Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Aug. 16, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:59:24

1438 Freedomain Radio Sunday Call In Show 16 Aug 2009

Letting go of godz and loving the hard road of truth.

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	This is Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
	I hope you're doing just beautifully this fabulous sunny afternoon up here in Canada.
	Shockingly, the constant rain has stopped and it feels a little bit less each day like I'm living in the eye of a typhoon or in a house inside a car wash.
	So this is quite thrilling. We were actually able to get out and go to the pool and do all these kinds of wonderful things.
	Introduce the wonderful Isabella to the glories of splashing around senselessly.
	And she's enjoying it quite a lot.
	So thank you so much for joining us this Sunday afternoon, August the 16th, 2009, for our Philosophy Chattelfest Showdown.
	And I hope that you will check out the video, which will be out very shortly, on some follow-up to questions or comments or criticisms of my theory of ethics called universally preferable behavior.
	It is probably not going to crack the YouTube top five, maybe not even the top ten, but I will post a link to it on the Free Domain radio board and hopefully you can check it out.
	I think it's got some very nice graphics.
	Things bounce and go bing!
	And I think that it hopefully will explain some of the challenging aspects of my theory, the challenging aspects I hope not being trying to understand it at all.
	So I'm just going to check in with the listeners.
	If you're in the Free Domain Radio chat room, if you could just tell me whether the volume is okay, whether everything sounds all right.
	Maybe, James, you can give me a feedback on that as well.
	We just had some adjustments to do last week.
	Apparently, either I was yelling or the listeners were.
	And, of course, this is a show where it's really designed that both parties yell at the same time.
	Well, I will just start off with a very brief series of comments.
	But, James, interrupt me whenever we have questions.
	A listener, just a call-in, let me know.
	And James, would you like to mention the call-in number or do you want me to?
	Oh yes, I can give out the call-in number.
	For those of you that would like to call the show to debate with Stefan, it's 347-633-9636.
	That number again is 347-633-9636.
	And any ideas or anything that you need to talk to Stefan about?
	You're quite welcome to call the show.
	It does actually look right now that we do have a caller.
	I don't know if you just want to get into the show first, Stefan, or do you want me to bring the caller on?
	No, let's bring him on, baby.
	That's what I'm here for, is to chat with you, the gorgeous and talented listenership.
	Okay, it's a caller from an area code...second here.
	937. 937 area code, you're on the air.
	Oh, yes, sir. How are you doing there, Mr.
	Steph? I'm just great.
	How are you doing, my friend? I guess finer than frog hair, so I guess pretty good.
	It's been sort of ups and downs today, but I just have a couple quick questions.
	I'm sort of new to this Free Debate Radio.
	I've only been listening to the podcast for about a month and a half.
	Somebody else probably asked this question, but I was just wondering, you say that people should not get involved in politics.
	And, I don't know, based on my understanding, maybe thanks to the propaganda thrown at me in university, but it is to my understanding, if you don't get involved in politics, you're still affected by political decisions.
	Laws are passed, such as, I don't know, a bald head may become indecent exposure, then you and me will be both screwed.
	So, I just don't know how removing yourself from politics will make things better in our current society.
	Yeah, it's interesting you should mention indecent exposure.
	This is why I'm generally only shot from the nipples up.
	But no, that's an excellent question.
	So is it your...
	You're of the belief, and I just want to make sure I understand, so I'll paraphrase and tell me if I'm way off.
	You say that because politics has a direct effect on the quality of our life, that we should engage ourselves in the political system as a form of self-defense to vote for or to attempt to oppose intrusive laws or to vote for a vote against intrusive laws or to vote for people who are going to, you know, that we should engage ourselves in the political system as a form of self-defense to vote for or to attempt to oppose intrusive laws or to vote for a vote against intrusive laws or to vote for Is that right?
	It's a form of self-defense that you can participate in politics to minimize the attacks upon you.
	Is that right?
	That is correct.
	And that's how the university sort of brings out to me the politics.
	To base my understanding, that is correct.
	All right. Now, just to clarify, I mean, I try not to say what people should and shouldn't do.
	I mean, I've made arguments against political interactions, like why I think it's a good idea not.
	But the should thing is like, you know, if you're really into politics, then go for it, right?
	But I just think that... It's important always, I think, whenever we have a perspective or an opinion that we take for granted, it's always important to hear a counter-argument just to make sure that we're not just accepting things on the say-so.
	Now, do you involve yourself in politics or have you involved yourself in politics in your life?
	No, that is something that I haven't really done yet.
	Just starting to go to university and just getting out of the household and sort of figuring things out.
	Yeah, I haven't been involved in politics since I've been out of the household.
	Right, okay. Now, when it comes to involving yourself in politics, I think it's fair to say that you need to spend some time in politics to make a difference.
	I don't think that there's too many people who would say, you know, one vote every four years or every two years or whatever.
	It's going to make much of a difference in what happens in the government.
	So I think that because you always hear this argument, well, if you don't like the system, then work within the system to change it, which is really a crazy argument when you think about it.
	You know, it's like, If you don't like some restaurant's meal, why don't you...
	The only alternative is to keep eating that meal or to take over the restaurant.
	It's like, well, why the hell can I just not go to that restaurant, go to some other restaurant or make my own food?
	Why do I have to...
	Like, if some supermarket doesn't stock the food that you want, your only option is to either live with it or take over the supermarket and run it your way.
	It's like, but those aren't options that we have in any other sphere except in government.
	So I sort of want to point out that There's no other sphere where we apply those same kinds of rules.
	We have volunteerism in other areas of our life, in almost every interaction.
	Like if you have some job that you hate, nobody says, well, your only option is to keep working there, and if you hate it, then you have to take over the company.
	Well, it's not everyone who's good at taking over companies, and not everyone Possess the the charisma the time the energy the look the height the hair whatever it is that that is required for a successful political career very few people have those those skills even if they want to so I think what it does is it damns an enormous number of people to futility and helplessness because you really have to get involved in the political system if you want to change it and I think There's a fundamental misunderstanding about what the political system really is among people who get involved or say that we should get involved.
	There's this belief that the system of government exists to serve the needs and preferences of the voters.
	And that's just not true at all.
	I mean, that's empirically, logically, factually, historically is not true.
	It's not even close to true that the state exists to serve the preferences Of the voters.
	Because if the government exists to serve the preferences of the voters, then it would be a business, right?
	Like we can say that whatever you might dislike about some of its business practices, Microsoft exists to serve the needs of its customers, more or less, right?
	I mean, you know, within the realm of the free market as it is.
	And Compaq and Dell and other companies that aren't all over the state, they exist to serve the needs of their customers.
	How do we know that? Because people voluntarily choose to interact with them.
	But... It's impossible to say that an organization exists to serve the needs of its consumers as if the first thing it does is pull out a gun and force consumers to consume its products.
	Then it's clearly not for the interests of the producers, because if it was, it would subject itself to the test of voluntarism, right?
	If I say my wife really loves me and would never leave me, but there's no way I'm going to let her out of the basement where I've locked her up, then clearly I don't believe that she loves me and would never leave me, because I've got her locked in the basement and I've just swallowed the key.
	And some constipation tablets or something, right?
	So the government does not exist to serve the...
	Let me just finish. I'm sorry for the speech and then I'll let you tear my argument to shreds if it's bad.
	The government does not exist to serve the needs of the people.
	The government exists so that people in power can bestow goodies upon their friends and to punish their enemies.
	And it exists to transfer wealth from the productive to the parasitical.
	And it exists to initiate violence against the peaceful and use it to reward The manipulative, the aggressive, and the pseudo-violent.
	So the state is not something which people choose.
	I mean, nobody chooses to get born into a country.
	Nobody chooses even the school that they go to.
	That's assigned by the state, and your parents are thrown in jail if they don't pay for that school, usually through property taxes.
	And from there, it just continues going.
	If you don't do what the state says, they'll throw you in jail.
	And we don't say that an organization that holds a gun to your head is there for your best interest.
	So I think that to involve yourself in politics is to go with the illusion That the government exists to serve the needs of the population.
	Either you will go into politics to represent some nasty special interest group that is going to pay your way to get into politics, like the pharmaceutical industry spends millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars on lobbyists in Congress.
	You can get into and influence politics if you are paid for and represent some special interest group which is going to pillage the productive citizens of the country.
	But if you go into politics trying to reduce the government power, well, you fundamentally misunderstand what the government is for, which is to rip off the innocent and reward the guilty.
	And so I just sort of, I think it sort of misunderstands what, you know, what the government's all about.
	And of course, we wouldn't try to go into the mafia, which we understand as a criminal organization.
	We wouldn't try and work our way into the mafia and try and turn it into a charity, which is, I think, fundamentally what people mistake when they get into the government.
	Those are sort of some very brief arguments.
	There's some more videos on my Free Domain Radio at youtube.com forward slash Free Domain Radio site.
	But those are sort of some thoughts, but tell me what you think, whether that makes any sense at all.
	Yes, that makes a lot of sense.
	And I was just wondering, in regards to people who truly believe that the state is their savior, for instance, a lot of minorities in America fought for their civil rights.
	So a lot of people in this generation And this particular generation of freedom fighters, as well as people who read about these things that happened in history, may say something like, are you crazy?
	If it wasn't for us getting involved in the political realm, we would have been still second-class citizens.
	If it wasn't for American soldiers with their guns and their grenades and the bazookas going into Little Rock, Arkansas, and forcing the school to allow blacks to attend, things may be still separate but equal.
	So I'm just wondering, how do you talk to somebody that lived in that paradigm, in that era, or somebody who actually read about this?
	How do you sort of sway them towards your...
	Well, I mean, I think those are fantastic questions.
	I think the first thing that I would say if somebody brought those arguments up to me is, you know, I would certainly sympathize and say, well, of course, you know, the Jim Crow laws and the separate but equal clauses which existed throughout the South after the Civil War were reprehensible and immoral and racism, particularly statist and institutionalized racism, is a great evil in the world.
	So, We can be happy.
	Whatever progress is made in the equality of different groups is, to me, fantastic.
	And of course, as an anarchist, the final equality that I want is for men and women to actually be equal, which means no small minority holds violent power over the majority, as in the state.
	If all men are created equal, then we should not have a government.
	And if all men aren't created equal, let's stop pretending that they are.
	So I would say, yes, absolutely.
	But the first thing we'd have to recognize It's the problems that people went into politics to solve were statist problems to begin with.
	I mean, slavery is a statist problem, right?
	Slavery exists and repression exists in these situations because of government laws, right?
	So the government was the problem when it came to repressing minorities, particularly blacks, and generally in the South, though of course not exclusively, that government laws are the problem.
	In the free market, To be a racist is to act against your own economic self-interest, without a doubt.
	Because if you say, well, I don't hire blacks, like some guy running a business, and you say, well, I don't hire blacks, then you've immediately carved out, what is it, 10% of the workforce in terms of the talent that you can hire, which means that, on average, you will only have 90% as successful or talented people.
	When you run your business and then your competitor who's not racist gets access to a pool of highly talented people that you don't and so he's going to do better than you over the long run.
	So the free market solves the problem of bigotry in the long run and so that the problem with repression of minorities in the south was specifically the state laws, the state and federal laws that existed and the solution should have been to simply free, in other words, stop enforcing these laws.
	It's interesting because a lot of what happened in the South, while it ended up in political stuff, did not start off in political stuff, right?
