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March 4, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
30:40
1002 Freedom from Politics

...in which I attempt to give you back at least 10% of your life...

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Hi, everybody. It's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
I hope that you're doing well. If you are a political addict, or if you really follow or are interested in politics at all, please consider this your intervention.
Listen through, if you don't mind.
Give me a few minutes of your time, and I may be able to give you back years of frustration and unhappiness in return, all of For free, or if you'd like to donate, I'm very, very happy to take donations, because philosophers also like to eat.
So I got into a chat last night with a fine fellow who was frustrated and upset and concerned and worried and so on about the fact that Hillary won, I don't know,
Utah over Barack, and he used to support Ron Paul, but he's recognized that Ship isn't going to sail, and so now he's gnawing his fingers to the bone about whether this chick or this dude gets into politics and becomes the president, and he's talking about it with people, and he's trying to spread the word about how Barack Obama is better with civil liberties and Hillary care is going to be socialized medicine.
And he's now sick with worry about that, and I've received some No small number of emails recently about this kind of phenomenon of people worrying themselves sick and silly about who ends up in charge of the government.
And I'd like to offer you a few ways of looking at it or a few thought experiments that hopefully, hopefully, will help crack the lock on the door of your cell and give you the chance to escape this fetid underworld of politics and do something productive and joyful with your time instead and something that's actually going to work in terms of bringing liberty to the world not fussing about the figurehead of the mafia first of all Politicians,
as a breed, as a species, as a vicious phenomenon, are master manipulators of language and therefore of people.
Now, how is it, just so you understand what it is that you're in hot pursuit of and the kinds of people that you're hoping are going to set you free because they care so much about your freedom, they are The kinds of people who will sniff out something that you want from them,
something that you need, something that you yearn for, that you hunger for, that you burn for, and then they will dangle that in front of you.
Come on! Jump for the freedoms!
Jump for the liberties! Come on, boy!
And then, BAM! They will just smack you down.
If you're younger, you haven't seen, shockingly younger than me, I think that atheists and the curmudgeon are the only people older on YouTube, but if you're younger than me, then you haven't been through this before.
Now, I wasn't around for the Goldwater thing, where Ayn Rand poured on board, and he was going to, with this conscience of a conservative book, he was going to bring freedom to America.
He was going to end the welfare state.
By God, you know, he went out to the Midwest, and he told the farmers, no more farm subsidies, and everyone was like, yes, this man is going to set us free.
And then, against the liberal John F. Kennedy, you had Nixon, who was a conservative's conservative, a free market guy, but sadly, he, of course, Goldwater got completely tranced.
Nixon was the free market guy who put in wage and price controls.
It wasn't that great for the economy.
He produced a stagflation, which lasted for most of the 70s under Carter.
Well, stagflation was produced by money supply issues.
Ah, and then our friend Ronnie R., the Gipper, Mr.
Reagan, he said that government is the problem, not the solution, and he's going to bring freedom, and he's into the Constitution, and he's a minimalist government guy, and he cut taxes while at the same time massively increasing spending.
The federal budget grew by two-thirds under Reagan.
And the big lesson that this supposed free market that all the people who wanted their freedom put their hopes into The only thing that Washington got out of Reagan was that deficits do not matter.
He cracked the last wall of fiscal responsibility.
That was the effect of that free market guy.
George Bush the senior.
Government's gonna get smaller.
You're gonna be free. Government gets bigger.
George Bush. I'm not into nation building.
I'm a small government guy.
Don't lack foreign entanglements.
Government has grown faster.
I mean, if you don't get this pattern, then you are willfully avoiding it.
And I understand that. I really do.
Because you feel that this is the only path to freedom.
But empirically, I mean, come on, please, really.
Seriously, people.
Libertarians and free marketers have been trying to use the state to gain freedom for the past 300 to 400 years.
And over that time, the government has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
Because we focus on who can we get elected, who says the things we want to hear, and then we completely ignore it when they do absolutely nothing along the lines of what was promised.
Okay.
Amazing. Voting is not contractual!
Voting is BEGGING! Voting is...
please... God, give me some freedom!
Give me a scrap off your table!
My masters.
And begging?
And... begging?
only makes you more of a slave see the kinds of people who go into politics what they do is they sniff They come up to you and they go, what do you want?
What do you really want?
You want some political freedom.
Oh yeah, I can smell that. It smells like burnt tangerine.
And you want a little bit of, oh yeah, economic freedom.
That's like pine.
Oh yeah, you want me to get rid of abortion and you want me to reaffirm.
Oh, you like it when I talk about the Constitution, don't you?
Oh yeah, go on. Oh, I can talk about the Constitution with you, baby.
Real slow. Slow and subtle.
And that's what they do. They come up and they sniff you.
Not like dogs. It's worse than that.
Like hyenas. Like jackals.
