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Dec. 27, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
56:02
947 The Next Thing (Part 1)

The opening salvo of part 3 of our conversation.

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Time Text
Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
It's Steph, of course. It is Tuesday, I think, the 11th or 10th of December 2007, and it is time for, my friends, the next thing.
The next thing is going to be exciting for some.
It's going to be alienating for others.
And guaranteed, it's going to be provocative for all and will doubtless shave some more people out of the conversation.
Just in case you can hear that in the background, I am strolling through the beautiful woods near my house in a beautiful snowstorm without the wind.
It's just snowing heavily, so it's quite lovely.
Hopefully, it will not be too loud as the massive impact of snowflakes hits the microphone.
So... Before we talk about the next thing, I thought it might well be worthwhile talking about the old previous things.
What has been the general shape of the conversation so far, and why is the next thing the next thing?
Well, there have been two or, depending on how you define it, two or three major things in the conversation to date.
And we started off the conversation with the premise that the world was sick.
And I began that on an up note, I guess you could say, not a down note.
I did not talk about how sick the world was, but how healthy and beautiful the world could be.
Because it's impossible to define illness without a definition of health.
I mean, you're not ill if you die at 90, unless we can actually live to 200 years old, in which case you are ill if you die at 90.
So you have to have a standard of health before you can have a standard of illness.
So I started off the podcast series and the article series with the standard of health around the Stateless Society, DROs, and all that kind of good stuff.
Now, once we had established a standard of health, we then began to compare the world to that standard of health so that we could understand that the world was sick and we could give that sickness a name and call it coercion.
And then we began to look at the theories which undergirded and supported that coercion, both from the familial standpoint.
But we started off talking about the family in terms of how it pointed at religion and the state.
Because the state being an effect of the family, if you look at FDR 70 or whatever, I mean, it's really about how the lies told within the family support institutionalized coercion and bullying and so on.
We focus on the argument for morality, we dismiss the argument from effect, and all those kinds of good things.
So that we could really understand that A, the world was sick, and B, it didn't have to be.
Now, from there, we slowly began to move towards the secondary premise, right?
So we started off with an abstract definition of health, compared the world to that abstract definition of health.
And what we did was we raised the bar of possibility, which means that where we are is no longer nearly good enough, and that the destination is clear, and the gap between where we are and the destination is where proactive action can save the world, and so on, right?
So then we began to talk not about the world being sick, but, in fact, your world being sick.
So we talked about...
Voluntarism in a social sense, and compared it to the system of near limitless coercion that we all struggle to survive under now, And then, once we had established that voluntarism, no unchosen positive obligations,
was valid from a social standpoint in terms of a stateless society, then we began to turn that old laser-like searchlight onto your world, onto your family, your friends, your relationships, and then you began to see, if you plowed on and worked hard, you began to see that, yes, the world was sick, but not the world in the abstract.
About your world. Your world that you lived in, that you live in and you relate to.
That your world was sick.
And we had a standard which we raised about the health of your world.
Which is that people should, shockingly, should treat you with respect and dignity.
And That it might not also be an unreasonable standard to have to say that maybe, just maybe, they should not openly, at least, advocate violence against you.
Because, of course, if volunteerism works at a macro level, it has to work at a micro level.
It has to work at a micro level, because we can't say that voluntarism works at a societal level and leave it at that, because as we know, as we defined very early on, society doesn't exist.
It's just individuals interacting.
So if voluntarism is better at a social level, then it must, in so facto, be better, infinitely better, moral as opposed to immoral, virtuous as opposed to corrupt, at a personal level.
So then we said, not the world is sick, but your world is sick.
And then we had a cure.
Right? We put forward a cure, which was the series...
The foggy center at the cage, right?
That we get out of the cage of corruption, not by clanging at the bars, but by going to the center and talking to people honestly and openly, in the untruth way, about the center.
Sorry, about our true thoughts and feelings in terms of ethics and so on.
And all was quite exciting during that time.
So... Then, once we understood that it was our world that was sick, then we began to try to cure our world.
We talked to people in our life.
We spoke honestly and vulnerably about our experiences.
We... Work done and put into effect the concepts of the real-time relationship, and we attempted to achieve intimacy, connection, and health in our personal relationships.
And almost invariably, it was, meh, thanks for trying, and we did not succeed in that conversation.
Which, of course, is both a disappointment and a relief.
If you were the only person who hadn't made a success of that conversation, you probably wouldn't feel that good, right?
