Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

Sept. 25, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

13:24

1464 True News 53 Statist Addictions

A standard 20-point questionnaire designed to gauge the level of addiction, focused on governmental addiction to violence...

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hello, this is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	This is True News.
	Current events clarified, number 53.
	Statism, violence, addiction, and intervention.
	So, let's have a look at a definition of addiction.
	This is pretty standard. A physical or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, such as a drug or alcohol.
	In physical addiction, the body adapts to the substance being used and gradually requires increased amounts to reproduce the effects originally produced by smaller doses, or a habitual or compulsive involvement in an activity such as gambling.
	Statism and Violence The state is a conceptual label or name for those with the legal right and obligation to initiate force in a geographical area to use violence.
	Are those in the state addicted to using force, to using violence to achieve taxation, stealing from citizens, starting wars, unjustly imprisoning citizens, fiat currency creation, excess regulations, crazy debts, controlling and indoctrinating the young, setting up wild unfunded liabilities, and so on.
	Well, we can ask some simple questions.
	These are 20 standard questions for addicts.
	You can find these online very easily.
	Question 1. Have you used drugs other than those required for medical reasons?
	Translation to statism.
	Have you in the government ever used acts of violence other than those required for the immediate self-defense of your citizens, such as illegal torture, Imperialism overseas and around the world.
	Say, the genocide of millions of natives of the landmass.
	Invasion of, say, the Philippines and control of Hawaii.
	And the initiation of force to take money from citizens through the IRS. Can't be claiming to defend citizens that you're actually aggressing against.
	Question two. Have you abused prescription drugs?
	Translation. Have you abused the power of violence?
	With the aforementioned torture, for instance.
	General degradation of liberties at home.
	Creation of massive debts, which the future generations will have to pay off.
	Massive increase in incarceration of Americans.
	This is picking on the US government, but this applies to almost all governments.
	Here's, for example, the amount of money being put into creation by one particular Federal Reserve Bank.
	Question 3. Do you abuse more than one drug at a time?
	Do you abuse more than one form of violence at a time?
	War, prisons, regulations, taxation, torture, extraordinary renditions, fiat currency creation, etc.
	I think we know the answer to that.
	Question 4. Can you get through the week without using drugs?
	Can you get through the week without using violence if you are a government?
	And is that violence on an ever-increasing scale?
	Here are federal law enforcement grants and so on.
	Department of Homeland Security, total funding, ever-increasing.
	Markets for such funding, going from $141 billion in 2008 to projected $286 billion in 2018.
	Question 5. Are you always able to stop using drugs when you want to?
	Translation. Are you always able to stop using violence if you are in the government when you want to?
	Jury awards are doubling.
	This is a government-controlled system.
	Highly punitive. In the combined US and European deficits or surplus of the emerging world, we have a massive increase from 1981 to the present of deficits.
	The federal budget surplus and deficit is ever increasing and is completely insane under Obama.
	State dependency rate, proportion of state expenditures coming from federal funds, increase, increase, increase.
	They cannot ever get through a week without this violent income.
	Entitlement spending, since the Great Society under LBJ, This is spending not subject to annual review or appropriation.
	Increase, increase, increase from around 3,000 to over 12,000 by 2006, from 1962 to 2006.
	They cannot get through a week without using this kind of violence.
	Question 6. Have you had blackouts or flashbacks as a result of drug use?
	Translation. Do you impose blackouts, censorship or control the media as a result of your use of violence?
	Well, I think we all know the answer to that.
	The US regularly censors images of US soldiers' coffins returning from Iraq, has engaged in fairly large censorship of the war in Iraq, has released pre-packaged, quote, television shows, controls access to senior officials based upon compliance with party lines.
	It is a constant act of censorship and blackouts.
	Question 7. Do you ever feel bad or guilty about your drug use?
	Translation. Do you ever feel bad or guilty about your use of violence and promise to use it to end war, end poverty, end drug use, end debt, end illiteracy, and so on?
	Do you ever create massive government programs to improve society, which then inevitably fail because violence will never achieve peace?
	Well, I think we can all go through the list of all of these things which have been promised and have never, ever succeeded and never will succeed.
	Question 8. Does your spouse or parents ever complain about your involvement with drugs?
	Do your citizens or voters ever complain about your involvement with violence?
	Do they protest your use of torture?
	Or your imperialism invasion of other countries?
	Or war as a whole?
	Or you shooting them?
	About the draft, when it was around, deficit spending, and so on, of course.
	Question 9. Has drug abuse created problems between you and your spouse or your parents?
	Translation. Has your use of violence created problems between you and your citizens or your voters, or those in other countries?
	Well, the U.S. has squandered some of the goodwill it had post-9-11, and U.S. citizens have been recently pulled by Gallup to find that the public continues to lose trust in the federal government approaching levels last seen in the Watergate era.
