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June 27, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:05:29

1404 Stef on the Radio June 27 2009 10pm - Family and Statism!

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	The antidote to tyranny is knowledge and acting with courage to defend our most basic rights, life, liberty, and property, dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone.
	Here is Peter Mack.
	Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
	This is Peter Mack. I am the host and creator of this show, and I'm thrilled to be back on the air.
	I created the show about eight years ago, and my very first guest is one of my two guests tonight, Mark and Rose.
	He's a good friend and someone whom I'm honored to share the microphone with.
	And another guest of mine I don't know quite as well, but I also have great respect for him, is Stefan Molyneux.
	I hope I'm pronouncing your name right, Steph?
	Is that correct? That's pretty good.
	I will take that. We'll feel free to correct me.
	Okay, and Stephon is in, or shall I go by Steph?
	Yes, Steph is fine.
	Steph is fine. Okay, and Steph is in Ontario, right?
	Ontario, Canada? That's correct.
	Okay, and Larkin is in Pennsylvania.
	And Larkin, are you hearing me okay?
	Yep, I can hear you.
	Okay, good. Okay, we can all hear each other.
	That's great. Okay. Well, ladies and gentlemen, as I said, I started this show several years ago, but this is sort of the resurrection of it.
	I got the offer to be here on Liberty News Radio several weeks ago, and I'm thrilled to be a part of this show.
	Network now and to bring you the ideas that I have and those are my guests and I'm hoping that Larkin and Steph will be regular guests on the show because as I told them when I asked them to be on the show, I think I'm really the facilitator of the ideas that they articulate so well.
	I asked them to be on tonight and we're just going to chat for at least the first hour and talk about how Our lives sort of intermingled at this point in time and give you a sense of our thinking in terms of our philosophical and ideological approaches to life.
	And if you've read about this show at all, this show is dedicated to freedom, and so we'll be talking just about exactly what that means.
	And then maybe the latter part of the show, we'll see if you want to call in, if you're listening out there, and talk to us.
	A little background of the show then again.
	As I said, I started it some eight years ago, and I was on a local station in Liberty, Missouri, I think appropriate town for this kind of show, Liberty, Missouri, from late 2001 until 2006.
	And the show was in those days dedicated to, as I said, the promotion of individual rights as exemplified in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
	And I certainly am still a stunt supporter of individual rights, but I've evolved just a little bit from the support of the other documents.
	The Declaration of Independence is still a pretty darn good document, I think.
	Obviously, the founding document of this country, what we're going to celebrate one week from tonight.
	Constitution, a little less concerned for nowadays, and although I would love it if our government would adhere to the Constitution because I think it would be far more limited than it is.
	But maybe we'll just jump in and see how Mark and Steph feel about talking about their lives.
	They go back in terms of their evolution of thinking about freedom and so forth.
	Steph, since I know you less than Larkin, maybe if you wouldn't mind starting and go back as far as you need to in your life and just tell us how you got interested in this whole issue of freedom and how you got to be the creator of Free Domain Radio, one of the most popular podcasts on the internet, and just sort of bring us up to speed if you can.
	Well, sure. I'll try and keep it brief.
	I got into philosophy.
	We've got three hours.
	We've got three hours. I'll talk really slowly then.
	When I was a gleam in my daddy's eye, my mother said.
	No, I got into philosophy in my mid-teens.
	I was like most people who have been interested in this aspect of philosophy.
	I came in through the objectivist air hatch, through Ayn Rand's writings.
	And of course, through Ayn Rand, you get to a host of other thinkers.
	You get to the Austrian School of Economics.
	You get to Murray Rothbard.
	You get exposure to stateless society or anarchic ways of thinking.
	And I really dug deep into that.
	Through that, I got into philosophy as a whole, and I spent a good deal of my 20s studying that at graduate and undergraduate level in a variety of universities or colleges, I guess you'd call them, in Canada.
	And all of that kind of fell by the wayside.
	I went into a business career and...
	Co-founded a company and grew it and I worked as a chief technical officer for many years and then went to another couple of other companies.
	But in my early 30s, philosophy began to really clamber back at me.
	I was achieving a good deal of professional success, but there were aspects of my life, particularly my personal life, my relationships weren't particularly satisfying and some of them I think were just not good at all.
	Philosophy and psychology and the old commandment of Socrates to know thyself began to come back to me and I began to really dig into philosophy less as someone who was absorbing the thoughts of others and more, if I had to start with a blank slate, what would I be able to come up with?
	That led me down a very exciting path.
	I began to write articles which, again, got posted on Lou Rockwell or StrikeTheRoot at antiwar.com and got into some good correspondence with some very smart people, started reading the articles as podcasts, started podcasting from my car on the way to work because, you know, when you're a workaholic, no time, you know, if I could podcast while I'm peeing, I'm sure that would be my next stop.
	And so I never really thought of it as anything other than a very engaging hobby.
	But people said they found them useful enough that they wanted to donate.
	So I opened that up.
	And after, I guess, about a year or a year and a half of doing that, I decided to take the leap and try and make a living in this crazy world of new media philosophy podcasting.
	A niche occupied, I think, mostly by myself and maybe three other guys in their basement.
	And so I began to do that.
	And some speaking engagements began to open up.
	I was the closing speaker at the New Hampshire Liberty Forum in March.
	And our good friend Larkin and I will be sharing a stage in Philadelphia this upcoming July the 4th.
	And then I'll be debating with Michael Batnarek how small should government be or how small a government should we have.
	And we'll be doing that on Sunday the 5th in Philadelphia.
	So yeah, it's been about two years now.
	I have been working in philosophy and as a result in libertarianism, in anarchism and a variety of other topics that I deal with on my show, particularly in the realm of ethics is I think where I've really tried to light as many fires as possible because I think that In the absence of a rigorous ethical system,
	everything just becomes kind of opinion and willpower in the Nietzschean sense which I don't really think is a very productive way to organize either a society or really your own thoughts.
	So it's been about two years I've been full-time.
	I love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
	It is an exciting rollercoaster compared to a relatively stable earlier part of my career.
	But, you know, once you taste that kind of deep liberty in your own life, you can't let it go and what you want to do is share it as much as possible with others.
	So that's, I guess, the brief bobsled resume of how I came here tonight.
	Great. And I can't remember who directed me to your website, Steph, but just for the listeners out there, again, it's Free Domain Radio, and Steph has hundreds of podcasts, I think, that he's recorded now, is that correct? You can listen to them for free, or you can subscribe like I do, and I certainly recommend that you do that.
	It's well worth it.
	I'm not quite sure what the levels are.
	I subscribe at the level of $20 a month, and I'm thrilled to, as I said, to have you on the show with me, and I hope you'll be a regular guest.
	But also, I'm indebted to you from just listening to some of those podcasts.
	I've listened to not that many, maybe 20, and I I watch your videos now on Strike the Root, Mandatory Molyneux.
	Yes. And I really enjoy those.
	So I just encourage anybody, while you're listening to the show, in fact, you can pop over to that website, FreeGomainRadio.com, and take a look there.
	Of course, we hope that maybe you'll wait until after the show to listen to the podcast.
	It's kind of hard to listen to both of us at once, but...
	So then, I take it, you both are going to be meeting for the first time, you and Larkin, next Saturday, is that right?
	Yeah, that's right. I'm really looking forward to it.
	He was kind enough to send me a copy of his novel, and I am working my way through that and enjoying it, so we will get a chance to meet, I guess, in a week.
	That's great. Yeah, and I rank going downtown somewhere around getting a root canal of I'm thrilled to be going downtown two days in a row when I heard that Stefan was going to be debating Michael Badnarek.
	I mean, that's the sort of debate that's actually interesting and worth hearing.
	Oh, that is going to be a good debate.
	I'm really looking forward to it.
	My money's completely on Stefan because there is no justifying.
	As much as I like We've got a commercial break coming here, folks.
	Larkin, you're going to be right back with us.
	And Steph, just hang on, folks.
	We'll be back in just a minute after the break.
	hang with us listening to the direct show here on Liberty News Radio the antidote to tyranny is knowledge And acting with courage to defend our most basic life.
	Life, liberty, and poverty.
	Dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone.
	Here's Peter Mack.
	Welcome back to the Peter Mack Show, folks.
	Thanks for tuning in here to the debut of this show on Liberty News Radio.
	I'll be here every Saturday night from 9 to midnight Central Time.
	And my guests today are Stefan Molyneux, Steph, he goes by, and Larkin Rose, and Larkin and Steph are going to meet next week in Philadelphia.
	Larkin said he likes to go downtown about as well as he likes to have a root canal, and I thought I would just clarify for folks that if you happen to be in the Philadelphia area, Larkin and Stefan will be there next Saturday, July 4th, right?
	Okay, Larkin, Yeah, I think, as you mentioned, a debate between Steph and Michael Badnerick.
	I have a lot of respect for Michael Badnerick, too.
	I think that would be a wonderful debate.
	I wish I could see it. Maybe it will be recorded.
	So, Larkin, maybe you can take us back as far as you need to in your life and kind of give us a sense, maybe stuff I don't even know, about what got you interested in the freedom issue and sort of bring us up to speed in whatever way you want to.
	Well, the funny thing is, I expect July 5th to sort of be a flashback for me, only both voices are going to be the ones that were inside my head several years ago, because I was constitutionalist, conservative, you know, libertarian-leaning, pretty much raised that way, and had a bunch of siblings that were in that direction.
	And Went through the uncomfortable, basically deprogramming, which was a lot my own doing, subjecting myself to think about uncomfortable things, but going through the process of trying to justify the little tiny government I wanted there to be.
	And so it's really convenient being a constitutionalist Because it's really easy to argue that government is horrendously inefficient and stupid in everything it does.
	And to have almost everyone else on the political spectrum being arguing that government should do everything under the sun, whether they're Republican or Democrat, it makes a really easy position to defend because the Republicans want a big police state that's horrible and abusive and oppressive and inefficient.
	And it's easy to point out why that's bogus and stupid.
	And the leftists want a big nanny government to take care of everybody and make sure everything works fine.
	And it's easy to point out that that doesn't work and it's stupid and counterproductive.
	But most constitutionalists don't usually get stuck in the position of having to argue in favor of government.
	Like, they're always arguing less, less, less, less government.
	Don't have a government do that.
	Get rid of that agency. Get rid of this.
	And so it's fun to watch them when they come up against the idea of, well, how about get rid of the whole thing?
	And they're just not used to thinking about that.
	And I wasn't used to thinking about that when I was libertarian, because that's not the direction that libertarians ever have to argue in until recently, when you get wacko extremists like Stefan out there, Saying, maybe we should all the way be free, and maybe we are all the way free.
	And so it really was an uncomfortable deprogramming process to give up, even though it was such a tiny little government I wanted.
	It was so limited, and it was only going to do these little things that were really necessary and really important, and we just had to have government do that.
	So that it felt...
	You know, it seems now, like, why would it be so hard to give up that tiny little thing and move to, how about if we all treat each other like human beings and we don't have a master at all?
	But it was a drawn-out, uncomfortable process.
	And it just felt existentially scary because it's letting go of, really, the religion that everyone is raised in now.
	It has nothing to do with what they call God.
	It has to do with Government, which is the new god.
	It's what people actually worship.
	It's what they really believe in.
	It's what they look to to fix all the problems of the world.
	So it really was a deprogramming from the cult of government.
	And, you know, I know I got a front row seat to watch you, Peter, go through a lot of the same things.
	And I've seen a bunch of other people go through it.
