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June 10, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:04:00
790 Family and Statism Part 5

A listener supplies evidence

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Time Text
Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
It's Def. It is the 10th of June, 2007.
It's 11.30. Off from my walk in the woods, and I am trying out a new mic with a new setup that hopefully will still let the plane noises through.
Well, that I can't do much about, but which will hopefully keep the wind noises out and also gives me the hands-free pleasure.
So let's see how it does, shall we?
Now, this is going to be a little bit harsh on our listener.
So, I apologize in advance if it offends your sensibilities, but I think it's time to really work to nip some of the burgeoning immaturity and acting out and passive aggression and manipulation that's been going on a little bit on the boards and in my email lately, and I know that when I push family issues that this kind of stuff is going to erupt.
And I'm going to go through a listener's post, who naturally has been upset and offended and angry and so on, and I'm going to take this apart.
Based on all of the criteria that we've talked about throughout the course of this show, I'm going to peel this apart.
To show the fantasy skeleton, the mythology, the projection, the immaturity.
And I do this not with the intent of humiliation, though that would be a just response to an attempt to attack me, but rather because I think that it's important just to be able to peel back these layers.
We're all going to face these challenges in our conversations with people about philosophy.
And because of that...
It's worth having a look at the kind of oppositions that we get to.
We're particularly going to face this in terms of psychology.
And the degree to which people don't see how they appear to somebody who's got psychological sophistication or insider wisdom is really quite amazing to me.
It really is just astounding to me.
How people who come on strong and hypercritical and aggressive and insulting just don't know how much they're confirming the thesis that they're attempting to overthrow.
If a thesis predicts that if I talk about X, Y, and Z, people are going to get irrationally offended and aggressive, and people say, I'm offended and you're a jerk for saying that, I don't know what broken part of people's brains actually thinks that they are overturning the thesis.
I know that delving into family stuff, confronting family issues, family history is really terrifying.
It's really terrifying.
I understand that.
I understand that bringing up issues of parental integrity and asking for specific action as a response to that, asking for specific action as a response to that pushes people right up against their own fears.
I know that.
I've been there. I still go there.
So it's one thing to talk about anarcho-capitalism in the abstract.
It is quite another thing to say, now go talk to your parent today.
Go ask for something today.
And whenever you move philosophy from the abstract into the actionable, it pushes people right up against their own fears.
It pushes people right up against their own fears.
And to an immature personality, to a personality buried in mythology, to a personality with the magic wand of storytelling, which can be summoned at any time to explain away the uncomfortable, this can be easily converted into an attack.
So, if I put forward a tentative theory which says, here's a testable methodology for determining parental corruption...
If somebody is not at all afraid of parental corruption, that their own parents are corrupt, we'll embrace that.
They may critique it, they may say yes, they may say no, but they will embrace that as a testable methodology.
People who are already certain or already understand that their parents are corrupt...
And by corrupt I don't mean ignorant, and by corrupt I don't mean unlearned in anarcho-capitalism, and we'll get to that later.
I mean, people just completely misunderstand.
I mean, to turn corrupt into a story that has nothing to do with what I'm saying, right?
It's the ultimate straw man situation.
But, if people already understand the level of their parental corruption, they won't be offended.
If people know that their parents are not corrupt, they won't be offended with a testable methodology to figure out if parents are corrupt or not.
They may agree with it, they may disagree with it, but they won't be offended by it, right?
But when people are unconsciously afraid that their parents are corrupt, when an actionable, testable methodology comes along, what happens is their fears are provoked.
They're afraid that their parents are corrupt, And then when somebody says, oh, here's something you can do today to figure it out.
Well, of course, if it's not something that they can do or not something that they have any respect for, then no problem, right?
If I say that...
I mean, Jesus Christ, people.
If I say that the way to figure out if your dad is corrupt is to consult a Ouija board, I doubt that you're going to be offended.
You're just going to say, what a nut.
What a nut job. You're not going to be offended by that, right?
Because it's just irrational.
If I say that the way to figure out if your parent is corrupt is to walk up to them and say, I doubt also that you're going to be offended by it.
If you have something slightly more rational.
If I say that the way to figure out if your parent is corrupt is to walk up and say, Dad, do you believe that 2 plus 2 is 5?
*laughs* It's something that's actionable, something that's vaguely rational.
I doubt you're going to be offended by it, right?
Because you're going to walk up to your dad and your dad's going to say, No, 2 plus 2 is not 5.
My dad's not corrupt. How excellent.
Right, so when people get offended and upset with me because I put forward a testable hypothesis...
It's because they know the answer and they feel angry or ashamed or embarrassed or fearful of revealing the answer, right?
And that, of course, is because they're inhabited by the spirits or the psychological energies of people who don't want the answer out, right?
So, with that in mind, let's have a look at a post that I received.
This is from... It doesn't really matter who.
Call him Robbie. Robbie says, I won't debate semantics.
Now, of course, if you're psychologically astute, you know exactly what's coming next, right?
Which is a debate about semantics.
I won't debate semantics, but suffice to say that I find the idea of labeling any and all who don't embrace and apply the freedom and philosophy to their lives corrupt is utterly ludicrous.
Who among us stays true with every waking breath to the principles and philosophy we espouse here?
Apart, of course, from Steph, his wife, and probably Greg.
But hey, if there's financial gain to be made from cutting myself off from the world's 6.5 billion corrupt people, I guess I'll jump on the bandwagon.
Okay, so all of that was more than a little passive-aggressive.
I could easily edit it out, but I think it's important to stay true to the real and full response I had to your podcast series.
So letting the emotive response subside a little...
Let me ask a more serious question.
I often discuss the ideas we explore here at Free Domain with my father.
My father loves nothing more, and I'm quite comfortable and confident in asserting this, than to sit and converse with his children, myself and two older brothers.
With me, the topic of conversation naturally turns to all things Free Domain.
Philosophy, morality, economics, politics, relationships, etc., And although these aren't his strongest areas of interest, he's always more than happy to sit and listen as I grind my way through the oft-challenging concepts covered here, contributing by way of challenging the ideas, asking questions to prompt deeper exploration, etc.