	Graph is available here. Question 10.
	Have you lost friends because of your use of drugs?
	Translation. Have you lost allies, support and credibility around the world because of your use of violence, particularly in the imperialistic sense?
	Of course. For the US. Question 11.
	Have you neglected your family because of your use of drugs?
	Translation. Have you neglected and or abused your citizens because of your use of violence?
	Well, we can simply ask those half drowning in their own feces in Katrina, those who have had their lives squandered uselessly on imperialistic foreign wars, tragedies of all the young men and women who die for nothing.
	Question 12. Have you been in trouble at work because of your use of drugs?
	Translation. Have you been in trouble at work because of the use of violence?
	Well, I think we've seen many of the government corruptions that have occurred lately, and many of the problems of the insane amount of money that can be created out of thin air through the Federal Reserve, corruption debt, ever-expanding power, and, of course, unfunded future liabilities, which run into 70 to 80 trillion dollars.
	So, yes, I think the government will be in trouble at work because of its addiction to violence.
	Question 13. Have you lost a job because of drug abuse?
	Translation. Have others ever lost their jobs because of your addiction to violence, including hyper-regulation of the supposedly free market, sweet deals, bailouts, deficits, encouraging lowering the rates of mortgages for those who otherwise could not afford their houses?
	Well, I think we've all seen that recently.
	Unemployment rates have been crushing lately, even if we accept the government statistics, which I very much doubt.
	In Canada and the US, the unemployment rates are very high.
	And if we look at some of the alternate statistics, we see unemployment over 20%.
	It doesn't even include underemployment.
	So yes. Have you gotten into fights when under the influence of drugs?
	Translation? Have you started fights, wars, and unjust incarcerations when under the influence of violence or having the capacity of violence or to outsource the cost of your wars to future voters in the form of deficits and bonds?
	Well, of course, military troops and bases around the world.
	The US military is currently deployed to more locations than it has been throughout history.
	There are only 46 countries with no US military presence in the world.
	The overall conclusion reached by some scholars, the US most likely has been responsible since World War II for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered throughout the world.
	So yes to this as well.
	Question 15. Have you engaged in illegal activities in order to obtain drugs?
	Translation. Have you engaged in theft or coercion in order to enforce your preferences?
	Well, by definition, that is the state.
	So, yes to this one as well.
	Question 16. Have you been arrested for possession of illegal drugs?
	Translation. Have you ever used violence against domestic or international law?
	Have you ever broken domestic or international law through coercion or fraud?
	Yes. The whole thing of unlawful combatants is not covered by the Geneva Convention.
	It's just invented.
	And illegal domestic wiretapping and the Iran-Contra affair, the 1953 support of the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government, all illegal.
	Question 17. Have you ever experienced withdrawal symptoms or felt sick when you stopped taking drugs?
	Translation. Have you ever experienced withdrawal symptoms or felt sick when you stopped using violence or even reduced your use of that violence?
	Soldiers returning home are not able to use violence anymore.
	Significant problems.
	What happens when you run out of money?
	Government shutdowns and so on.
	In accordance with this question, an indication of an addiction, Question 18.
	Have you had medical problems as a result of your drug use?
	Memory loss, hepatitis, convulsions, bleeding, etc.
	Translation. Has your country's healthcare system developed problems as a result of your use of violence?
	I've got a video on this, a couple of true news is back, which you're welcome to check out.
	But it's something that people don't see.
	It's amazing to me that they don't see that the US government has been attempting to solve problems in the healthcare system for about 100 years, 150 years.
	And now, when there is tens of millions of people who don't have access or can't afford or choose not to have health insurance, people think that after 100 years, this is the result, so let's have more government power.
	Well, that doesn't work at all.
	Question 19. Have you gone to anyone for help for a drug problem?
	Translation. Have you gone to anyone for help for an addiction to violence, such as a philosopher, say, or Austrian economists or libertarians or Ron Paul or other people who are interested in reducing the size and power of the state?
	Well, sure. Does it ever work?
	Question 20. Have you been involved in a treatment program especially related to drug use?
	Have you ever tried to manage or reduce your addiction to violence by passing balanced budget amendments, signing peace treaties promising no new taxes, privatizing sectors of the economy, lowering taxes or attempting to, lowering spending?
	Of course. Does it ever work?
	Never. Here's a few more questions, just to top it up.
	Do you lie? Or cover up your addiction?
	In other words, do people know that you use drugs?
	Does the general citizen know that statism is the initiation of force and violence to achieve social goals?
	Is your current addiction sustainable?
	Well, of course not. If not, will there be great suffering when you crash?
	Sadly, yes. Do you manipulate the gullible to avoid the reality of your addiction?
	Yes. What are the odds that you can actually help yourself?
	Who can help you now? Philosophers, I would say.
	Thank you so much for watching.
	Please drop by freedomainradio.com for free podcasts, videos, books, message boards, chat rooms, and so on to help you explore the value and power of pursuing philosophical freedom in your own life.

▲