	And I'm happy to say some people actually blame me for dragging them through it.
	And, you know, plenty of people did it before me, but that process of letting go is such a weird, positive and scary thing at the same time to all the way let go of the thing that you think makes civilization possible.
	Right. And so, even though it took me no time to get the libertarian and we want this tiny little thing, it took me years and years to give up the notion of, well, we have to have a constitution and we have to have a master that does this little thing and that little thing, and move all the way to, wow, you mean there's nobody above me?
	Like, we're all just adults and we treat each other like adults, but who do we run to?
	Who do we bow to? Who makes sure everything works out right?
	And coming to the conclusion that, well, either I do or nobody does.
	Like, people is what we're stuck with.
	And if people can't do it, an imaginary master isn't going to do it either.
	Putting one of those stupid people up on a throne is not going to help if people are so stupid that they can't interact in a rational manner.
	Taking somebody rational and giving them lots and lots of power is not going to help.
	You know, for me, and I know for a lot of other people, it just took such a long time to give that up and say, yeah, I don't have a master and nobody should.
	Right. And Stefan, as you indicated in your introduction of yourself, you've written and read about psychology and your wife practices some psychological counseling, I take it.
	Does she still do that? Yes, she does actually.
	She has started her own clinic and now runs that.
	So yeah, I myself went through psychological therapy or counseling for a couple of years and found it to be just an absolutely invaluable part.
	I mean, there is a little bit to me that is missing from some of the contemporary libertarian movement, or at least what would be called the mainstream libertarian movement, that it's very outward focused.
	It is around practical or political or economic knowledge, human action in the real world.
	I don't think there's as much of an emphasis on self-knowledge.
	And I think that leads the movement astray at times, and that's something that I've tried to bring to...
	The forefront in the shows that I do, since philosophy encompasses all human knowledge, right, from science to psychology to art to literature and so on, so I've tried to sort of have a show with no barriers towards the pursuit of knowledge, and if the knowledge goes into self-knowledge or psychology, the unconscious, and so on, Then we go there because I think that it's really hard to free the world if we don't understand the power of psychological defenses and resistance to truth, right?
	Because we've had the truth for hundreds if not thousands of years, philosophers and freedom fighters of all stripes from pre-Socratics onwards.
	We've had the truth for generation after generation after generation.
	And we quite literally and liberally get our asses kicked all over the beach by pig ignorant, violent, ugly, and stupid people.
	And I think that having the truth, we think if we grab this glowing crystal called the truth...
	That we are going to hold it aloft and all of mankind is going to go, ooh, ah, you know, and just say, oh, I'm going to change and go with the truth.
	But empirically, that's just not what happens.
	What happens is people get angry, they get defensive, they get frustrated, they get weird, they get creepy, they get trolly.
	And I think I've really tried to figure out Since having the truth is not enough, since having very simple arguments like the non-aggression principle or taxation equals force, which have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years, having the truth is not enough to change the world.
	So there must be some other factor or a series of factors that needs to be explored rather than the simple communication of basic empirical, ethical, and economic and political truths.
	So I've definitely focused on psychology as well.
	Stay with that thought, Steph.
	We'll be back in just a minute, folks.
	You're listening to The Peter Mack Show with Stefan Molyneux and Larkin Rose is my special guest.
	We'll be right back here on Liberty News or Radio.
	Stefan? Yes?
	Are you hearing everything okay?
	Yeah, Larkin's a little quiet, but I can hear everything just fine.
	Okay. Can you hear the music when it starts, too?
	No, I didn't hear the music when it started.
	Sorry, until you interrupted, I didn't know that we were heading for a break.
	Oh, no, it's totally fine.
	Here, I'm going to let you talk with Peter.
	Hold on one second.
	Oh, sure.
	Hey, Steph.
	Can you hear me? Yeah, I just, you know, they play the music for the commercials, and I just...
	I didn't want to cut you off, but I wasn't sure you were hearing it.
	No, I didn't. Sorry, I didn't hear a thing.
	I'm pretty experienced at cutting myself off when I hear the music, but I didn't hear anything come up.
	Oh, okay. So maybe they...
	Well, Colin, are the guests not able to hear the music when it starts playing?
	Yeah, because I thought he would hear it, and...
	I didn't want to cut you off, Steph.
	I just don't want people to miss...
	No, listen, Phil, if I can't hear the music, honestly, don't.
	You completely cut me off.
	That's no problem at all.
	I'm here to help the show, and that's no problem at all.
	Yeah, okay. Mark, can you hear the music?
	Yeah, a little bit. It's a little distant, and, you know, if I'm talking, I can't.
	I will turn up my audio a bit to make sure that I can hear it.
	Okay. Otherwise, I'll just, if you don't hear it, because I hear it really loudly, I'll just jump in and say, okay, thanks.
	I hate to catch you off, but, you know, because the brakes come really, I mean, it seems like we've got lots of time to talk.
	Yeah, no, listen, totally fine.
	Just interrupt away.
	That's no problem at all. Okay, good.
	Okay. Welcome to my show.
	The antidote to tyranny is knowledge.
	And acting with courage to defend our most basic rights, life, liberties, and property.
	Dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone.
	Here's Peter Mack.
	We're back, ladies and gentlemen.
	You're listening to the Liberty News Radio.
	And this is the Peter Mack Show, the debut of my show here.
	And I'll be here every Saturday from 9 to midnight.
	And we're talking about It's really how my guests and I came to this kind of weird philosophical notion that we should be free, and we haven't even defined what that is yet.
	We'll get to it with time, but I just want to sort of lay out where we each came from.
	Stefan, you were talking about sort of the relationship between psychology and principles of freedom, which you've come to articulate, in my opinion, so well.
	And because it's all, as you said, wrapped up in philosophy, obviously.
	What I was wondering, too, is Larkin made the point that, you know, he talked about giving up this idea of, you know, where he came from and where I came from, which might be a little different than you, you know, the libertarian tradition, small government, constitutionally limited government.
	I came out of that thinking also.
	And he gave that notion, you know, giving up.
	And as soon as he said that, I imagine, you know, a child letting go of their parents' hand and saying, you know, I'm free now.
	And I wondered if you could talk about the relationship, because I know you've written about this at length far more than I had time to read about or listen to, the relationship between a person and, you know, authority figures in their life like their parents and how it's possible, it seems to me a tenable theory, that we sort of take that We're an authority figure in our lives, and it's easy to project it onto government.
	Our government can step in and fill that position as we become adults.
	Correct me if I'm wrong.
	No, no, I think that's admirably put.
	Now, it's not just parents, right?
	I mean, it's teachers and to some degree priests and other authority figures in a child's life.
	But the fundamental question is, what is the government and what is it for?
	We all know the technical, you know, monopoly of the use of force, the initiation of force in a geographical area.
	But to me, the government is fundamentally around two things, and those two things are things that are deficient within the family.
	The first is the government is supposed to protect us from violent predation, you know, from the thieves and the rapists and the killers and so on.
	And where do these people come from?
	Well, psychologically and scientifically and statistically, they come from extremely violent homes.
	So you don't just get a guy who wakes up from a happy home one day and says, hey, I think I'm going to go become a killer or going to go beat people up and steal their stuff.
	So it's a tragedy of parenting that gives rise to the first horde of predators that people feel we need the state to protect us from.
	So that's one aspect where the state grows out of family deficiencies.
	But I think a much more common one is that the government exists for many people because they feel very insecure about negotiating for themselves within their own life.
	So why are there state-protected unions?
	Well, because people don't feel comfortable negotiating with management, and so they want to defer that to someone else.
	Why do professors have tenure?
	Because professors tend to be people who come out of a pretty lonely adolescence, and they just haven't often developed the skills to negotiate.
	So I think if we were to have healthier families, then obviously we would have fewer violent people, fewer criminals, and the justification for the state would diminish.
	But on the other hand, or I guess in extension to that, if...
	We had families and schools and other institutions that children were around that actively taught proactive and confident and positive negotiation skills, then people would not think about deferring or they would not feel so insecure in the face of negotiating with, quote, authority, right? Whether it's a boss or someone else who has authority in your life.
	They wouldn't feel so fearful of negotiating that they would want the government to come in and do it for them or support an agency like a union that was going to do it for them.
	So the stronger and happier and healthier and more loving and more gently children are raised, in my opinion, the less and less the state is going to be necessary.
	And so that's sort of why I focus on a lot of family issues, a lot of parenting issues and so on.
	Great. And Larkin, I know you're a parent also, and you've talked to me about letting your daughter make decisions.
	And I remember when I was visiting you back in December, we had a brief conversation about once when you said you were going to go outside, and I think your wife said to Alyssa, you know, get your coat, and she didn't want to get it or something.
	And your attitude was, let her go without the coat.
	She'll figure out that, you know, it's not...
	We don't tell her to take her coat just because we're her parents.
	It's because we know what's going to happen when you're outside and it's 10 degrees and you don't have a coat.
	Can you comment on that?
	And what is your sense about what Steph said, where authority comes from, if not from a psychological, but just from your own experience?
	Because you talk a lot about authority, I know, in your books.
	Yeah, I think people...
	Not only use authority as the cop-out for having to live their own lives and make their own decisions and do their own negotiating and all that, they also use it as a cop-out for raising their own children.
	And I love to explain why authority is self-contradictory and insane.
	And people say, well, you have a kid.
	Are you telling me you're not authority?
	And I say, that's exactly what I'm telling you.
	I'm bigger and stronger than my kid, and sometimes I physically don't let her do something she wants to do.
	You know, the obvious example is the kid's three years old and wandering out on the road.
	You pick them up. You don't sit there and try to talk them out of it.
	But there's a huge fundamental difference, and the, you know, the coat makes a perfect example.
	Is, you know, she's walking out of the house.
	Dessa says, grab your coat, because she knows he's going to be called.
	She doesn't say that, grab your coat, because this is a rule that I, authority, am laying down, and you are morally obligated to obey me, whether you understand the rule or not.
	And when she says, I don't know, I'll be fine, I say, okay, let her be fine, she'll figure it out.
	Because for a parent to say, you know, the old because I said so thing, is, it's not just a rip-off of For the kid, it's a rip-off for the parent because it's like saying, well, I don't really need to have a good reason because I'm the parent.
	And, you know, whenever we can, I want to be able to explain why we're saying this is how it's going to be.
	And there are some things that, you know, we don't want to tell her about that are unpleasant or that you don't think she can fully explain or whatever.
	And we'll just say...
	Here's how it's going to be.
	You don't have to like it.
	You don't have to feel an obligation to, you know, obey us.
	And that's the distinction in authority is the guilt trip because we made up this rule and you didn't obey.
	Well, if the kid can't understand why the rule is there, why on earth would they feel an obligation to obey?
	It's like saying you're not allowed to wear a purple hat on Wednesday.
	And the kid thinks, well, Why should I feel bad about wearing a purple hat on Wednesday?
	I have no idea why I shouldn't do that.
	And the whole notion of authority is what gets pounded into their heads by parents and schools and priests and all that, is that if you disobey, you're immoral.
	It doesn't even matter what you disobeyed.
	It doesn't matter the reason for the rule, And what it does is it trains them not to be human beings.
	It trains them not to think.
	And the ultimate outcome is...
	It's sort of ironic, because the authoritarian church says, this and this and this is a sin.
	Don't do that. It's evil.
	You'll burn in hell. And so it tells the kids that, and they're growing up, and suddenly they find, hey, now I'm grown up.
	I have an apartment of my own.
	I can do those things, and nobody will know.