	It was people going down to do X, Y, and Z, register voters and so on, where they sort of get killed.
	But it was the sit-down strikes and so on, right?
	I mean, Rosa Parks, it's interesting, you know, everybody thinks that the bus companies, what was it in Birmingham, I think it was, that the bus companies were all racist and that's why the blacks had to sit in the back.
	But that's not true at all. And, you know, a moment's thought can confirm that, right?
	The The bus companies in Alabama, the last thing they wanted to do was to humiliate the black population.
	Why? Because poorer people tend to take buses and the blacks tended to be poorer in that neighborhood.
	They did not want to send the blacks to the back of the bus.
	In fact, they were ordered to send the blacks to the back of the bus by the government, right?
	So the government was the problem in these kinds of situations.
	It was not a free market situation.
	You never want to annoy.
	Your most dependable customers when you're a business.
	And so it made no sense for them to send the blacks to the back of the bus.
	That was something the state forced them to do.
	So I sort of talk about that.
	And then the last thing that I would mention is that, well, the cohesion and the income within black families after the Second World War was rising considerably, rising considerably.
	The blacks were very quickly...
	Emerging into the middle class and they had some of the very fastest accelerations in the history of America of an identified ethnic group gaining stability of income and opportunities of education and business ownership and home ownership and all of the hallmarks of rising into the middle class.
	They were doing fantastically.
	And unfortunately that all stopped.
	The civil rights movement did open up certain avenues but with the civil rights movement you get the welfare state and the welfare state has been a complete disaster.
	For the black community, not just for the black community, of course, right?
	But it has been a complete disaster.
	And black progress in terms of income stalled considerably.
	Because whenever you ask the government to do something, it just does a whole bunch of other things, too, that you may not want it to do.
	Affirmative action and so on, which has been pretty bad for the black community as well, right?
	Because affirmative action, what it does is by putting more blacks that are qualified into particular programs, We're good to go.
	You know, why are so many blacks lodged into these terrible ghettos?
	Public housing, this is all government action as well.
	The war on drugs is fundamentally a war against minorities, right?
	It's not like some governor's kid caught with pot goes to prison, right?
	It's some poor black kid from the ghetto.
	Minimum wages! It's very much against blacks and other minorities with low wage potential when they're young.
	Why is it that so many black kids are born out of wedlock if government action has been so productive in helping blacks?
	Why are so many black fathers absent, right?
	I mean, I think you have to look at the big picture and not just say, well, some schools were integrated and everything's been fine.
	But the trajectory, I would argue, of the black community since the 1960s has not at all been The way it was going beforehand.
	And that's true for poor people in general, but it's more particularly true for blacks.
	So, you know, if this guy says, you know, statism has been great for blacks, it's like, hey, I'll meet you, you know, in some, you know, minority public housing ghetto at midnight, and we'll continue this discussion.
	And this guy would be like, there's no way I'm meeting you there.
	It's way too dangerous or whatever, right?
	And then that would be another way of approaching it, just sort of something a little more immediate and slightly funny.
	But... I mean, I think that what has gone on with minorities, it's been absolutely tragic understatism throughout history.
	And the last thing that I would say is that if you look at, say, and I understand there's not the legacy of slavery and so on, but if you look at, say, Japanese Americans, they have specifically rejected political action.
	And of course, as you know, hundreds of thousands of them were rounded up and put into concentration camps.
	Or holding facilities, whatever you want to call them.
	And their property was stolen from them as recently as the Second World War.
	And they have rejected political action as a solution to that.
	And they have now, I think they are pretty sure, if memory serves me right, it's been a while since I looked this up.
	But I believe that the Japanese Americans have a higher per capita income than whites because they have avoided political action.
	If you look historically at the Irish community, Irishmen, you know, the Irish politician and the Irish cop are two fixtures of of comedy and tragedy and the Irish have gone very heavily into politics and remain much poorer than the average as a result.
	So I think that there's lots of arguments to say that avoiding politics even from an ethnic standpoint has very significant Results in what happens to that ethnic group over time and those ethnic groups that tend to avoid politics as the solution to their problems rely on family and on community and cohesiveness and culture and some of those things can be enormously valuable.
	Relative to going into politics where you know a few of you get to rise to the top and a lot of you don't right because you don't have that political acumen or capacity.
	And again, the very last thing that I would say is that, I mean, one of the big problems with the black community is its religiosity, right?
	It's really crippling and is really problematic to the development of critical and rational thinking, which in a knowledge economy is your complete coin, right, is your critical, rational and skeptical thinking.
	The fact that the religiosity within the black community is very high, which leads to its own bigotries, right?
	Like the rejection of homosexual marriage in California, which was largely driven by the black community.
	I think that the degree to which we can promote atheism and skeptical scientific rational thinking is the degree to which we can help a community that is so struck down by religiosity that it has trouble Helping its children put coherent thoughts one after another, I think that's something which we can do very greatly, which would do a lot more than a million government programs.
	In fact, I think the government programs would only make it worse.
	So sorry, long speech, big topic.
	Those are just some thoughts I've had.
	I'm not saying they're absolute or final, and please don't consider me any kind of expert in this challenging race relations situation, but do those arguments, do you think they might be helpful, or are there any others that you found to be useful?
	Well, that makes a lot of sense, Steph.
	And I just sort of think about a lot of things, just how to sort of spread your information to these groups of people.
	And, you know, that makes a lot of sense.
	I'm going to be listening to this later on once you post it up on your website.
	But just a quick question.
	So when it comes to slavery, do you think...
	The religiosity that was introduced by the slave masters and slaves, do you think that was meant to sort of keep the slaves enthralled in their current stasis of not really looking at the world through a rational lens, but just sort of passing things by and going about the daily lives.
	And when they die, they can go to heaven, but they just go ahead and just suck it up now and just stay slaves.
	What do you think about that?
	Do you think that's the reason?
	Well, yeah, I mean, I think that certainly is a core aspect.
	Certainly, religion is not in and of itself enough to keep a population down, which is why you need government agents to go back and catch slaves, right?
	There's no way that a slave owner You have to rely on the government to get your slaves and drag them back for you in order to make slavery profitable.
	As I've mentioned before, Brazil ended slavery in the 19th century simply by striking down the law that Allowed the government, or caused the government, to return slaves if they'd escaped.
	And the moment that they did that, slavery was done, and everybody started negotiating wages.
	So, the diminishment of government power is the progress of mankind.
	Additional government programs have short-term obvious benefits to some, and long-term disastrous benefits to most.
	So, for sure, it's not just enough to have Christianity.
	You also need a weapon and a gun.
	But, and I'm certainly way down with Freddie Nietzsche, the peachy philosopher, I'm very much down with Nietzsche with this, who calls Christianity a slave's religion.
	And of course it did arise largely out of the slaves, or was popularized among the slaves in the Roman Empire.
	So for sure there is a certain kind of religiosity that is A human-centric, right?
	Like, so you think of the ancient Greek and Roman gods.
	They were, you know, men and women with passions and human characteristics, and they weren't perfect, and they brawled, and they had sex in highly inappropriate and interspecies manners and so on, right?
	But they were human.
	Human gods with human motives and aspirations that we could generally understand.
	It was this big cosmic diaphanous soap opera that went on in those myths.
	But... With the rise of Christianity, you get the rise of an anti...
	Well, I mean, it's Judaism, but Christianity as well.
	You get the rise of an anti-human mythology, right?
	Where, you know, perfection and abstraction and a disavowal of things of this world, right?
	Christ was very specific. You throw away everything that you have if you want to join me.
	You break with your family.
	People get mad at me about this.
	I mean, I've never said that to anyone, but...
	Christ specifically says, break with your family if they don't follow you into the Church of Christ and so on.
	And he was very much anti-materialistic, anti-emotion, anti-passion, anti-human in the way that I would really understand it as a sort of vital emotional living being.
	And the constant focus on, you know, love your masters, love your enemies.
	I mean, a slave has no choice.
	He has to submit, right?
	Because he'll get killed if he doesn't.
	And so because a slave has to submit to the rich and the powerful and the evil, Christianity said that's a virtue.
	Earlier religions said that's a vice and you should try and fight your way free.
	I don't think Spartacus was a Christian.
	But Christianity says you must submit to the secular rulers because the secular rulers are the wings and the arms and the fists and the sword of God.
	And so I think that Christianity came out of Slaves who kind of gave up on fighting their way free, and instead of fighting for their freedom, wanted to make a virtue out of being slaves.
	And that's why there's this resentment, right?
	Nietzsche called it this resentment.
	He used the French word resentment.
	But basically, it's resentment towards the rich and powerful, which was just because the rich and powerful enslaved.
	The slaves were harvested from the lands around the Roman Empire.
	The Roman Empire was a slave-hunting empire, as almost all empires are.
	And so the slaves were gathered from relatively free situations, herded into Rome, and they were all kept down, and no property rights, and no human rights, and no reproduction rights, and so on.
	So they really resented the rich and powerful.
	And Christianity taught them that there was a virtue to submit to the rich and powerful.
	And so they said, well, we can't fight, or they felt that they couldn't fight, so what we'll do is we'll just...
	We'll just make a virtue out of submission.
	And that's a kind of a big, it's like a big tent falling to me, right?
	You just sort of, you see the human motivation and human desire just kind of collapse in and of itself.
	And there's a famous story, just by the by, I'll just finish up with this.
	There's a famous, at least somewhat famous story in geeky historical circles about some Roman senator proposed a law that That said, you know, look, there are all these dastardly slaves out there.
	What? They're just terrible.
	And I don't know whether I'm dealing with a slave or a free man, so I don't know whether to spit in their face or not.
	So let's have all the slaves wear green togas, a green sash.
	I can't remember what it was. Let's have all those rabble wear a green sash so that we can see who they are.
	And the other senators were appalled.
	And they said, are you crazy, man?
	We can't have the slaves wearing a green sash.
	And he's like, why not? Those scum, the rabble.
	And he said, because if the slaves wear a green sash, they will all see how many there are and how few of us there are, and they will rise up.
	And I think that would probably have been a little better than what happened to the Roman Empire, which, you know, Edward Gibbons, monster, incredibly verbose historian who wrote The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is of the theory that it was the otherworldly delusions of Christianity that is of the theory that it was the otherworldly delusions of Christianity that sapped the sort of energy and lifeblood out of the Roman ruling classes and had a lot to do with the
	So I think that it would be better if they'd had put on green sashes, seen how many there were, and renewed Rome through that kind of rebellion.
	But, you know, that's all the what-ifs of history.
	So, yes, I think the short answer is yes, but it's not enough.
	Right, I see.
	I really appreciate your time, Steph, and keep doing what you're doing.
	Thank you. That's an excellent, excellent question.
	And I promised, oh, I'm just studying some of this stuff, sorry, because I'm going to do a series on the collapse of empires, which, of course, is highly significant to an empire currently running a $1.3 trillion deficit that we know of and without much ability and money, right? So I'm going to do a series on the fall of empires.
	And so I'm doing some research on this.
	This is why I'm so verbose about it.
	I'm sorry if it was overly rambly.
	Right, right. Just on that subject, just really quickly, this economy, an economic downfall that we have here in the United States and all over the world.
	One of my professors was talking about how this is a new system, this is the global economy, and it's just gone through a little hiccup, and we just simply don't know what the result is going to be.
	But what you say is that this is This is the same stuff that we've been doing for years and years.
	I mean, we've been making the same mistakes.