But given that it seems to be a universal phenomenon, we can take some comfort in the fact that nobody seems to have much luck in this conversation, and we can also take some comfort in the fact that these ideas of coercion and corruption have survived for so many years because this is a horrible row to hoe, so to speak. So...
What happened was we had to try and heal our world so that we could gain some sanity about healing.
And freedom, fundamentally, freedom is freedom from illusion.
Let me say that again.
This has been really the essence of the conversation to now, up to now, right?
That freedom is essentially freedom from illusion.
And so, when we go charging off, as we rightly should, I think all the people who've been responsibly involved in this conversation have gone and done, as we go charging off to heal the people around us, we recognize that they cannot be healed, which is what I've started to introduce as a concept in The Call-In Show and in the recent podcast called War Is Not Done With You.
That we cannot heal...
These people. It is utterly enslaving to feel that you must lift a rock in order to live, but be unable to lift that rock.
Then you are stuck attempting to do the impossible, and that is slavery.
Like attempting to solve the problem of poverty through the application of violence just exacerbates the poverty.
Attempting to do that which cannot be done is enslavement.
Like, if I make my parents happy, they will be nice to me, right?
Which only works if your parents aren't sadists, in which case you'd never have that thought to begin with.
So now we can, I think, reasonably take the step of understanding and accepting that, almost without exception, the people around us cannot be saved.
Which is why I call it a multi-generational project.
If we can just make parenting 10% better each generation, we'll be free of the state in a couple of generations.
But there's no shortcut. That which has lasted for tens of thousands of years cannot be undone in a decade.
So, now we have recognized that it is not the world That is sick, at least not primarily.
It is not our world or our families that are sick.
This is the next thing.
But rather that we were sick by attempting to charge in and change that which cannot be changed.
And, I mean, to be honest, you know, when you send people in to talk to their foo, I know it's not going to work.
I know it's not going to work, but there's no point saying it, right?
There's no point saying it because this is the kind of knowledge that doesn't...
It doesn't resonate. It doesn't affect you.
It doesn't change you. It doesn't free you unless you experience it directly.
So you've got to send people in to talk to their foo knowing that it's never going to work, but also knowing that you can't say to people the way out of the cage is the foggy center and then say, no, no, just listen to Steph, right?
That wouldn't be the case.
But I knew, and I think everybody outside the person who's talking to the foo knew that it wasn't going to work.
So then we recognize that Not the world, not our families, primarily with regards to ourselves, but ourselves that are sick.
And what, at least I've worked to do, is to attempt to liberate you, or give you the tools, of course, and what can I do, right?
Give you the tools to liberate yourself with regards to yourself.
Which is to continually chip at the illusions that bind us down.
So there's an illusion called I must be close to my parents or I will be miserable when they die later on.
Which is an illusion.
and it is far more enslaving an illusion in terms of what we can control, then the state is required because we need roads.
So, when we understand the illusions and discard the illusions that enslave us, and as I talked about in War is Not Done With You, when we understand the illusions and discard the illusions that enslave us, and as I talked about in War is Not Done With You, this has to do with following the benefit and And if it's not us, then they're not ours.
They are implanted in us as a methodology of controlling at a distance, a remote control.
Which is also going to be the subject of what comes next.
And I think that I'm generally sort of trying to follow the pattern of my own therapy, which is not to say that you and I are alike in that way, but it's the only template that I have that worked spectacularly, if I might say so myself.
And it was a little under two years that I was ready for the next thing, which was to stop focusing on myself And it's not focusing on the next thing.
And so, now that we're approaching the two-year anniversary of FDR, it seems like a reasonable time frame to do it.
Now that we know that it is ourselves who are sick, and we have done an enormous amount to free ourselves of our own illusions, which is to...
Stretch your wings, exacerbate our freedom and roam with liberty in our own minds and hearts.
Now we can look at the next thing.
And let me tell you a little bit about the background of the next thing before providing you in the next podcast with a more detailed example.
The question of slavery is both very complex and very simple.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The complexity is all of the psychological steps it takes to create slaves and maintain control and ownership over them.
But the goal of creating and maintaining a slave population is always and forever the same, and it's actually quite simple.
If we look at simply the statistics, the numbers, slavery seems impossible.
Let's take a plantation. You've got ten white people, let's say, in the 19th century or 18th century.
You've got ten white people, and you've got like 200 mostly able-bodied, healthy, strong slaves.
And let's take the state out of the example just for the moment, right?
I mean, yes, if the slave runs away, you call the state and this and that, but let's look at just that.