	The only reason they ever had to not do them is the authority said so.
	But haha, now they can't find me.
	They don't know if I'm obeying the rule or not.
	Nobody ever said, the reason to not do it is because it's not going to help you.
	There's going to be a problem for you.
	And when parents say, because I said so, it's usually because they can't think of a good reason.
	And it's a disservice to the kid because all it teaches the kid is, well, blindly obey the big important guy who says he's authority unless you can get away with it.
	And why wouldn't they try to get away with it if the rules look arbitrary to them?
	So they grow up and grow out.
	So people often, you know, ask me, so you're not authority?
	And I say, no, I don't tell my kid obedience to me is a moral obligation.
	Just what a weird thing to say.
	Like, You have to do what I say, whether it's good or not, whether it makes any sense or not, and you should feel bad about it if you disobey a rule, even if you can't for the life of you figure out why that rule exists.
	It's insane, but that's how most parenting works, that obedience to me is above everything else, no matter what the rule is, no matter whether you understand it or not.
	And then kids grow up and they're left with nothing because all they had was blind obedience to a big guy and they can't think for themselves.
	They don't know why any decision is better than any other one.
	Well, unfortunately, we have to get blind obedience to the upcoming commercial.
	Hang with us, folks. My special guests are Larkin Rose and Stefan Molyneux.
	We'll be back here in just a minute at Liberty News Radio.
	Tonight here on Liberty News Radio, I'll be here every Saturday night from 9 p.m.
	to midnight Central Time.
	I appreciate your listening tonight, and I think you're going to find these two gentlemen, as the show unfolds and the weeks unfold ahead, that they have a lot of very insightful information to offer you, and I think you'll see a difference.
	We've already alluded to that difference, I think, between...
	All the shows out there that talk about, you know, containing government and getting government back to what it should be and that sort of thing.
	And there are plethora shows, and I was one of those shows before.
	And I think, you know, I would love it if the government were that small again.
	But we're talking about the philosophical idea of authority and what that means in terms of whether there should be any government at all.
	And Larkin, you were talking about parents and how when you say your child something, you know, you're trying to explain to them that what you're asking them to do is ultimately for their own good and not simply because you're telling them to do it.
	And I thought about how easy that authority of do it because I told you to do it is transferred from the parent to the teacher.
	And as a college teacher, I see students coming into my class and they, after 12 years of school, They've adopted these habits.
	They sit in the same chair every day, even though nobody's telling them to do it.
	And they look to me as the authority figure in the classroom.
	In a sense, I am, but I try to explain to them that my authority is pretty narrowly circumscribed.
	I'm only there for the purpose of teaching that thing, and as long as they don't interfere with the class, they can do Whatever they want.
	They don't have to come to class. And that's really, even in college, it's amazing to me to look at an 18, 19, 20-year-old and say, don't come here for me.
	You're paying money. Come here because you get something out of it.
	And if you're not getting anything out of it, then I'm not doing you any good.
	So then there's no reason to come.
	Can both of you discuss, Steph, maybe jump in?
	That idea of a transference of the authority from that parent figure to the school and how that goes on through adulthood and what that leads to in society?
	Sure. I mean, I think Larkin's entirely right because he agrees with me.
	Therefore, I know, right?
	Authority is obviously a valid concept and something that is very useful in life.
	I defer to the authority of my dentist and my doctor and my accountant and so on.
	But authority is a resource.
	It is a resource for people to use.
	I go to my doctor because he'll give me a pill to make me feel better.
	He's a resource for me to achieve my objective, which is health.
	Of course, the government is not a resource for people.
	The government is a domineering, overbearing, violent, and heavily propagandized structure.
	And so how is it that people get the idea that authority is not a resource to help them achieve their goals?
	And the authority has value to them only insofar as it does help them achieve their goals.
	If my doctor prescribes that I drink, I don't know, engine oil for an infection, then he is not a resource to help me achieve my goal.
	If my mechanic puts antibiotics into my car, right?
	So... The idea that authority exists to facilitate or accelerate our achievement of our goals is something that good parenting, in my opinion, and good teaching is all about.
	My listeners want to be happy, and philosophy, as best as I can, encourage them to pursue it and help them over obstacles.
	I can facilitate them to achieve their goal of happiness.
	Reason equals virtue equals happiness.
	That's the traditional definition. And it is really clear to me, at least, and I've spent a lot of time around kids.
	I've worked in a daycare. I really have spent quite a lot of time around kids in my life.
	The degree to which children are fearful of their parents, are resentful towards their parents, feel bullied and dominated, not listened to, not respected or treated as a kind of livestock.
	This is not all parenting, I understand, right?
	But it is depressingly common.
	And there's simply no way that a state school could function Having 30 children in a classroom being dominated by one person who's usually kind of weird and bossy, at least in my experience, I went to schools in three different countries.
	You simply could not have a state system functioning if children were raised to be curious and energetic and intelligent and skeptical the way that children are, the way that children are born.
	So you kind of have to break the will of the kids before you even deliver them to school.
	But school then just takes that and, you know, as Spinal Tap says, turns it up to 11, right?
	That resentment, that indifference, that feeling of insignificance and of being bullied and being told what to do.
	And never, the schools don't say, you know, that Microsoft question, right?
	Where do you want to go today?
	They say, here's your lesson.
	You learn this. You repeat that.
	You write down this. You go here.
	You sit in this desk. Now you can go out to play.
	Now you can come back. Next hour you study this.
	I mean, the kid is like a chocolate eclair on a conveyor belt.
	It's ridiculous. Just how little respect is given to the children and then they graduate into a workforce where they're told when to punch in, when to punch out, what to do, what to type, how many witches to produce an hour, and that you never talk back and you never expect authority to be a resource to help you achieve your goals.
	You are really merely a means to the end for authority to achieve its goals, which is dominance and profit.
	So I think that it is a really strong continuum and it all starts, you know, the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world used to be a saying.
	That was well known and I think is very powerful in understanding that the state is the final manifestation of an authoritarian and dominant way of disrespecting children.
	It finally flowers into statism, but the state is an effect of the family.
	That's why it's impossible to reason people out of their belief in the States, because they haven't been reasoned into their belief in the States.
	They've been traumatized into it, and that's why I think psychology is so essential.
	Go ahead, Larkin.
	The notion that you have this human being, and the potential of all the things it could be, all the things the person could achieve or do, all these goals they could have, And authority, the first thing it says is, you don't get to decide your goals.
	We'll tell you your goals. Here they are.
	And, you know, it starts from the parent who, you know, most parenting, being authoritarian, the reinforcement, the you're good, relates directly to whether you did what you're told and obeyed the rules.
	And then you go to school.
	And then you're graded.
	You get a number based on whether you did what you're told And obeyed the rules.
	And then you get a job and your pay comes based on whether you did what you're told and obeyed the rules.
	And I think you go through that and basically you're trained to forget whatever goals you thought that you might want.
	You know, they don't matter. Your goal should be obey the rules and do as you're told and that's what you get rewarded for.
	And I think this is why it's so disturbing for me and a gazillion other people to go To take that final step into, wow, I own myself.
	Because after a lifetime of being measured by whether you obey the rules and do as you're told, suddenly somebody says to you, okay, now you're a human being.
	There are no rules and no one's going to tell you anything.
	And you just sort of stand there like, well, but what are the rules?
	There aren't any. Like, you have to figure out what you're going to do.
	Tell me what to do.
	No. And just being stuck in a position that all your life you've been trained to never be in that position.
	It's not up to you.
	Your goals don't matter.
	What you think your life should be about couldn't possibly matter less in the setting of authoritarian indoctrination.
	It's all about you fit the agenda of the state or the school or the parents or whatever it is.
	And then when suddenly you get let out of the cage and you realize there aren't any rules.
	Like, there are ways I should behave, but I have to figure them out.
	And first I have to figure out, what on earth am I doing?
	Like, what am I trying to do?
	You know, I'm standing on this planet.
	If nobody's telling me what I'm supposed to do, you mean I have to, like, figure out something worth doing or something?
	And that's why it's such...
	An alien feeling to be raised authoritarian and then give up the notion of a master where now I'm just me.
	And if kids were raised to begin with to think, what are you interested in?
	What feels like an accomplishment to you?
	What do you want to do? What do you want to learn as if, you know, the parent is there to help them bloom into what they already are?
	Not to smash them into some shape that the parent decides they should be in, but to let them grow up as...
	The most miraculous thing in the world to me is the concept of free will.
	It's something you can't give a machine.
	Of all the amazing things in nature, the thing that completely baffles me is free will.
	How the heck can something have the power to choose?
	And yet, right off the bat, Authoritarianism smashes that and says, you don't get to choose.
	Here's what you do. Obey the rules.
	Do as you're told. And if you start with the idea that this little thing knows almost nothing, but it gets to decide what it's going to be, because it owns itself.
	Even I, as a parent, don't own that thing.
	It's not mine.
	It belongs to itself.
	It's a sentient being. It's pretty ignorant to begin with, but if you let it grow, it can turn into a human instead of a robot.
	I want to ask you both about child-rearing and your philosophy a little more when we come back from the break here at the top of the hour, folks.
	This is the Peter Mack Show.
	I'm glad you're listening here at Liberty News Radio.
	Stefan Molyneux and Larkin Rose will be back with us in just a minute.
	Take a look at freedommainradio.com and also larkinrose.com over the break.
	Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
	I'm glad you're tuned in to Liberty News Radio tonight, Saturday, June 24th.
	This is the Opening of my show here on this network, and I'm thrilled to be back on the air.
	I did this show about six years, five and a half years at KTXL in Liberty, Missouri, and been off for a couple of years, but I got the opportunity to be back on, and as soon as I got the opportunity, I had to get in touch with my two gentlemen, my two guests here, Stefan Molyneux and Larkin Rose, and Stefan Molyneux is the creator of something called Free Domain Radio, and there are hundreds of podcasts there.
	You can listen to them.
	It's free to listen to them, but I suggest that if you really like it, as I do, that you consider donating on a regular basis.
	Larkin Rose has a website, larkinrose.com, L-A-R-K-E-N. I'm sure you know Larkin.
	Many people misspelled your name as L-A-R-K-I-N, L-A-R-K-E-N. Rose, just like the flower, R-O-S-E. Larkin is the author of a number of books.
	The most recent one is a novel, and it's entitled The Iron Web.
	And I have to tell you, Larkin, I don't like fiction.
	I've always had a hard time in fiction.
	The longest fiction book I've ever read was Oliver Twist, and I had to read it in ninth grade, and I hated it.
	But when I got your book, I had no idea what to expect.
	I had known you for several years and you sent it to me here back in May.
	I didn't know what to expect, but I gave it a shot and I have to tell you I couldn't put it down until I read the whole thing.
	I still don't like fiction.
	It's nothing against your book.
	I'd rather have somebody present the facts, but it's a very interesting story and it really does catch you by surprise at the end.
	Take a look, folks, at larkandrose.com and freedomainradio.com, and you'll learn a lot more about these gentlemen than you learned during the first part of the hour here.
	We're talking about the relationship between what happened to a person as a child and how one learns to respect or bow down in front of authority, and I want to ask both of you to comment on a An idea I have about authority with respect to teaching,
	and I suppose, and comment on how you think it might relate to child rearing, like a lot of people, there were many, many times in school when I was forced to learn something, and I would say, why do we have to learn this?
	Do you have that experience, either one of you?
	Oh, continually, for sure.
	Yeah, okay. We all have that experience.