He seems, and this is a core supposition on my behalf, to derive great satisfaction and pride from watching me overcome each hurdle conventional ideas throw in my path.
Now, that having been said, although he agrees with most if not all of the fundamental principles we share here, he has not, shall we say, converted.
He agrees, for example, that the state is both immoral and ineffective in achieving its aims, and though he is probably at the very least a libertarian, he has yet to jump over the fence into the realm of anarchism.
Why? Some of you, no doubt, are crying out that he's lost to the irrationality and illogic of the state, but I think that it's quite the opposite.
It is exactly because he is a man of logic and rationality that he does not yet carry the anarcho-capitalist flag.
He is not willing to heap praise upon a socio-economic system the full details of which he knows very little about, even if he agrees with its basic principles.
Ah, Steph says, he is a man who considers philosophy to be purely abstract and academic, doesn't apply the principles to his own life.
He is irrational and corrupt.
Again, I say quite to the contrary.
Does a reasonable, logical, rational man accept and promote a new or different system offhand simply because he disagrees with the current system?
You cannot embrace that, but you don't know.
Now, you say he is quite capable of researching the ideas himself, or reading the literature and perhaps listening to a few of Steph's own podcasts to assuage his doubts.
To such a charge, I reply that my father is a man in his mid-sixties struggling to sell the business.
He spent much of his life nurturing and building with wavering health and only one thing on his mind, his rapidly approaching and well-deserved retirement.
Our struggle here with the corruption of the state, the immorality of welfare, the complex web of objective morality and universally preferred behavior, not to mention the myriad other things we discuss, is the last thing on his mind, and rightly so.
He is a man deeply loved, admired and respected by everyone in his familial, personal and business life.
So tell me, Steph, is my father corrupt?
He certainly fits the definition as you stated it in your series.
Can he attain true happiness without embracing your ideas?
Can I have a decent and true and virtuous and moral relationship with him if he doesn't?
Should I just cut him out of my life because he hasn't embraced the free domain ideology?
If your answer is yes, I'd be tempted to turn my own subjective definition of corrupt back on you.
And hell, one last one for the road, just for kicks.
If I vote for Ron Paul at the next election, is it because I secretly want to reform my father?
So, you know, this is just sort of a point.
You're not responsible for managing my emotions, of course, but I just sort of wanted to point it out.
I just want to point it out for the sake of getting some feedback about how your behavior affects me.
It takes quite a lot of the fun out of putting out new ideas when I'm faced with such open hostility to what I and the podcast have openly described.
As tentative new theories.
I've said a million times, these aren't proofable.
These are just theories of possible correlation.
Right? So, I'm out there exploring, and people have just taken sniping, snipes at me.
I'm just telling you that it makes it a whole lot less fun for me.
Now, of course, it's not your job to make things fun for me, but I just sort of wanted to point out that when I get attacked for a tentative theory, I find it a whole lot less pleasurable to do it.
Again, not your job to make it pleasurable for me, but I just wanted to point out so that you're fully aware of what it's like to be on the receiving end of this kind of stuff.
It's pretty horrible. It's pretty horrible.
So, I just sort of wanted to point that out.
Now, there's a few points, and this is where I think it's very interesting to look at the mythology aspect we've been talking about lately.
So, let's have a look at this. I find the idea of labeling any and all who don't embrace and apply the free domain philosophy to their lives corrupt is utterly ludicrous.
Well, let's look at that sentence. It's a wonderful, wonderfully compressed sentence of mythology.
First of all, labeling is a word that is specific, right?
It's not accidental. I mean, if he'd said accurately identifying, it would be a whole different sentence.
But labeling, obviously, is a shorthand for projection.
So labeling is a shorthand for the psychological methodology of projection.
So labeling is a wonderful word that has a mythology all to itself.
Now, embrace and apply the free domain philosophy.
Again, fantastic. Like, this is sheer genius.
I'm not saying it's a particularly benevolent sort of genius, but it is a kind of sheer genius.
First of all, you don't embrace a philosophy.
You don't embrace a philosophy.
That has a kind of culty flavor to it, and that has a kind of emotionality to it.
You don't embrace. You don't embrace that 2 plus 2 is 4.
2 plus 2 is either 4 or it's not.
Now, there's no such thing as a freedom in philosophy.
Again, this is all wonderful, wonderful stuff when it comes to looking at mythology.
There's an enormous amount that's packed in here in terms of a fearful discreditation or discrediting of an idea that is threatening to someone.
But there's no such thing as the free domain philosophy at all, in any way, shape, or form.
See, free domain is the name of a show about philosophy, wherein certain methodologies are used to try to explain observable phenomenon in the world.
Observable phenomenon in the world.
I don't sit there and say, oh, the Ron Paul thing really troubles me, and therefore I'm going to sit here and make up theories about it.
No. I observe phenomenon among those I debate Ron Paul with, which is that they get highly emotional.
They want to talk about inconsequential things.
They don't want to talk about their own families.
They change the topic.
They distort information.
Again, people could say, oh, Steph does that too.
I'm just talking about my observations of the interaction.
So here we have a set of observable phenomenon.
People who are willing to, like avowed anti-statists, willing to embrace a status solution.
That's kind of a contradiction.
I mean, whatever else you think, it's kind of a contradiction.
So people who have plowed all the way through universally preferable behavior...
Who understand the evils of the state, and who didn't bring up objections when it was theoretical.
If they sailed all the way through those podcasts, and then the moment that some practical consequence to those ideas comes up, which is that if violence is bad and if the state is evil, then you can't use the state.
And if attempting to use the state for the past 150 years has failed in the most miserable way imaginable, suggesting more of the same is patently irrational.
And with all of these facts in hand, people's hostility towards the principle when it's converted to actionable, testable and actionable hypotheses, then clearly the problem is not with the principle, the problem is with the testability.
So if the state is evil and using the state to control the state is logically contradictory and, by the way, has not worked in the worst conceivable, imaginable way...