Let's just take this in isolation for the moment.
We'll integrate it later. So how is it that 5% can dominate 95%?
How? White's got to sleep, right?
How is it that 5% can dominate 95%?
Or if you look back at the aristocracy and the priesthood in the Middle Ages, it's 2% of the population.
Dominated. Almost completely.
98% of the population.
How is that possible? No nuclear weapons back then.
No B-52s. No Uzis.
Won't even tasers. Could kill a guy in his sleep nice and easy.
So how is it when the power of violence is not disproportional in the way that it is now, how is it the 2% or 3% Can completely rule 98-97% of people.
Well, I'm going to put forward a suggestion which I think will be helpful and which I think we can find evidence for to a considerable degree in our own lives and which is the next thing.
So the proposition, I'm not going to tease you, the proposition is this.
Slavery is neither established nor maintained by the slave owners attacking the slaves.
Slavery is neither established nor maintained by an attack by the slave owners upon the slaves, because they're outnumbered.
It's impossible. Slavery does not result from an attack by the masters on the slaves.
Slavery Survives.
Not because the masters attack the slaves, but because the slaves attack each other.
It is the attack by the slave class upon its own that enables slavery from an economic, practical, numerical standpoint.
side.
If no slave ever attacked or inhibited another slave, slavery as an institution would be economically and practically impossible.
The slaves outnumber the rulers enormously, as we know.
But the slaves do not outnumber each other.
Each individual slave, out of the 200 on the plantation, is dominated by not the rulers, but by the other slaves, numerically.
One slave is 200 times more other slaves, but only 10 times more rulers than himself.
Thus it cannot be the rulers who keep the slaves as a whole down, but it must be the other slaves.
It must be. Because here's the interesting thing.
Just look at your life and your participation in these conversations.
It's just passion, not man.
your participation in these conversations.
How many times does a government agent pull out his weapon at you or threaten you compared to how many times do you get shit on by other slaves.
Just asking you to search through your mind the conversations that you've had, the MSN chats you've had, the forum postings that you've had, the email exchanges that you've had.
Thank you.
The coffee shop discourses that you've had with people?
How many times has a government agent said, you better shut your mouth, boy?
And how many times have you had scorn and ridicule and indifference and abuse and ad hominems poured down on you by your fellow slaves?
I'm just trying to work with the facts.
As I have experienced them, as countless people have reported them to me, Who is it who's keeping you down?
It's not Sheriff Buford T. Justice.
Who is it who is attacking and rejecting you?
Who is it who undermines your certainty and pulls you back down or tries continually, perpetually, inevitably, eternally?
It's not your master's.
It's not your master's.
It's your fellow slaves.
We do not primarily submit to the violence of our masters.
We submit to the attacks of our slaves, our fellow slaves.
The horizontal policing of the slave community makes slavery viable. .
Slaves are slaves because they defend the masters and attack their fellow slaves.
It's not the state that we have to fight and beat.
It's not the state that we have to fight and beat.
It is our fellow slaves who serve the state.
To go back to the plantation, the slaves as a whole, statistically, will the slaves as a whole, statistically, will not attack their slave masters.
they will only ever attack the slave who says, Hey, we're slaves.
Ah!
Ah!
This is, I guarantee you, in conformity with your own experience in talking about freedom and truth.
Thank you.
Thank you.
A state doesn't have to lift a finger.
There doesn't have to be a lion in the amphitheater.
we Christians rend each other!
Who has cost you more pain?
The IRS or your friends and family?
Who fills you more with despair?
the army, or your social community.
Since you need the participation and understanding of other people in order to free yourself, when they withhold that participation and understanding and attack you besides, they are serving the state. when they withhold that participation and understanding and attack you The reason that people get or feel despair about overthrowing the state is not a result of the power of the state.
It is a result of the attacks, the endless vituperative attacks of their fellow slaves.
The IRS merely picks our pockets as we kill each other.
here.
Thank you.
We are not ruled by the state.
We are enslaved by our fellow slaves.
The state only profits from, quote, ruling us because we rule each other. ruling us because we rule each other.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The moral understanding of the evils of slavery on the plantation is the ultimate enemy of the slave owner because of the argument for morality.
The moral understanding of the evils of slavery is the ultimate evil, the ultimate disruption for the slave owner.
So if he can train his slaves to attack anyone who calls slavery immoral, his rule lasts for eternity.
I say that again.
If the slave owner can train his slaves to attack like pit dogs, any slave who dares call slavery immoral, he can sail on an endless and benevolent wind of perfect and eternal exploitation. he can sail on an endless and benevolent wind of
The state is the slaves.