	It occurred to me, being a teacher now, a college teacher for some 13 years, a career of which is winding to a close here at the end of the summer, sometimes we do have to tell people, you know, learn this because I tell you to, even as a parent.
	But it seems to me that an important element which would support the The idea, the way you are, I think, as I understand it, you're wanting a child to see his parents or teachers and so forth, to see authority figures as a resource rather than somebody who simply has this, you know, God-bestowed right to order them around.
	And that is the element of trust.
	If you tell a student who's teaching, I teach math, and if you tell them, okay, you don't see why you have to learn this now.
	But if you trust me, you will see a little bit down the road, a week or a month or something, why that's important.
	And if the child has the experience from the earliest stage on of having that notion of having given trust to this authority figure, whether it be a parent or a teacher, and the trust is realized, that is, the person says, or the child says, okay, I didn't know why I had to do this.
	I didn't know why my parent was telling me to stay on the street.
	But I get it now.
	And so then the next time they ask me to do something, maybe I'll trust them a little bit as long as that trust is realized.
	And that is, they see the value of it.
	And then over time, you know, you could get to the point where you trust somebody more.
	I mean, criticize that or comment on that either, or both of you if you would.
	That's just something that occurred to me in my experience as a teacher and something I tried to embody as a college teacher so that Hopefully people will see.
	Don't just learn it because I tell you it, but because I will show you in due time why it's valuable.
	Sure. I mean, you wouldn't want that to be a principle that people would just have to accept up front.
	That kind of trust has to be earned, right?
	In a free society, it obviously would be.
	It never has to be earned with state, right?
	Because the state doesn't give you those choices.
	But yeah, I mean, of course, right?
	I mean, if my dentist, you know, like most people, I didn't do much flossing in my 20s because I was too busy enjoying myself.
	But, you know, when you sort of go, hey, you know, I can sort of see why it's a good idea now and the dentist sort of explains why it's a good idea and goes through the consequences, the pluses and the minuses and, you know, you do it and then you go, hey, you know, flossing really is a good idea and I'm really glad that they told me to do it.
	And so now when my dentist tells me to do something else, it could be the Macarena.
	I'm like, okay, hey, you tell me and I'm believing it because he has earned my trust through, you know, consistently taking care of my teeth.
	Yes, absolutely. I think that would be great.
	I've also thought that there's a lot of things that we fight against as people enter the liberty movement and so on that are such clear manifestations of bad parenting that it seems almost amazing that it hasn't come up as a big issue before.
	And I'll give you just one minor example.
	You can tell me if it makes any sense.
	This idea of the social contract.
	Oh, heaven forbid. We could easily spend the rest of our lives trying to fight the social contract nonsense with people.
	This idea that the government owns everything and they charge you rent and you agree to the rules by staying in the country.
	And if you disagree with the rules and blah, blah, blah, you can leave.
	It's such an anti-empirical notion and such a crazy thing to believe.
	That it really can only come out of, you know, the bad dad to take a, you know, maybe his mom too, but it's the bad dad who says, you know, when you're in my house, you know, you do as I say, and if you don't like it, you can leave, right?
	I mean, because the parenting, when it comes down to rent-seeking, parenting is pretty pitiful in that standpoint.
	And nobody, I think, if nobody had ever heard that argument portrayed in their own family or, you know, in other people's families, if that argument simply didn't exist, where parents didn't say, well, you obey me because I pay, you know, I own this house and I pay for your food and board and, you know, if you don't like it, you can leave, but as long as you live under my house, you'll obey my rules.
	If obedience was not something that you had to...
	I just don't see how the social contract would be even remotely believable to people.
	And so I think if we look at the degree to which what we consider philosophical errors are so often founded on just bad parenting practices, unjust appeals to authority on the part of parents.
	And not just because parents are bad, but because I think philosophers have done a really bad job of helping parents come up with good ethical arguments that don't involve authority, which is one of the reasons why.
	So I have these podcasts, I have these free books as well that are available on my website where I try to provide these answers to the problems of ethics without relying on authority or religion.
	But if we never heard those silly arguments about, you know, do as I say because it's my house and you don't like it, leave.
	I can't imagine anyone would take something like the social contract seriously and the degree to which it is taken seriously seems to me almost entirely proportional to the degree that this argument is still enforced or used in families.
	Yeah, and I think that when the kid grows up or is being or fails to grow up, When he's being raised in the authoritarian thing, and then he gets into the quote-unquote real world, I think most of the people try really hard to make there be a government authority to take the place.
	It's not, you know, as much as the individual tyrants exploit that for their own gain in power, people want it because it's the only life they know when they're raised under the authoritarian, you know, as long as you live by my rules, yada, yada, yada. They want to imagine the same thing, because it's how they're used to dealing with something, that if they just get flung out into the world and suddenly they have to figure out things for themselves, it's too scary.
	So they fabricate a new parent.
	Right, right. But backing up to the, you know, the classroom thing of just, from past experience, trust me that later you're going to want to know this.
	I think even before you get to the specifics, If they even notice the attitude that this guy is telling me that I'm going to want to know this later.
	It's not that he's going to want me to know it, to barf back on a test.
	It's that he's telling me it's actually going to be useful to me.
	And even just that, whether you trust the guy yet or have much basis to decide whether to trust the guy, just the attitude of You're going to wish you knew this later, so you might want to pay attention, is huge.
	One of my favorite pet beefs of schooling is the teaching of state capitals.
	And my daughter is homeschooled.
	And it's just, it's so hilarious to me.
	All the kids learn state capitals.
	Of what value is that knowledge?
	None. Not the slightest bit of value for anybody ever.
	A particular conversation we had, Larkin.
	Sorry to cut you off. Okay, folks, we'll be back here in a minute with Larkin Rose and Stephon Molyneux.
	Stay with us. Dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone, here is Peter Mack.
	Welcome back to the Peter Mack Show.
	Thanks for tuning in tonight.
	I have Stefan Molyneux, known as Steph, and Larkin Rose on the line with us, and Larkin Rose has a website, larkinrose.com, L-A-R-K-E-N, and he is the author of a number of books, one of which is fiction, and Stefan runs If that's the proper word, the Free Domain Radio website, freedomainradio.com, and it's got hundreds of podcasts on there.
	So, by all means, don't go to those websites right now.
	You've got to listen to the show, because I'm the authority figure.
	Anyway, Larkin, you were talking about one of your pet peeves, learning state capitals and so on, so let's pick up where you were.
	Right, just talking about the...
	You know, in comparison to teaching somebody and saying, you know, this mathematical formula or whatever, right now you don't get why it would ever be of any use, but trust me, later on you'll be glad you know it because it'll actually come in handy for something.
	And state capitals that all school kids learn is just one of my pet peeves because it's a complete waste of time of what value is that knowledge.
	And I guess you could sort of say, well, practice memorizing stuff.
	Well, how about practicing memorizing stuff that actually has some relation to reality?
	But recently, we were driving back from a zoo, and my daughter, who's homeschooled, was there with two of her friends.
	Driving back from where? From a local zoo.
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	Okay. I thought you said something else.
	Okay. No, just a zoo.
	Sorry. Okay.
	And two of her friends who go to school, and they're learning the state capitals, and so we're quizzing them, and they're doing a good job.
	And I just refrain from saying, why on earth are you learning that?
	But I did say, can anybody tell me what it means for a city to be a state capital?
	And they didn't have the foggiest idea.
	They memorized all these things.
	They didn't even know the trivial, worthless thing that actually made a city the state capital, which is that's where the government is of each state.
	And so it's sort of, you know, worthless knowledge to the second degree.
	They didn't even know the one bit of trivia that actually makes it that.
	But just that setting of, you know, that example of you learn this because we tell you to.
	Never in a million years would a kid say, you know, I really need to know the capital of all 50 states.
	It's just not something they need.
	But if you start with the attitude of, if you want to do stuff or accomplish stuff or understand stuff, you're going to need to know certain stuff.
	And here it is.
	Again, if it's a resource that will help them do stuff, And they can understand that even if they have to, like, trust you for a while, that, okay, I'll believe you that there's this field of knowledge that it would be helpful for me to know, and that later on I'll wish I did.
	But just to have that, to have the attitude that it's there to serve them, rather than you do this because authority wants you to know it.
	Yeah. It's just, it's completely, it's basically, you know, I tell people, Is there anything about your parenting style and what you want out of your kid that you couldn't get out of a programmed robot?
	Because you can get obedience, you can get it to memorize stuff and spout it back.
	Like, is what you want a robot or is it a human being?
	Because if it's a human being, you don't get to have it be what you want it to be.
	Because it doesn't belong to you.
	If you're just trying to program it into a thing to serve your purposes, you know, go invest in a robot and don't mess up a human being.
	And don't be a parent.
	Go buy a robot.
	If you're going to be a parent, realize that this thing is a human being just as much as you are.
	It starts out not knowing very much, but if it isn't going to be something beyond what you could think of to make it, then what's the point of it You know, what's the point of that person being alive if all they're ever going to be is what you program them to be?
	And that's what authority does.
	It says, I'm going to mold you into what you're supposed to be.
	And when you take that away, the person thinks, well, nobody's molding me anymore.
	Now what? Because they're not used to being in the mindset of, you get to mold yourself.
	You get to decide what you're supposed to be.
	And that's just, like I said before, that's so alien to most people like it was alien to me.
	Because so much of society revolves around molding the people to be what they're supposed to be, whether you're talking about parents or schools or, you know, the way most companies employ people, and then finally government saying, we'll tell you what to be, we'll tell you where to work and what to do and what makes you a good citizen.
	Yeah, and sorry to interrupt, but I would also say that the reason that you end up with stupid, retarded, brain-stultifying exercises like memorizing state capitals is because the teachers are really bad, right?
	In order to have a teacher who's going to find that too insulting for his or her intelligence, not to mention the intelligence of the students, you'd actually have a teacher who was really excited by knowledge and learning and willing to challenge preconceptions and willing to engage and enlighten the students and willing to be a continual learner himself or herself.
	But I don't know about you guys.
	I mean, I went to school on three different countries, went to, I don't know, half a dozen schools, public, private.
	There was maybe one or two teachers who even aroused a spark in me, but the vast majority of everything that I've learned that has been worthwhile, I've learned outside of school.
	And I think that that is, of course, the huge barrier.
	It's just the state...
	It's so crap at everything, but what it's the most crap at is bringing any kind of desire for knowledge and reason to students.
	And that, of course, is the tragedy intellectually where all other tragedies grow from.
	That sewage that they pump into children's minds when they're young just keeps them bored and indifferent and skeptical and hostile towards knowledge and real reason and knowledge and curiosity for the rest of their life.
	And that turns them into pretty efficient tax livestock until we can do something about that.
	And the internet is fantastic for that because we can have an education medium that doesn't rely on these crap state teachers.
	I think that's where things can go, but it's still a ways to get there.
	Right. Steph, if you haven't read it, and you may well have, I would recommend you get the book called The Case Against Adolescents.
	Have you heard of it? I have heard of it, yeah.
	Because I've always been skeptical.
	I know that, I can't remember who it was, but it was one of the Enlightenment guys was the state astronomer by the time he was 11 or 12 and so on.
	And I think that would be just fantastic.
	Who's the author again? I'll have to go pull it off the shelf.
	I'll send you it in an email.
	But the basic thesis is that this concept of adolescence has only been around for about a hundred or so years, and it doesn't even exist in other cultures.
	I mean, we're all familiar with it in Western society in North America here, the idea that around At 12 or 13, a person becomes what we call an adolescent about the time of puberty, and then they graduate from high school at 18 or 19 or whatever, and supposedly that's the end, although it seems to get stretched out longer and longer these days.