Then, clearly, when people didn't have a problem with the theory, but they then have a problem with the practice, then it's not the theory that's the problem, right?
If the theory was the problem, they would have had a problem with the theory.
They're having a problem with the practice, right?
I'm just dealing with the information that's handed out to me, right?
I'm just dealing with the information that's handed out to me.
To our debate with a guy, he says, oh yeah, you're right, you know, it is contradictory, right?
Next time I talk to him, it's like we never even had the debate.
He just says, oh, I've decided that that's not true anymore.
No particular argument, right?
Just... So something else is going on.
I'm just working with the facts as people present them to me.
I'm not making stuff up. I'm not making Ron Paul people do this kind of stuff.
And I know for a fact that it's not about Ron Paul.
People don't get this emotional about a politician.
Right? People don't violate principles that they accept.
For the sake of... And people who didn't have any problem with the arguments against utilitarianism, and these are all long-time listeners, they've heard the utilitarian argument and they didn't have any problem with it, right?
But then when they suddenly, with no reference to anything we've talked about before, start appealing to the utilitarian argument of, well, it means less violence, perhaps, possibly, blah, blah, blah.
Well... Well, then clearly something else is going on, right?
Something more personal is going on.
I'm just working with the facts as people provide them to me.
I'm not making stuff up.
There's just something here which doesn't make a whole lot of sense on the surface, so there must be some other explanation.
There must be some other explanation.
So I put forward a theory as to why this may be going on.
And I put forward this theory after asking a number of people about their histories, their personal histories and so on.
And so far, again, this is based on my memory here, so far, everyone who is pro-voting for Ron Paul has, and this doesn't mean causal, it just means it's a correlation, right?
Has a parent of questionable ethics embedded in their life.
That's all I'm saying, right?
It's just the facts. Now, I have a theory, like any decent, reasonable scientist, you have a whole bunch of facts, and you try to put together a theory that might...
Explain those facts. Did I do a perfect job?
Did I even do a good job? I don't know.
But I'm just struggling to try to come up with a way of understanding the information as it's placed in front of me.
Not one single letter or email did I get from Ron Paul people about my Sun-Clan reformer, which I think is a pretty powerful analogy.
Not one single email did I ever get from a Ron Paul supporter saying, you know what, I am an atheist and I've decided that the best way to deal with the problem of religion is to vote for a priest, to vote for a pope, to whatever, right, to join the priesthood and work from the inside.
Not one person has said, well, if working from the inside in the way that Ron Paul does is so great, I've decided to dedicate my life to it because it's the best thing.
So I'm just trying to deal with contradictory information.
I'm just trying to deal with the facts as they present themselves to me.
So I come up with a theory...
Like any of you observe phenomenon, you come up with a theory.
That's all it's about, right?
Theory may be good, theory may be bad.
It's just a theory. I put it forward tentatively, and getting offended at it is petty and immature.
Now here, again, so now we have a whole lot of stuff, you know, like labeling and embrace the free domain philosophy.
Corrupt is utterly ludicrous, of course, is not an argument, right?
So then, here, we put forward...
Then what is put forward is a false...
A straw man argument, right?
So he says, well, calling people corrupt if they don't apply the free domain philosophy, whatever that might be.
Saying free domain philosophy is like saying Copernican physics.
There's only physics. Or Hawking science.
There's only science. It's not mine.
Philosophy is not mine.
It's just the name of a show, right?
You don't get the name of the show Dallas confused with the city, right?
It's just the name of a show.
So then he says that labeling anybody who doesn't apply these principles in their own life corrupt is ludicrous, right?
So he's put forward a proposition, which is that something is called ludicrous, and now he has to back up that proposition.
And how does he do it? Well, he invents nonsense, right?
So he says,"...who among us stays true with every waking breath to the principles and philosophy we espouse here?
Apart, of course, from Steph, his wife, and probably Greg." Which, of course, has nothing to do with anything that I've ever talked about.
Obviously, right? I mean, how many podcasts do I have talking about my own moral errors, mistakes, corruptions, right?
Just look at the morals of my messes, one of the podcasts, right?
Trying to talk about...
This is clear, right?
And this is clear and this is well known, right?
But you see, what has to be invented is another kind of mythology, right?
And the mythology that Steph is a fundamentalist perfectionist who, you know, anytime anybody breaks even remotely, he's called corrupt and blah blah blah, right?
So this is a kind of like, you know, Steph, the leader of the free domain inquisition, right?
Anybody who takes even a slighter step from the path of pure righteousness and integrity and truthfulness is corrupt and must be cast down.
I mean, you know, this is just making me into an Old Testament kind of vengeful puritanical God, right?
I mean, which is just nonsense. It has nothing to do with any...
I mean, I've specifically talked about my long and difficult journey towards the truth, right?
So this, of course, has nothing to do...
And then, another dig, right?
So then he says, but hey, if there's financial gain to be made from cutting myself off from the world, 6.5 billion corrupt people, I guess I'll jump on the bandwagon, right?
So this is a dig to say, well, Steph's making money from separating himself from people.
So if I were paid to do it too, right, then maybe I would jump on the bandwagon.
And again, completely insulting phrase.
I was weeping openly numerous times about the difficulty of this decision.
I've talked about taking a huge cut in my income to do this.
This is not the easiest damn thing in the world to do, people.
Saying that somehow there's financial motives in me.
This mythology is just making up fairy tales and stories.
It has nothing to do with anything that I've ever talked about.
So I'm not even in this conversation.
This is just all a big massive series of straw man's arguments.
So then he says, okay, all that was more than a little passive-aggressive.
So he's, you know, obviously this is good, right?
So he's got an observing ego that says, hey, you're kind of being a dick about this, right?
Kind of being a joke. I could easily edit it out, but I think it's important to stay true to the real and full response I had to your podcast series.
So if he thinks that this kind of manipulative, passive-aggressive crap...
If there is a true and real response, all I can say to you, my friend, is that you might want to go back and listen to some of the True Self, False Self podcasts, right?
