undo the history. You might get an evil person to go to therapy if you really, really bully them, but it'll never take and it'll never work.
Because there's too much agony.
Right? We become evil because we want to Escape immediate pain.
Just as people become sadists and bullies because they wish to avoid the hellish pain that they're experiencing of helplessness and fear.
So, by definition, people become evil as a pain avoidance mechanism.
People become sadists as a pain avoidance mechanism.
They feel terrified of their own helplessness.
They attack others and restore their sense of equilibrium.
By definition, evil people cannot sacrifice short-term gain for long-term.
They can't sacrifice short-term pain for long-term gain.
That's how they become evil. That's why people don't deal with their childhoods and reinflict it on their children, because it feels better in the moment to do it.
So, by definition, there's no capacity.
Evil people have no capacity.
To defer gratification.
And therapy is all about, virtue is all about, deferring gratification.
If there was no need to defer gratification, there'd be no need for philosophy.
If there was no need to not eat sugar, there'd be no science of nutrition.
If veggies tasted better than candy, there'd be no such thing as nutrition.
Evil people can't be reformed because reform requires that they not have the characteristics that ended up with them being evil before.
And they make those decisions 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago and not have the continuing effects of abusing others on their conscience and in their hearts.
It's completely and totally and utterly impossible to reform evil people.
I mean, you can get them to change their behavior, but only by pushing the buttons, may I say, quasi-determinist buttons of their pleasure and pain principles.
When you have sacrificed your virtue for the sake of a principle called immediate gratification, what are the odds that you're going to be able to regain virtue?
By challenging that principle, you're not going to be able to do it.
It's impossible. But this is my theory.
I could be wrong. Maybe there's a way to do it.
And if you can't do it, I think that's fantastic.
I think that's thrilling. I think that's exciting.
You're going to end up doing a whole lot more to help the world than I am.
Which is great. I would be thrilled.
Take a load off my back, I'll tell you.
So I put this challenge out there for those who are interested in political solutions.
And I'm willing to wait.
I'm happy to wait. But I put the challenge out there.
If you think that evil can be reformed through your support of a third party, get your parents to therapy.
Get your parents into therapy.
If you can get your parents into therapy, if they'll stay in therapy, if I can chat with them and understand this process and what happened for them, and they've been turned into much better people, Then we've taken one-tenth of one percent of the step towards supporting a political solution.
But if you can't even get that done, then you've got to stop talking about people like Ron Paul, for Christ's sake.
Oh, for the love of all that's holy.
So I'll put that out there.
If you say you have a universal cure for a universal illness...
Why don't you try treating the people who you have some power over, who listen to you, who you have a relationship with, who you have history with, who you have leverage with.
Get them to take the pill that you think Ron Paul is going to feed down the unholy gullet of the government.
You get the people in your life to take the pill that you want to prescribe politically.
Then I can begin to listen.
Then you can begin to have some credibility.
And I wish you could.
I don't think you can.
In fact, I'm quite certain that you can't.
But take it on. Reform your parents through a therapist, and then I will be more than happy to expand the debate as to how this might be possible through Politics with Ron Paul.
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