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July 7, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

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1410 Stefan Molyneux interviews Jan Helfeld, Libertarian Interviewer of the Political Elite

Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio interviews Jan Helfeld, Attorney, Activist and Socratic Interviewer of the Political Elite.

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	Oh, hi, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
	Excellent. Thank you.
	So, yeah, I just wanted to, and I appreciate you taking the time to have a chat, I wanted to just ask you a little bit about your history, because you really do have some quite remarkable videos where you take a very, if I understand it rightly, and I've watched quite a few, a libertarian and Socratic approach to questioning the ethics of those near the seat of power in politics and And in the media,
	and I find them quite fascinating to watch, although it is a little bit like watching some expert pin a butterfly to a mat.
	But I wonder if you could tell us just a little bit or tell me a little bit about how you got into this, what your background is, and what your goal is in these.
	Well, before I do that, I want to congratulate you on having a philosophic discussion radio show and website.
	I think that's essential.
	I think that the power of the interviews comes from the examination of the philosophic premises that support public policies and even the epistemological or metaphysical premises sometimes.
	I would assume that you understand the power of philosophy and that's where the power of the interviews come from.
	It's a shame in my view that most people don't realize that the knowledge is hierarchical and they're not aware of the premises that support their public policy positions and I try to I bring that out in my interviews and often there's contradictions in the underlining premises that the person I'm interviewing isn't even aware of.
	The other thing that my interviews bring out is they give you an insight into the person's character because when they're confronted with these contradictions Or when they're pressed to reason about their views, you can tell whether they're a person that's committed to reasoning or not.
	So far I haven't answered your question yet, but I wanted to...
	No, no, I appreciate your...
	I think this response is great.
	It's great. But I plan to.
	Don't worry, I'm not going to evade.
	We try not to rush a philosopher.
	But I thought that first I wanted to congratulate you and Ian, in a sense, you are committed to some of the fundamentals that I am, in which one of my fundamentals is examining a person's philosophic premises, and so I'm sure you do that as well, and you're well aware of what I just said, and your viewers and listeners are well aware of the same.
	That's probably why they're interested in philosophy, I would assume.
	I'm not sure. I think seeing the similarities of our approaches is one of the reasons why someone posted your videos on my website, and we got a lot of very interested and positive, though somewhat morally horrified, not at you, but at the people you're interviewing,
	some response back, which I'm sure is something, the creepy crawlies a little bit, where you see, because I mean, one of the things that you continually point out, just for those who haven't seen it, is that You say that the initiation of the use of force is immoral, which every reasonable person believes.
	And then you point out that the government is supposed to protect property, but the government has the right to violate property at will through taxation.
	And every time you point out the violence of taxation, people say it's voluntary.
	And then every time you point out that if it's voluntary, there should be no consequences for noncompliance, they say, well, there are Violent consequences for non-compliance and you say that it's not voluntary and they say no, but it is voluntary and that round and round Seems to go and I've had this for 20 years myself trying to talk with this stuff about some people Is that a fair summation?
	I don't want to sum up everything you do in one short Phrase, but that's a lot of the repetition.
	It's voluntary then there should be no consequences for non-compliance There must be consequences for non-compliance.
	Then it's not voluntary. No, it is that seemed to be a lot of what was going on in some of the ones that I saw and Was that your experience as well, or have I just seen a sort of subset that's not quite fair?
	Well, what you described does occur.
	The way I would put it is there's several things that happen.
	It doesn't always break down the same way.
	It's like when you go down a Socratic reasoning examination, you never know where it's going to lead.
	Sometimes it leads To somebody trying to distort the use of the word voluntary and turn it on its head.
	That's one way it goes down.
	Other times what's happening is that even in the mind of the person that I'm interviewing, they don't really understand the nature of government and they don't understand that all laws are forceful so The real issue in politics is, is this an instance in which force should be used or not?
	That's really the common denominator of all public policy questions and even politicians that are involved in government every day, they're not explicitly aware that what they're doing is they're forcing people each time they pass a law and they don't want to Admit this, because then this requires them to ask the next question, which is what I just asked.
	Is this a situation in which force should be used or not?
	Is it justified to use force in this instance?