We are the state.
We, slaves, are the state.
When somebody attacks you for pointing out the moral evils of the state, that person is the state.
Because without those attacks, the state would be gone tomorrow.
And I really do want to hear from you.
If you have had more attacks from the FBI than your fellow slaves, please tell me.
I'd love to hear about it.
Now people always say to me...
Steph, I can't believe you put so much personal information and hostility towards the state out there on the web.
Isn't that dangerous?
Hell no! Not from the state!
The only reason it's dangerous or unpleasant has nothing to do with the state.
Nobody from the state has contacted me once and never will.
The ugliness, the viciousness, the brutality, the hostility, the rage, comes not from the state, but my fellow slaves.
But from my fellow slaves.
So...
So, let me help you sort of understand this, if...
Since this is going to be the next thing, hopefully you understand it behind it.
Let's look at, since we'll be talking about this in the next podcast, let's just look overall at the pattern of responses to my Ron Paul videos.
Has anyone from the government attacked me?
No. No threats, no letters, nothing.
Nothing. They don't need to.
They don't need to. Right?
You don't need to cut off your arm if your immune system is taking care of the infection anyway.
The state doesn't need to step in Because they can see that I'm just being viciously attacked by the other slaves.
I don't need to do a damn thing.
The only time the state would ever step in is if I was no longer being viciously attacked by the other slaves.
And you, and all of us.
So, this is the view, right?
From somebody who comes by...
Who's a Republican or a Democrat or just somebody who's not particularly interested in politics?
And they come by sort of my Ron Paul video and they say, ooh, wow, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, that's a long time.
I'm going to pause this, I'm going to scroll down and see what kind of debate this has engendered.
And then they scroll down in YouTube and other places.
Thank you.
And they see, badly spelled, often, ad hominem, Dumbass, hick, retarded, moron attacks.
Right? What are they going to say to themselves about StephBot's videos?
They're going to say, well, if this is his audience, I don't think I want to get involved in this.
Thank you very much.
And so he moves on, right?
So who has effectively shielded someone from finding out about truth and freedom, philosophy?
Has it been the state?
Has the state censored me?
No, of course not.
The state doesn't even know my videos exist.
They don't need to. Because my fellow slaves are doing a fabulous job of attacking, undermining, and discrediting me.
And my fellow slaves, who claim to be wildly interested in freedom.
Dying for freedom they are.
are dying for freedom they are.
And they say, well, we need a better slave master.
They, you see, that's the way to go.
We need a better slave master.
And then when somebody says, no, no, no, no.
Slavery is immoral.
Attack! Charge!
Attack! This is the problem.
You could not create a more effective state-supporting agency than your average libertarian slash Ron Paul supporter.
You could not think for a thousand years, yea, until your brain melteth and runneth out your ears.
And come up with a more effective way to squelch the progress of philosophy than to create an angry mob of almost their doofuses to attack philosophy.
It discredits it in the eyes of everyone.
And the state doesn't have to lift a finger.
The people who do the most to discredit the statement that slavery is evil is those who wish to control the slave owner and attack anyone who says that slavery is evil.
And they don't respond with arguments.
They don't respond with debates. Disagreement is not the problem.
People can say, Steph, well, I appreciate your Statement, there's this that's correct, but there's this and this that is incorrect, and so on.
A recent debate would draw somebody in to examining the conversation.
I say, well, you know, these people are behaving in a civilized and productive and positive manner.
So, I'm going to get involved.
This is really interesting. Obviously, mature, intelligent, sophisticated people are interested in this debate.
I sure want to feel that way too, so in I go.
But when somebody posts a vicious ad hominem or personal attack or contemptuous or indifferent or bored or yawning attack, they are doing far more than the FBI to keep freedom out of the ears of the masses.
The emotional volatility around political libertarianism is the worst thing to happen to freedom, in my opinion.
Because I don't get attacked by statists.
I don't. I don't get attacked by statists.
I don't get attacked by fascists or communists.
I don't get attacked by statists.
I get attacked by political libertarians.
Polibertarians. Political libertarians.
So who is the real Praetorian Guard of the state?
Who is the Praetorian Guard of the state?
It's the Emperor's Guard in the Roman Empire.
Who has the real ring around getting philosophy or voluntarism or anarcho-capitalism into the sphere of public debate?
Just working empirically, please tell me.
If your experience contradicts mine, I'm more than happy to correct this upon further examination.