If I am a parent and I get angry at my kid, I can choose to scream at my kid and call them names and then say to the kid, hey, you know, I could have easily chosen not to scream at you and call your names, but I want it to be authentic to my emotional response.
Well, a kid may not be highly respectful of that, right?
I mean, if we act out in a destructive or false manner, I don't think that we can easily say, with any kind of great legitimacy, that the easy thing to do is to not be passive-aggressive and negative and come up with nonsense arguments that are insulting.
It would be easy, but it's not easy.
It's not easy to avoid passive-aggressive and manipulative reactions to Theories that are put forward.
That's not easy at all. So you have to turn it into a virtue.
False arguments and all this sort of nonsense.
So let me ask a more serious question he asked.
He's decided to leave all of this insulting stuff in because he wants to be true and authentic.
Like somehow insulting other people is true and authentic.
Well, it's not. It's not true.
It's not authentic. It's just immature and false selfie and destructive.
Destructive to you. It doesn't change my mind.
It reveals you to me, clearly.
And if you saw what I saw, then you'd be pretty horrified.
But it's destructive to you, not to me.
If you give yourself permission to do this, then your relationships are the ones that suffer, not mine.
I mean, there's so many people who take so many shots at me.
And they think they're hitting me.
God, people, don't you see?
Don't you see?
Oh, I wish I could show you.
I wish I could show you the view from here.
Everybody's taking these shots at me.
And they think that they're hitting me.
But it's nonsense. I have a fantastic life.
I have everything that I want.
I have a beautiful wife. I have the most wonderful thing to do in the world.
I'm self-employed.
I am my own boss. I live in a beautiful home.
I have enough money. I have an absolutely magical, perfect, and amazing life.
And that continues when people snipe at me in a hostile and destructive manner.
So the bullets don't hit me.
Sniping, passive-aggressive, insulting.
It doesn't hit me, people.
This gun goes off in your hand.
It harms you.
Not me. It harms you.
Not me. I'm not your kid.
I'm not under your power.
I'm not beholden to you.
You have no power over me.
So getting snipey and bitchy towards me It doesn't hurt me.
It just means that you give yourself the permission to act in this kind of way.
That doesn't hurt my relationships.
The fact that you act in this kind of way, that you let yourself vent your horrible spleen on people, that doesn't hurt me.
I see it for what it is.
But it hurts you.
It hurts you because you're setting up a principle that this is good.
Not just that this is okay.
When you say, well, I could edit this out, but I think it's important to be honest and real.
Real! Well, it's not real.
It's just nasty and insulting.
But as soon as you make nasty and insulting a virtue, the argument for morality runs our lives, as I've said a million times before.
As soon as you make nasty, passive-aggressive, and insulting a virtue...
As soon as you make manipulating arguments and making up straw men and so on, self-righteousness and all this, as soon as you make that a virtue, what happens to your relationships?
Well, clearly you're giving yourself permission to do this in your relationships with others.
That doesn't hurt me.
That doesn't hurt me.
Right? If you take the poison, I don't get sick.
If you snipe at me, the gun just goes off in your hand.
So if you say that authenticity is insulting people, then that's how you're going to program your future.
Okay.
Who we are today, the values that we accept today, the values that we espouse today, are who we will be in our life.
The values that we accept and espouse and respect today are exactly how our lives are going to be over the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years.
The values that you accept today orient your future one way or another.
The values you accept today orient your future one way or another.
It's inescapable. It's inescapable.
The argument for morality runs our lives.
Whatever we accept as morally good is what we become, what we espouse, what we accept, and what we inflict.
If it's not actually morally good, right?
So if you recognize that you're being passive-aggressive and destructive, and then you say, but I'm going to justify that because it's important to be authentic.
Well, it doesn't hurt me.
Pisses me off a little. That's okay.
That's just my immaturity. But it doesn't hurt me because I don't accept that as a standard in my relationships.
But what it does do, my friend, is it lays the foundation for what you do in your relationships and what you expect to be done to you.
So if you say to me, I know that this is the weirdest way to be compassionate that you've probably experienced, but I believe that it is.
I'm trying to help you. If you say that being passive-aggressive and insulting is virtuous because it's authentic, then what happens in your life when somebody is passive-aggressive and insulting to you?
What happens? You either have to detonate the principle and become a hypocrite, or you have to accept it, which is totally destructive to your self-esteem.
The other alternative, right?
I know that this is just the tip of the smallest ice crystal on top of the largest iceberg as far as your behavior in life goes, right?
I mean, if you've gotten to the point where you're willing to do this, obviously this is not me.
This is just a habit that you have accepted in yourself over the years, and you've inflicted it, I imagine, on hundreds, if not more, people.
And you've probably had it, obviously you've had it inflicted upon you, otherwise such an irrational standard wouldn't be a standard.
Such a destructive standard could not be called a virtue.
So, if you question the premise and you say, you know, it really hurts me when somebody does that to me, and that way I understand what I have done to other people by doing this, and by calling it a virtue.
What unpleasantness have I spread in the world by doing this to others, by accepting it from others, and most importantly by calling it a virtue?
Well... Once you understand that, then you've got a whole lot of apologizing to do to people that you've hurt.
And you've misinstructed in the nature of virtue, right?
I mean, I tell you people, the moment you call something a virtue, you're putting yourself out there as a doctor.
If you just said, I know this is passive-aggressive, but I'm pissed off.
Well, even that.
The moment you come up with a justification, then you're calling something a virtue or a vice.
If you just say, well, this is passive-aggressive, right?
With no justification, then it's just a statement of fact.
That's kind of honest, right? And you kind of have to retract it, though.
Obviously, it's not a good thing to do.
But the moment you come up with a justification, then you're teaching ethics.
You're teaching universally preferable behavior.
I know this is passive-aggressive, but it's important to stay true to the real and full response.
Okay, so now this is a virtue.
And it's not just a virtue for you, it's a virtue for everyone.
And if you've misinstructed people in virtue, this is why I'm so glad there was no podcasting around for me 20 years ago.
If you've misinstructed people in virtue, you've got a whole lot of apologizing to do to people.
