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Oct. 5, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

12:43

1167 Current Events - Is Sarah Palin a Bimbo?

Is it fair to call Sarah Palin a bimbo? I say: nope! Plus, 700 billion dollars? We might as well say 700 billion elves...

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	Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio.
	I hope that you're doing well. Thank you to the many people who wrote in in amazement and wonder at my prediction that the bailout bill was going to be passed as soon as the congressmen and women got their pound of flesh.
	It's magic. I truly am psychic.
	It has nothing to do with philosophy.
	James Randi, give me my million dollars!
	So I wanted to talk about a few other issues related to this bailout, this financial crisis, and in particular this vice presidential debate.
	Now, I only watched maybe 45 minutes of it.
	You see, I tried to guard my precious brain cells the way that a mother grizzly guards her cubs, and so I couldn't really make it too far into this mythological blathering.
	Nonsensical, don't answer questions, read from a pamphlet style of quote debating.
	Now, I was actually a debater in university.
	I came in seventh in Canada after my first year and then I left to pursue acting.
	But it is something that I have a little bit of experience in.
	I debated all over Canada.
	So I know a little bit about how it's supposed to work.
	This was nothing to do with the debate.
	This was two people talking past each other, trying to sell stuff and provoke resentments within the American public.
	It had nothing to do with the debate. There was no definitions.
	There was no substantive examination of ideas.
	So, there's this stuff floating around the internet, which you may have heard, you know, is Sarah Palin a bimbo?
	And I think that's entirely unfair to Sarah Palin, and I think it's entirely unfair to the other people involved in the political process.
	Asking the question, is Sarah Palin a bimbo, to me, is pretty much the same as going to the Playboy Mansion and sitting down with the Over-peroxided, personal-flotation-device-enhanced women and saying, you know, I think that one over there, just that one over there, is a real bimbo.
	I think that's unfair because, well, they're all bimbos.
	The idea that Joe Biden or George Bush or that over-coiffed poodle to rich women John Kerry are some sort of intellectual titans is completely ridiculous to me.
	I mean, it really is.
	Completely nonsensical. These people do not know how to reason from first principles, they do not know anything about philosophy, they do not know anything about economics fundamentally, or if they do, they hide it very well.
	They're all a bunch of bimbos.
	What is that old saying? Politics is showbiz for ugly people.
	But the idea that we're going to differentiate Sarah Palin for her lack of intelligence versus everyone else, I mean, come on, people.
	I mean, they're all bimbos.
	So singling one of them out just seems entirely unfair.
	It's like going to a convention of dwarves and saying, you know, that one is pretty short.
	So the idea that we're going to just differentiate one of them over the other is kind of ridiculous.
	And so you say, well, what is a bimbo?
	Well, a bimbo is somebody, obviously, a sophistic style over substance, you know, talking points, you know, Joe Sixpacks, you bitches, and all that kind of stuff.
	Talking points, manipulation, and manipulation of language, of symbols as a preference to logic, cold hard reality, and so on.
	But A bimbo is characterized fundamentally by an absolutely jaw-dropping confidence in their ability to order people around.
	This is really the fundamental aspect of what a bimbo is, and they show up in academics and they show up in politics.
	They don't just show up in religion, they are a religion, but this idea that the priest claims to know the mind of God I mean, I have trouble understanding my own mind sometimes, and other people remain somewhat of a mystery at times, but the idea that I'm directly connected to some all-powerful, infinite intelligence, it's just an astounding level of insane, quote, confidence.
	It's delusions of grandeur, frankly, and philosophy humbles you, right?
	So that's sort of one aspect.
	The idea that somebody's going to get up and say, who's been a beauty pageant queen and mayor of Dogpile, Alaska, is going to come up and say, oh yes, I know how $700 billion should be spent in a highly complex financial market.
	I mean, it's really funny when you think about it.
	$700 billion. Would you know how to spend $700 billion productively?
	I mean, it's clear that the people who were in charge of Wall Street didn't know how to do it very well.
	It's clear that the regulators, who we assume are well-trained in economics, it's clear that the Fed didn't know how to manage it.
	So with all of these experts completely unable to make productive investments within this coercive and brutalized environment of state control, it's fascist, right?
	I mean, it's not...
	It's not a free market. The idea that none of these people knew how to do something productive, but, you know, Miss Bois-Foy up with the Tina Fey glasses is going to ride in and start doling out or handing out or know how it should be done.
	I know it's Paulson, but know how it should be done and approve or disapprove of this plan.
	It's going to understand the financial ramifications involved in letting complex economic entities go bankrupt and the long-term effects on the economy.
	It's astounding that anybody would stand up and make the claim to understand Oh, I'm an expert on energy, right?
	I'm an expert on financial bailouts.
	I'm an expert on foreign relations.
	I'm an expert on government.
	I'm an expert on what should be done for the American people.
	I'm an expert on the effects of a wide variety of spending initiatives.
	It's completely ludicrous.
	It's completely insane.
	And of course, government is driven by these narcissistic people with these absolutely mad delusions of grandeur about that which they can grasp and productively put into practice.
	And there is, of course, this fantasy that there are these people out there.
	If we understood that these people do not exist, that they're a bunch of bimbos with wildly, insanely, like mentally ill exaggerations or extrapolations of their own abilities to understand and do things.