	And I'm just wondering, so this is not like a new economic system that we have, or is it the same mistakes as what you're saying?
	Based on my understanding, I think that's what you said, is this is more the same, and it's just going to collapse for each other.
	Oh, yeah. There's no question.
	I mean, everybody thinks that the world they're living in is completely new and unprecedented in human history, and that I think it is the tragedy of the historians that we, you know, I should say we, what if I have a master's, but I'm certainly no expert, but I would say that it is completely tragic the degree to which we believe that.
	There is nothing new under sun or moon.
	Which I think is a real problem for people to understand.
	So, I mean, in the Roman Empire, what did they do?
	Well, they had militarism.
	They had an endless empire expansion.
	They had massive deficits.
	They had huge numbers of people on welfare.
	They had a hell of a lot of people in prisons.
	But most fundamentally, they had the debasement of the coinage through diluting the gold, silver, and eventually even copper coins with other materials, which was a big problem, right?
	So they couldn't control the public spending on all of those who had become parasitical on the state.
	They could not further dilute the currency because the currency was becoming more and more worthless.
	They kept raising taxes on the towns, which drove all the young people to go and live in the countryside, where it was very hard to collect the taxes.
	And because they used to get their soldiers, they would just impress soldiers from the tax rolls, as more and more people fled the cities to go into the countries, it became almost impossible for them to raise the military that they needed from the citizens that they had.
	And so they ended up going to mercenary armies, which they had to pay.
	And eventually they ran out of money completely, couldn't even dilute the currency anymore.
	They ran out of money, and then all the barbarian armies came to go and pick up their money and ransacked Rome, and they did this more than once, and that's the inevitable result, right?
	This is what statism always does.
	It's a cancer that can't be cured, except by not having it there in the first place.
	Anyway, I'll sort of get into more of this when I go into these videos.
	Everything that we're seeing is, from a historical perspective, in my opinion, It's simply a grim replay of everything that has happened before in history to the Roman Empire, to the Greek Empire, to the Assyrian Empire.
	I mean, the revolution in France in the 18th century, which led to the reign of terror, was brought about by what?
	militarism and a hyperinflation of the currency, right?
	Hitler was brought into power by a hyperinflation of the currency, right?
	This is what happens when governments end up with too many dependents.
	So anyway, I don't want to blow the thesis of the whole upcoming video series.
	It's true old news that we'll be doing, and what's happening now is old news as well.
	So I'm sorry, we got a lot of callers, but I certainly do appreciate your questions, and I do love me to ramble about the history, so I hope that that was somewhat useful.
	Thank you.
	Thanks very much, Jimmy James.
	We have... Other people who are going to call up, who maybe are real experts, who are going to tell me just how far off base I actually am.
	Yes, Steph, we have.
	The board is full today.
	It's unbelievable. I want to bring Patrick on.
	He's in the UK. He's using the new click-to-talk feature.
	I just want to make sure that this works, and then we can tell all our listeners and viewers about this.
	Patrick, over in the UK, can you hear us?
	I can hear you, yeah.
	Okay. Steph, can you hear Patrick okay?
	I sure can. I'm glad. I thought Click2Talk was going to be a cricket, but no.
	So that's good. Please, go ahead.
	Okay. And the listeners and the viewers in the chats, can you hear Patrick okay?
	Do you just want to say something, Patrick, and then we'll take you off the air just so we can announce this international way of people calling the show without having to spend a dime?
	You will have to register with the BlogTalkRadio site, but it's a fairly simple process.
	But if you can hear me, then it's working, and it's all good.
	Patrick, thank you for calling the show.
	You're welcome. Okay, so the Click to Talk feature, ladies and gentlemen, is on the Blog Talk site.
	You can get to that at www.blogtalkradio.com forward slash PFPMovement.
	I will actually post it in the...
	In the actual video chat on Movement Radio on peacefreedomprosperity.com, we do have a caller from a 937 area code.
	Go ahead, caller. Hello, you are on the Freedom Aid Radio Show.
	Caller from a 937 area code?
	Okay, I guess I didn't want to talk. Call her from a 618 area code.
	618, you're on the air. Hi.
	Hello, how are you doing?
	Good. I have a question that I'm anxious about.
	It's not really well elaborated, but I'm just going to have a go with it.
	After coming to FDR, I've noticed that I just lost a lot of interest in a lot of things.
	It's been like a slow, steady collapse, kind of, of just activity.
	And also, I have a friend who was into programming, and he was He got to FDR and he was also into it until, like, he, I don't know, he got into FDR and it kind of started waning, like, his interest in it.
	And I'm not sure if he just stopped after he did food or something, but at this point, he just completely stopped programming now.
	Like, he realized that it's not the thing for him.
	I defued recently, so I'm wondering how and why this happens.
	Like, losing interest in things that used to be fun.
	You said that you had defued recently.
	Are you talking to a therapist?
	Have you been talking to a therapist through this process?
	Yes. Okay, good.
	Just always double-checking, because I think that's absolutely essential.
	Would you like to give me an example of something that you formerly found fun that you don't find as much fun anymore?
	Or do you want me to just give you some generalized thoughts on it?
	I mean, I'm happy to be more specific if you like.
	Okay. Well, I don't know.
	I don't do anything anymore.
	I think the only thing that I retain is Maybe art, like drawing every now and then.
	And kind of going on the boards and reading stuff on the internet.
	But that's not all I do right now.
	Right, okay. Sorry, can you think of something sort of more...
	Was it a hobby or social relationships that you had that were more interesting to you in the past than they are now?
	Oh yeah. I had friends and they were...
	I mean, they weren't that close, but they were kind of close.
	So I get friends to write, like a group of friends.
	I left all of them because I didn't find it satisfying anymore.
	And now I just have this one friend.
	And I mean, it's great.
	It's just...
	Now it's like...
	I'm not willing to invest a lot of time with somebody unless I know I'm going to get something really, really valuable from it.
	So, in terms of social relationships, that's how it is.
	And I also kind of...
	Do you want me to talk more about activities?
	It's completely up to you. I'm happy to listen and provide feedback on whatever you want to bring up.
	Okay, yeah. I want to talk more about activities, actually.
	I want to figure out I want to figure out why my friend lost his interest in programming.
	I mean, I've kind of talked to some people who've also kind of lost interest in stuff like maybe if they went into art and drawing and stuff, they don't do that so much anymore, or music or something.
	I wonder also if I'm going to get that with my own hobbies.
	I draw, and I haven't gotten a lot of enjoyment out of really anything like I used to.
	Right, and would you say, sorry to interrupt, but would you say that, and I'm going to be annoyingly redirecting here, and I hope that you will consider that to be fair, You tell me if this is wrong, just the way that I would like to talk about it, but I'm certainly happy to change it if you feel it's not accurate.
	I mean, I hope that people don't think that they're into free domain radio as a set of conclusions.
	I mean, I hope that people get into philosophy, i.e.
	into, you know, reasoning from evidence and first principles.
	And I hope that they, and you, of course, I mean, I hope that people get into philosophy Not into free-domain radio, if that makes any sense.
	That's sort of like getting into Richard Dawkins rather than biology or science, which is sort of not, certainly not my aim.
	And if I'm not achieving that aim, I want to be sort of clear that it is my aim.
	And I'm certainly happy to hear if there are better ways to do it.
	But I would like to sort of talk about if it's getting into philosophy that has caused these problems, or if there is something more specific to free-domain radio, I'm certainly happy to hear that, too.
	Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would say it's more philosophy in general.
	Right. I mean, you know, I'm not trying to sort of yank myself off the hook or anything, but that's sort of why I sort of focus so much on how to think and I, you know, try to avoid inflicting conclusions and so on, right?
	Because it is really important to get into philosophy and not, you know, into me or what I'm saying or what I'm doing or anything like that because I'm pretty inconsequential in the whole scheme of things.
	So if the question is, why is philosophy making me less happy?
	I certainly sympathize, I certainly understand, and I really do empathize with that, and I don't think it's unusual at all to go through this phase, but would that be a fair way of putting it?
	No, I mean, I get the idea of that, but I would say it's more philosophy is making me less happy and doing things that used to make me happy.
	Right. Well, let me ask you this, right?
	I mean, and I think I recognize your voice, but I'm not going to reveal anything, but I have a vague sort of memory of things that you may have said.
	So you come from a very aggressive family structure, if I remember rightly.
	Is that fair to say? If not, I mean, abusive, but certainly aggressive, right?
	No, I would say they're abusive.
	Yeah, they were aggressive.
	Okay. Violence and control issues and so on is that, again, I don't want to get into any details, and this is not to talk about your family, but just to sort of illustrate a point that was also occurring in your family, if I remember rightly, and tell me if I'm not remembering right.
	Yes, that's correct. Okay, so there is a deep, deep, deep and absolutely terrible and terrifying shock that occurs for us.
	When we talk about the evils that we've suffered in the past, you know, particularly if it's occurred as children and if it's occurred at the hands of a family, because When we talk about these things, well, you know what, I'm not going to even try and talk about your experience because that would be, you know, unfair and inaccurate, I'm sure.
	I'll talk about my own experience.
	I went through this unbelievable shock when I began to really talk about what had happened to me as a child.
	Because I was just stunned at the degree to which there was not sympathy in the world for what had happened to me as a child.
	Like, I was... I was stunned at the degree to which whenever I would bring these things up, and it wasn't like I was talking people's ear off 24-7, but this is particularly when I was going through my very, very intensive and multi-year therapy.
	I talked about it for, you know, I had therapy for three hours a week for two years, right?
	So I really dug in and I was working, I was journaling and I was doing exercises.
	For another 12 to 14 hours a week.
	I mean, it was a part-time job for me and I was heavily invested.
	I spent tens and tens of thousands of dollars on this and I really wanted to...
	I spent more on therapy than I did on my education.
	I mean, it's crazy, right?
	And I just...
	What I found was...
	I mean, in the therapist's office...
	I was able to talk about what had occurred to me.
	I certainly didn't always get agreement, and sometimes I didn't even get a lot of sympathy, but I always was listened to.
	And what I was saying was respected, and it was absorbed, and there were debates, and so on.
	And so I had that experience, right?
	Because you're getting the double whammy, because you're getting into philosophy, and assuming that you have a good therapist, you're experiencing what it's like to have somebody actually listen to you, right?
	Yes. And those two things in combination, it's, you know, when you're looking deep into, you know, ethics and reality and logic, and, you know, I mean, we certainly, I certainly talk about the value, which is really the first value of philosophy, which is to know thyself.
	That's Socrates' first commandment, know thyself, which is, if you don't know yourself, you will continue to confuse yourself for the world and never get very far in terms of true knowledge.
	And so... Because you're going deep into philosophy, you're learning a lot about yourself and your own history, and you're applying ethical standards to things that have occurred to you or been inflicted upon you in particular, and you're also having the experience of powerful, empathetic listening on the part of a therapist, that is a huge change from where you came from, right?
	Yes. Yeah, it is.
	And in a way, it's hard to look at the world the same way.
	When you've had the experience of really being listened to and getting honest and moral feedback on your experiences, then when I was going through that, again, not to put my experiences onto yours, when I was going through that, what I found was that then I would talk about these things with other people in my life and I mean People would just freak out in a way, right? They'd get tense. They'd get uncomfortable.
	They wouldn't want to listen. They'd change the subject.
	And sometimes I felt complete terror at even bringing issues I was talking about in therapy or issues that I was thinking about in my life up with people at all.