So, you don't have to do that.
Of course, you can continue to say that it's a virtue, which means that you should do it, and you will do it in the future.
We are programmed by ethics. We are programmed by ethics.
That's why bad people, not you, you're a bad person, I'm just saying that bad people spend so much time teaching ethics to children, because human life is controlled by what is considered to be the good, the virtue.
So this doesn't hurt me.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I totally get what it does to your future and what you will accept in relationships and what you can stand up to.
And it either gives you down the path of being abused or being a hypocrite.
And that's not really what I want for you.
Obviously, you're a smart fellow with lots of verbal skills and, you know, you're not an evil guy or anything.
I'm just sort of saying that if you accept this as a standard, it becomes a standard, lo and behold, right?
It's a full honest-to-goodness standard.
And I don't want you to be in relationships like that.
I don't want you to be in relationships where...
You know, this kind of insulting mischaracterizations and so on is a core virtue, right?
Where because you feel hurt or insulted, you get to lash out at someone and that's called a virtue.
I don't want you to be stuck in that swamp, my friend.
I don't want you to be stuck in that quagmire.
What a terrible life that will be!
You're venting people, venting on people...
Attacking people, being attacked, justifying it, not justifying it, being hypocritical.
No good. No good.
No good. Don't do that to yourself.
So, the next thing, right, is he says, well, it's utterly ludicrous to say that People who don't apply the philosophy, the free-domain philosophy, whatever that is, to their lives is ludicrous, right? And then he gives an example. Well, and this is the purity example, right?
Not everyone is pure.
And there is, of course, a slight dig in, you know, oh, Steph thinks he's so pure.
Not everyone is pure, therefore everyone is corrupt.
But, of course, that's got nothing to do with what I've ever talked about.
I have consistently talked about, and go all the way back to the beginning, if you like, consistently talked about philosophy as a journey.
How could it be otherwise? Right?
I didn't figure out the truth till I was 35.
Parts of the truth, at least.
I mean, how the hell could I say that the journey is not important?
It would be completely hypocritical.
Again, I try to work empirically from the evidence that I have accumulated based on my life and the life of others and observable phenomenon from which I attempt to create theories, successful or not.
So, I've never talked about purity.
I've consistently talked about my own lack of purity.
How many times have you heard me say in the podcast, I'm not preaching from any kind of high summit here, because I do the same thing myself.
I have done the same thing myself, and it's very hard.
So there's this false dichotomy that if you're not perfect, you're utterly corrupt, which is nothing that I've ever talked about.
This is this person's story.
They're creating a mythological character called Steph-like, Steph-ish.
And Steph-ish is utterly intolerant of any imperfection and blah, blah, blah.
But it's got nothing to do with me.
Nothing to do with me. Of course, this is projection.
This is the person's own experience of himself.
But we don't have to get into that here.
And then there's the dig, right?
Say that I'm doing this for financial gain.
Oh, and if people paid me to cut myself off, I would call it a virtue too, when actually it was just me being greedy for money.
Oh yeah, I'm doing free domain radio because I'm greedy for money.
Right? I'm taking a 75% pay cut because I'm greedy for money.
Right. Right, but then again, that's just an assault on motive, right?
That's just saying, well, Steph's calling it a virtue, but he's just paid to do it, so it's totally hypocritical, blah, blah, blah, right?
Again, no evidence, just a dick, right?
So then he calls this passive-aggressive, and then he calls it a virtue.
But I'm being real, I'm being authentic.
Well, great, this is the reality you're creating for yourself.
These are the relationships that you are creating for yourself.
I'll go on and have a great life.
I have a great life already. Happiest guy I know.
But you're going to go down into this swamp.
What we define as the virtue is what we end up living.
What we define as virtuous is what our world becomes.
I sail on. This bullet barely nicks me.
The gun goes off in your hand.
And you sink down into this world where acting out in this kind of passive-aggressive and destructive manner becomes a virtue.
You can't fight it. You can only fight it by becoming hypocritical, which means that you further destabilize your integrity, right?
So here is a further discussion, right?
And I think this is important because I doubt very much that this is going to land in the right way for this person, and there's nothing I can do to control that other than try and be as clear and direct and, you know, in this kind of way, empathetic, right?
The surgeon who cuts out your...
If you're choking on something, the surgeon who uses a pen to give you a tracheotomy is hurting you like hell, but he's actually trying to save you, right?
And it's the best thing that I know how to do, right?
And of course, this is largely instructive for other people, right?
Whether this person ends up taking this.
I doubt it, right? But if this person ends up taking this in a positive way, great.
And if they don't, it's instructive for other people, right?
So that you can learn from this example how not to waste your time with people who aren't going to respond, right?
I have a different venue here, right?
Because people listen to what I say.
Tens of thousands of people are listening to this, right?
So I have a different reason to engage these people.
I know that there's a, you know, we've had another round of conflicts on the board.
Again, why? Because we're talking about very personal issues.
We're talking about parents. Hey, if we sat here discussing philosophy in the abstract and economics in the abstract and art in the abstract, you know, we'd have a perfectly convivial and useless conversation in terms of actually having traction to change the world.
I engage with people even though I know it's doomed because I want to show people the process by which we know it's doomed, right?
So I can move the starting goal back every single time, right?
Like if the first time... I know when a conversation with someone is doomed.
I know when they're locked in and it's going to escalate to the point where I'm going to have to ban them from the board.
I know that. I know that like within two posts.
And of course, if it was just me and this person, I just would not talk to them anymore.
If they sent me emails, I just wouldn't respond.
But it's different because what I do is, I think, or at least I hope, is instructive to other people.
So I have a reason for engaging in this kind of stuff, which is to help other people.
And I can move the bar further back every time.
And there will come a time, of course, when the free domain radio is more widely disseminated and people have been around longer, there will come a time where...
Somebody will post something, and everyone will go, well, this guy's not going to contribute in any positive way.
And they'll know it. I'm trying to show how you go about figuring out the counterfeits, how you go about figuring out the people who are worth talking about and the people who are not.