I'm just trying to work with the facts, trying to work with the evidence, as I always am.
Who is it who is keeping the debate about voluntarism and virtue out of the public arena?
It's all the ass-clown jerks who put immature, stupid, vitriolic attacks on debates about this kind of philosophy.
who respond with jerky self-righteous aggression to reasoned and impassioned arguments.
That has to come from a guilty conscience.
questions.
That has to come from a guilty conscience.
So if you imagine that I'm Spartacus, I'm Spartacus!
If I'm Spartacus, the guy who led a slave rebellion in ancient Rome, I think.
Greece? Rome? Anyway, some damn ancient place.
If I'm Spartacus and I talk about the evils of slavery, to somebody who has never encountered the question of slavery before, it is most likely that that person will be curious.
Right?
If I say to your average, uneducated, unread, unlettered slave, you should not be a slave, you are ruled by force, the average person will not react in an explosively volatile and aggressive manner.
They'll be like, huh?
What? What are you talking about?
They won't get angry, right?
They won't get angry because they just don't know.
But the slave who knows that slavery is evil, but has sold his soul in service of the slave master, why that person but has sold his soul in service of the slave master, why that person will respond slavery is evil, with wild, guilt-ridden, aggressive rage.
I mean, come on.
Ron Paul supporters, you know that you've sold out.
You know that you've sold out and you have the least excuse of anyone to pursue political power.
You know the non-aggression principle.
You know the evils of government.
You know the history. These are not unlearned people.
You know the history of the United States.
You know the growth of government.
You know the failure of political movements for centuries to free us.
So, it's a guilty conscience that causes these attacks. .
People are not fundamentally hostile to those who point out virtue unless they know that virtue and have compromised themselves.
No one but a counterfeiter gets angry at somebody who can detect counterfeit currency.
If I introduce into a counterfeit-ridden system a machine that can effortlessly and perfectly identify counterfeit money, none but the counterfeiters are going to be mad.
None but the corrupt.
None but the exploitive.
None but those who have debased the currency because they recognize the value of the currency are going to get mad.
Because your parents have done wrong, they fight tooth and nail, yea unto the grave, against definitions of virtue that yea unto the grave, against definitions of virtue that do not sanction their actions.
Thank you.
Thank you.
In the future, when virtuous parents read on truth, they'll say, yeah, seems about right, or I disagree with this or that, but of course, right?
Because they will have understood and learned from our work on ethics and integrity.
But it's the bad parents who get upset about a book like On Truth.
It's those people who have used their knowledge of virtue to sanction their own corruption who find such a book wildly offensive, or worthy only of heavy contempt.
So when we look at political libertarianism, and we'll get to a more personal aspect of this from the chat window next podcast, but when we look at political libertarianism, we can see that it reserves its most vitriolic attacks to those who stand on a moral principle that these supposed libertarians accept.
Because if you accept a moral principle and then act in opposition to it or claim to accept a moral principle and then act in opposition to it your most virulent hostility is going to be reserved for the person who stands on principle who does what you have not
who makes it possible to stand on principle because if it's possible to stand on principle if the best that you can do is not chase after some octogenarian Christian cultist to set you free
if the best that you can do is much, much greater than that, then suddenly that becomes an unsustainable compromise.
Right? That becomes an unsustainable and corrupt compromise.
And so you attack the person who has redefined your virtue as vice.
You attack the person as if they're calling you stone evil for no reason.
Not that I'm calling these people stone evil, but this is the response.
The greatest asset the slave owners have is the educated slaves who say, yes, slavery is wrong, but we have to work within the system.
Thank you.
Yes, slavery is wrong, but be patient.
Do not reject it in its foundations.
It can be reformed.
It can be made better. Wait.
Stall. Be patient.
Sit and die in hope that will never arrive.
Soon. Later.
Eventually. In the fullness of time.
Don't condemn the system.
Although, yes, the system is evil.
Don't condemn the system. Work within the system.
The system can be reformed.
The system can be made good.
You can become a master.
And is that not the root seduction at the base of Ron Paul supporters, political libertarians?
I will not condemn the system because I wish to be a master.
I wish to rule!
The problem with slavery, say the political libertarians, is that I am a slave!
So, The solution to my enslavement is to become a master.
The problem with the gun is that I am at the wrong end.
The problem with the plantation is that I ain't living in the White House.
And so be patient, my fellow slaves.
Trust in me.
I will free you.
I will become a slave owner.
and I will work to set you free.
Honestly.