	But it's the idea that there's this artificial period between childhood and adulthood when people really aren't responsible, but they're kind of growing, and people are growing at different rates.
	Well, this guy's thesis, and I'm sorry, I don't have the author right here.
	I'll go grab it off the shelf while we're on break.
	His thesis is this artificial concept that was created about 100 years ago, and it really does a disservice to most kids because they're not...
	I can't summarize the whole book real quick.
	I'm about to step on my keyboard here, so if we get cut off, that's what's happened.
	Anyway, the idea that they're separated from reality.
	You know, 100 years ago, people were...
	When they were able to, they were taking on...
	Adult kinds of functions and stuff at a relatively early age.
	Here's some music. Well, anyway, we'll pick this up when we come back.
	Stay with us, folks. I'm Peter Mack, and we'll be back here on Liberty News Radio in just a couple minutes.
	Life, liberty, and property.
	Dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone.
	Here's Peter Mack.
	Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
	Thanks for tuning in this evening, June 27th.
	2009, the debut of my show here on Liberty News Radio, and I'm thrilled to be back on the air, and I'm thrilled to have Larkin Rose and Stefan Molyneux with me.
	So, we're talking about trust and authority and how we learn it in school.
	How does this relate?
	We've touched on this, of course. How does this relate to what we have here?
	You know, the fact that we have any government or any government at all.
	Well, I would say that we don't really know what life would be like.
	It's very hard to conceive of life without a government, because statism is so all-pervasive, not just in our education, but in our thinking.
	It takes as...
	As Larkin was saying, it takes a long time to dig these demons out of your head.
	This magical thinking that constitutions and so on can all restrain the power of evil men to do evil things.
	It takes a long time to get out of that way of thinking.
	Maybe we'll never get out of it completely, but I think we've come a long way in the last little while.
	But what would life be like?
	You know, what would it be like if you could get a university degree by the time you were 12 or 13?
	What would your life be like if you didn't have to waste another, I don't know, what is it, 10 years or more?
	In doing things that you just didn't need to do because everything was just so slow and retarded because of the state, what would it be like?
	What would human potential be like if you had ten times the income that you have at the moment, right?
	I mean, what would human potential be like?
	What kind of art would be produced if people no longer felt that they had to appease the prejudices of the majority in terms of their addiction to violence and And cheap sexuality and cheap stimulus.
	It's so hard to imagine, but the human potential to me would be even greater than the human potential that was unleashed between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
	It would be a human enlightenment that we just really can barely imagine now.
	The illnesses that would be cured, the educational capacities that would be available, the love and happiness that would be a part of our life, it would be so hard for us to imagine.
	But that to me is what we're fighting the medievalism of statism, right?
	The state is an institution that has been around since before the Egyptians, right?
	And we still don't build pyramids with slaves anymore, but we still run society according to the same retarded addiction to institutionalized violence that characterized all of human history.
	And the elimination of violence is the flowering of human potential.
	And that's really what I'm fighting for, is the new renaissance of a non-violent society.
	And it would be something that would outstrip anything that came before.
	And I think that's the goal.
	The amazing thing to me is that people are so used to hearing about Government solutions and top-down plans and programs.
	Like, well, how does your system deal with this or do this or that or the other thing?
	And they say that when you suggest no government.
	And they're so stuck in the authoritarian mindset that they always think in terms of, well, who's the guy who's going to make the plan and we'll all, you know, go along with it and make it work?
	And that's automatically, hugely limiting.
	Like, if the plan is, I don't know what's going to happen because six billion people are going to each decide what to do, the potential is just completely unimaginable, like Stefan was talking about.
	You can't even begin to imagine all the things that would be invented, all the good ideas, all the It's really easy to imagine what one doofus tyrant at the top running everything would do.
	And the sad thing is that's what people feel comfortable with.
	Obama getting up there and saying, I have a plan to do this.
	Oh goody, he's going to make us all do the right thing so that we have a healthy economy and yada yada.
	Because they can grasp the concept of one bonehead with a plan that's going to be imposed on all of us.
	Even though, how often is that worked out in history?
	Never. It doesn't work.
	What works is leave people alone and let 6 billion people come up with their own plan.
	And just the power in that is just unimaginable, and yet people are scared to death of it because they say, well, I don't know what those people are going to do.
	Yeah, you don't. You don't get to know what everyone in the world is going to do, and they aren't all going to be Good little robots and do what one psycho at the top tells them to do.
	But if you compare the outcome of the psycho at the top model and letting people, you know, come up with their own ideas and their own solutions and their own creations, you know, compare the outcomes and then tell me if it's really worth it to know exactly what the plan is.
	If the plan fails every time when it's centralized, how about just dare to not know and see what happens?
	As a quick aside, Larkin and Steph, I was watching a brief video clip of Obama, and as you probably know, he's taken this so-called hands-off approach to what was happening in Iran, and I saw this clip of him saying, well, the one thing that we wish the Iranian government knew is it's not appropriate to deal with your citizens violently.
	It's not appropriate for a government to use violence with its citizens.
	And I thought, yeah, I mean, that's the veil that we're trying to pull off with this show, and that's what you guys each independently are trying to do.
	We're trying to pull back that veil and say, wait a minute, when you talk about government action, violence is at the root of it.
	Violence is at the root of it.
	It's not, hey, come, please do this.
	It's do this or else.
	And And that's so hard for most people to see, because all you see is the alleged purpose of government, which is to protect our rights or do whatever activities.
	And for those of us that came out of the belief that government should be limited to protecting rights, but even that, it's hard to see that violence undergirds all of its activities, obviously because it has to be financed through violence and And then all of its actions are ultimately, you do this or else.
	Yeah, and how depressed do you have to be?
	I think that the state of human psychology at the moment is pretty much what's technically called dysthymia or low-grade depression.
	How depressed do you have to be to cheer at some vacuous himbo who's telling you he's going to give your life meaning and make your country glorious and make your life perfect and forge a new tomorrow out of the manacles of this, that and the other and build the bridge to the 29th century on the bones of hope and...
	Like all the junk that comes spewing out of these idiots, these sophists, the banes of Socrates.
	How depressed do you have to be to sit there panting as someone else describes how great his guns are going to make your life?
	And how sad do you have to be to want some government to point guns at doctors to make them treat you and point guns at people to make them hire you and point guns at people to give you charity?
	How sad, how depressed, how empty do you have to be?
	In order for that to be even remotely attractive.
	It's like the people who end up just wanting to get back in prison because they can't handle life.
	You know, a prison is secure, it's three square meals.
	Or the people who join the army for the same reason.
	If we have human beings that are happy and excited enough about their life, they'd look at someone like Obama the way they'd look at a pickpocket.
	You know, it's like, I don't need a pickpocket to make my life fine.
	In fact, you're kind of a plague on the world.
	Right. And if they're trained to not view themselves as being in charge of themselves, then it makes perfect sense.
	Oh, I'm going to have a great guy in charge of me.
	Why don't you be in charge of yourself?
	No, I can't be.
	I wouldn't know what to do. You know, I picture a grade school classroom where all the kids are sitting in their seats and the teacher doesn't show up.
	And they're all just sitting there looking around like, where is she?
	What do we do? Where is she?
	They don't even know how to begin to think about anything remotely productive.
	All they're doing is sitting there thinking, well, who's going to tell us what to do?
	Because they've never thought of that.
	And Americans are the same way.
	If they don't have some buffoon up there saying, I'm going to lead you, my favorite, we're going to lead you into the 21st century.
	Well, where were we going otherwise?
	There's an old...
	He was going to skip eight of them.
	The antidote to tyranny is knowledge.
	And acting with courage to defend a most basic life.
	Life, liberty, and property.
	Dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone.
	Here is Peter Mack.
	I'm here, so I must be here.
	Sorry to cut you off, Steph, just as we went into the break there.
	Back up, if you would, with that.
	Oh, yeah, sure.
	No problem at all. Dave Allen is an Irish comedian.
	I watched him as a kid. He's very funny.
	Yeah, the guy is missing a finger and does one of the best drunk imitations you'll ever see outside of your average Irishman.
	I can say that because I was born there, but...
	Anyway, so he's got this sketch about a soldier, he's a sergeant, and he's got these 10 or 12 soldiers who he's supposed to whip into shape and train into a fighting machine, and he's yelling at them the whole time, I will be your eyes, I will be your ears, I will be your brain, you don't pee without thinking of me, you don't eat without thinking of me, I will tell you what to do, and so on, right?
	And this goes on for a while, and then they storm the beach that they're supposed to Do their military maneuvers on and the sergeant gets shot, right?
	And then the soldiers basically, one of them walks in a little circle, the other one sticks his head in the sand, you know, because they have no idea what to do without a leadership.
	And I just remember that as a really vivid sketch that I saw when I was a kid.
	And of course, I didn't realize what it really meant and why it stuck with me until many years later.
	But when you look at taking that leadership that's hollowed out people and filled them up with its own vacuous and destructive fantasies, take away that leadership, it's really hard for people, as Larkin was saying, to say, okay, what am I going to do if I can't worship someone's power?
	What am I going to do if I don't get to stay alive?
	A sad child my whole life.
	What if I actually have to grow up, take ownership for my own life, learn to negotiate, learn to get what I want without voting and relying on other people to bully everyone and get it for me?
	What am I going to do if I don't have a national identity, a USA, USA, USA chant to fill up my emptiness?
	What am I going to do if I realize that my sports team isn't any different than anyone else's sports team?
	What am I going to do if I can't Substitute geography and patriotism and empty-headed obedience and adulation of the man-gods we invent to fill up our voids.
	Who am I going to be in the absence of all of that?
	And for many people, that question is really just too terrifying to consider.
	Yeah, it never arises.
	It remains, I think, suppressed because...
	Yeah, it'd be terrifying.
	Stefan, you remind me of my favorite line in one of my favorite Monty Python movies, and that was The Life of Brian.
	Have you guys seen it?
	Oh, yeah, absolutely. The Life of Brian.
	And there's this scene where Brian is the mistaken Messiah, and there's this huge throng, and he's up on the second floor window, and he's like, People, you don't have to follow me.
	You can think for yourself.
	And in unison, like 10,000 people go, we can think for ourselves.
	And this one-love voice raises his hand and he says, I can't.
	Right. You are all individuals.
	We are all individuals.
	I'm not. Shut up. Exactly.
	It's a brilliant film.
	It's a brilliant, brilliant film.
	Right. It is. I think you got a little...
	People I meet either like Monty Python or they hate it, but...
	Well, folks, let's see if anybody's interested in talking to us and see if anybody's out there.
	Let me remind you that we have Stefan Molyneux on the line here and he is the creator of Free Domain Radio and hundreds of podcasts there that you can listen to.
	I encourage you to first listen to them and if you like them like I do, then subscribe.
	That will help maintain Stefan and his He ends up supporting himself.
	And then Larkin is an author.
	He's written how many books now, Larkin?
	Three. Three, okay.
	The Iron Web, Going Backwards, The Iron Web, and Taking the Dragon, and How to Be a Successful Tyrant.
	Right. Say them again for us, would you?
	In Frontward's order, How to Be a Successful Tyrant was the first.
	Kicking the Dragon about my fun adventures with the IRS and the rest of the federal terrorist machine.
	And then the recent one is The Iron Web, which is fiction.
	Well, sort of fiction.
	The story's fictional, but I think there's pretty darn much truth inside a fictional story there.
	Right, right.