And I'm not saying anything about this guy.
I don't think it's particularly likely, because he's obviously done this kind of nonsense to a whole bunch of people before in his life.
And he's defending a man who probably taught him all this stuff, so it's not likely that this is going to be somebody who's going to be able to make the conversation come alive in a real way, but it's instructive for other people.
It's instructive for you. That's why I talk about this kind of stuff.
I would never do this if it was a one-on-one conversation, because I know where this stuff goes.
So, to continue...
So after insulting me in every single conceivable way that you can imagine, right?
After basically calling me tyrannical and corrupt and hypocritical and greedy for money and culty, you know, all of the standard stuff, right?
All of the standard shit that people will throw at me, thinking that it does anything other than coat their own hides in feces, right?
Then he says, well, you know, let me ask a more serious question.
So after I've insulted everything you're trying to achieve, dear Steph, let me ask a more serious question, right?
And there's a reason that people start off with the insults, right?
There's a reason that people start off with the insults, right?
To put you off your footing, to make you feel nervous, to make you feel afraid of them, right?
So that they can, you know, hopefully now, ride roughshod over you, right?
So that after having shaken their fist in your face, they hope they can get your lunch money without any further struggle, right?
So that's entirely, right?
So after the insult and after the shot across the bows, now comes the serious question that apparently he's really interested in, right?
So, conversations with his dad, right?
So, he enjoys chatting with his dad, and he's not converted, right?
Now, again, we use the word conversion, and I understand that, and I'm sort of massively critiquing the word conversion.
But, it's important here.
Conversion has a religious connotation, and it has a culty connotation, right?
And this, of course, is very, very important, right?
So, his father is not converted, right?
Well, you don't get converted to the truth.
Really. I mean, you either accept something is true or you don't.
If something is either true or it's not, you either accept that it's true or you don't.
There's no such thing as... You convert currency.
You convert a Christian to a Muslim.
But you don't convert someone to the truth.
They either accept that 2 plus 2 is 4 or they don't.
I'm not saying all my theories are 2 plus 2 is 4, but they either accept that 2 plus 2 is 4 or that you don't convert someone to 2 plus 2 is 4.
Right? So, naturally, of course, this is somebody who, again, when it comes to his dad, he uses culty language.
When it comes to himself, oh, challenging concepts and philosophy and so on, right?
But when it comes to his conversion with his dad, he starts using phrases like conversion and so on, and the culty kind of language, right?
Again, none of this is accidental.
When it comes to him processing those ideas, it's philosophy, it's challenging concepts, and so on.
When it comes to his father processing these ideas, his father is not converted, right?
And then, of course, the question is why?
Why is his father not converted?
And here we have a whole load of nonsense.
And again, I'm not saying the father should be converted.
I'm just sort of saying this is a story which is so wildly contradictory that you just know it's a massive defense where somebody's just making up.
The great thing about mythology is it doesn't have to hang together.
Not even as much as your average screenplay.
The great thing about mythology is you can just make up anything you want.
The world is 6,000 years old.
Well, we've carbon dated fossils to hundreds of billions of years old.
Well, that's just put there by God to test our faith, right?
I mean, I'm not saying this guy's that bad, but I mean, it's the same kind of continuum, right?
You can make up whatever you want to answer a question, right?
So this guy has a wonderful conversation with himself that has nothing to do with me, wherein you can just see this mythology struggle to just sort of, you know, barely even a struggle, because he's obviously very adept at this, to just make up answers to To the questions that he poses himself.
So he has great conversations with his father about philosophy, he says.
So obviously these take a long time.
So his father has time.
Because later on he says his father has no time.
And that all this stuff is the last thing on his mind, and it should be.
But of course he has the time to have long, long, long...
Conversations with his son about philosophy, right?
So clearly he has time, and clearly it's not the last thing on his mind, right?
So, again, when people are in the realm of mythology, they can just make up any kind of shit they want, and with no consistency, right?
No logic of any kind, right?
So he says he agrees that the state is both immoral and ineffective in achieving its aims, although he is probably, at the very least, a libertarian, and is yet to jump over the fence into the realm of anarchism.
Why? And of course this guy has a genuine question, which I totally sympathize with.
I've talked about this stuff for a long time with my dad.
He agrees with the principles, but he's not willing to make the leap to anarchism.
Why? Some of you, no doubt, are crying out that he's lost to the irrationality and logic of the state, but I think it's actually quite the opposite.
Now, when somebody makes up an audience response, let me give you a clue, right?
Let me give you a sort of basic clue that will help you understand this.
If somebody makes up a response for another person, right?
Person A says, oh, person B thinks this.
When they have no evidence of that, it's actually person A's thought.
I mean, this is just psych 101, right?
This is so basic that it's barely worth mentioning.
But, you know, just for those who are more new to the conversation, naughty, naughty, listening out of sequence, that's okay.
When Bob hasn't opened his mouth, and I say, well, Bob doubtlessly thinks this, it's me who's thinking it.
I'm putting it into Bob's mouth because I find it to be an unacceptable opinion in myself, but it's mine.
Nobody has cried out that he's lost to logic.
Nobody has cried. Nobody has said anything.
Nobody has even heard of this guy's dad before this post.
So clearly, he's projecting his own doubts about his father onto other people.
I mean, this is standard, standard stuff.
Right? We project, and when we have doubts about something that we can't accept, we project those doubts onto others and attack them.
Right? And this can be very complex, right?
Clearly, this guy, if he's listening to all these podcasts from Free Domain Radio, doesn't think that Free Domain Radio is a cult.
Right? Right?
And he talks about philosophy and challenging discussions, challenging concepts.
So clearly, this guy doesn't think, the guy who wrote the post, doesn't think that Freedom in Radio is a cult.
But somebody does, because I'm being called culty.
This is being called culty. Intolerant, right?
So, somebody thinks it's a cult, but just not this guy.
So who is it? Well, it's his dad.
It's all clear. It's all crystal clear to somebody with psychological knowledge.
And boy, oh boy, I don't know who thinks that they can pull the wool over my eyes at this kind of level.