And they come up and they sniff you and they say, what do you need?
What do you need? Come on. Give me your needs.
Give me your needs. Give me what you really want.
Smaller government? Come on. You want to get rid of the welfare state?
What do you want? Free health care?
What do you want? What can I give you?
This is the temptation of the devil, for Christ's sake.
The devil will offer you something for nothing.
Even Ron Paul will offer you something for nothing.
Vote for me and I'll bring you your freedom.
And I'll give you your freedom.
Why accept the premise that your freedom is anybody else's to give to begin with?
It's nobody's to give!
So when you express your need to these politicians, you say, Oh, I like it when you do this.
You really seem to be interested in...
Oh, you want better public schools.
Okay, excellent.
Well, what they do is they go back and they shape the language that they're going to reel you in with.
It's a business. If I talk about this, I get people's interest.
If I don't talk about this, I don't get people's interest.
If I talk about the Constitution, if I talk about God, if I talk about my hostility to evolution, if I talk about whatever, free healthcare, better public schools, hope, joy, glory, wrap myself in the flag, whatever it takes, whatever words work, I will use.
They're just out there trying all these keys in the lock, right?
Which keys can open this particular lock?
That doesn't mean they're all the same.
They all have different constituents that they're playing to.
Oh, do I have to wear a sombrero when I go to the Spanish section?
Hey, I'll do that.
Do I have to use insulting, down-homey speech when I go to talk to the blacks?
Hey, I'll do that too! It's got nothing to do with principles.
It's got nothing to do with virtue.
It's got nothing to do with truth.
It's got nothing to do with values.
What they're doing is they're sniffing you like a jackal to find what you want!
And then they will promise it to you, and then they will never give it to you!
Never, never give it to you!
If you are being tortured If you are in a dungeon and some dude in a hooded mask is doing unspeakable things to you, which are not in a good way, the most important thing that you should do in that situation, if you can, is to not cry out when it hurts.
If he does something, sticks a needle somewhere, and it really hurts a lot more than everything else, what should you explicitly not do is tell him that's where it really hurts.
Why? Because then he's going to work that spot over and over again.
If when he tickles your heel...
With a feather, it doesn't hurt.
That's where you want to say, oh my god, that hurts so much, because then he'll do that and won't be torturing you.
Politicians, as cancer, as a breed, as a scourge, as a plague, sniff for weakness, offer you what you want, and then dangle that in front of you to get power, and then Don't care about you again.
Got what you want. They're like sleazy gigolo dudes, you know?
Hey, baby, sure, I'll tell you whatever you want.
Yeah, we'll get married. Right?
Just to get the girl into bed, and then they never call again.
We all know this kind of personality.
Now, just so you understand, just so you understand, and I'm sorry to be ranting so much, but this is so important for your freedom.
Both personal and practical, and your children's freedom, which we can achieve if we work hard at it now.
And freedom is fundamentally freedom from illusions, the fundamental illusion that your freedom is there for somebody else to give.
All they can do is take it.
All they can do is take it.
If you've ever in your life tried to really change someone, tried to really work, or really tried to change yourself, tried to quit smoking, tried to lose weight, tried to stop drinking, tried to...
Drop whatever it is that is addictive and negative for you.
Or you've tried, God help you, to get somebody else to do that.
If you've ever taken that path with anybody, you know, you know how unbelievably hard it is to get anybody to change.
That's one person, one-on-one.
Maybe you tried to get your mom to stop drinking.
Maybe you tried to get your dad to stop gambling.
Maybe you tried to get your brother to Out of some Christian cult.
Who knows? Somebody in your life, you have tried perhaps to reform.
Maybe it's yourself. You know how hard that is, even if it's you and you have complete control over your behavior.
You know how hard it is to change yourself.
And it's almost infinitely harder to change somebody else, even when they're close to you, even when they love you, even when they say that the sun shines out of your ass.
It's so hard to change people.
So, what kind of human being is gonna stand in front of you with a straight face and say, I'm going to change not me, not you, not my mom, not my...
I'm gonna try and change the country The whole country.
300 million people.
Hundreds of millions of people.
I am going to change them for the better.
I'm going to give this country hope.
I'm going to set this country back on its feet again.
I'm building a bridge to the future.
I'm not bowed.
I bring growth and change and progress.
I stand for a stronger America!
Well, I'll tell you what kind of people, if you like, will tell you that they can change hundreds of millions of people because of the magical power of their rhetoric and words and personality.
the kind of people who say that are sick and insane.
They are sick and insane.
And the only empathy that they possess is knowing what your needs are so they can dangle the bait that hooks you into the hierarchy.
Worrying about who's going to be the next president is like standing in a row.
You're standing in a row. And you hear a ee-rrr coming from behind you and you look around and there's some car barreling down the road straight at you.