	Well, hopefully. I would love to see Kicking the Dragon become a movie about your life as well as the fictional account, you know, the Iron Web.
	That would be cool, too.
	Well, guess what? If you want to call into the show, you can do so.
	It's a toll-free number.
	You can call us at 866-986-NEWS. That's 866-986-NEWS. It's 66986-6397, and you can talk to either one of these gentlemen, or if you're so lucky to be in the Philadelphia area, they're going to both be, why don't you tell us where you're going to be, and this is July 5th instead of the 4th?
	Both, actually. Oh, okay.
	Okay, so Larkin, you're doing your talk on the 4th, and whereabouts in Philadelphia?
	I don't even know. Do you know the details yet, Stefan?
	Yes, I do, actually.
	On the homepage, I'm trying to lure people to my website, but on the homepage of my website is a link.
	I will just click it now.
	For more information, it's a link to the Facebook page.
	Larkin and I will be sharing this stage on July the 4th at People's Plaza at Independence Mall, 5th and Market Streak.
	Philadelphia, PA, of course, and that will be 3 to 5 p.m.
	It's like it rose, Walter Reddy, Stefan Molyneux, that would be me, Michael Badnarik, and then Sunday from noon till 6 p.m., 11.30 till 6 p.m.
	at Drexel University, Michael Badnarik and I will be engaged in a Borat-costumed cage match in a mud pit, so that will be quite exciting for most people there.
	And you'll be seeing a lot of that in slow motion on CNN, because I fight remarkably dirty.
	Well, why not? I'm an anarchist.
	He won't go down now, Nap Girl.
	That's right. But I think he'll go downbiting, too, so that's all right.
	So the event that you two will be at will be at the People's Plaza.
	Well, that sounds like a place celebrating freedom, but the People's Plaza in Philadelphia from 3 to 5 on July 4th?
	Is that right? Yeah.
	We'll be at the People's Republic of Philadelphia.
	There you go, the People's Republic of...
	The Cradle of Liberty.
	Well, at least that's what they call Daniel Hall in Boston.
	There you are, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed, right?
	And the wonderful thing is, as a Canadian, I hear it's something called the Tea Party, which will be nice because I'm going to bring my teddy bear and my plastic little cups and everything, so that should be very nice.
	Yeah, well, there you go.
	They're about as non-violent as a Tea Party, which is, I suppose, what the government wants at this point.
	And then, okay, I'm sorry, you went through it rather quickly, Stefan.
	On Sunday, July 5th, you're going to debate Michael Badnerick at Drexel University?
	That's correct. Yeah, that's right.
	And that's going to be from it, well, it starts at sort of, I mean, this sounds ridiculous because it sounds like we're debating for six and a half hours, which I could do, but I don't think that that would be something the audience would want.
	For five and a half hours and debating for a half hour or something.
	Yeah, well, you know, get there at 1130.
	It's going to be, I mean, there's going to be a debate.
	And we've sort of briefly discussed it, that we're going to try and have a pretty open format, I mean, some structure.
	And then we're going to open it up to questions and comments from the audience about the debate or any other topic.
	And, you know, it's going to be a really engaging brain spasm, which I think people will really enjoy.
	It's the kind of stuff that I did when I was in New Hampshire, and it's really, really, you know, I don't like to be the talking Darth Vader head at the podium, you know, it's really good to let the audience, you know, invite them to, because, I mean, there's nobody smarter than libertarians, right?
	I mean, they're just... Well, good.
	Well, speaking of interesting questions from the audience, we have one.
	We have Greg from North Carolina on the line.
	So, Greg, if you're there, do you have a question for Larkin?
	The antidote to tyranny is knowledge.
	And acting with courage to defend our most basic life.
	Life, liberty, and property.
	Dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone.
	Here's Peter Mack.
	It reminds me of the Johnny Carson show years ago when they said, here's Johnny, and he would come out from behind the curtain.
	Probably I'm not nearly as entertaining as Johnny Carson, but that's a hard act to follow.
	Anyway, I appreciate you tuning in here at the Peter Mack Show and brand new here on the Liberty News Radio Network.
	We're glad to have you with us tonight.
	And let's see, Greg asked a question, and I think Larkin was addressing it.
	And I think the question, as I recall, this is Greg from North Carolina, was something about how you deal with or how your family or those Right.
	Basically, going through that process and how did friends and family deal with it.
	And I just totally lucked out.
	I think a lot of people, probably including my parents, thought I had pretty much lost my marbles for a while.
	But they got to the point where they could talk about it and could understand the concepts and could actually have a rational discussion.
	And that was true of just about everybody I know.
	Anybody I'd call a close friend with, of course, closest friend being my wife.
	And the fact that I don't know what the heck I would have done if I had gone through this and she hadn't.
	I'm not sure I even would have gone through it if we weren't sort of antagonizing each other with ideas and philosophical paradoxes and then both sort of falling into anarchy at the same time.
	About the only tip I could give of the few people I know, not all that close friends, but the people I know who are sort of uncomfortable and try really hard not to talk to me about politics and things like that, For ages I was really frustrated because it mattered to me a lot that they understand that I was right.
	And it took me literally years to come to the point where I realized it doesn't need to matter to me that whether they know I'm right or not.
	Like, if I know I'm right and they think I'm not, I don't have to be all stressed out about that and just, like, I'm gonna be I'm stressed out until they understand that I'm right.
	And so just sort of getting to the point of, oh well, like they're still in the state of indoctrination mode and that's kind of unfortunate and sometimes we'll talk about it and sometimes they won't bother.
	But just I think so often when you grasp a truth like this, you want to beat people over the head with it and say, look at this, pay attention, this is really important.
	And that tends to Annoy them and make them get defensive.
	I sort of think, if I could meet me from 15 years ago, what could I possibly say to make the other me understand this faster?
	And I'm not sure there's anything I could.
	I would probably be a thick-headed, stubborn bonehead and argue with myself until I'm blue in the face.
	So I think sort of giving up that desperate attempt to try to make people understand it And just sort of, you know, make the truth available for the people who actually want it and occasionally put it in front of the people who don't and see if someday they go, hmm, maybe there's a point there.
	But finally giving up trying to bludgeon people over the head until they accept freedom and just sort of dealing with them as, you know, oh well, they've been indoctrinated by this cult and they can't seem to get them out of it.
	I'll just sort of deal with them accordingly.
	Do we have another caller, just out of curiosity?
	Yes, we do. There's another one waiting in the wings.
	Great. I mean, I've gone into this in great detail in my podcasts and books, so I won't touch on it here.
	So maybe we can just go to the next caller.
	Okay, great. Greg from Pennsylvania, if you're still there, thank you for waiting.
	I kind of got you out of order.
	I apologize. No problem.
	Greg, if you're there from Pennsylvania, go ahead.
	Do you have a question? Yes.
	Hi. I really enjoyed hearing the discussion on parenting, and I was curious, both from Larkin and Steph, if you could discuss a little more about guiding disciplinary procedures that you would use with children, both Larkin from your experience and Steph from maybe some of your theories and what you assume that you'll do with your daughter as she gets older and you need to guide them with some discipline?
	Well, let's start with, I think, Larkin, who has more practical experience than I should probably go ahead, and then I'll talk about all the theory which hopefully we'll be able to practice in the future.
	Well, the whole notion of discipline is, like, what's the actual goal?
	Is it, I'm going to inflict harm on you because you didn't do what I told you to?
	Because I think that premise, no matter how you do it, Is immediately really stupid.
	It's a bad idea.
	All you're doing is training them to be what you tell them to be.
	As opposed to consequences for, for example, if they do, if a kid does something that annoys you or something, you may just say, well, you know, if you're going to keep doing this thing that annoys me, we're not going to do the thing you wanted to do later.
	It's It's basically something you could do with anybody, adult, kid, anybody.
	Just say, you know, if you're somebody who's going to sit there and intentionally annoy me, I don't really want to take you to a movie later or something.
	But if it's discipline in the context of, basically, how do I manipulate you into being what I want you to be, that's just immediately bad, however you do it.
	If it's... Because if you're trying to...
	You know, if you're trying to get...
	Ultimately...
	You want the kid to understand why this is a bad choice and this is a good choice for their own good.
	Now, of course, when they're two, they understand almost nothing.
	And so you have to sort of make lots of their decisions for them.
	But I think any sort of discipline or any sort of approach that is, I'm going to punish you.
	And the first punishment, the punishment that matters most is...
	I disapprove of you because you didn't do what I say.
	And I think that's just, it's counterproductive.
	It's stupid.
	All it accomplishes is annoying them and sort of making them feel hurt and unloved and all that stuff.
	Instead of treating them as if, you know, as soon as possible, I want you to understand why I'm not going to let you do this and we're going to do this this way and Whatever it is that, you know, the decisions you have to make as somebody who knows more than them and has to control a certain amount of their life, as soon as you can get it into their head, you know, have them understand and agree that that's really better for them, do.
	In the meantime, I would never do it in the context of, you're bad if you disobey me.
	It might be, look, I'm going to tell you, here's the deal.
	It doesn't matter if you understand why this is the deal, but this is the deal.
	If you do that, we'll do this.
	If we'll do this, then we're going to have to do that.
	But the whole notion of discipline, I mean, the word sort of carries the connotation of, if you disobey, I hurt you.
	And I think the worst thing you could possibly do, and I think history is a really good indication of this, is teach people that obedience by itself is a virtue, no matter what the command is.
	And that's what most discipline does, and it's basically the cause of every war and holocaust in the history of mankind.
	So yeah, I'm not big on that style of discipline.
	Stefan, are you going to jump in?
	Yeah, sorry. I was just finishing my notes on parenting because I think it's a good time now that I am one to get that worked out.
	Well, yeah, I mean, there's this metaphor that's often used in statism, right, which is you restrain a kid from doing that which is bad for him and therefore, you know, a force or coercion or a physical restraint for that which is harmful to people is good and that's why we need the government.
	It simply restrains those who don't want to do blah, blah, blah.
	And I don't think that's specific to children.
	And of course, it is rather insulting to be told that you're going to be treated like an idiot child for the rest of your life.
	But to me, yeah, there's physical restraint.
	Obviously, you have the care of this precious child.
	And you have to keep that child safe.
	You have to feed and clothe and keep them safe.
	So you stop them from going into traffic and you have to restrain them.
	If they get overexcited, you grab them.
	But this is not specific to children.
	I mean, if I saw a blind man wandering into traffic and he didn't hear me, a blind and deaf man, I would grab him and pull him back too because I know that he would thank me if he knew what I was doing.
	And I also know that my daughter is going to thank me for restraining her from wandering into traffic when she gets older.
	She just doesn't quite understand it when she's younger.
	So to me, that's a pretty inconsequential part of parenting.
	You make the environment as safe as possible, and if you do have to grab them when they're going to run into traffic, that's what you do, but that's not specific to children.
	I hear music, which means I have to hit pause.
	You hear music. I'm sorry.
	No, no, no problem at all.
	The nature of the beast. Yeah.
	Okay. Well, thank you. All right, folks, we'll be back.
	Stay with us. You're listening to Peter Mack Show.
	The antidote to tyranny is knowledge.
	And acting with courage to defend our most basic rights, life, liberty, and property.
	Dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone.
	Here is Peter Mack.
	Welcome back.
	Thanks for staying with us tonight.
	Our first show with Stephan and Larkin.
	Stephan's website is freedomainradio.com.
	Larkin's is LarkinRose.com.
	And they will both be speaking, as I understand it, at roughly the same time at the People's Plaza in Philadelphia.