I can certainly have wool pulled over my eyes, but not by this stuff, right?
I mean, I'm a pretty good boxer.
You can certainly knock me out, but not by walking up to me and saying, I'm about to hit you when you're five years old.
That's not going to knock me out. This stuff is pretty clear.
Right, so he agrees that the state is both immoral and ineffective.
Yet to jump over the fields into the realm of anarchism.
So he says, well no, it's not because my dad is irrational, it's because he's very rational.
He's not willing to heap praise upon a socioeconomic system the full details of which he knows very little about.
But, again, this is a long-time listener.
This is a guy who's been around for a while.
He certainly has listened to all the first podcasts.
And if he hasn't, then he's got no right to criticize what we talk about here.
So, clearly, he's got some idea that we talk about the argument from morality and not the argument from effect.
In fact, I specifically reject the argument from effect.
And he's certainly willing to overturn that and say, no, Steph, the argument from effect is the way you need to go, blah, blah, blah.
But he hasn't done that.
He's just jumping to the, quote, defense of his dad.
What that means... It's that he's talked about immorality with his dad in the abstract.
So he's talked about the immorality of the state, the ineffectiveness of the state, blah, blah, blah.
Which means that he hasn't talked about the argument for immorality with his father.
Now, is that my failure?
No, of course not. I've put enormous amounts of effort into delineating the argument for morality.
So this guy has clearly chosen not to deploy the argument for morality with his own father, which is the entire core of this conversation.
Why? Why?
Why does he say, my dad won't accept anarcho-capitalism because he doesn't know every single detail about how a society would work in the absence of a government?
When he knows, for a clear and simple fact, that that has never been a criteria.
For conversing with someone about the truth here.
I mean, it's useful, it's interesting, I've done it, but it's not the core of what we talk about.
So this guy has talked about the evil of the state, but he's not talked about the argument for morality.
Why? Why?
Why would you not use the argument that is the most powerful, the one that I bet worked on him?
Why would you not use the argument that is so core to what it is that we are talking about?
How is it that you know, my friend, exactly what not to talk about with your own father?
How is it or why is it that you feel comfortable talking about philosophy in the abstract with your father around anarcho-capitalism and evils of the state and blah blah blah?
But you don't feel comfortable talking with your father about the argument for morality which is personal.
Which is personal.
And this is also clearly revealed in these posts.
And everybody thinks that they're pulling some kind of, you know, hijinks, pen and teller, switcheroo.
Where's the pebble in the cups?
They're switching all these cups on the one hand.
And on the other hand, they've got a pebble out there in their outstretched palm.
And I'm staring straight at it. And then they say, where's the pebble?
Look, I got all this stuff dancing.
Here, it's right there.
The theory says, my theory, still a theory, of course, right?
This is just one example of a proof or a support for that theory.
My theory says that people support Ron Paul because they can't confront their own parents about ethics.
People support Ron Paul because they're afraid that their own parents are corrupt.
And they're not willing to confront and talk to their parents about basic ethics, to use the argument for morality with their parents and figure out where their parents really stand.
That's my theory. This guy, who's a Ron Paul supporter, exactly conforms to that theory.
Exactly conforms to that theory.
And I don't know what it is with you people.
You think that you're pulling some amazing stunt that I can't see?
I don't mean to be insulting, but it's literally like a five-year-old closing his eyes and saying, you can't see me.
I'm going to play hide-and-seek as a five-year-old runs to the middle of the living room, claps his hands over his eyes and says, you can't see me.
But this is how obvious it is to me.
There's a reason you've talked about the state, and there's a reason you've talked about all the multifarious complexities of how society will run in the absence of a centralized government, and have not talked about the argument for morality with your father.
And this is exactly what my theory predicts.
This is exactly what my theory predicts.
Doesn't mean that the theory is true.
I'm just saying that by attacking it, you're supporting it.
Right, so, ah, Steph says, he is a man who considers philosophy to be purely abstract and academic.
He doesn't apply principles to his own life.
He's irrational and corrupt.
Well, I don't know. I haven't talked to your dad.
I don't know. I only have the information that you're providing to me.
I do know, though, my friend, that you consider him to be so because you're not talking about the argument for morality with him.
Right? You're not talking about the argument for morality.
You're talking about the state and you're talking about how DROs handle international contracts or whatever nonsense is going on.
So... If you're not talking to your dad about the argument for morality, it's not because you think your dad is hyper-rational and virtuous, or even rational and virtuous.
If in countless hours of conversation with your dad, the one subject that you have never brought up by your own report, again, maybe there's some other thing I don't know about, but this is just what you've reported, you've not brought up the argument for morality.
Because the argument for morality...
It's so simple and so easy to understand.
What is good for one is good for all.
What is bad for one is bad for all.
It's three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, countless hours you've had to talk about your dad, and you've given him the consistent out to not accept this basic truth about the argument from morality, because you've all talked about the state and the argument from effect.
So countless hours you have not talked about the one basic thing.
Right? Why have you avoided that topic with your father?
Why have you avoided that one topic with your father?
It's not because your dad doesn't have time.
Is that time to talk with you about all these other things?
Right, he says, Does a reasonable, logical, rational man accept and promote a newer, different system offhand simply because he disagrees with the current system?
You cannot embrace that which you don't know.
Now, you say he's quite incapable of researching the ideas himself, or reading literature, or perhaps listening to a few of Steph's own podcasts to a swash of snouts.
To such a charge, right?
Again, nobody's attacking your dad.
Right? So, when people, when he says such a charge, like it's some sort of criminal case or whatever, I reply that my father is a man in his mid-60s, struggling to sell the business, right?
So now we've got the argument from pity, he's so busy, we've got health issues, blah, blah, blah.
But that completely contradicts what you said earlier.
What you said earlier is that your dad loves nothing more than to have philosophical discussions.
And now you say, well, he's got no time.
He's too sick. He's trying to sell his business.
It's the last thing on his mind, you say.