Worrying who's going to become president is like staring at that hood ornament on the car that is bearing down on you and saying, God, I wish that was a different hood ornament.
It's mad. And it suckers into their game.
What you do when a car is bearing down at you is not worry about the hood ornament, but get out of the way!
When you're around a narcissistic, manipulative sociopath like a politician, all of them, who seeks that kind of power over other human beings?
What is the nature of the personality that desires violent control over millions of people?
Not a well person.
Not a person who is idealistic.
Not a person who is interested in you.
Not a person who is interested in getting things better.
Not a person who is interested in truth or virtue.
But a person who is interested in power over you.
Violent controlling power over you.
And we throw ourselves in front of these Evil sociopaths.
And we say, please give me my freedom.
And all they do is they look down at us and say, hey, cool.
Excellent. So it's freedom that you really want.
Okay, I'm going to enslave you through your desire for freedom.
Because I'm going to talk about freedom and I'm going to keep you involved in this sick mafia, disgusting organization.
And I'm going to keep you focused on what it is that I'm doing.
And I'm going to keep dangling this in front of you so that you keep doing it.
Keep coming back to beg for your freedom.
What you do when you're in the face or when you're faced with a manipulative sociopath is one thing and one thing only.
You show no needs.
at all not one you show no needs because that's how they enslave you That's how they rob you of your life.
That's how they rob you of your independence and your freedom.
That's how they get in your head.
You show no needs to a sociopath.
You show no needs to somebody who wants to dangle bait to get you hooked into the hierarchy of power.
You do not participate voluntarily in violence at all.
Not to try and control it because it cannot be controlled.
Not to try and manage it because it cannot be managed.
Not to hope it can give you something because all it will do is take from you.
You do not voluntarily associate with evil.
And you do not sit there and try and figure out how evil that is in control of the biggest military the world has ever seen can be controlled by your thoughts.
Yes.
We may as well attempt to alter the orbit of the moon by concentrating.
The system is unfolding because it is violent.
That is the logic of the system.
They have the power to kill and they have the power to print money.
And there is nothing that is going to change the course of that kind of corruption other than self-destruction.
There is nothing you or I or anyone can do to alter the logic of violence.
There's nothing you or I or anyone can do to alter the inescapable logic, the inescapable crash, the inescapable escalation and demise of a coercive and violent system.
Nothing. And it doesn't matter who sits in the White House.
The logic of the system drives like a car with no brakes going down a hill.
Whoever is the hood ornament doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Whether it's Hillary or Obama, it doesn't matter.
And your belief that it matters is what keeps the system going.
Because when a politician comes to you and says, what can I give you?
What can I offer you? What do you want? What do you smell like?
What needs can I exploit in you?
What can I get you with?
What can I hook you in with?
You say, there's nothing that I want from you.
You have nothing to offer me.
All you will ever do is take and control and bully and lie and manipulate.
There's nothing that I want from you.
That's How we become free.
That's how we break out of the system.
Even to Ron Paul, and I know this fantasy is so strong for people, I know, I know, and I sympathize, I really do, I really do.
Ron Paul comes and says, I will give you your freedom.
You say, Ron, Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie, there's nothing that you can give me.
There's nothing that you can give me.
There's nothing that this whole system can give me.
It is only designed to take, to control, to bully, to shoot, to kill, and to eviscerate the economy through inflation and mercantilism.
If you're a slave, begging for freedom will be what the slave uses To keep you enslaved.
That's a given. That's a natural.
That's inevitable. The only way to be a non-slave, my argument is, the only way to be a non-slave is two things.
Two things that I would humbly suggest would be a whole lot more fun and productive than watching Wolf Blitzer talk about the latest entrees of the Mafia on CNN. Two things.
Number one... Don't engage.
Don't engage. The system cannot be controlled.
The system is not responsive to you.
The system is not designed for you.
You do not control the government.
It is not government by and for the people.
And if you attempt to control or influence it, you are simply broadcasting that the system is responsive to the needs of the people, and it's not!
and it never will be, and it never was.
So you accept that simple and basic fact that the exercise of power is never going to be for your benefit, and you are never going to be able to influence it in any way that is going to be positive.
I'm not just making this up.
This is empirical. Just look throughout history.
All of the mountains of efforts, I swear to God, 90% or 95% of efforts by libertarians have been to try to control government, and look what's happened.
To you try for political ends, to try to get people elected, to move to New Hampshire, to support Ron Paul, to do this, to do that.
And even when it succeeds, it doesn't work.
Think of all the effort that was put into trying to get Ron Paul into Congress in the first place.
And what happened?
I'm not making this up.
I'm just trying to work from the facts and give you some freedom from these fantasies that you can control this massive, violent, multi-trillion dollar behemoth.
You can't!
You can't! If we could control the government, we wouldn't need to get rid of the government!
Government's not like fire.