	And I couldn't talk about it at work, obviously, and it was not an appropriate place to talk about it at work.
	I wasn't dating during this time, but I couldn't talk about it with people I was in school with.
	I couldn't talk about it with my family.
	I couldn't talk about it. I mean, I tried, right, with my friends.
	It was really shocking to me the degree to which when I was really honest and clear about the things that had happened to me in my life, the degree to which people, like I felt like Moses, you know, going down the Red Sea and I'm talking and all I have to do is say this happened to me in my past and the waters of humanity part before me and I walk down and there's flopping fish and seaweed and the water is churning a mile back from where I am.
	And that, to me, was really shocking.
	I thought I was close to all these people.
	And then I started to talk about my honest and authentic experience, and I wasn't like, you know, biting the heads off chickens, bursting into tears, and having my nipples explode.
	I mean, I was just talking about things that had happened to me that I was processing.
	And I was rational when I was talking about them, and I was not grabbing at people's lapels and, you know, panting hot, sweaty, spitty breath into their face.
	I was, you know, talking about things in a pretty calm and rational way.
	People got all tense, and they, you know, like I, you know, had snakes coming out of my ears or something, you know?
	Don't make a sudden move, or he's going to talk about his history again, you know?
	And I just found that to be really shocking and alienating.
	And I'm sort of making a little light of it now, but, I mean, at the time, it was really, really difficult.
	Yeah. Um...
	I... I didn't press my parents on my history that much.
	I'm sorry, could you just...
	Sorry, I just missed the beginning of that.
	If you could say that again? I didn't really press my parents on my history so much as I did on the present.
	But... I don't know.
	I don't really... I don't feel like I'm connected to that or something.
	But... Like, I don't feel like sympathy or something?
	You don't feel sympathy from the people around you, is that right?
	Oh, I mean, for what you were saying, I didn't feel like it applied to me, I guess.
	Oh, okay, so you do feel sympathy from the people around you and what I'm saying doesn't apply to you?
	Oh, no, no, no.
	Yeah, I didn't feel sympathy.
	You didn't feel sympathy. Okay, sorry.
	I just want to make sure. Okay. Yeah.
	Yeah, that is true. I didn't get...
	I didn't get very warm responses here.
	But I want to try and focus on...
	Well...
	Well, activity, or just lack thereof.
	Lack thereof activity.
	It freaks me out, kind of.
	Like, all I do today, I mean, these days, and I figure once I get to a certain point in therapy, I'll get better and kind of go back into day-to-day activities or something.
	But at this point, I'm kind of like...
	I don't go in...
	I don't clean. I don't...
	I don't reach for more friends or...
	I just don't do a whole lot.
	I talk about my history, you know, and I kind of process that, but, I mean, that's all I do.
	Well, you say that's all you do, like, that's not a huge thing to do, right?
	Right, I mean, it is a huge thing to do to process this kind of history.
	It is a huge thing to do.
	I mean, it's a monstrous job.
	It's not a lifelong job, but definitely the beginning, it's a big job.
	And it takes an enormous amount of energy.
	I mean, When I was, again, just to talk about my experience, which may not be the same as yours, when I was going through therapy, I mean, that's all I was doing.
	I mean, I did have a job, but, you know, I would go to work twice a week.
	I left work at 3.30, 3 in the afternoon to go to therapy, and nights I worked on journaling.
	I had a dream journal, and weekends I did lots more journaling, and I mean, that's what I did, was I just focused on that for, and again, this was, you know, you have accumulated, because you're younger, a lot younger, you have accumulated fewer mistakes than I did, so it probably won't take as long, but that's really what I did for two years.
	And again, I'm not saying that that's the same for everyone, right?
	But I didn't, you know, I left a long-term relationship, cut off some friendships where I just found it too agonizing to Be honest about what was going on for me with people.
	And that's what I did.
	I wasn't writing any books.
	I certainly wasn't podcasting.
	I just worked at a job and did that.
	Self-knowledge and processing of history nights and weekends.
	That was my life.
	I went on a couple of trips and so on, right?
	So it wasn't like, you know, at all.
	I played some video games or whatever, read some books.
	That was a real focus, right?
	And this, I think, is true whenever you want a fundamental life change, right?
	I mean, not that this is analogous directly, of course, right?
	But if you've been an alcoholic or a drug addict or whatever, and you sort of wake up and you're 30, I know you're not 30, but you wake up and you're 30 and like, damn, I've got to change, right?
	Then you've got to go back and say, well, how did I end up getting into this mess?
	And why didn't people around me stop me?
	And what are my friends like if they...
	If they put up with me being an alcoholic or a drug addict for 15 years or 10 years, then are they going to be pleased if I want to change or quit?
	Well, they're probably kind of dysfunctional themselves if they were okay to be around someone like that for so long.
	It is a big, big, big change.
	And there are not a lot of, in my experience, there's not a lot of friendships that make it through because those friends have to be growing as well.
	I mean, a lot of society is about let's not change, right?
	Let's sit in a circle and huddle and let's not change, right?
	Because people get anxious around change.
	We're kind of designed to be very conservative, right?
	Because change throughout our history as a species was not good, right?
	You wouldn't want to be very innovative in a Stone Age tribe.
	They think you were possessed by a demon and club you to death, right?
	So, I mean, we're very conservative when it comes as a species.
	And so a lot of society, in my opinion, is around Oh, let's not change, let's not talk about essential issues, let's not confront, let's not grow, let's not do any of that stuff, because it's really anxiety-provoking.
	And when you then want to change, you get a lot of resistance and avoidance and so on, not from the people in your future, but from the people in your past and your present.
	Though there may be some who are like, you're right, this is important, I do want to grow as well, and there are people you want to keep close to your heart, right?
	But when you make any kind of big change, it's, you know, like, you know, if you have to lose...
	200 pounds, you're going to have a miserable couple of years in many ways, right?
	And now, you know, because it's a whole lifestyle thing.
	Like, losing weight isn't just put down the potato chips.
	Like, you've got to re-engineer your whole lifestyle, right?
	You've got to have active friends.
	You've got to get rid of friends who enable your eating, and all they want to do is eat.
	And you've got to have therapy to figure out what happened to you ended up so overweight.
	It's a huge change, and it's not a lot of fun for quite a lot of time when you're going through those big life changes.
	That's why people don't want to do it, right?
	If it was easy, then, you know, everybody would do it and I'd be out of a job, right?
	That's what, you know, that's what the really important people, like the people who actually help, like therapists and so on.
	Right. That does make a lot of sense and I do have two concerns that keep popping up when I'm here and I'm like this.
	I have a lot of anxiety about You know, getting a job and because I'm not really being active at all, like, you know, I'm not exercising.
	Oh my gosh, how is my body going to turn out?
	Like, how long am I going to be doing this?
	And yeah, that does kind of take up a lot of my thinking.
	You mean your concern is like, when does this tunnel show some light kind of thing?
	I'm sorry, what's that?
	Well, when does this, like, how long should I plan for this process to continue?
	Is that right? Yeah, either that or should I be worrying about doing other things that will keep me above the ground or something while I'm going through it?
	Right, right, right.
	Well, I mean, there are...
	I mean, nobody can tell you how long the process is going to take.
	In my opinion, and you understand, I'm not a psychologist, not a therapist.
	I mean, this is just my opinion and my experience.
	There's things that you can do to speed the process along, right?
	Which is to journal, right?
	To, you know, figure out what's going on.
	I found it very helpful to look at what was going on with my dreams at night.
	There's workbooks. John Bradshaw has some.
	Nathaniel Brandon has some very good ones.
	Sentence completion exercise and workbooks and so on, and I went through all of those.
	That can help accelerate things for sure.
	I think, I mean, and I'm a bit of an exercise dude myself, and I certainly found that it really helped to exercise.
	And so I, you know, was in volleyball and went to the gym and swam and, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
	So I think exercise is really important because there can be a bit of a vicious cycle when you're down where you don't feel motivated to exercise and then that lowers your, you know, various happy hormones and stuff, right?
	So I think exercise is really important.
	I also think it's, I found it helpful, and again, this may or may not be useful to you, but I found it helpful.
	The reason that I enjoyed stuff like volleyball and so on Was because I got to have...
	I mean, this sounds derogatory, but I don't mean it that way.
	I got to have, like, shallow, fun, nonsense interactions with people where there really was no scope or need or point in talking about, you know, wow, I had this really powerful dream that I brought up with my therapist or whatever, right?
	Yeah. So having those kinds of things where you can join a club that's focused on a particular activity that hopefully is around exercise and Where you can go and laugh about the game or you can go and say, oh, this team, you know, how good were they?
	We got our asses handed to us in a platter or whatever.
	You can sort of go and have fun and exercise and there isn't scope or a place for that.
	And I found that to be quite helpful.
	It was like coming up for air, right?
	It's like you're going down like a pearl diver to collect your true self.
	I think it's really important to come up for air and do inconsequential things, if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, I can see that.
	And you can do that, right?
	I mean, joining the volleyball team was, I mean, I did months and months of volleyball for like, I think it was 60 bucks to join.
	So stuff like that, I think, can be really fun.
	It kind of gets you out of your own head, and it's really important when you're going through that kind of change.
	To not sort of get lost in your own head, but to really connect back to the physicality that you are, right?
	Because we are, you know, magical meat muscle of reason, right?
	So I think it's really important to keep doing stuff that keeps you in your body and keeps you grounded and connected that way and keeps your happy hormones buzzing.
	Oh, good. That's a really great reason for me to go out and do that kind of thing.
	Yeah, and then you can go out for dinner after the game and you can have a beer or, you know, whatever.
	And it's... You know, it's fun.
	It's nonsense. And it's something that's kind of the opposite of this very inner dive that you're doing.
	Yeah. I haven't come up for air in a little while.
	Right. And I think that's part of what you need.
	And the fact that you're missing it and need it now I think is a good sign that you're well advanced in what it is that you're doing.
	I'm glad. I do have a concern about a job.
	If I'm not going to be making very much money and I can't afford something like going on a team or something, do you have any idea of how I can just do that alone?
	Like maybe have that kind of attitude while I'm going on a job or something that doesn't cost money?
	Sorry, did you say while you're going on a job or a jog or something else?
	A jog? A jog, right, right.
	Yeah, I would.
	Yeah, I would.
	Yeah, I mean, what I found to be useful, and I do this even now, but, you know, some...
	I mean, I'm just going to throw some names out there.
	These may be things that you're interested in or not, but I think the Bugle podcast is quite funny.
	Ricky Gervais has a podcast that is also quite funny.
	And it's not...
	Particularly, I mean, it's not deep, right?
	But it's very entertaining and I found Things like, you know, dumb sitcoms, you know, nature documentaries, things like Shark Week, you know, and silly or frothy or fun novels.
	I mean, you think Candace Bushnell or even Danielle Steele or, you know, Jeffrey Archer or whatever it is, right?
	It's sort of not deep, but engaging and entertaining and distracting in a way.
	That kind of stuff, if you're not, if you don't have the money to join a league.
	But, you know, call around.
	You may find a league that's really, really cheap.
	And the good thing about that is it's scheduled and you have to go.
	And particularly if you have teammates, you will go.
	And that's a little bit more motivating sometimes.
	But I think just to fill your mind and your ears with inconsequential humorous babble, I think, can be quite good.
	And I think necessary, right?