	If we understood that, that there would be no government.
	Government, frankly, fantasy that there are these super brain-spanning geniuses out there who can productively know how to spend 700 billion dollars for the public good and know exactly how problems like drug use and and and poverty and education and all of these things can be can be dealt with these people don't exist they are a mythological fantasy that are the after-effects of religion and of course bad parenting but let's begin to do that
	And if you thought, well, you know, but Barack Obama, he's not a bimbo.
	Actually, he is. I mean, he's a himbo.
	And, I mean, you could go on.
	And I just sort of picked one thing out of the paper that I was...
	I don't buy the paper, but I happened to pick this one up when I was getting some lunch.
	So, this is from Toronto Star.
	This is from Monday about the financial crisis.
	Obama said... Obama in a statement said, when taxpayers are asked to take such an extraordinary step because of the irresponsibility of a relative few, it is not a cause for celebration.
	But this step is necessary.
	I mean, this is madness.
	I mean, it's just a manipulation of language.
	When taxpayers are asked to take such an extraordinary step.
	Did anyone ask you? Is there a checkbox that I'm not aware of?
	Is there a website about whether we approve of this bailout or not?
	But of course, he has to say ask because if he says, well, we're going to hold, you know, my job is to bring the wine and chocolate to the date where you get date raped by the Fed, right?
	I mean, he's not going to say that, that you have no choice.
	We're going to impose this against your will, against your preferences, because that would disarm this fantasy of hope and change, right?
	By the way, and maybe I'll do a little bit more on presidential politics if you're interested, but it really is amazing.
	The degree to which people think that the government is going to change based on who they vote in as president is the degree to which they accept that it's already fascistic, right?
	The whole checks and balances, congressmen, senators, all of that stuff, the Supreme Court, the local courts, the states' rights down to the municipal.
	If the government is going to fundamentally change whether or not McCain So, the degree to which you care About who gets into the White House is the degree to which you're already accepting that you're living in an increasing dictatorship.
	The more you care about who gets in, the less you should respect the fading freedoms.
	Well, you should respect the political system you live under, which is, of course, increasingly dictatorial.
	If one leader makes a difference, then we're already living in a quasi-dictatorship.
	So the last thing that I wanted to mention about this is that, I mean, when you are a philosopher, when you really are committed to reason and evidence, the language, everything is religious.
	Everything is mythological.
	I mean, people might as well be talking about, you know, we're going to pray to Zeus to rescue the banks.
	It really is that fundamentally unreal.
	And I'll just give you a brief example of this.
	Maybe it will make some sense to you.
	I keep talking about this 700.
	Billion-dollar bailout or trillion-dollar bailout or whatever.
	If you say, well, the government is going to spend $700 billion to rescue the banks, to do this...
	It's complete madness.
	It's complete madness. There is no $700 billion.
	They don't have $700 billion sitting around.
	There's no emergency fund.
	There's no break-in case of financial explosion.
	There is no $700 billion.
	They may as well say, 700 elves riding on Pegasus are going to flow through the brain of Zeus to rescue these financial institutions.
	It's complete madness. I keep talking about this $700 billion like it's real.
	I mean, if I print up a PhD from Harvard, I don't get to go around saying I have a PhD from Harvard.
	I've just printed one, right?
	And in the same way, they don't get to say, in reality, that they have $700 billion to spend.
	They're just going to print it or they're going to borrow it.
	So, there is no...
	but people keep saying this, right?
	And because they keep saying it, they try to...
	they sort of make it seem believable.
	Well, we have this $700 billion we're going to spend to buy these companies, and oh, don't worry, the taxpayer's going to get his money back, right?
	This is the government that is supposed to manage and control.
	This is the agency, the social institution, supposed to manage and control these financial institutions.
	And what it calls a business plan is...
	Print up a whole bunch of monopoly money, hand it out like candy with no oversight, and say to the people that they're stealing the money from, maybe we'll give you some back later if we really feel like it.
	I mean, can you imagine going to the bank with that?
	Saying, look, I'm going to counterfeit a whole bunch of money, I'm going to give you a whole bunch of this counterfeit money, and then maybe at some point I'll go get a job and give you some real money.
	Maybe, if I feel like it, but I don't want any contract.
	Oh, and by the way, if you don't give me the house based on this, I'm going to put you in jail.
	I mean, this is how the government runs.
	And the idea that the government, with this kind of coercive thing, this coercive approach, is going to deal with problems of voluntarism and the messes that earlier governments have created in the financial markets, it's completely insane.
	It's like saying, well, if the mafia takes over the United Way, boy, oh boy, will it ever solve the problems of overhead?
	I mean, it's complete madness.
	I just wanted to touch on these issues briefly and hope that they help make some sense out of the madness that is spoken in politics.
	I hope that you will try and find ways of disengaging yourself from this fantasy of government and politics and voting and so on.
	It is a completely fascistic nightmare that you can only sully yourself by getting involved in.
	Yeah, I mean, I'll come back to that later.
	Perhaps I'll do another one. I want to keep these pretty short.
	So thank you so much for watching.
	I really do appreciate it. And please drop by freedomainradio.com.
	Coming out in a few days is my new free book, How Not to Achieve Freedom, which is more positive, I hope, than it sounds.
	And thank you so much for watching.
	I really do appreciate it.

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