And so, do not condemn roundly, but this gun, this golden gun, which is pointed at us, which is pointed at us, can indeed in time, be ours.
And we can point it at others.
And that is what we will call freedom.
Do not condemn.
Do not attack. Do not reject the system as a whole.
Because we can make the system work for us.
The solution to being in prison is to become a guard.
If we get the gun, we can point it at the immigrants.
We can point it at those who refuse to pay For the evil predation of old age pensions.
We can point it at those who refuse to pay for the military or the police or the roads or public education.
But we will beat fewer of them, and that is what we will call liberty.
Thank you.
And then to anyone who comes up and says, by your own premises what you counsel is evil.
Attack! Attack!
Attack! Attack!
attack.
There is no greater service that an intellectual can do to the power of the state than to define it as immoral but necessary.
Somebody who says that the state is moral can be opposed very effectively. .
The state is virtuous Violence is not virtuous.
The state is violence, therefore the state is not virtuous.
Easy peasy. Doesn't mean you win the argument, but you can land some pretty solid blows.
But those blood-greedy weasels who say, yes, the state is wrong, but we must work within it to make it right, to make it better.
And over time, down the road, eventually, somewhere, somehow, by gaining control of the state, we will get rid of the state.
Lord knows, the state has corrupted everybody who runs it throughout history, throughout eternity, but we have the magic bullet, the magic guy, who will grab the power of the state for four years and turn the whole fucking thing around.
The state that has grown and swelled and feasted on the blood of human strength for tens of thousands of years.
Our guy in four years can turn it around.
That is the secondary line of defense of the state.
And this is why political libertarianism is becoming so popular, because it has become necessary for the state.
I don't know.
Because the state can no longer credibly talk about its successes.
Right? This is very important to understand.
The state can no longer credibly talk about its successes.
It's fundamentally unbelievable to imagine that the state can succeed at anything.
All the state is is a sequence of inevitable disasters.
Can't talk about success in any sphere.
War on poverty, war on drugs, war on...
Ignorance. The state can't pretend that it has any kind of practical virtuous consequences anymore.
So the secondary line of defense, when it has been exposed as evil for the state, when it has been exposed as evil, is to say, yes, but we're a necessary evil.
So, the first line of defense for slavery is to say, well, we're moral, we must own these slaves, otherwise chaos and anarchy and disastrous catastrophes would result.
And when slavery, as an institution, produces the endless catastrophes that it is supposed to prevent, it says, well, yes, it changes its story, fluidly, without reference to the prior story.
It says, yes, it is an unfortunate and necessary evil that there must be a state.
And nobody says that we need the state because it solves the problem of poverty.
Nobody says that anymore. They said that in the 50s, 60s, 70s, even into the early 80s.
Now, everybody knows the state is the problem, not the solution.
Everybody knows that. Nobody credibly says we need the state because the state gives the poor such a great education.
People say now we must have the state because otherwise the poor would get an even worse education.
Nobody can credibly sustain the fiction that the state is virtuous anymore.
So this is the moment when we say, oh, okay, so the state is evil, let's get rid of it.
Ah, but along come the political libertarians, riding over the hills and dales, saying, yes, it's evil, but it's a necessary evil.
We must control it.
We must take power over it.
We must wear the ring.
It's the greatest service to the state that you could conceivably offer at the moment.
Because you can't rewrite history.
You can't make the welfare rolls go away.
You can't make the war in Iraq not happen, like, unhappen.
You can't make all the accumulated evils of the state as if they were not there.
But all you can do is say, yes, it's evil, but we must control it.
You concede the moral argument and seize the practical argument.
You get rid of the argument for morality, which is the original justification for the state, and you seize and trumpet the argument from effect.
Thus, sustaining the state, you neatly provide an alternative.
To getting rid of the state, which is to control the state.
Thus, you support the continuance of the state.
And, fundamentally, it is these slaves Who are keeping the state alive from a moral standpoint by saying, yes, it's evil, but it's a necessary evil.
They are the second line of defense for a state that has so disastrously failed in everything it has attempted to do, just as libertarianism itself, politically speaking that has as well.
So, the next thing which we're going to talk about, gone through, that the world is sick.
Your world is sick.
Your acquaintances, friends, family are sick.
You were sick by trying to change them and not accepting the inertia of the human personality.
And through that, you have become free.
Through that, You have become free.
Perfectly? No. Doesn't matter.
You don't have to be perfectly healthy to be better than when you had cancer.
But you have become free.
So now that you, my friend, have become free, now it becomes about freeing others.
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