	I mean, you know, pearl diving is important, but you can't stay down, right?
	Right, right.
	That really helps.
	If people in the chat room, if they know of stuff, if someone has just said The Naked Gun, which is an old Leslie Nielsen comedy, that is pretty good.
	And you might want to enjoy that.
	I'm trying to think of other things.
	I mean, there's stuff that's more serious, like weeds and so on, that may not be...
	I mean, it's a pretty black comedy that might not work quite as well, because it's pretty dysfunctional stuff.
	But, you know, just dumb old sitcoms.
	I don't know, like two guys, a girl, and a pizza place, or something like that.
	Lost, yeah, Lost could be pretty good, although it's a bit intense at times.
	30 Rock is very funny, for sure.
	And that can be...
	Enjoyable. Someone suggested Curb Your Enthusiasm.
	I didn't quite get into that, but that may not be the case.
	The office I found a little bit dysfunctional.
	Monty Python, of course, is always great.
	This is all older people's enjoyable stuff, right?
	But yeah, there's free Monty Python and their official YouTube page.
	I think that can be a lot of fun.
	The sillier, the better.
	I think it is a really important counterpoint to And it's also part of, you know, letting your inner child play kind of stuff.
	I think that's really...
	Yeah, Two and a Half Men can be pretty funny as well.
	So, you know, whatever it is that you find enjoyable that you can find on, I don't know, Hulu or whatever.
	I don't know what these sites are, but, you know, grab those and really enjoy them.
	There's a British... Oh, gosh, what was it called?
	Somebody help me out here.
	There was a British show and it's actually remade for America, which was about a bunch of young British people.
	Oh, this isn't even going to help at all.
	Anyway, if I remember it, I'll put it on the board or whatever.
	Christine and I watched those a couple of years ago and they were it was just hilarious.
	So coupling.
	Thank you so much.
	It's called Coupling.
	And it is one of the funniest, funniest shows I have ever, ever seen.
	You know, the first two seasons in particular, not quite so good after that, but the British version of coupling, the acting is hilarious.
	You know, it's very witty.
	The phrase lesbian spank inferno is used, if I remember rightly.
	It's a really, really, it's a really funny, it's a really funny show if you get a chance to watch the British version.
	I watched, I think, one of the American didn't find it that funny, but the British version Version of the show, Coupling, is highly, highly recommended.
	Big Bang Theory, I think, is pretty funny, but I find that just a little bit predictable and also a bit depressing because, I mean, these guys aren't going to change.
	Flight of the Conchords, I think, is about a group.
	You might want to try that. I mean, if you really want to go way back in the history page, you can...
	Fawlty Towers, F-A-W-L-T-Y, Towers, is...
	I mean, it's complete genius as far as comedy goes.
	It's very old, John Cleese from the 70s, but...
	That I'm sure. Does anyone know if that's available on the Monty Python YouTube page?
	Yeah, but Fawlty Towers is also hilarious.
	And if you can take stuff with you, you know, which is funny that you can listen to, then I just think it's really important to go for that, to remind yourself of the silliness and the fun aspect of life along with some of the challenges and the depth that philosophy and self-knowledge bring about and therapy in particular.
	Yes, yes. Okay, I do have one more question.
	How did you get yourself to have a job?
	How did I get my, sorry, how did I get my what?
	How did you manage to get a job?
	I mean, I've gotten myself to go get like a bunch of job applications and I sent out a bunch of them and I mean, But I still don't have a job, and I wonder if I should just kind of force myself to get one so I can...
	or not.
	Well, I certainly wouldn't recommend forcing yourself, I mean, unless you're, you know, starting to look at your toenails as lunch, right?
	I mean, I certainly would try to avoid forcing yourself to do stuff.
	I would try and revitalize.
	There's two brief strategies when I've really felt down about looking for work or whatever.
	Is that there's nothing worse than feeling you need to look for work, but not actually looking for work, because then you have all the pressure of looking for work without the actual achievement of getting a job, right?
	So you might want to say to yourself, okay, for the next week, assuming you can manage this, right?
	So for the next week, I'm not going to look for a job, and I'm not going to feel bad about looking for a job.
	I'm going to take care of myself.
	I'm going to rest. I'm going to have a bubble bath.
	I'm going to watch stupid TV. I'm going to, you know, whatever.
	I'm going to just pamper myself and do that kind of stuff.
	And... And then after that week or two weeks or whatever you can manage, where you've got a sort of at-home vacation kind of thing where you can just do whatever you want without guilt, right?
	You know, bonbons and bathrobes all the way, baby, right?
	Whatever it is that you find relaxing.
	And, you know, really pamper yourself and say, again, recharge your batteries, right?
	Because worry drains your batteries and rest recharges your batteries.
	And so if you're inactive but worrying, you never really get charged, right?
	I would just, you know, take two weeks or whatever you can manage, a month, whatever you can manage, and just say, I'm not going to look for work.
	I don't care about it. I'm just going to completely relax and do whatever I feel like in the moment without guilt.
	And then after that, see how you feel.
	And it's very likely, I would think, that you would feel a lot more energy and capacity to...
	Hey, Stefan, can I interject here?
	You sure can. Okay, Stacey Lutz in the video chat room over on Movement TV on PeaceFreedomProsperity.com.
	She's actually saying that if this lady wants help with getting a job, she'll help her.
	That is very, very kind.
	Thank you. I'm sure you can hook these two up.
	Yes, I can.
	That'd be great. Let me take a look.
	Thank you. That's very kind.
	And I mean, you know, anybody who can help with these situations, I mean, I think we've all been there at one time or another.
	So thank you very much.
	That's very kind. Okay.
	Yeah. All right. Now, do you mind if I move on to another caller?
	I just don't want to do 90 questions from you and none from anyone else, if that's okay?
	No, that was great. Thank you.
	You are very welcome.
	And thank you. Those were great questions.
	I think that there's, you know, you're not, certainly not the only person who's dealing with those kinds of challenges.
	When it comes to that kind of growth.
	This kind of change is draining and can be for quite some time.
	Of course, I can tell you for sure that perseverance and professional help is key.
	And the more work you can do, the better.
	Just a reminder, you can call in at 646.
	Sorry, I lie like a rug.
	You can call in at 347-633-9636.
	And you can also go to...
	James, you want to give the link for the Click to Talk link?
	Yes, you can also go to blogtalkradio.com.
	And on there, if you actually sign up for Blog Talk, just create an account.
	It doesn't take all that long.
	No pain at all. To call the show, you can actually use a feature called Click to Talk as well.
	There's a chat room there as well, and you can listen there, or you can view us here at peacefreedomprosperity.com, and you just click the movement radio on the top bar, and there you will be able to see Stefan Molyneux actually talking.
	And what a gripping sight that is, let me tell you.
	And it may be more interesting to watch the paint slowly drying behind me, but it's there if you want it.
	Alright, we have a caller from an 862 area code.
	Hello, 862.
	416 here, go ahead.
	Okay, I guess not.
	The board is full, by the way, Stefan, so let me have a look here.
	Also, I can add people in Skype if I already have you as a contact.
	We're still sure we can work that out.
	In the future, I did get a bunch of requests for Can we talk through Skype?
	And, you know, if you've talked to me before or I'm on your, you know, whatever, you're on my list, then I can certainly add you in through Skype if you don't want to call.
	And, of course, the sound quality should be better.
	But, you know, it takes a little while to add people and so on if I don't already have your name.
	So we're going to sort of work on that in the future.
	But, yeah, we can do Skype as well.
	Okay. We do have a caller from a 267 area code.
	You're on the air. Go, bro.
	Hey, Stefan. Can you hear me all right?
	I sure can. How are you doing?
	Good. Thanks so much for all your hard work.
	I really, really appreciate it.
	Thank you so much for calling in. Okay, my question for you.
	Do you support the idea that an individual should be able to leave a private contract free of threat of force?
	Do I support the idea that an individual should be free to leave a private contract free of the threat of force, right?
	So, if I'm selling you...
	Let me give you an example. Well, let me just make sure I understand what you mean.
	So if I sell you an iPod, you send me the $100, I'm free to not send you the iPod without having any coercive consequences.
	Is that right? I don't think it would work in terms of physical property.
	The example I think of when I think of this is services.
	Like let's say you're leasing me an apartment and we have a lease for two years and a year in I say, you know what, I don't really like this contract.
	I don't really... I agreed to it in the past.
	I no longer agree to it.
	And I vacate the premise after having paid you, you know, for the time I occupied.
	I vacate. All your stuff is still intact.
	Your walls aren't damaged or anything like this.
	And I've paid for the time I've been there.
	You haven't. Well, economically, you haven't paid for the time that you've been there.
	Because I've made a future promise.
	Well, I mean...
	I'm, again, I'm no superintendent, but just my, you know, the economic side of my brain would say something like this.
	To find a tenant for an apartment takes, I don't know, 50 hours, right?
	You've got to advertise, you've got to show people the apartment, you've got to do credit checks, you've got to do reference checks, you've got to do X, Y, and Z, right?
	So your rent, if it's a two-year contract, your rent is prorated at amortizing or paying off the 50 hours it took to find you over two years.
	And so by the end of the first year, you've only paid for 25 of the hours that it took to find you, because your rent is lower, right?
	The people who have two-year leases will pay a lower rent on average than people with a one-year lease, right?
	And so you've paid for the 25, and again, I'm just making these numbers up, who knows, right?
	But you've paid for only half the time that it takes to find a tenant, and so you're not paying for the other half of the time.
	That it takes to find a tenant and for most people and I know this because I was I went to did some of my undergraduate in Montreal and because I didn't speak French I had to come back to Toronto for the summer to get work and I had to find people to sublet my apartment for the summer right because and so I know that in general and this may not be true for every place of course but in general if you want to break a lease it's going to take you three months of rent right you have to pay three extra months you don't have to pay 12 extra months if it's a two-year lease Usually you just pay three months.
	And I would imagine that that's because it takes 50 hours and may take up to three months to get a new tenant to come in.
	So you actually have not paid your full rent if you have a two-year agreement, which is where the 50 hours is paid out over and you leave after one year.
	So that would sort of be my response.
	The consequences of that, I mean, man, I'm so not...
	A fan of violence in any situation except an extremity of self-defense.
	So I don't think that people should come after you with guns.
	You know, I think that's a terrible answer to the situation.
	I do think that if you basically skip out on a contract you've signed...
	I mean, the first thing that I think you should do is sit down with your superintendent and say, look, I signed a two-year contract...
	And there should be some fine print that says, here's what happens if you break it.
	You should try and negotiate whatever you can, right?
	Like, can I get someone to take over my contract?
	If I find someone, I already know someone, or if I find someone, then it's fine.
	And that's what I did, right? So when I would have to go back to Toronto from Montreal...
	After my final exams in undergraduate I would have spent the last month trying to find someone to take over and sometimes I would and sometimes I wouldn't and then I'd have to pay or whatever right but I would try to find someone to take over and the superintendent was fine with that right he's like I just want the money and you know you're responsible for the damage or whatever right so so I think you know try to negotiate and so on I mean in a free society like in a stateless society superintendents would have insurance for this kind of thing and And the insurance company would then lower your contract rating so it would be more expensive for you to take out another contract.
	Your rent would be higher in the future because the risk of you welching would be greater.
	So you would have some negative economic consequences, but I'm really not a big fan of pulling out the old gun to get things done.
	I think it's much better around sharing information about contract of integrity or whatever.