	Correct me, Larkin, if I've not said the full name of that or whatever.
	And then Stefan will be debating Michael Badmerich, who incidentally was the presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party in 2004.
	He will be debating him at 1230, I'm told, We're starting about 1230 at Drexel University, which is in the Philadelphia area.
	So if you get a chance, you can see both these gentlemen live next week on July 4th and see Stefan debate, I guess we could say constitutionalist, Michael Badnerik, on Sunday, July 5th.
	So, Stefan, you probably didn't quite finish your remarks on parenting and so forth.
	Oh, yeah. So, I mean, basically, the advantage that parents have over children, if advantage is the right word, is that parents understand the long-term consequences of certain actions in a way that children just physically don't have the capacity to process at the time, right? Their brains are immature and so on.
	So, I know that...
	Another candy bar is going to make her feel unwell or be bad for her teeth or something, so I'm going to have to sort of restrain that.
	And that is something which you don't do through force.
	You do through reason and, you know, if possible.
	But you just do that through making it unavailable, right?
	I mean, and so there's, I mean, infinite ways to get children to do the right thing, so to speak, without forcing them.
	You appeal to their self-interest.
	You appeal to their greed.
	You appeal to their desire for love, trust, and intimacy.
	And children, of course, you remember...
	That children are not disobedient, right?
	That is always the great sin of parenting is to think that children owe you obedience and that if they don't obey you, they are being disobedient and that is bad.
	That is not the case.
	Children do not owe you obedience.
	Obedience is something that you have to earn from children through respectful and courteous and firm behavior and it is something that most parents expect as a right and then they get angry when their children don't give that right But just like anyone who's entitled, nobody really wants to give anything to you.
	And so I think just remember that you have to woo and win the love and affection and respect of your children, even more so than you would your average adult, because children are so dependent upon you.
	And so dependent upon your power and your goodwill that you have to have a very light touch and a very positive and enthusiastic touch with children in order to overcome the power disparity and earn true love and respect.
	So that's certainly how I've been working things so far, so far so good.
	I'll certainly talk perhaps a little more detail about it when we hit some of the older periods of my daughter's life, but that's what I've been up to so far.
	How old is your daughter now, Steph?
	She is six months, so it's pretty young.
	That's great. That's great.
	Oh, it's wonderful. Yeah, that's great.
	Well, I didn't even know you had a daughter until we were talking on the phone and discussing this show, and you were giving me your advice as I was asking you some questions about whether you can go forward with this or not, and I heard her crying in the background, and that was my first I thought, oh, he has a daughter now, because I didn't know that.
	I listened to some of your podcasts about when you met your wife in comparison to some previous relationships you'd had, and I thought, well, that's great.
	That's great. That's wonderful.
	Yeah, that's great.
	Again, if you want to call in, we have open lines here, as they say, 866-986-NEWS, 866-986-6397.
	The thesis I'm getting from you guys is that if we had the kind of childhood and in general upbringing, not just from our parents, but in the rest of our social interaction, primarily with adults, that respected us as human beings from the earliest ages on, that it's Perhaps less likely, but as you said, Steph, we can't know for sure because we don't live in that society.
	It's perhaps less likely that people would even be tolerant of the ideas of, you know, a government and ideas like you brought up of, you know, a social contract.
	And I remember when I first encountered that idea, Steph and Mark, and I thought to myself, A social contract and the idea that you implicitly agree to it, I thought, well, that's almost an oxymoron because nobody would say you implicitly signed a contract.
	Here, here's your implicit signature on this contract.
	I mean, a contract is something that you explicitly sign, right?
	So, you know, a social contract or an implicit contract, it seems to me, I don't know, that just struck me as odd the first time somebody sort of related what that meant to me.
	But anyway, We're all doing what we can.
	The purpose of the show is to try to educate people.
	At the very least, get them to think about this idea of, you know, why do we have government?
	And on a practical level, what can we do?
	You guys are doing everything you can in terms of your writings and your podcasts and so forth.
	You know, and we've talked about, as Larkin did a minute ago, you know, you can't beat people over the head.
	They'll either accept the ideas Or not.
	They either show some receptivity to the idea, and if they don't, I agree with Larkin, it's probably best to walk away.
	It reminded me, Larkin, as you were saying that, and I had to look it up, it reminded me of a quote by Mark Twain, and he said, never try to teach a pig to sing.
	It wastes time and it annoys the pig.
	And I thought about, you know, I mean, that sort of puts a person you're talking to as a comparison to a pig, and not that we want to I mean, if they're not receptive to the ideas, you know, it's a waste of time, and it probably annoys them more than it does any good.
	But, of course, you've got to try, you know, if you're interested and you see an opening, as it were, in a conversation, it seems to me you've got to try and, you know, drop some crumbs out there and see what kind of response you get from people.
	So, you know, obviously the fact that, Stefan, you're Your subscribership is growing apparently all the time means that there are a number of people that are receptive to these ideas.
	I thought, you know, here I was a math professor for 13 and a half years.
	I thought, gosh, would it be really cool to have a course in college on this subject and, you know, have you guys be visiting lectures or professors or even found You know, an institute for the study of anarchism at a college.
	Could you imagine that? Particularly maybe at the most liberal institution, either in Canada or in the U.S., could you imagine an institute for the study of anarchism?
	What would the, you know, 90-plus percent left-leaning faculty at those institutions think of that?
	That would be really fun, I think, to see what happens.
	But, you know, maybe that's something that we'll Happen down the line.
	Who knows? Like you said, Stephan, a while back, if we each had ten times the income we had, we could do a lot of interesting things.
	Go ahead. The strange thing to me is I went through my own experience of Basically claiming self-ownership and getting to the point where you realize, wow, I'm not beholden to anyone.
	I have to figure out what I should do and I have to figure out what it is I want to accomplish and what I want to live for.
	And it's this strange paradox that people are trained to be slaves and we're sort of in the position of going to the slaves and saying, there's a way to escape.
	You know, if you run away, we know when the master isn't looking and there's a way to escape.
	And the slaves say, what?
	I don't want to escape. You know, I'm a good slave.
	I'm a good loyal slave. So you get in this weird position where, you know, I don't argue to people that they should be free for my convenience.
	Like, I don't know them.
	It's not going to do me any good, whether they're a slave or free.
	Well, economically, a country full of free people would be a whole lot better for everybody.
	Sure. But it's because I want them to...
	be allowed to be human beings.
	I don't like to see them enslaved even if they're so comfortable with it That they get mad at me when I say, maybe you should be free instead of being a slave.
	Which is what makes me feel frustrating.
	Yeah, well, we're slaves to this time schedule here on the schedule, so we'll be back, folks.
	Stay with us. You're listening to Peter Mack's Show and Stefan Molyneux and Mark and Rose, and I will be back here in a couple of weeks.
	The antidote to tyranny is knowledge.
	And acting with courage to defend our most basic life.
	Life, liberty, and property.
	Dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone.
	Here's Peter Mack.
	Thanks for tuning back in, folks, for staying with us.
	I was just telling my board operator at the time of flight, I can't believe we've already been here for two and a half hours.
	Less than a half hour to go.
	I appreciate Stefan and Larkin staying up.
	I know for Larkin, who normally goes to bed at 8, this is a real stretch to stay this late.
	Stefan, I don't know what your working hours are, but I appreciate you staying up late too.
	Oh, I mean, it's either here or I'm at a rave, so this is quieter, better for my ears.
	What did you say?
	Well, I'm either here or I'm at a rave, so this actually works fine.
	You're either here or at a what?
	A rave. R-A-V-E. The joke sounds better if I say it three times.
	A rave is a very light dance party, often with ecstasy.
	Oh, I'm sorry. We'll see this.
	Mental note. Remember the demographic when making age-specific humor.
	Sorry. Anyway, sorry.
	Please go on with your show, and I'll just back over that joke again to make sure it doesn't have any life left in it.
	Well, I think you said you were at a raise or something.
	Well, let me make a comment.
	I'm not sure if Larkin finished his comment, but he's probably falling asleep anyway.
	This notion of this metamorphosis out of the thinking that, you know, there has to be a government, whether you believe in, you know, this monstrosity that exists in Washington and our state capitals of which Larkin won't name.
	Now, Or not.
	It is something that is uncomfortable, like any change.
	And it made me think of a book that I would recommend for people, or at least think about the idea.
	The book is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
	It was written way back in 1962, and I read it when I was six, just kidding, by Thomas Kuhn.
	And the idea is, I think, Martin, you and I have discussed this before, the idea is that Scientific thought is held in paradigms, and it's very difficult for people, even in science, people who are sort of entrusted and motivated to have strict adherence to rationality and logic.
	If they view the world through a certain lens, there you go Larkin, through a certain way, then in a scientific way, a scientific theory, it's very hard for them To look at data which is contrary to that and not incorporating their paradigm.
	What does that say? Well, for example, you know, at one point way back in history, people thought that the planets rotated, you know, and the Sun rotated around the Earth.
	You know, I mean, because you look up in the sky and, you know, they see movement in the sky and so forth, so it's a reasonable view.
	And then if data comes along contrary to that, if that's the current paradigm, it's very hard to look at things differently.
	When we are out there talking to people and we say, you know, violence is a bad thing, and they're like, oh yeah, violence is terrible.
	And you say, well, do you understand that when the IRS collects money, it does so through the threat of violence?
	Well, but that's only for people that, you know, don't pay.
	Yeah, I understand that, but it's threatening violence for people to take money from them.
	And, you know, people look at you kind of funny like they really don't see it.
	It's as if their paradigm of the world won't allow for the possibility that this creation, you know, called government, is anything other than, you know, this benevolent, you know, nice super daddy in Washington or, you know, wherever.
	Yeah, the coer I mean, imagine a kid's going to school, and somebody points out to them, you know, your teacher controls you through coercion.
	You know, if you talk when you're not supposed to, you get punished.
	If you do what you're supposed to, you get rewarded.
	And the teacher is controlling you through coercion.
	And, assuming they even knew what the words meant, they would go, yeah, so what's your point?
	That's how it works.
	And it's that way with government.
	When you say, well, it's backed by a threat.
	Well, yeah, if you don't pay your taxes or if you don't obey the law, of course they're going to do that.
	And they can't back up and look at it from the beginning.
	Well, should they do that at all?
	It's just how things are, and they can't look at it without the assumption of, well, of course you need A ruling class, and of course it passes laws, and you can't just let people decide whether to obey them or not.
	Of course you have to have punishment, and there's this huge, of course this, of course that, of course the other thing, and they just, most of the time they can't even understand what you're asking.
	Like, what do you, are you saying we shouldn't enforce taxes?
	And it's just, it's so outside their assumptions of How the world works, that they can't see it for what it literally is.
	You know, if you literally describe it as, that person's going to get your money by threatening to do unpleasant things to you.
	And they can't see it as that if it's called law and authority and it's, you know, they can see it if it's just a guy acting on his own.
	But if it's called all the right things, legislation and authority and government, They can't see it for what it literally is, and that's just so bizarre.
	It was my talk about seeing our own lenses.
	They really cannot see the literal truth right in front of them because they've been trained not to.
	Oh, I do disagree a little bit, though.
	I actually quite disagree.
	And just my thoughts on it is that, I mean, haven't you all noticed just how tense people get when you bring this up?
	I mean, they instantly get tense.
	They seem confused and frustrated, but they get very tense.
	And I think it's because they do see it.
	I think that people see it very clearly.
	I think that they don't like the implications of That they're trained not to see it.