	Yes, sorry, just to throw in something that I think I saw happening in your interviews as well, which is that if it is a moral rule, Philosophically speaking, it should be universal.
	Because if it's not universal, then it's more like an opinion or a prejudice or a cultural bigotry or something local and personal.
	Like, I like ice cream and this kind of dance.
	But if it is a moral rule, then it really should be universal.
	And if it's universal, why would it only be confined to those who call themselves the government?
	Which I think is another question that gets people kind of in all kinds of knots sometimes in the interviews that I've seen of yours.
	It is and should be characterized as a moral rule and ethics is underlining all of political theory and political views.
	So the ethical premises have supremacy over the political positions and premises.
	That's part of the hierarchical nature of knowledge that they're really not aware of.
	In effect, politics is a sub-branch of ethics, which is generally understood by people with some amount of philosophic understanding, but most people aren't really aware of that.
	But leaving that aside, whether it is universal or not, the fact is that it's one of the premises that they hold.
	They in effect are contradicting themselves whether they think it's a universal or not, which I do think it is, but whether they agree with that or not is irrelevant because the point is that they have committed in their personal ethical views to the non-initiation of force.
	They don't agree with that and so then they think that's wrong.
	So all that's happening is that they don't really understand That in this other area of life, for instance, they're violating that premise.
	You want me to answer some of your first question?
	Yes, just before we get back to that.
	We'll skip around. Whatever you want to talk about is fine with me.
	I just don't want to be accused of evasion, you know.
	I make a big deal about requiring these people not to evade and how bad evasion is and I think it's the major intellectual sin So I want to be consistent and not do it myself.
	No, I think there's a difference between evasion and enthusiasm, and I think we're probably working in the latter category, rather than not avoiding, but pursuing new thoughts.
	But I think that most, even people who believe in the validity of the state as a concept, which is debatable, but not necessarily a debate we have to have now, but...
	Would say that the police would not be acting in a manner that would be wildly different from your average citizen.
	So if you're being attacked by someone, you have the right of self-defense.
	And the right of self-defense is also universal.
	And also, you don't have to be the person being attacked.
	Like, anyone can save you from being attacked.
	And so having specialists call police who do that falls within the universal moral category.
	I mean, forget the taxation, but just that, you know, having uniform and being professional at helping people protect themselves falls within a, it's more of a specialist, falls within the universal moral rule.
	And so I think those things would be more defensible, whereas things like foreign aid, the welfare state...
	Oh, right, right. Those things are very different, right?
	I'm a believer in limited government and delegating to the government your right of self-defense and limiting it to that.
	That's where the power flows from, when it flows from the people.
	It's a right that's delegated from the individuals to the state for a particular purpose and the purpose is to protect their individual rights and limit it to that.
	I think that optimizes the possibility of human beings in a social setting achieving the greatest amount of happiness possible in principle for everybody in that society.
	So I believe in limited government.
	The problem that I'm examining in the interviews is redistribution of wealth is one of the main ones and other incidentals that are infringements on personal choices and etc.
	But the major shift from The limited government perspective that was in the minds of the founding fathers and starting with John Locke basically influenced them is like the major difference is that now people think that redistribution of wealth is perfectly okay.
	Sure, absolutely. I think even the Roman theorists and clearly the founding fathers of the United States and the Federalist Papers had already realized that a popular democracy is not a great system and if everything's up for grabs, people can make coalitions to rip off other people in society.
	Well, that just makes for a great food fight, which is what we have in the U.S., where everybody's trying to get into everybody else's pockets.
	It's horrible. I did a video called The Proper Function of Government that focuses on exactly that.
	It's terrifying how consistently this lesson is not learned.
	The ancient Greeks I don't know.
	Now, I wouldn't necessarily agree with you on the size.
	I just had a four and a half hour debate in Philadelphia with Michael Badnerick, a former presidential candidate, on how much government is necessary.
	And I took the small to the vanishing point side, so I don't want to get into that here.
	But I'm really quite fascinated about...
	Which side did you take, just for curiosity's sake?
	Oh, sure. I took...
	My particular focus is on trying to design a philosophical and social system which does not require the institutional aggression of a government in any way, shape, or form.
	So that's my pie-in-the-sky...