	Yeah, and I've thrown the idea around with people at Drexel that I associate with, and we've all kind of gone back and forth with it, but ultimately we came to the conclusion, I think, similar to what you're saying, where there would be free market forces at work that would make actions like that undesirable, but without the use of actual state violence.
	Sorry to interrupt, but one of the world's largest employers is eBay, which a couple of years ago, last time I checked, employed well over 300,000 people and made their primary living through eBay.
	eBay is an international organization with no laws, fundamentally.
	It's close to a laboratory of anarchy in many ways, although it doesn't have a lot of other things that it should.
	I mean, there is no court that you can take people to in general.
	Maybe it happens sometimes.
	But what happens is your reputation suffers if you welch on people, right?
	And that is a very powerful thing.
	I mean, it's a very, very powerful thing in eBay.
	I ordered a camera and it came and it was fine.
	But then I was trying to plug the USB port in and it snapped off.
	I mean, the USB receptacle snapped off.
	And so it's sort of rolling around.
	I tried to sort of fish it out and glue it so I could use it and so on.
	But it just all got worse and worse, right?
	And so I tried to call the guy.
	I tried to email the guy because it was within seven days where he said he offered a refund, but he never got back to me.
	So I just nuked him on the rating section.
	And I guess other people had the same experience and he was gone within a week.
	Didn't get my money back or whatever, right?
	But it's, you know, that's just part of the risk.
	So, I mean, of doing business that way rather than going to Best Buy or whatever, right?
	So, most times it works.
	Occasionally it doesn't. Overall, I think it's still a net positive.
	But there's an example of sometimes very expensive contracts being put into place with no coercive enforcement whatsoever.
	Okay. And then just a real quick follow-up.
	I would ask... There's probably a ton of areas where that reputation system, rating system can be used to avoid undesirable consequences.
	What circumstances do you think violence might be necessary, though not preferable, but necessary?
	Now, do you mean personal violence or an institutionalized violence?
	People acting on behalf of other people.
	I don't necessarily mean state violence, I just mean...
	Like a DRO, a defense DRO or something like that?
	Yeah, DRO, right.
	Well, I think we would find that it would very quickly be almost non-existent.
	And the reason that I say that is that in the absence of a state, people are very wary about arming groups, right?
	I mean, they just are.
	Because, I mean, what's the biggest objection when everybody says to you, we don't need a state?
	They say, well, who's going to provide national defense?
	Well, we'll have a defense DRO. Well, they'll just take you over and become a state, right?
	And it's like, but everyone's aware of that as a risk.
	And so people will work like crazy to make sure that doesn't happen, right?
	And I, you know, in the, I don't know if you've read Practical Anarchy, it's this free book I got on my website, freedominradio.com forward slash free.
	But, you know, I give 50 different ways that this can be prevented by rational people who are aware of the risk.
	So I think no DRO is going to want to, if it's at all avoidable, they're not going to want to put a gun into an employee's hands.
	Not because they're afraid that employee is going to take over the country or whatever in particular, but in particular because if something goes wrong, it's really expensive and expensive.
	Time-consuming and ugly and so on, right?
	I mean, if you're, let's say you're a security guard DRO and you give all of your security guards Uzis, right?
	And the guy hears something and blows someone away and it turns out somebody just forgot their keys in the office building he was protecting or whatever, right?
	And you've got splattered employee, right?
	You have incredibly negative publicity.
	You have a very expensive lawsuit against you, right?
	You have... I mean, it's a disastrous six different ways from Sunday, right?
	And so I really think that force is going to be such a last resort if there's no other possible solution.
	And I have no... I don't believe there's any limitation on the inventiveness and creativity of human beings.
	So I think there's going to be so many different ways that people are going to try and make sure things are secured.
	A silly example is a computer that self-destructs if it's not in the building.
	So if you steal it, it just doesn't work.
	So what you want to do is prevention rather than cure.
	And violence is always a cure.
	Violence is never prevention.
	It's always a cure. And so I think that people are going to work on prevention because that's predictable.
	It is not subject to the same kind of disastrous...
	You know, like how about a voice-activated iPod, right?
	So that if... If it's not your voice, no one can use it, or your wife's voice or whatever, right?
	Then there's no point stealing iPods, right?
	So there's lots of different things that you can do to make things not useful to thieves.
	And that way you don't have to have security guards spraying bullets down darkened hallways because they're nervous or whatever or have had one too many lattes.
	So I think that in a free society, people will do just about anything to avoid having a gun in the room, right?
	I mean, in the current society, I mean, everybody wants a gun in the room because it's kind of feeding a frenzy of statism.
	But in a stateless society, I mean, I can't, you know, unless Visigoths are actually pouring over the horizon, I just, I can't see why Anybody would need to have violence as a central part of their business plan.
	All right. Okay, thank you very much.
	Oh, you're very welcome.
	Those are great, great questions. Thank you.
	Next! I'm going to do my cash flow clunker speech if people don't call in.
	No, no, no, no, no. Don't do that.
	Don't go there. Yeah, I just wanted to bring up a point about...
	You know, what you were just discussing.
	It's amazing.
	Social outcasting.
	How powerful that is.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Absolutely. I mean, when certain people got mad at Free Domain Radio last year, that's what they attempted.
	It's funny, right? People got mad, maybe partly to do with my philosophical views about the state and so on.
	And they kind of proved anarchism because they went for reputation, right?
	They went for public image.
	They went for all this kind of stuff, right?
	And so that really is a confirmation of the power of that.
	And, I mean, I'm hyper aware of my reputation, you know, with intelligent and considerate listeners because, I mean, I have to act with a great deal of consistency and hopefully...
	A reasonable level of integrity and I have to have evidence and if I'm wrong I have to admit that I'm wrong because you know what I believe is or what I have reasoned out is so far from mainstream positions I have to have you know double extra with whipping and cherries on top levels of consistency and integrity because it's so far out there right so I'm very aware of the challenges and perils of reputation And,
	you know, succeed hopefully more often than I don't in terms of achieving those things.
	But I think that that kind of stuff is, you know, I'm very aware because I operate in a completely free market in that everything I give is free.
	And I know that's not a perfect definition.
	But the more radical my views are, so to speak, the more I need to protect and maintain the reputation that I'm putting forward so that people can have some kind of trust that I'm not just...
	We're going to go nuts on the next podcast.
	The one after that, maybe, but at least not the next one.
	Well, we have 36 minutes left of the show, and if anybody does want to call, the number is 347-633-9636.
	The number is 347-633-9636.
	We've got four callers weighing in line right now, Stefan, and there is a gentleman on the line from area code 703.
	So you're on the air? Wow, our first gentleman.
	How are you doing? Hi, Stefan.
	It's Jan Helfeld. How are you doing?
	Oh, hi, Jan. How's it going?
	Okay. I listened to your show in the earlier part and just recently also.
	I want to congratulate you for doing a great show and having your heart in the right place, helping other people, applying philosophic wisdom to practical everyday problems.
	I think it's a great endeavor.
	It's dear to my heart. Well, thank you.
	And just for those who don't know, Jan, there's these truly spectacular interviews with public figures bringing Socratic reasoning to their often lower intestine map of the London subway system, twists and turns in their own thinking.
	Jan Helfelt, H-E-L-D, F-E-L-D? Did I get that right?
	It's H-E-L-F-E-L-D. Jan, that's J-A-N. And the last name is H-E-L-F-E-L-D. Yeah, highly recommended if you get a chance to watch his interviews.
	If that doesn't have you squirming in your seat, then you might want to check whether your spine is still attached.
	They're just fantastic.
	And we had a chat, I guess, a couple of weeks ago as well.
	Right. I want to also congratulate you for trying to crack the most important ethical nut, which is to Make a logical, reality-based, ethical system starting from ethical, self-evident premises to deriving proper principles.
	I haven't read your book.
	I tried to download it for free, but I wasn't successful, so I'll try again.
	Yeah, I'm sorry. I've also just moved it.
	Anyway, I did read your introduction and I do agree with, again, I think your heart is in the right place.
	The human beings who have made contributions in this area have been the greatest benefactors of the world and anybody who can make a contribution in this area is doing a great thing.
	Thanks. I just wanted to mention, you can try re-downloading the audiobook in particular.
	I had to move it, so it was a bit AWOL for a little while, but I just put it back up this morning at freedomainradio.com forward slash free.
	Yeah, I mean, I hope so. I think the theory has held up pretty well.
	Certainly, I've had some criticism, which is obviously fair and useful and good, and I just put out another video explaining some of the concepts that hopefully respond to some of the critics.
	And, you know, what's the worst case scenario that I've made, you know, a really good effort and sometimes it's okay to just say, well, this failed so badly that we never have to go back there again and then people can go to more productive areas.
	But so far, I think it's holding up.
	It's holding up all right. So I really do appreciate that.
	And I mean... If it's possible, and I think it is, to work from first principles to a coherent and rational and empirical system of ethics without reliance on religion or statism, I can't think of a better boon to the planet.
	And particularly when it comes to parents teaching children about right and wrong, if we can give them a logical system of ethics, then they don't have to rely on religion or mere authority, which I think is pretty tragic, and I think that would also be great in terms of that aspect of life.
	I agree that it's greatly needed.
	So those are my congratulatory remarks.
	I also wanted to thank you on the air for the interview that you did with me and I read some of the comments.
	I noticed that there was a good number of people that would like to see a debate and I'm up for it if you want to do it.
	My only A problem with it is that in the past I've debated issues and it's affected my relationship with the person adversely.
	I don't think that would happen in this case where I'm willing to do it, but I'm always somewhat concerned that my willingness to debate would end up Making my relationship with the person worse as opposed to better.
	So, that's something that you might want to think about if you want to do it.
	I also noticed that a lot of people criticize me for my monotone, less than enthusiastic voice and delivery.
	Wait, you're not allowed to laugh.
	They've told you on YouTube that you're not allowed to laugh.
	No, YouTube can be very harsh.
	Trust me, I get everything from Well, I won't even get into some of the insults that I get on YouTube, but yeah, YouTube people can be a little bit high on the caffeine at times.
	If we have a debate and I get shrill, then you just have to know that I'm just trying to accommodate and satisfy the listeners.
	No, I appreciate that. If, on the other hand, I'm very low-keyed and monotone, Daniel, I'm just trying to be considerate and get along with you.
	No, I appreciate that. I got the best of both worlds.
	Right. Can we make this a live debate, by the way?
	I would be more than happy to have this as a live debate with questions if listeners would be interested.
	A very extended and exciting debate with Michael Batnarek, the 04 Libertarian presidential candidate, recently in Philly.
	I noticed that they were all very disappointed with his participation.
	Yeah, well, I mean, there certainly were some people who felt that...
	At least most of the comments that I saw, they seemed to think that he was totally disengaged.
	Anyway, if you want to do that, I noticed also that the people like my suggestion of the kind of debate format that I propose.
	I would send you the debate format and see if it's agreeable to you or not and you want to make some modifications or it meets your standards.
	Oh, I'm sure they would be perfectly fine.
	I mean, but yeah, send them in.
	I would be happy to ask them. It should be, I think, one of your principles based on mutual consent.
	So I'd send it to you and I think we would reach some kind of agreement on how it should be.
	So I guess that's mostly what I wanted to say.
	I do get more excited and interested in intellectual questions.
	I started to watch on your website A subject that interests me, of course, which is ethics.