Our struggle here, but the corruption of the state, the immorality of welfare, the complex web of objective morality and universally preferred behavior, not to mention the other myriad of things we discuss, is the last thing on its mind, and rightly so.
But the argument for morality is not complex.
It's not complex. Right?
It's not complex. So if you've got time to spend hours talking to him about how an anarcho-capitalist society might work in practice, you certainly have had the time to go over the basics of the argument for morality with him.
Right? No question.
No, I mean, not even a shred of a doubt.
And you specifically avoided that topic, and now you're over-complicating the discussion that you feel is at the root of what we're doing.
Right? Clearly, right?
So you're saying, well, he could have, but he's too busy, right?
But of course, he's not too busy. He couldn't talk to you about it.
So now you have to say, well, it's too complex for him to understand.
But the argument for morality, which you specifically avoided both in this conversation and with your dad, is not complex.
It takes about 10 minutes. Right, so then he says, and then there's a sales job, right?
He is a man deeply loved, admired, and respected by everyone in his familial, personal, and business life.
Well, so what? That doesn't matter to anything to do with me.
It doesn't matter anything to do with me.
The fact that you say your dad is popular doesn't mean anything.
This is an analogous example.
I'm certainly not putting your dad even remotely on this planet in this category, but how many Germans loved Hitler, screamed and worshipped him, and thought he was the best thing since sliced bread?
How many people love Jesus? People be loving and respected?
How many people love and respect? Mahatma Gandhi.
Sleeping with naked women, giving enemas to people.
Horrible racist. It doesn't mean anything, right?
So then, he says, so tell me, Staff, is my father corrupt?
He certainly fits the description as you stated it in your series.
Well, this is not true at all.
Right?
I mean, if I said it repeatedly, it's the journey that's the key, not the destination.
It took me decades to get to full anarchism.
There's nothing wrong with your dad taking his time.
You know, I've also said that when I was an entrepreneur, I didn't have much to do with philosophy or art because I was too busy.
No problem with that. Again, it's nothing to do with me.
This person is wrestling with his own doubts about his father's integrity, his own doubts about his father's corruption.
I can't speak to it because I don't know his dad.
I only know his view of his dad, which is that he is studiously creating irrational reasons as to why his dad can avoid this conversation while embracing it with his son as his favorite thing to do.
Nothing pleases him more than to have philosophical discussions with his son, this man claims.
But at the same time, it's the last thing on his mind, and it should be, because he's too busy.
So, parental corruption...
I don't know. I will tell you this, though, sort of my definition of corruption, if it's helpful to you.
Well, even if it's not, I'll tell you, whether you're a listener or not.
Corruption is using morality to destroy morality.
Corruption is using mythological ethics to undermine and destroy real ethics.
Right?
So, if my dad tells me, Steph, you must obey me because I am your father.
And it's virtuous to obey your father.
Then he's using morality to destroy morality.
Virtue is obedience to ethics, not to one's dad, not to a mere flesh-and-blood human being who makes mistakes.
That's like saying science is obedience to To some guy.
Pick some guy, a random guy in the world.
Throw a dartboard at the human race.
Throw a dart at a list of the human race.
Whoever you find, obey that person and that science.
Your dad is just randomly born to your dad.
He may not be an expert on morality.
In fact, very few people are. Right?
So, using morality to undercut and...
To destroy morality is corruption, and it's not corruption until it's pointed out.
I would say that your dad is not corrupt.
I would say that your dad is not corrupt.
I would say it's pretty easy to test, though.
Talk to him about the argument for morality.
Or, which of course he studiously avoids, I say that the testability of whether or not your parents are corrupt is, can you get them to talk to me?
It's not the only test. It's just the only one that I can come up with that I have any kind of influence over.
It's not just reported then.
People say, oh, my dad's not corrupt.
Oh, okay. So, get him to listen to a podcast or two.
Instead of sitting down and talking about him with philosophy, play him the podcast called Proving Libertarian Morality and ask him what he thinks.
It's no net loss.
It's a 13 minute podcast.
13 minutes. You had time to write this lengthy post.
Your dad has the time for hour upon hour philosophical discussions.
13 minutes. Do you not think that I know why you haven't done that?
Because you're afraid that your dad is corrupt.
And then you project all of that on me and attack me.
Which is a shitty way to treat someone, frankly.
It's a shitty and unjust way to treat someone.
And it hurts you much more than it hurts me.
You have doubts about your dad.
Not me. You have doubts about your dad.
Which is why you studiously avoid the central issue that we talk about.
Right? But... You don't want to experience your doubts about your dad because you think that's bad.
Or rather, your dad thinks that's bad.
Right, so you're avoiding this topic of the virtue of your father because your dad wants to avoid the topic of the virtue of your father.
And you want to avoid it too, based on what you believe to be the case, which is that he's going to fail the test.
Right?
He's going to fail the test.
Right?
If somebody says to me, I'm going to bet you $1,000 that an Olympic swimmer can swim one length of a pool, can't swim, sorry, I'm going to bet you $1,000 that an Olympic swimmer, Mark Spitz in his prime, cannot swim Mark Spitz in his prime, cannot swim the length of one pool.
one pool length. Well, I'm going to take your money, right?
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, I'm not a big gambler, but let's say, I take your money.
If I say I'm going to bet you $1,000 that an Olympic swimmer can swim across the Atlantic at its widest point, or the Pacific, well, I'm not going to be so keen on that test.
Why? Because I know that the swimmer's not going to make it.
We avoid and withdraw from those tests which we believe people will fail when there's a lot at stake.
We don't bet that Mark Spitz can swim the Pacific at its widest point.
We don't. Right?
Because we know he can't. So we avoid that.
If you were fully confident that your father could accept and embrace the argument for morality, you would have brought it up with him first.
You would have brought it up with him first.
You wouldn't be shitting all over me and calling me culty and dictatorial and irrational and money hungry and...
You wouldn't be attacking me, my friend.
All that this post reveals to anybody but the eyes to see, even half an eye to see, is that it's not me that doubts your father's virtue, it's you.
I think you owe me an apology, but more importantly, I think that you owe your dad a more real conversation.
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