	But I think they see it very clearly.
	I mean, it's such a simple argument, and everybody knows.
	I mean, everybody who's gotten a letter from the IRS is shit-scared, right?
	And is really terrified.
	And that is an experience that everybody has gone through.
	You know, I'm from the government, I'm here to help.
	It's something that nobody really believes.
	And so I think they do see it.
	I think they see it very clearly, but I think it's just something that it's really, really unsettling for people to talk about.
	I don't know if that's a distinction without a difference, but I just wanted to throw that in.
	Yeah, I think it's...
	Basically being schizophrenic, because it's not that they don't know what happens if you don't comply.
	They do, but I think they're scared to look at it in just the literal terms of they use violence to make you comply, because they so much want it to be legitimate that they don't describe it in those terms, even though they know full well unpleasant things happen if you don't do as you're told.
	But they're scared to death to think of that in terms that they'd think of it if anybody else did it.
	So I think they, yeah, I think they actually, they do see it in one way, and they try really hard not to.
	Stefan, do you think that they miss the moral aspect?
	Do you think, okay, they're sitting there terrified.
	I'm just wondering out loud, do they see Do you see that this is morally no different than the mafia down the street saying, if you don't comply, we're going to come break your kneecaps?
	Or is there something about their paradigm or something that prevents them from fully grasping the immorality of that which is represented by the terrifying letter from the IRS or whatever?
	Yeah, I mean, it's an excellent question.
	The reason that I say this, and just before I answer that, or try to, the reason that I say it is that if someone comes to me with something I genuinely don't know, I tend to be quite curious about it, especially if that person is kind of an expert, right?
	So someone comes up and starts talking to me about quantum physics or stuff that I don't have a huge deep knowledge of or anything like that.
	And I genuinely don't know it.
	I'm not going to instantly say, oh, you're wrong, or whatever, right?
	Because I'm not an expert.
	This person has studied it for years, so I'm going to ask them questions.
	I'm going to say, well, that seems confusing to me.
	Perhaps you could explain. So any intelligent person who doesn't know the answer is not just going to immediately start stonewalling someone.
	who has studied it for years.
	And so when people who studied philosophy or political science or economics or libertarianism for years come up and say statism is forced, taxation is the initiation of violence, the fact that people aren't curious, don't, I mean, just about everyone, they're not curious, they don't want to know more, and they start giving you all of these silly non-answers they don't want to know more, and they start giving you all of these silly non-answers means that
	Because there's way too many intelligent people out there who should at least be curious about the considered opinions of experts in the field, but they're not.
	They just immediately start stonewalling you.
	So there must be something that they know that they would behave in such a different manner.
	So that was sort of my first clue, comparing it to just other things, right?
	Nope. Good thing I didn't go for a long rant because I hear the music coming back.
	Well, but this is just a semicolon on your rant.
	That's right. All right.
	We'll be back after the semicolon, folks.
	Hang with us. And if you want to call in and talk to one of these brilliant gentlemen, you can do so at 866-986-6397.
	The antidote to tyranny is knowledge.
	And acting with courage to defend our most basic life.
	Life, liberty, and poverty.
	Dedicated to the cause of freedom for everyone.
	Here's Peter Mack.
	Welcome back folks.
	You're listening to the first edition of the Peter Mack Show on Liberty Newsradio right here on the internet.
	If you want to email me at any time, you can do so at Peter at PeterMacShow.com.
	That's Peter Mac Show.
	Peter Mac is just M-A-C, like Mac computer, and the word show, PeterMacShow.com.
	And I suppose you can email either of the other two gentlemen.
	Larkin, if somebody wants to email you, can they do so through LarkinRose.com, or is there another way?
	How do they get on your list?
	Well, the easy way to email me now is larkin at larkinrose.com.
	No more remembering a really obscure email address.
	And if they just send me an email saying, I want to be on your email list, then I'll put them on it myself.
	And Stefan, what about you?
	Host at freedomainradio.com.
	Sorry, if we can just finish up the two-second thought that I had to try not to take you past the hour.
	So when you bring taxation is forced, government is forced, two people, a little shiver goes through, I think, the very core of their being into their very soul.
	Because they know it's true.
	Of course they know it's true.
	They see cops with guns.
	They're the only people who've got guns except for, I don't know, security guards or something.
	They know that there's war.
	They know that prison guards have truncheons.
	This is not something that is obscure to people.
	This is not like the world is round to a caveman, right?
	This is something they see.
	They see cop shows.
	They see cops blowing people away all the time.
	You don't see a lot of doctor shows where the doctors are blowing people away, so it's not hard for people to figure out.
	But what happens is the fact that the violence that is at the core of social organization, the initiation of violence, the immorality of violence, that is at the core of their social organization, is something that the shock hits them that it's actually been said, that it's actually been spoken.
	And it goes through them and it says, oh, well, you know, the media never talks about this.
	I wonder why. My teachers in public school who were funded through the threats of violence against my parents, they never talked about it.
	My parents never talked about it.
	My friends never talk about it.
	My colleagues, my bosses, nobody ever talks about this one fundamental thing that we should understand about our society, that it's founded on violence.
	Like, there are slaves everywhere, and no one ever talks about slavery, right?
	I mean, because the moment you talk about it, it starts to crumble.
	So, what happens is when you simply bring that statement to people, it threatens to unplug them from this matrix of avoidance, right?
	That we can only maintain this violence by pretending it's not there.
	It's a huge elephant in the room, to take a psychological metaphor.
	And so because people won't talk about it, the violence continues, and they understand the moment they start to talk about it, they're going to face all the opposition, they're going to really understand the nature of their society, which is that 99% of what passes for communication in society is the rank avoidance of that which is immoral, that which is violent, that which is destructive.
	And they're not going to like what that says about their personal relationships, about their families, about their teachers, about their employees.
	They don't want to take that stand because they know that there's a very good reason why so few people do, because it targets you pretty heavily.
	Could you elaborate on it a little bit?
	I mean, I follow what you're saying to the point that Okay, it's going to be very painful if somebody really stops to consider what society is based upon, but is it because they're going to say, for example, God, why didn't my teachers talk about this?
	Why didn't my parents talk about this?
	Why don't we talk about this now?
	What do you think is going to be so disturbing for them?
	Well, they know what's going to happen if they start bringing this up with people.
	They're going to get attacked.
	They're going to get labeled crazy.
	They're going to be rejected.
	There's a hostility.
	They might suffer negative job consequences, their careers.
	There's so many negative consequences to it.
	That people just kind of shy away from it because it's like, well, so I talk about it.
	It's not going to bring down the government.
	It's not going to change society.
	All that's going to happen is I'm going to keep running into this wall over and over again of people's hostility and indifference and not wanting to be woken up.
	So people make a kind of rational calculation.
	Net gain? Not really anything.
	Net loss? I mean, except for we three who, you know, and other people, right, who make the rational calculation and say, well, the life of virtue is not something that you weigh in the balance, right?
	It's not something that you say, well, you know, if I get three bucks more an hour, I'll be virtuous, right?
	This is something that you dedicate yourself to as a principle.
	But most people are just going to make an efficiency calculation and say, well, I can't change it and I'm going to suffer enormously if I bring it up.
	But I also don't want to face that I'm frightened to bring up the truth because I'm afraid that people are going to attack me because then I can't sit down with my friends and my family as if we're all just happy people with no problems and we're not avoiding anything.
	So what I'm going to do is make up a whole bunch of nonsense to just obscure it all, like the social contract and like all the democracy and all of the nonsense that you hear being talked about in terms of, quote, political analysis.
	Because I don't want to stand up for what's right, and I don't want to look in the mirror and say, I'm avoiding standing up for what is right and what is basically true, and so is everyone around me.
	So people just weasel themselves into a kind of fog.
	Which is impossible to penetrate and just exhaust anyone who tries.
	And that's how they maintain this sort of illusion of some sort of self-respect.
	I think there may be sort of an existential obstacle even for them to even admit it to themselves because you're trained all your life to respect authority and to measure your own goodness by whether you play by the rules and do as you're told.
	You know, one of my favorite phrases is law-abiding taxpayer, which is synonymously with good person.
	Obedient equals good.
	And if that is your position, it's basically like somebody coming along and saying, you know the God you've worshipped your whole life?
	He's an evil poohead.
	And people don't want to think he's an evil poohead.
	So when you point out your God robs people, Is violent.
	He's a criminal. And people are so, you know, I'm a law-abiding taxpayer.
	I'm good. I do as I'm told.
	They don't want to hear that because to them that means you've been, like, proud to be obedient to something that's just evil.
	And who wants to say, yeah, I'm proud to be obedient to a big, evil, horrible monster.
	So I think they really, they try to not see their...
	To not see...
	To not see their master for the evil poohead he is.
	Because they've been so faithful to him all these years that they don't want to see how evil he is.
	I mean, you can see that in plenty of countries that the people turn a blind eye to how evil their leaders are, this country and lots of other ones.
	And I think it's just the same thing.
	They don't want to admit that that thing that they secretly know is nasty and violent.
	But they don't want to admit that it's the bad guy, because it's what they were taught to respect and obey.
	I turn our whole world upside down if you have to admit that you're, at the very least, turning away from violence and not admitting it and allowing it to happen.
	If you're a teacher and you admit that your whole job is based upon money taken from people by force to give you a job to Address kids that are forced by compulsory attendance laws to appear in your classroom every day, if you have to admit that, that could be an unbelievably painful experience, I would think.
	Well, and your job as a teacher would end at that moment, because how could you conceivably ask children to obey you as a moral authority?
	How could you conceivably say to children, you should not bully each other when they're there by force and you're paid by force?
	When the whole foundation of the building that they're in and everything that's put in front of them is founded on violence, how are you conceivably going to tell children?
	To issue violence and to obey the teacher as a moral authority.
	The whole system can't work.
	Can't work. Even children would be able to see it and say, well, how come I'm not allowed to take this toy?
	How come I'm not allowed to take lunch money from this kid when your whole paycheck comes from you waving guns at people's faces?
	The whole system would collapse if the violence is simply looked at for more than a millisecond of shameful avoidance.
	Wow. Well, and yet that's what we're trying to do, right?
	We're trying to get people to look at this for more than a millisecond so they can wake up and experience that painful metamorphosis that all three of us have done.
	And several people are in the process of it.
	It's just, yeah, I don't know.
	Well, this is the heroic place to be, right?
	I mean, I actually would prefer to be here.
	I'm sort of a bit of a born fighter, right?
	So I'd actually prefer to be here than 100 years from now when these problems are solved, because I think there's more honor, more glory, and it's certainly better to my warrior tastes than something where the problems have been solved.
	So for me, it's a great place to be.
	But I know that for a lot of people, I don't think you guys, it's uncomfortable for some.
	Well, and it's exciting because to see the change, once we're in the kind of world that the three of us desire, then, I mean, then you don't experience the contrast of having gone to it, right?
	It's like, you know, I mean, it's like when you feel, if you feel good all the time, you never, it's not quite the same, I'm not saying this, it's not quite the same as if you've been in pain and suddenly the pain is relieved.
	What an experience that is, right?
	Yep. Well, I know you guys got things to do next week, but I'll be back here next week, folks, with the show, and I hope Larkin and Stefan will be regular guests, and we shall see.
	But anyway, get to Philadelphia if you can.
	Tune in next week. Send me an email at Peter at PeterMaxShow, and I will be here at 9 o'clock Central Time next Saturday, July 4th.
	Thanks, Peter. Thanks, Larkin.

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