	I saw the... I started listening to the discussion you had with...
	I forgot his name... Omni-Universe?
	This is... Oh yeah, Ex-Omniverse.
	Ex-Omniverse.
	Anyway, I think I can answer some of the questions that he was trying to answer for you.
	From the objectivist perspective, a little bit better.
	Fantastic. And I enjoy his website.
	I think it's good. He's on the right track.
	So, maybe I can do that kind of an interview, too, actually, if you want.
	If you want to interview me on my ethics, it's possible, too.
	That would be great. So, I guess that's a lot on the plate there.
	Big agenda. No, and look, I mean, people really do enjoy debates.
	And my general approach to debates is to attempt to, you know, to make it a sort of win-win sharing of principles, right?
	And I mean, if you teach me something, then that's fantastic.
	I mean, what a great thing to learn.
	Because, of course, the purpose is not to win, but to illuminate.
	And so, you know, if two people are turning on a light, so much the better.
	And we both get to see more.
	And that's the approach that I try to take.
	Well, that's exactly my perspective, so we have a complete agreement on that.
	My view is that debates or intellectual discussions should always be a win-win because the guy who loses the argument, let's say, assuming one does, he should have learned something, so he's definitely a winner.
	Then the guy who won the argument, he should have won because he won some security in his He should be more secure and he learned more about the objections and he was able to answer them.
	So there should be two winners in any intellectual discussion or debate.
	So I guess we basically agree on that as well.
	Fantastic. On the other hand, you contrast that with fistfights, for example.
	There's usually two losers because even the guy who wins always scratches his knuckles and suffers some pain.
	So you want to try to avoid the fist fights or the physical confrontations and try to pursue the intellectual ones.
	That's my policy.
	So we're not going to see a video with you having a smackdown with Nancy Pelosi anytime soon?
	Good to know. Good to know.
	Well, yeah, no, please do send me, you know, the format, whatever format you like.
	I think it would be great.
	And I would certainly, if you have a webcam or something like that, we can do a side-by-side video thing.
	I mean, I sort of had the advantage when people were sort of talking about your voice in that they could see me, but they couldn't see you.
	And whoever you can see seems more animated, of course, right?
	So if you have a webcam, I can show you very easily how we can do a A debate where we can both be visible, which I think would be good.
	If that's of interest to you, we could do it that way.
	We could try to solve that technical problem.
	I have some kind of camera there on my computer that my wife uses.
	Except that its image is really horrible.
	It's okay. It's still better than nothing, I think, when it comes to having some visuals.
	It's kind of distorted, but anyway.
	It's certainly not TV quality.
	Well, that's alright. We can give it a shot.
	It's a possible thing to do.
	Anyway, continue with your pursuits.
	I think it's great to have people doing what you're doing.
	And you too as well.
	I really appreciate you calling in.
	And I look forward to, I'm very enthusiastic about a conversation about truth and virtue.
	I mean, what more important things could there be to talk about in life after you've had food and shelter?
	Right. I don't find them mutually exclusive.
	Well, yeah, certainly for me.
	I talk about truth and virtue and get some food and shelter, and that's the deal, sir.
	It's the old Socratic thing, right?
	Talk to people and they'll throw you some food.
	Buy me some bread.
	That's the ideal. You pursue your optimum career.
	Absolutely. Try and do myself.
	Okay. Well, thank you very much.
	Just send me an email. We'll set it up and we'll publicize it so that we can get a sizable number of people slash hecklers to give us some feedback.
	Okay. All right.
	Thanks, Jan. Great to talk to you.
	We have some more people on deck.
	Is that right, Mr. Jay? Yes, we do.
	24 minutes remaining on the show, and the board is full here.
	We have a caller from a 502 area code number.
	All right, 507, let's roll.
	Hello? Hello, how are you doing?
	Oh, good, I'm Josh. Oh, hi Josh.
	Great to be on. I just had a quick question.
	I've been debating with some statists about the right of self-defense, and there's just a question I'm stumped about, and I was wondering if you could help me.
	Obviously, the right of self-defense is inalienable, so if you have to defend yourself, you can do whatever you need to do to stop an attack.
	But let's say somebody defended themselves, but they did it in an unreasonable way.
	They weren't proportionate to how they were being Well, I would say that you could not say that the state would have a right to do anything because the moment you say the state you have a violation of property rights because the state according to the general definition is the Group of individuals who claim the right to initiate force in the basis of taxation or other laws.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Oh, I'm sorry. Well, it's really hard because when you talk with states, that's a bit too much for them to handle.
	Right, right. When I debate them, I kind of just beg the question that the state has the right to, like a classical liberal point of view, No,
	that's totally fine, but, you know, I... I would love to oblige you, and the customer is everything, I'm a free marketer, but I can't go to the place where I say, let's assume that the initiation of force is legitimate, let's work out the ethics from there.
	That's like sort of going to a doctor and saying, well, let's assume that we saw the guy's head off, how do we cure him after that?
	But we saw his head off, we can't cure him.
	And this is where I would say that I would bring the challenge to the statists themselves.
	It's sort of like if I'm debating with a theist, and we say, well, let's assume that God exists.
	Where do we go from here? But the whole point of the debate is, right?
	And so I think I understand the question, though, which I'll try and answer from a sort of stateless perspective, and then you can see if it's of any use to you.
	It's sort of like some guy puts his toe on my property.
	It's not right for me to blow him away with a shotgun, right?
	Of course, because of proportionality.
	Right. Or some kid knocks his ball into my yard and he climbs over my fence.
	I don't get to get to have landmines on my yard and blow them up, right?
	Of course. Right.
	And I think we all understand that there's a certain kind of proportionality that is important when it comes to self-defense.
	Right? So to take an example, right?
	So let's say I'm standing down the end of an alley and some guy who's not very fast starts yelling at me that he's going to He's going to kick my ass and he comes, I don't know, waddling or wobbling down the alley towards me, right?
	And I have a gun, right?
	Now, let's say that I could climb over the wall and get away from him, right?
	Because he's overweight or something like that, right?
	And I think we'd all assume that that would be a better thing to do than for me to pull out my trusty magma and blow a hole in him, right?
	Right. So even though the guy's threatening me and he's coming at me and so on, I think we can all understand that It's not really the right thing to do to blow them away if you can get away, right?
	Of course. And, you know, if a guy pulls out a knife, I'm not allowed to call in an airstrike, right?
	I mean, so there is a degree of proportionality that I think is important.
	I don't consider it to be a very huge issue, though.
	And the reason that I don't consider it to be a huge issue is that it seems to me very rare.
	Right? I mean... I try to work in the realm of probability when it comes to ethical issues.
	And this is, you know, again, to use that medical analogy, you try to work with the most prevalent diseases first, and then you work for, you know, maybe you'll get to the one in a million diseases in a hundred years or whatever, right?
	You try and work for the most prevalent diseases.
	I can't think of a time, you know, I don't know, maybe Bernie Goetz, if you remember that subway thing that happened in New York, I think it was in the 80s, where he blew away some guys who were being threatening in the subway.
	Yeah. But I don't find that a lot of people, I just, I don't read this in the paper.
	I don't even see it online where it's like, you know, some guy looked at me funny, cussed at me, and so I blew his head off with a shotgun or something.
	That seems to me very rare, so it wouldn't to me be a particularly top item to deal with.
	Sorry, go ahead. You keep wanting to get a word in, so let me stop and you can do that.
	Oh, well, I'm trying to redirect the conversation to, like, how do I answer these people, because I'm just trying to get input.
	I agree with everything you're saying, but I'm just trying to present it to them so they understand.
	Right, so this is what I would say to a...
	Let me just tell you, sorry to interrupt, let me just tell you the way, the two-sentence way that I would present it to a statist, and then you can tell me if that makes any sense.
	Okay. So, what I would say to a statist is that, so you feel that it's very important that the use of violence be proportional to the offense, right?
	Yes. And that we should not initiate or we should not shoot some guy for putting a toe on our property, right?
	We should not shoot some guy for sitting in his yard because we don't like what he's reading.
	We should not initiate the use of force for sure and our response should be proportional, right?
	And so by that very criteria the state is morally invalid because the state gets to initiate force against citizens for just breathing.
	For living, for earning an income, for having a job, for having a bank account.
	The state gets to initiate the use of force for non-crimes, for the crime of existence.
	And that surely is the most egregious violation of proportional response.
	You're not paying me your taxes, so I'm going to throw you in jail, and if you resist me, I'm going to shoot you down.
	It's surely not a proportional response To the offense of breathing and having a job or having some property or other forms of income, right?
	So the very idea of saying, well, the state should be used to solve the problem of a lack of proportionality in self-defense, well, the whole reason that the state can exist is because there's this wild lack of proportionality in the initiation of aggression against citizens for the simple act of having an income.
	So I just, you know, really, really turn it on them, because as soon as you say the state is valid, then, to me, you just can't go anywhere after that.
	Right. Okay.
	I was just wondering if there was...
	Well, I know what your answer is going to be, but maybe I should push the block.
	I won't take everybody's time, but they linked an article where some guy passed out drunk in somebody's living room, and the guy whose house it was shot him.
	So that wouldn't be proportional to what the guy...
	Who was drunk and passed out on somebody's couch was doing?
	Does that make sense? Yeah, completely.
	To me, that would be murder. I mean, I think everybody would understand that that would be...
	If you pass out on someone's couch, you don't get to get shot, right?
	Does the state have a right...
	Does somebody have the right to step in?
	Like the state to say, oh, well, that wasn't a proportionate response to somebody passing out...
	No, the state doesn't, right?
	Because it's even less of a crime to have a job than it is to pass out on someone's couch, right?
	Less of a crime to what?
	Sorry, like, we understand that you can't shoot someone for passing out on your couch, but no more can the state shoot someone for not paying taxes.
	It's even less of a crime to not pay your taxes than it is to pass out on the couch, right?
	Right. I mean, moral crime.
	I mean, I think people should pay their taxes or whatever, right?
	But I'm just talking sort of theoretically.
	But, so...
	So you keep accepting the premise of the initiation of force.
	What I would say is that if I, you know, God help me if I'm ever in this situation, I don't know what I would do, but theoretically I would be perfectly fine if I'm at a party and some guy pulls out a gun and holds it to the temple of a guy who's passed out and says, I'm going to shoot him, and some other guy tackles him or kicks the gun away or initiates force against him to prevent the murder...
	I would be, to me, it's not a state thing.
	It's an individual thing, because the state is also, of course, just a bunch of individuals.
	I'd have no problem. Self-defense in the third party is perfectly valid.
	Right. Well, I want to take everybody's time, so I'll let it go for now.
	All right, good luck. And just remember, you know, don't try and cure the patient after you cut off his head, right?
	You stick with the principles of the non-initiation of force.
	And don't say, well, if we accept that, what do we do then?
	That would be my suggestion. But, you know, you may find another way to do it, but that would be my approach if that happens.
	Okay, moving on here to area code 862.
	You're on the air. Hello.
	Area code 862, you're on the air.
	All right, let's try this.
	We only have 14 minutes left, and we still have a bunch of callers to get through here.
	And it takes 14 minutes for me to even begin answering the question, so this is a challenge.
	I will try to be succinct, dear God, I promise.
	They've been waiting a long time, so...
	Alright, let's feed them up, baby.
	I'm trying to. Okay, area code 636.
	You're on the air. Maybe they've been waiting just a little too long.
	No, they're there. Hello.