It's not like a bad... a good servant, but a bad master.
There's no healthy cancer.
There's no healthy gangrene.
If we could control the government, we wouldn't need to get rid of the government, and that's sort of what you're avoiding when you work with this.
If I can somehow find a way to work within the system, I don't have to be radicalized!
I don't have to be an anarchist!
But, unfortunately, there's just no other way.
I really wish there was.
Boy, I could be a much more mainstream kind of dude if there was some other way than the basic truth.
If there was some other way.
I could be talking on CNN. I could have my own show.
I could do all of these wonderful things.
I really could. But there's no other way.
Wish there was.
Just ain't. So, we have to do it this way.
Wish there was. Getting rid of that illusion was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.
Really wish there was another way.
But there isn't. So the first thing that you do is you don't engage, in my opinion.
Just don't engage. Who are you voting for?
I don't vote. Why don't you vote?
Because the government is evil. I don't participate in evil institutions.
It's evil. It's evil.
It's destructive. It's genocidal.
It's murderous. What is it?
One in a hundred Americans is currently in the rape room of prisons?
I don't participate in violence.
I don't participate in evil, and I don't imagine that I can control an army by writing on a piece of paper.
I mean, that's deranged.
I would sooner pray to Zeus to heal my cold!
At least there's some placebo effect there.
So, no, I don't.
I don't participate in evil.
I mean, unless I have to, unless...
And so I'd say, you pay your dues, right?
You pay your dues if you want to stay in society, you pay your taxes or whatever.
There's nothing you can do about that.
But you don't have to give them your life and time and emotional energy as well as your money.
If you have a storefront or a store and the mafia guys come and say, give us protection money or we'll burn it down, you can pay them the money, but then don't sit there and fret about the mafia too, because then you're paying them twice!
Why tax yourself?!
There's no reason! You give them their money because you don't want to get shot and you don't want to go to jail.
And that's it!
You don't give them anything else.
If somebody punches you, the correct response is to get away from that person.
Not to punch yourself!
And keep punching yourself!
If they forcibly extract time and money from you, pay it.
They've got their guns.
What are you going to do? But then don't give them anything else.
Don't follow whether this or that is going to happen in the state.
Don't follow, ooh, who's going to be the new mafia head?
Ooh, who are they going to hire as the new hitman?
I guarantee you it's not going to be a good person.
Good people don't seek power over others.
Shallow, manipulative, narcissistic sociopaths do, but not moral, virtuous, and independent people, so it's never going to happen.
And when you get rid of that illusion, I don't know how politicians do it, it's hard on my voice, when you get rid of that illusion, you have the chance, of course, to take all of that time and all of that emotional energy, simply, honestly, and openly communicating, no, I don't vote, because...
I don't follow politics because I don't care who's in charge of the mafia.
I care that there's a mafia and I want to get rid of the mafia, but I don't care who's currently the king.
Right? I don't care who's currently got the gun.
I want the gun to go away.
Who's got it doesn't matter.
And if you care who's got the gun, You're saying that the gun can be controlled and managed and you're supporting it!
Pay your dues. If they tax you, they tax you.
Give them their money and give them not one single shred more of them than what you have to.
You can take all of that time.
All of that energy and all of that emotional angst.
And you can just let it go.
Let it go. Recognize that you cannot control what you cannot control.
That is real liberty.
That's really freeing.
And it frees other people too.
When you become somebody who's clear that the addiction to politics is the addiction to spectator sport, the spectator sport of violence.
It's a coliseum. When you care who's in the Colosseum and whether the Christian has a spear or a net or a trident or against the lion and you want to reform...
I mean, no! Tear down the goddamn Colosseum!
Do not spectate!
Do not get involved! Do not buy tickets!
Avoid it! And I say, no, the Colosseum is evil.
I don't go to the Colosseum.
I don't care about what happens in the Colosseum.
The Colosseum itself is stone evil.
And you can take all of that energy and you can put it into more productive and enjoyable things.
Happy people change the world for the better.
Politics will never make you happy.
You will never get the effect that you want.
You will never become free.
And you surrender voluntarily the freedoms that you don't have to.
The freedom within your mind.
The freedom to do more positive things.
The freedom not to worry and freak out about the hood ornament on the car that's mowing people down.
You can't change that.
And if you could change the hood ornament, it wouldn't matter in the least.
That's how we can change the world.
That's how we can free the world.
That's how we can break the cycle that libertarian has been in for the past few hundred years, which is consistently herding ourselves off the cliff with the other lemmings, rather than work towards personal freedom and a mental and emotional separation.
From an evil hegenomy that is not interested in us in the least, except in the way that a farmer is interested in his livestock.
Thank you so much for watching. I look forward to your donations.
Books are available all for for 79 bucks.
I guess it's March of 08, so if it's not, don't worry about it.
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