	You know, build a castle in the clouds and try to live there approach.
	So I took the stateless society approach.
	And of course, he took the minarchist society approach.
	That video will be posted in a couple of days if you're interested.
	But I'm quite interested in how you...
	I seem to have that discussion comes up a lot in libertarian circles.
	It certainly does. And I think it's a very good discussion.
	I think it's...
	Perfectly fine discussion to have.
	My only complaint is that I have it more often than I would like because my main problem is on the other side.
	Right, right. So I'd like to find a little bit about your background and what led you down to this path where you're sort of jamming the Socratic microphone into startled people's faces, which I think is a very interesting and noble thing to do.
	But if you could tell me a little bit about How your thinking developed in this area and how you conceived and executed this plan of being the Socratic gadfly to the powers that be?
	Well, you know, I was...
	My background, if you'll succinctly, is I'm an attorney who transitioned into business and into TV production and TV interviewing.
	And then I've made some documentaries, which if you want to check them out, JanHelfeld.com, you can.
	Can you just spell that for the people who end up hearing this?
	Okay. Well, that's J-A-N-H-E-L-F-E-L-D.com.
	JanHelfeld.com.
	The thing that motivated me was I was really dissatisfied with the public policy discussions that I saw on television in various ways.
	I hate to just get like an assortment of opinions.
	And go nowhere.
	That really aggravates me.
	And bores me, so I couldn't watch that.
	You know, I mean, okay, this is your opinion.
	Let's find out if it's true or not.
	And you cornered, sorry to interrupt, but you cornered in a very interesting interview at least one half of Hannity and Combs.
	I wish you'd got the other half as well.
	I thought Combs was a very interesting person to interview.
	He really was. It's like trying to grab fog made out of jello with tentacles to try and get that guy to take a position.
	But, of course, he wouldn't really be on TV if he had a firmer position.
	Well, I thought that was an amazing interview.
	What he was arguing, if I recall correctly, was that individual citizens have the right to initiate force against other citizens.
	Yes, but then when confronted with that being universalizable, he then seemed to retreat.
	Everybody says this stuff, the moment you universalize it, they see there are problems with the position and then they'll try to fog and evade.
	But it really was a very, and again, massive props to you for sticking it out with these people because it really is quite an intense.
	And what was the name of, sorry to interrupt again, what was the name of the, it was a reporter from the Boston Globe, the guy with the bowtie?
	Who just seemed entirely epistemologically insane.
	Everything is relative and nothing is true and nothing is real and so on, right?
	I mean, just amazing.
	I mean, that's so postmodern.
	It's like turning your brain into some sort of self-eating squid.
	But I just thought that was a really...
	I don't know how you keep a straight face with these people.
	That, to me, is really a remarkable skill.
	But I guess you honed that as a lawyer.
	Well, actually, that was one of my favorite interviews because I thought that we were able to examine exactly that, the postmodernist premises, see how absurd they are and self-contradictory.
	And he didn't get angry when we parted friends.
	Which is my optimum result.
	The best thing you can do is expose the nonsense and not make an enemy, which is what I try to do.
	Yeah, because then people focus on you being aggressive rather than the questions that are really important.
	Right. That's an interview that I would recommend your viewers and listeners.
	I will link both of these.
	When I post this, I will link both of these.
	Because it's one of the most philosophic in nature.
	Another one where they argued relativism and the idea that two contradictory propositions can both be true is David Korn from The Nation.
	You can see that it's titled David Korn Okay, I will link that one as well.
	He's a reporter from The Nation.
	Although I apologize, the audio isn't that great on that one.
	Another one that's very philosophic is one that I did with George Will.
	That was a real surprise to me because I assumed in the beginning that he was an advocate of capitalism and some kind of rational enlightenment, I was hoping. He ended up on the side of Hegel and Marx.
	That's a surprise place to end up.
	I think that my explanation for that is that sometimes people try to be consistent with a mistaken position and then they end up advocating positions that they really don't hold or they just find useful at the moment that they're having the argument.
	Which again will tell you quite a bit about their character and commitment to integrity and truth over ego and defensiveness.
	Yeah Sometimes it's not as horrible as it sounds.
	Sometimes they kind of think that this is something like a game.
	It's not that they're doing it perversely.