	Hello, Stefan. Hi, how's it going?
	Oh, just wonderful, just wonderful.
	My name is Troy, I'm calling from Missouri, and I just want to say how enriching it is to actually find your website.
	I've downloaded so many podcasts, I've lost count now, and I'm just absorbing it like a sponge.
	It's been just a breath of fresh air to hear your thoughts on so many things.
	In particular, when I first started listening, I was a Christian, and I found...
	I've actually avoided your religious topics for fear of...
	because you were the goblin atheist, you know?
	Right, right. But I... Actually, listening to your Statist podcast and other economics and what have you, That message kept piercing through.
	Anyway, I eventually began to listen to them, and it's rattled me to my core.
	I'm still on this journey, and I basically have to admit that I've dropped all this superstition.
	I was afraid that it would take a long, long time until it went away, but it just kind of disappeared.
	The thought of God and All that that entails.
	Wow, that's...
	I mean, A, thank you, obviously, for your very kind words.
	Thank you for your persistence. I mean, I don't need to thank you for being persistent in the realm of philosophy because it is such a wonderful thing to do, though it does create some significant anxiety in the short to medium run.
	But mostly in particular, I mean, I think it's an amazing thing the degree to which religiosity can evaporate.
	I mean, if it's any consolation or confirmation, I guess, I mean, that's what happened to me as well.
	I mean, I was... Oh, absolutely.
	I mean, It's rather freeing.
	And then you can actually look back at your history from where you've come from, and it becomes quite clear all these glaring problems that you had in the beginning or initially all through the process, you just suppress those.
	But now when you look back with different glasses on, you can see that you're just Being foolish and you did not understand and you weren't taking the time to understand because you were just absorbing the propaganda.
	Well, I wouldn't say foolish.
	That would not be my judgment.
	I mean, it is a very...
	I mean, particularly where you're all from, right?
	I mean, it's a pretty all-pervasive propaganda.
	I would be kinder to myself than that, right?
	I mean, I think that the courage and integrity that it takes to really examine those kinds of beliefs, particularly in the, you know, whatever social situation that you're in, It's not foolishness to believe that which you're raised to believe.
	I mean, it's natural.
	It's inevitable that we do that.
	Well, I mean, maybe looking back on it, things are actually just more elementary than, I guess, foolish.
	It probably would not have been the correct word to use.
	And still I have obstacles, social obstacles, with family that I know are going to rear their ugly head.
	I've been dealing with those as best I can.
	Speaking of family, I have cousins and uncles and all that, and these people are constantly emailing each other back and forth.
	Half of them hated Bush and half hated Obama.
	And listening to you, I once was just awash in that nonsense, and now I'm able to look outside of it and see the What a colossal waste of time that process is of bickering back and forth over these issues and knowing the violence, the gun in the room is what you would say over and over again.
	The government has a gun and they're pointing at all of us and we're all sitting here fighting amongst each other.
	Right, right. Infighting among the slaves makes owning the slaves very cheap, right?
	Yes, exactly.
	There's a great description John Irving has in a novel, I think it's called The Lily of the Valley or The Water of the Lilies or something, where he talks about a priest who loses his faith.
	And he said, you know, my faith, my belief in God was like a stick insect and it was climbing...
	A tiled, like a tiled bathroom, like the side of a shower or something.
	And every, it was such effort to, and then it rained or the shower hits and I just was, it just washed all the way down.
	And, you know, there is a huge amount of strain in maintaining religious beliefs, right?
	In the absence of evidence, on the opposition of evidence, in the prevalence of immorality in the world and in the growing perceptiveness of science and reason.
	It's a really, it takes a lot of effort.
	And when you sort of wake up and walk out of that, I certainly felt just a, you know, I don't have to keep these 1,200 mental plates spinning in my mind anymore.
	I can just let them fall, and that doesn't have to be my compulsive hobby, so to speak.
	Not having to be burdened with everyone trying to interpret what they think God thinks or says or whatever, it's It's freedom and it's wonderful and I can't thank you enough.
	Well, thank you. It's a fantastic story and feel free to keep us updated if you want to drop past the board and let us know more.
	I think it's completely magnificent and a million-fold congratulations to you on that breakthrough.
	I think it's just fantastic and thank you so much for calling in.
	I want to wish you continued your health and that you have many, many more years of podcast because I've got a son who's going to be three years old, and you're going to be helping me teach him.
	And I just want to thank you.
	Well, that's wonderful. I really do appreciate that.
	That is a beautiful thing to hear.
	And I think how wonderful it's going to be for him to grow up in a more rational and scientific and empirical approach to life without having to throw out ethics and goodness and virtue and love and all that stuff, which sometimes...
	I hate to rush this, but can I just nip onto the next caller just so we can get...
	I don't want people to have waited for two hours and not get a chance to talk.
	Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.
	And all my best.
	Okay, we have an area caller from area code 706.
	You are on the air. I assume that's me?
	Yes, it is. Hello? Hello.
	Yes, go ahead. Hello, Steph.
	This is Riley. How are you doing?
	Oh, hi, Riley. How's it going? You look beautiful on video.
	I'm so excited to see you here.
	Okay, have you seen the moon landing?
	This is the Mars landing impersonation.
	Beep. Houston, we have a freckle.
	Beep. This is awesome.
	Isn't it? Oh my gosh, please know that's scary.
	I know, it's eerie. You might need to see a doctor about that one.
	That's right. This is where my cats come from.
	Right. And that beautiful view of your daughter, I love that.
	That was awesome. Thanks.
	Yeah, she's a gem.
	After that last conversation with you that you had, that was such a nice conversation.
	I got a lot of respect to that gentleman.
	How nice of him to share that with us.
	But I feel bad going Neanderthal with you for just a minute.
	I was driving through Atlanta. I'll do this real fast even though I want to ventilate my crazy.
	I'm driving through Atlanta with my son and a friend and we're in the slow lane and it drops down to 50 and I get nailed for a 77, 76 mile per hour speeding and I'm like the slow guy in the crowd.
	And immediately, I want to go to court and raise some hell, and I think, you know, pay the $150 ticket, let it go.
	And I decide to do this thing, you know, and then I call in to find out how much the ticket would be, and it's nearly $1,000, which is a month of my life.
	That's nearly a month. It's not $1,000?
	For what, $26 over the speed limit?
	$960 because it was at a construction place and, you know, double here, double there.
	And, you know, it hurts me, which is going to cut into you, too, because it's time for me to send more donations, you know.
	Well, now you should fight it.
	No, I'm kidding. Oh, and look, I'm so sorry.
	That is a deep and that's a horrifying shock.
	I mean, the blood just drains from you with that.
	That's just, I mean... That's just, I mean, that's out and out banditry.
	That's just shocking. It's almost like shooting a guy who would be fall asleep drunk on your couch.
	Yeah, man. Oh, man.
	That's just brutal. I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry to hear that.
	That's just wretched. Wretched beyond words.
	Right. I'm trying to figure out how to get a zen moment out of it, and I keep going through my mind of all these things that I would say to a judge to try to get around the loopholes.
	I mean, the sad part was I'm sitting here with Nash, and you know how sweet he is, and another young lady we're going to go rafting.
	Everybody's in a great mood, and he immediately gets nasty with us.
	And so when he came back with the ticket, I just asked him nicely if he would write on that ticket that we were going the same speed limit as everybody else.
	And he immediately put his hand on his gun and said, You sign that ticket right now or I'm going to take you to jail right now.
	People think that it's not nasty, but it immediately gets nasty if you don't toe the line.
	Oh, there's no question of that.
	That's why I recommend towing the line.
	Now, look, I don't know anything about this because I've never fought anything like this in court, but...
	I know that up here in Canada, which may be useless to you, but there is a group of, they're called ex-copper up here.
	I don't know if they're anywhere in the States.
	And what they are is ex-policemen who know the law and who know how to reduce or ameliorate or get these kinds of things talked down or, you know, whatever, right?
	You might want to call these guys and say, look, a thousand dollar ticket is shocking and, you know, what can I do?
	And there may be something that you can do to, you know, to have it reduced and so on, right?
	So there may be, you know, without having to go to court and all of that kind of stuff, there may be things that you can do that will help ameliorate the just absolutely brutal nature of this fine.
	And again, you know, as you say, it's a month of your life.
	It certainly would be worth a call and a consultation.
	I'm sure there would be, certainly if there are $1,000 tickets floating around, there will be a market for this kind of stuff.
	So you might want to look those guys up in the yellow pages or wherever, right?
	Just some traffic ticket representatives or whatever.
	And you might have some luck with that.
	At least if you can get it cut in half, that's a step in the right direction, right?
	Right. Is it silly to try to accomplish that, you reckon, in court?
	You know, go and try to address some of the things that were going on that day instead of...
	I don't know.
	I'm no expert on this at all, but the guy you may want to talk to who's got more, I mean, much more knowledge about this than I do, my knowledge is pretty pitiful, is Mark Stevens, M-A-R-C. Stevens, S-T-E-E-N-S. He's very big on this kind of stuff, and he can... I'm sure he'd be happy to, you know, to tell him you're a friend of mine and he'll give you some time and give you some feedback on the best way to approach it because he's got a lot of experience with this kind of stuff.
	Cool. Thanks. He is at markstevens.net.
	He used to be at Adventures in Legal Land, but he's at markstevens.net now and I'm sure he'll give you some time to help you out.
	Okay. The thing I actually came on the show about, and you may want to do this later, let me just throw it out.
	You referenced one time that it initially was life, liberty, and property.
	Yes. And any historical stuff on that would be helpful.
	When I heard that guy talking about over-the-top reactions, that's what made me think about this other thing.
	But I was really curious about the life, liberty, and property, and who introduced that, and what happened to it?
	Like, why did that—we know why it disappeared, because people didn't want to lose their slaves and other properties.
	Yeah, life, liberty, and property was the original draft of the speech.
	I think it was Jefferson's, but I'm not sure.
	And it was dropped on the objection of the southern slave owners because life, liberty, and property guaranteed to all.
	Well, you can't be property and own property, right?
	Which is why slaves had property, right?
	So it was dropped on the objection of the southern slave-owning states.
	And I'll have to...
	I'll do a Google on it for you, although you may have as much like doing it.
	I read it in a textbook many years ago, so I could try and dig it.
	But if you can't find it...
	So do the Google if you can't find it.
	Or if anyone who is here listening knows, please post it on the board.
	And if you can't find it, I will dig through my textbook and find the reference.
	Yeah, I googled it and the Fifth Amendment came up instead of, you know, that...
	Okay, I'll take a look because it's a very important point.
	And certainly if I have misremembered anything, I absolutely want to correct it.
	So I will have a look. Well, I hope you haven't because I want to use that in a song.
	Okay, absolutely. Thank you very much.
	And do keep us posted. And again, I mean, my real sympathies.
	It is a brutal thing.
	Ten seconds. And I'm afraid that's all we have time for on the show today.
	We have a hard cutoff time at 6 o'clock because it's time to bring on the dancing women with the boas.
	And that will be me in a different outfit.
	But thank you so much for dropping by this Sunday, August the 16th, 2009 at the Freedom Aid Radio live show.
	We'll be doing this every Sunday, 4 p.m.
	Eastern Standard Time from now until approximately the end of time with the cooling of the sun.
	And thank you so much, James, for setting all this up.
	And we will talk to you next week.
	Thanks. All the best, everyone.

▲