	I would probably put him in that category.
	he kind of thought he was in some kind of like a Scrabble game or something, you know, where he could just, you know, play a few, a few cards and, you know, maybe he'd win or not.
	But I think it's hard to, there is a downside to that.
	The seriousness of the implications of these premises is really no game.
	I think some people take philosophic discussions in that context.
	They really don't see the import.
	Yeah, and that is really tragic.
	I mean, you and I know the body count of Marxism runs into the hundreds of millions, and so it's not a position that should be taken frivolously.
	I agree.
	And if you asked him the next day whether he was a Marxist or not, or agree with Marxist premises, he would disagree.
	Yes, he would. Now, can you tell me a little bit about how your interest in philosophy grew and what your influences were in your study that led you towards, I guess, a libertarian or a minarchist position?
	Well, I would say that early on, maybe even as early as about 10 or 11, in the arguments and discussions that I was having,
	I About ordinary everyday positions, I noticed that one sure way that you could demonstrate somebody was mistaken is if they were contradicting themselves.
	Sure. That was a big awakening and then I didn't really hold that too explicitly or too consciously.
	Until I got into college and I started to study the Socratic dialogues and then I saw Socrates use that and then more explicitly I started to become aware of the Socratic interviewing method.
	I would say that I always had an intellectual interest And I had an interest in philosophy and the philosophy studies that I did have left me unsatisfied and going nowhere.
	So I took my philosophy seriously and I revised my premises, my transition.
	My background was originally I was, I guess you might call it I was a liberal Democrat because my father was a liberal Democrat.
	And then I started to get away from that when I started thinking about economics and politics.
	And when I read Milton Friedman's book, Free to Choose, that helped me a lot to organize my thinking in the field of economics.
	I started to read other thinkers.
	I guess I started then to realize the importance of philosophy in general and tried to integrate my philosophy.
	I think the major milestones I would say is just taking your philosophy seriously.
	One other thing, I think there's three things that come to mind that I think are important.
	Identifying the basic rules of logic at an early age, realizing that your philosophy is important, and being willing to discuss the things with people that differ with you, and exposing yourself to argument or Socratic interviewing.
	So that you can check to see if you're on the Soundground or not.
	So let me congratulate you for your having the debate.
	And you say it was four hours.
	Yeah, four and a half hours. It was a great...
	I really enjoyed myself. Well, I think that's a little bit too much for me.
	It's like eating pie.
	Right, right. Some people have a bigger appetite than others.
	We had a lot of questions from the audience, and that makes the time fly a lot faster.
	You know, when you've got a really intelligent and engaged audience, that made things a lot more enjoyable.
	It wasn't just the two talking heads.
	Yeah, I've had the limit of, I think...
	Two hours is enough for me.
	Including questions from the audience.
	That's an interesting thing.
	Because I created the National Debate Association and I have a particular debate format which I have proposed and used in debates.
	Maybe I'll send it to you or something if you're interested.
	I'd love to read it, sure. I think a lot about debates being effective depends on the format.
	Some of the formats are really poor.
	The elements, I think, for a good debate, just the bare minimum, are that the participants have to be able to Ask a series of questions, I mean like 10 questions in a row, of each other.
	So that they can lead each other to what they consider to be the right conclusion.
	And that has to be put together with a judge who requires responsive answers.
	Right, right.
	Yes, there was not a lot of that going on at some points in our debate.
	See then, the debate will digress into arguing.
	I'm not a big enthusiast of arguing.
	There are some people that feel comfortable arguing.
	I find it relatively sterile.
	I want you to just go right at me and ask me the questions that will show me that I'm mistaken and let me do the same thing with you and then we'll butt heads and we'll see what happens because of course you and I are committed to a higher value than our personal ego or position on any subject which is our commitment to the truth and so If I have a mistake,
	I certainly want to find out about it.
	Now, sorry to interrupt.
	That way, yeah, go ahead.
	Well, I was saying, I agree.
	I think a debate should ideally be two people working to fill in each other's gaps in knowledge, and it should be a partnership in pursuit of the truth, not an ego-driven opposite argument, which, you know, sometimes it devolves into.
	This one didn't. I mean, it was a very amicable and positive.
	I don't care, and I don't criticize people being committed to their position and being enthusiastic and, you know, Going at it competitively, there's nothing, in my view, wrong with any of those things.
	What's wrong is when the person puts that above the truth.
	Yes, yes. So the way that I have, in my format, whenever you ask your opponent a question and you think he hasn't answered, it's a leading, ultimately, a yes or no question.
	You can ask the judge to rule.
	You can say, well, you know, I don't think he was responsive.
	And the judge says, yes, he was.
	Well, then tell me, did he answer yes or did he answer no?
	Right. But I don't know.
	Now, sorry, I don't want to take up all of your day, but I would just sort of like to ask, if you don't mind, what is the nature of your pursuit of public figures, which, again, I find really fascinating, and I will definitely try to get more exposure for your excellent videos.
	Is it in the nature of a quest?
	Is it a hobby? Is it a job?
	I mean, what is it that you are pursuing this, or how does it fit into the larger context of your life?
	Well, it's my optimum career choice.
	I haven't been able to make a good living out of it, but it's the best thing that I can do, I think.
	I think it has a social value.
	I agree. And I'm in a position where I can contribute what I can.
	I think there's a commercial value which is diamond in the rough right there because I think the interviews are more dramatic and more exciting, more interesting and certainly more intellectual value than what you see on television, generally speaking.
	And so I think it's a good product commercially so I'll put it out there.
	And maybe it'll get picked up, maybe it won't.
	In the meantime, I sell the DVDs on my website and I have got a lot of interest.
	One interesting thing as far as commercial acceptance and interest, here's an interesting factoid.
	About two million people have seen the Reid interview.
	The majority leader, Senate Majority Leader Reid.
	I'm sorry, your interview with?
	With Reid.
	That's fantastic! And the interesting thing is that, as happens on the internet, about 1.8 A million of those people have seen it on a website that actually lifted it from a friend of mine's website that I had given permission to.
	So I guess because of the lax property rights context of the internet, there's a side benefit.
	Which is that it was exposed to a lot more people.
	So that tells me that there's certainly an interest in these interviews and there's a market out there.
	I think that's right.
	I don't find it at all this way, but I could certainly see how some people might be Quite unnerved by the lack of rigor, precision, and consistency in the thinking of those who have enormous power, whether they're in the media or in the government.
	Because I think most people look up at these, you know, well, they're our leaders.
	They know what they're doing.
	They have experts.
	They're up there because they're smarter and wiser and better.
	And I think this is, of course, a story as old as Socrates, that when you begin to question these people, you very quickly find out that they really don't have I think that what you do is you show that The people who have the most power very often are neither smart nor wise,
	nor mature, nor consistent.
	I mean smart, yes, but not wise or mature or consistent.
	And I think that's unsettling for some people, though.
	I think it is a very, very important story to be told.
	Well, I think part of the reason for that is the total failure of the press.
	Yeah, and the public schools.
	They're not investigating the thinking and giving people an opportunity to get an insight into the The person's wisdom and character.
	But as far as people getting upset, I think that's probably a good thing because we need to shake people up because certainly the policies that the government is following on almost every front are pretty dire and horrendous.
	Part of it is the apathy of the citizens.
	So unfortunately, in this case, although I'm all for peaceful living and enjoying life, I think it's quite good that people get upset and start to take their responsibility as citizens more seriously.
	So we can certainly use a little bit of that at this stage.
	I think that's entirely right, and I think it's a wonderful thing that you're doing in exposing some of the flaws in thinking of those who have power.
	Again, I want to try and keep this to a civilized length.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to add just before we close up?
	I don't have a particular agenda.
	I just wanted to thank you for your interest.
	Also, maybe one of your Participants recommend that I involve myself in your Sunday discussions.
	You're more than welcome anytime.
	That's very nice of you.
	I don't know. I think as long as there's more people that are willing to do this, I think my estimate is that we need at least 100 more people doing this kind of thing.
	Things will be better.
	Each person does what they can and in the meantime, I hope you live a great life and you're very happy with everything else that's going on in your life.
	I certainly wish the best for you as well and thank you so much for the service that you're doing for The Truth.
	I hugely appreciate it and I'm sure that there are many, many other people who do as well.

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